Now, we're delighted tonight to have with us her sister, June Baird. June's been coming to us now for a couple of years, I'm sure, and we've really been blessed through her fellowship and her witness here in the church. And we're so thankful that she has agreed tonight to come and give her testimony. And we've been praying for her throughout the week. that the Lord will really undertake. And I know that there's some here tonight who have come especially to hear our sister relate what the Lord has done for her. So we're going to ask June now to come and tell us how she came to know the Savior. And we trust the Lord will bless you as you listen and bless her in her own soul. So, June, thank you so much for coming. And may God richly bless you. Thank you, June. Would you like to turn with me to Psalm 116? And we're reading there from verse 12. What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his sins. O Lord, truly I am thy servant. I am thy servant and the son of thine handmaid. Thou hast loosed my bonds. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the Lord's house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Praise ye the Lord. I'd like to thank the Reverend Higginson for inviting me to give my testimony tonight. I thank the Lord that I have won to give and for all that he has done for me. I pray that you will benefit from listening to whom I testify, and most of all, that God will be glorified. Matthew 12, 34 says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. I was born into a Presbyterian family. My mother was a very hard-working lady, and she always made sure I never went without the necessities of life. She sent me along to Sunday school and church alongside Presbyterian, and I did hear about my need of salvation there. But nothing was explained about grace or about the covering of the blood and I never really understood the doctrines of salvation at that time. But looking back now, I realize it wasn't God's time to save me. Many years would pass before I would come to know Jesus as my savior. My teenage years brought other interests, and I went with my friends to dances, and it was there at those dances I met my future husband. And we married in 1979, and two years later, I had my daughter, Melanie. We were living in Ballymunny at that time, and I was attending Trinity Presbyterian Church. But you know, I never felt any sense of belonging there, even though I went for quite a few years. So in 1983, whenever Jehovah's Witnesses came knocking on my door, I listened to them. And there was a couple who came, a husband and wife team. And you know, they befriended me very quickly. They talked to me about world events and about Bible prophecy and how these things were being fulfilled. And I was really interested, as I'd always been all my life in the Bible and Bible prophecy. And before long, they started a study of the Bible with me. I was probably studying a few months at that time, whenever the minister of Trinity heard that I had been studying with them, and he brought two ex-Jehovah's Witnesses to speak to me. and they encouraged me to stop my study and after a lot of persuasion I decided to stop it and I went back to church again. Two years later in 1985 my marriage broke down. and I moved back to Leavenwell side again. Jehovah's Witnesses heard about this of course and they came back to see me again, and before long another bible study was started. They place great emphasis on John 17 verse 3 which says in the New World Translation which is their bible, this means everlasting life, they are taken in knowledge of you, the only true God. They say this first points to the need of their Bible study. They say it's taken on knowledge that leads to eternal life. They don't teach that trusting in Jesus will bring us salvation, but only staying within their organization will bring salvation to each person. This couple who studied with me were certainly very kind and nothing was too much trouble for me. And you know, they even became like second parents to me. Could we just read Proverbs 14 and verse 12 It says there, there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. So this verse shows really how we can be misled. And you know, I didn't realize it at the time, but their love for me was conditional. It was only if I did everything that they said and believed everything that they said that I would be acceptable within the Watchtower organization. As the study progressed they started to encourage me to go to the meetings and every Tuesday night, every Thursday night and every Sunday would find me at the Kingdom Hall and then on a Tuesday night we had a book study on one of their homes. At the beginning I definitely had very many issues with their teachings because I had always believed all my life that you had to be born again. And I would ask them on different occasions, were they born again? And they said, they didn't really tell me for a long time. And then one night they said no, that they weren't. That only 144,000 needed to be born again, because everybody else belonging to Jehovah's Witnesses would be living on a cleansed earth. I struggled with this for a few months. But you know, because I was going to all the meetings, and because of my Bible study, I eventually came to believe all that they taught. After two years of Bible study with them, and going to all their meetings, and going from door to door, they encouraged me then to get baptized. And I was baptized on the 15th of July, 1989, at one of their conventions in Nalum, by total immersion in a swimming pool. We would spend between 15 and 20 hours in door to door work every month, and I conducted many Bible studies with people. The meeting on Thursday night prepared us for this. It was called the Theocratic Ministry School. And every few weeks, a sister and myself would go up to the front, and we would act out a possible situation that we'd find in the door-to-door work. And this really helped us then whenever we went out speaking to people. Then there were certain reports that we had to fill in. And these reports were called time reports. And once a month, we'd fill these in and give them to the elders. And all the books, the magazines, the Bibles, and the Bible studies that we had, had to be reported on these reports. And the elders would put these onto our personal files. Then they would send these to Brooklyn, New York, the headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses, and they'd all be recorded there for each person. If a person did not fill in these reports, they were called irregular publishers. If they weren't going to the door-to-door work, they couldn't fill in these reports. And this person was put on this blacklist until they turned in a regular report again. And all the years I was with them, my report went in every month. But you know, over the years, I started to feel very discontented and unhappy. I didn't know why. Even though I was going to all the meetings and doing all the Bible study, I had no real relationship with Jesus Christ. We would never read the Bible on its own. because we were taught that we should only read the Bible with the watch to our publications, and this would help us to understand what God was saying to us. As time passed, I started to think about leaving, but you know I never told anyone. One night, it was Thursday, and it was August 99, and I decided not to go back again, and I never went back to the Kingdom Hall again. It wasn't an easy decision to make, because I had been taught for all those years that the only way of salvation was to stay within their organisation, and leaving was definitely scary. People leave the organisation for different reasons. Some instinctively know that there's something wrong, but they don't really know what that is, and that's how I felt. I had been taught that God only uses the watchtower organisation to speak to an individual, so by leaving I was cutting myself off from God. On a few occasions, the witnesses came back to me after I had left. And they were really disappointed, obviously, that I had left. But I just told them I needed time to think. But I knew in my heart I would never go back to them again. It's not until a person leaves the organisation that you realise how they control every aspect of your life. They cut you off from your friends and the family. They say that these people will have a bad influence on you. They use the scripture in 1 Corinthians 15, and that says, bad associations spoil useful habits. That's their translation of it. You can only have fellowship with another Jehovah's Witness. A person isn't allowed to question anything that the Watchtower teaches. So whenever I left, I still believed all they taught. But I now know that only God and his mighty power can lift the veil of cultic darkness from the human heart. John 8, 32 says, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. I found out years later that this was the case, that knowing Jesus as my savior, that's where true freedom lies and it's not within their organization. I'd just like to give you a few facts and figures about the witnesses. There's seven and a half million Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide. And whenever you think about it, 13 years ago, whenever I left, there was only three and a half million. So that number has doubled. They spend approximately one and a half billion hours every year serving the Watchtower organization. That means going from door to door and conducting Bible studies. They're active in 236 different lands right around the world. And the magazines are printed in 438 languages. They teach God only uses one organization, never speaks directly to an individual, so you would never ever hear any Jehovah's Witness say that God led me this way. I looked up the 2011 report for Northern Ireland, and they have a peak of witnesses last year of 6,006 people. The number that was baptized was 140. The number of congregations they have is 115. The total hours preached in Ireland here last year was one and a quarter million. Bible studies they are conducting at the present is 3,122. So you could think the potential there of all those people, if they got baptised, there'd be over 9,000 witnesses here in Ireland. They believe it's wrong to pursue qualifications. For example, anything higher, like university. They believe it would take a person away from the organization. Young people are encouraged to make pioneer service their goal, with the possibility of going to Bethel, New York, and serving there, that's the headquarters, or missionary service. They would probably spend between 90 and 120 hours a month going from door to door if they were in this service. They are told in view of the short period of time left to pursue a career in this system of things is unwise and extremely dangerous. Many young men and women have been offered scholarships or employment but have turned these down because of these beliefs. There's another report that keep on disfellowshipping. If a person has left the organisation and goes back into the world as they see it, then they are disfellowshipped and they cannot go back to any of the meetings. This is recorded in the person's secret file and sent to headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. These files are never destroyed and if a person is disfellowshipped, another witness couldn't speak to you. Because I have met them down the street many, many times and they just turn their head, they won't speak. The worst thing you could do with them is go back to the church, as I have done. So you can imagine what they think of me. I hope this gives you a little insight into what they are like as an organization. Whenever I left the Witnesses, I had no spiritual interest whatsoever. My heart was like stone. I didn't even want to think about God, but I praise God He was thinking about me. The Lord started to work in our family. Armen and Melanie were going out together, and Armen got saved, and two weeks later, Melanie, and that was in May 2002. As the months passed, I could see real changes within them and in their lives. Melanie asked me out to the family nights in Ballymunny, and I went at the start just to please her. But I didn't want to think about salvation or know anything about it. But you know, the Lord changed my circumstances and he started to work on my heart. And I asked Melanie of the Reverend Park to come out and see me. And he came out and he talked to me and he showed me from the scriptures the way of salvation. And there was this spiritual struggle going on in my heart. And I didn't know what to do at the time, but I praise God that he saved me that night. It was on the 27th of December, 2003, and it was just after six o'clock in the evening. The Lord's timing is just perfect. Could you just look up Ezekiel 36? Ezekiel 36, and it's verse 25 and 26. And this is what the Lord did for me. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. So he took away my stony heart that I'd had for all those years after leaving Jehovah's Witnesses. And he gave me a new heart and a peace that I'd never experienced before. I'm not saying it was easy after I got saved. It was difficult at times. Sometimes the old beliefs would surface and I would have real struggles with this. And just as I had struggled at the beginning with Jehovah's Witnesses' teachings, I was now struggling with the church's teachings. Now I had to learn that the Holy Spirit would teach the truths of the Bible. I had been taught for all those years that the truth only comes through the Watchtower publications, but I learned that God's will is the most important thing in a Christian's life. My first big trial came whenever Armin and Melanie were called to go to Australia. In the flesh, I couldn't have coped with this, but you know, God gave me a promise in Isaiah 41 and verse 13, if you'd like to look that up with me. That's Isaiah 41 and verse 13. For I, the Lord thy God, will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, fear not, I will help thee. So God led us through this difficult time of separation. Another trial came six years ago whenever mum had a heart attack, but again the Lord was working in her heart. and the reverend party again went in to see her and showed her the way of salvation and she got saved. She had been a smoker for 50 years and she's never smoked since and never looked for them. Four years ago, she took seriously ill again and this was another difficult time, especially as Armin and Melanie were so far away. But again, the Lord undertook and was our comforter. You know, these trials taught me to fully trust my savior. The arm of flesh will fail, but Jesus never fails. Even though we had these trials, the Lord has given us great blessings. We now have two lovely granddaughters, Alyssa, two and a half, and Lois, eight weeks. The Lord has been so good and so merciful to us. I just thank the Lord for uniting my family in Christ and giving us the peace that we've been searching for. Romans 15 verse 13 says that the Lord will fill us with all joy and peace and abound in hope. And that's certainly what the Lord has done for us. I have learned that God does not waste our time. He will use our past and our present to serve him in our futures. And I'd just like to say, to God be the glory. Great things he has done. Amen.