All right, we'll go ahead and go to 1 John. 1 John chapter 4. 1 John chapter 4. We'll read the first six verses. Beloved, do not believe every spirit. but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them. For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world, therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." Tonight I want to consider something in the vein of what we've done before, we're going to consider the cult of the Jehovah's Witnesses. In the past, I have done on Wednesday night a polemical study of the Church of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons. We've done one recently this year, I believe it was January, on Roman Catholicism. And tonight we're going to look at the cult of the Jehovah's Witnesses and consider some doctrinal differences and things to present to the Jehovah's Witnesses that come to your door bringing their doctrine. So we're going to consider some different things together. We're going to consider the history of the body, the Watchtower organization, look at some doctrinal errors, a few of those, and then tie it all together and look at how do we converse with Jehovah's Witnesses whom we may encounter. But before we do that, I'd like to ask the Lord's blessing on our time. So let's go before him in prayer. Our Father, our God, we thank you for your truth. And we thank you for opening our blind eyes to see your truth. We are grateful for your Holy Spirit who overcomes our willful blindness, our ignorance, our hatred of you to adopt us into your family and to make us into sons and daughters of the living God. We thank You for Your Word, which is precious and inerrant. We pray that You would help us, Lord, to speak the truth, to speak words of light into this dark world in which we live. That we would be bold witnesses for You, Lord, that we would... You say in Your Word, the righteous are as bold as a lion. Lord, we pray that You would give us that boldness. Give to us, as Your Word also says, a mouth that our adversaries cannot overcome. Lord, that you would prepare hearts to receive your gospel, bring to us souls hungry, bring to us souls thirsty, and help us, Lord, point them to where the rivers of living water flow, where the bread of life may be had. We pray that you would give your church the victory in the world. Lord, we know at the end it shall be. We ask that we would see the church victorious in our times, that our land would indeed be reformed, and that you would send us a revival from on high. Trample all your enemies underfoot, O Lord, and may your gospel reign in all the earth. For the glory of King Jesus, in whose name I pray, amen. So, as I mentioned before, we've considered Mormons, which are also a cult along with the Mormons, Anthony Hokema in his work, The Four Major Cults, which is a good work to have. We'll be drawing extensively from his research on the founding of the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower organization. In his book, he gives five distinguishing marks of a cult. that we'll consider briefly by way of introduction. The first mark of a cult is that they have an extra-biblical source of authority. As Protestants, we hold to the Bible as our sole source of authority. This is all Jesus has given. He's not appointed special people to be conduits of truth. We have pastors, yes, who preach the truth, but they are not given any special revelation over any other saint. He's not appointed Urim and Thummim, any kind of modern form of those. But a cult is always going to have an extra-biblical source of authority. Some other writings that they consider equally authoritative as the Bible, and when that happens, when you have sources that you say are equal authority with the Bible, they always end up becoming, it's inevitable, more authoritative than the Bible. Because eventually you're going to have one ultimate allegiance. And either it's to King Jesus, or it's your father the devil. You're in one of two armies, in one of two families, there's no third option. And then secondly, the second mark of a cult, that is, is a denial of justification by grace alone through faith alone. And this is really overarching of all false religions, is that you're either saved by grace through faith in Christ, or you're saved by what you do, your works, your performance. And in the case of a cult, you must do the works that the cult leaders demand in order to be saved according to the teachings of the cult. And the third distinguishing mark of a cult is the devaluation of Jesus Christ. And that's that the cultists do not teach that he is the only mediator or the only savior. He's maybe a shining moral example, but they've diminished the work of Jesus Christ on the cross to atone for the sins of his bride. And the fourth mark of a cult is that the cult, that is, consists of the exclusive community of the saved. That they are the only favored people of God in the earth. However big or however small the cult may be, they alone are They represent God's saved, redeemed community. As Protestants, we acknowledge that there are different denominations that believe and teach the same gospel. Might have differences in church polity, administration of the sacraments, different things. But there's a gospel theme that runs through different denominations. This is not at all true with a cult. They consider their doctrine true, and literally every other doctrine and every other profession of faith is false. There's no brothers and sisters in other camps when you're in a cult. And the fifth and final mark is that the group has some central role in eschatology. This is especially true of Seventh-day Adventists, which are one of the ones he deals with, but Even in Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, there are reserved for them unique resurrections and celestial realms and heavenly tears and different things. But those are just some distinguishing marks that Hokumah gives that I think are helpful as an introduction to this topic. There are multiple similarities between the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses. They're both 19th century American cults. They were rooted, originated in America. Secondly, they are known for engaging in aggressive door-to-door proselytizing. You might have run into some on your front porch, bringing you their literature. Third, they claim that their teachings, one of the marks we saw earlier, are the only true interpretation of scripture. Everybody else is lying to you, they claim. Fourthly, they are Unitarian. That means that they deny the doctrine of the Trinity. God is one. There's only one God. There's not a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit. They are Unitarian. And the fifth similarity between Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons is that there was a major, was and in a sense is, major schism within the denomination. They have conflict because when you have a cult leader that rises up and draws a crowd to him, what do you do with that crowd when the leader dies? And that introduces all kind of power struggles and schisms and different things. And that's been true of the LDS church. It's also true of the Jehovah's Witnesses. So those are some similarities. So first we'll get into history. I've largely drawn this from Hocumah's book. There are plenty of other sources. I had a stack three times this size, but can only bring a few. But this is going to be largely drawn from his work. So we'll turn to Some history now, look at the founding of the Jehovah's Witness Watchtower organization. Baby, can I get some more water please? Thank you. Alright, it starts with a man by the name of Charles Taze Russell. Taze, T-A-Z-E, last name Russell. That's a name you're going to want to remember because when they tell you they follow God, they really follow Charles Taze Russell, the cult leader. Charles Taze Russell was born to Scotch-Irish Presbyterian parents in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 16, 1852. Interesting to note that that is eight years after the death of Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS Church. His father, Mr. Russell, owned a chain of men's clothing stores in the Pittsburgh area. As a teenager, he left the Presbyterian Church to join the Congregational Church, which was a Calvinistic denomination descended from the Puritan Reformation of the Anglican Church. Matthew Henry, I believe, was a Congregationalist. However, Charles was not long in the church because two doctrines began to bother him. Those being the doctrines of predestination and hell or eternal punishment. And so at age 17, he became an avowed skeptic with these words, quote, brought up a Presbyterian, indoctrinated, excuse me, from the catechism and being naturally of an inquiring mind, I fell a ready prey to the logic of infidelity as soon as I began to think for myself. But that which at first threatened to be the utter shipwreck of faith in God and the Bible was under God's providence overruled for good and merely wrecked my confidence in human creeds and systems of Bible misinterpretations." It's interesting to note, too, his apostasy is very similar to Joseph Smith's, who declared that all church creeds were an abomination. That was Joseph Smith's, what he claimed the Lord told to him. And both were raised, Joseph Smith and Charles Taze Russell, were raised in the Orthodox Christian faith, both apostatized as teenagers on the basis of their own confusion, confusion which stemmed from elevating their own reason over scripture, the poison of the enlightenment, which my seminary dean called the endarkenment. Approximately one year later, 18-year-old Charles Taze Russell attended a basement hall fellowship in, I think, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, is how it's pronounced, where some Seventh-day Adventists were gathering. In his own words, he wanted, quote, to see if the handful who met there had anything more sensible to offer than the creeds of the great churches, end quote. And according to Russell, again, quote, the scripture exposition was not entirely clear, and though it was very far from what we now rejoice in, it was sufficient under God to reestablish my wavering faith in the divine inspiration of the Bible, end quote. Russell would come to adopt many Adventist teachings, such as the extinction of the soul at death, often called annihilationism, But he did not like the Adventist teaching that the second coming of Christ would be in the flesh. Russell believed that it would be a spiritual second coming. And so his first published work was a pamphlet on Christ's second coming being of a spiritual nature. And he published some 50,000 copies in the mid-1870s. In 1876, Russell came into contact with N.H. Barber of Rochester, New York. Barber was a spiritual leader of a sect of Adventists who defected from Adventism because they too believed the second coming of Christ was going to be spiritual in nature and not physical. Russell's group joined with Barber's and the magazine formerly published by Barber's group, which was called The Herald of the Morning, would now be a joint venture. Another joint venture was the 1877 publication of the book titled Three Worlds or Plan of Redemption. In this work, Russell and Barber taught that Christ's second presence began invisibly in 1874 and thereby commenced a 40-year harvest period. So the year 1914 would be the end of the Gentile times. Shortly after that, Russell and Barber, they split over Barber's denial that the death of Christ was a ransom for Adam's race. And Russell started a new monthly publication called Zion's Watchtower, three words, and Herald of Christ's Presence. By 1880, the movement had, so this is, he published his first pamphlet in the mid-1870s, came into contact with N.H. Barber in 1876. By 1880, the movement had some 30 congregations in seven states. Zion's Watchtower Tract Society was established as an unincorporated body in 1881 and on December 31st, 1884, the society was granted a legal charter and was organized as a corporation. The society focused heavily on publishing and with Russell cranking out the first volume of what would be a seven-volume series in 1886 titled The Divine Plan of the Ages. He would distribute over six million copies of this series. Russell began to travel abroad, establishing a branch in London in 1900. one in Germany in 1903, and another in Australia in 1904. After 18 years of marriage in 1897, Russell's wife separated from him and sued him in 1913 for divorce on the grounds of, quote, his conceit, egotism, domination, and improper conduct in relation to other women. sound similar to Joseph Smith and many other cult leaders who inevitably seem to become pickled in their own juices. Russell had other legal troubles as well. We'll just consider these briefly. He was known for sending out thousands of sermons and to over 3,000 newspapers in the US, Canada, and Europe. So he was using social media before we had social media. He was making full use of these things. In 1912, the newspaper Brooklyn Daily Eagle remarked that a sermon submitted to them for publication, supposedly preached in Honolulu, Hawaii, had never actually been publicly preached. Russell had indeed been in Honolulu on the date that the sermon was supposedly delivered, but he'd only stopped there for a few hours without making any public address. Russell also once advertised for meerk wheat at a dollar a pound, claiming it would grow five times faster than ordinary wheat. The same newspaper, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, published a cartoon mocking Russell and his wheat. Russell sued the newspaper for libel, but when the government investigated, Russell's wheat was actually found to be inferior grade wheat. And the Brooklyn Daily Eagle won the suit. Again in 1912, Reverend J.J. Ross of James Street Baptist Church in Hamilton, Ontario, published a pamphlet titled, Some Facts About the Self-Styled, in quotation marks, Pastor, Charles T. Russell. Russell sued the reverend for libel. The trial took place the following year and Ross' attorney pressed Russell on the point about Russell's previous statements that he had been ordained by a recognized religious body. Attorney Stanton, defense attorney asked Russell, now you never were ordained by a bishop, clergyman, presbytery, council, or any body of men living. After a long pause, Russell answered, I never was. Russell would be exposed as a perjurer lying in court under oath after attorney Stanton asked him if he knew the Greek alphabet. Russell at first answered, oh, yes, but upon being given a Greek testament, he could not identify any Greek letters, much less words, at the top of the page, before finally admitting he was not familiar with the Greek language. Russell died on October 31, 1916, while aboard a train near Pampa, Texas, on his way home after a California speaking trip. Jehovah's Witnesses claim that Russell traveled over a million miles, preached more than 30,000 sermons, and wrote books totaling over 50,000 pages. This man was very aggressive in promoting his cult teachings. Not quite three months later, the Watchtower Society's legal counselor, Joseph Franklin Rutherford, became the second president after Russell. For the sake of time, we're going to speed up and just highlight more important happenings in the society and these successive presidents. Like the Mormons, the new leadership following the death of their founder was not universally well received. Many dissenters were dismissed from their positions within the society and went on to form splinter groups. So again, just like with the Mormons that claim to be the one true church, now they have little factions and different sects that have fractured away from the main body. Rutherford was less interested in emphasizing Bible study and character development and more interested in proselytization. By printing literature and making phone calls followed up with reports. A former Jehovah's Witnesses, William J. Schnell, who wrote the book, 30 Years a Watchtower Slave. Some of y'all may be familiar with that book. It's a biography of someone, William Schnell, who was within the Watchtower organization for 30 years. He eventually was saved, came out of it. He reports that due to this change of emphasis, more than 75% of the Bible students originally a part of the ministry left. under the second president, Joseph Franklin Rutherford. In 1917, the seventh and final volume of Russell's series titled Studies in the Scriptures was published, mostly a commentary on Revelation and Ezekiel. A four-page extract from the book entitled The Fall of Babylon was distributed to church members. The tract taught that all Catholic and Protestant religious organizations form present-day Babylon and predicted that they would soon pass into oblivion. The tract caused a firestorm of controversy, so much that the Canadian government got involved on the basis that the Watchtower publication contained statements that were seditious and anti-war. Rutherford and seven others were charged with conspiracy to cause insubordination and refusal of duty in the U.S. military by the U.S. District Court of Eastern New York, and warrants were issued for their arrest. They would spend almost 11 months in federal prison in Atlanta before Rutherford and them were released May 14, 1919, after the charges were dropped. In a convention in 1931 in Columbus, Ohio, the Society adopted a resolution that they would henceforth be known as Jehovah's Witnesses based on the verse Isaiah 43 verse 10. In 1940 was another major change for the Jehovah's Witnesses. That was the year they began their door-to-door distribution of Watchtower magazines and publications. From 1934 to 1944, they even used phonographs to play watchtower teachings on people's front porches. During World War II, the Jehovah's Witnesses reaffirmed the policy of neutrality that they had adopted in 1917, which led to the imprisonment of some 3,500 Jehovah's Witnesses who were not able to obtain ministerial status with its exemption from the military service. The Jehovah's Witnesses are still very much anti going into war. Rutherford, second president, died on January 8, 1942, having been president of the society for 25 years. During his time, the Society transitioned from a democratic organization where the directors of various local congregations elected their own leaders to more of a theocratic organization where the leaders were appointed by the governing powers in Brooklyn. Only five days after Rutherford's death, Nathan Homer Knorr was elected the third president of the society. Under Knorr, textbooks were published for every congregation to aid them in their witnessing methods. These methods worked very well for the cult, as their membership went from 105,000 to 2.2 million under Knorr's 35-year presidency. Like Rutherford and Russell before him, Knorr published works to replace those of his forerunners, and that's what cult leaders do. The next guy that comes up and takes power supersedes all the previous writings and teachings of the one before him. Nathan Homer Knorr made the audacious claim concerning the Watchtower magazine, quote, it is the word of God without any qualification whatsoever. Wow, what a whopper of a statement. One of those most important publications from the Jehovah's Witness ranks came during Noor's presidency. You might have already guessed. The New World Translation, which I have a second edition from 1951. The first edition was published in 1950. The entire Bible was published in 1961. And I say Bible because it's a very lousy translation. It is not known exactly who did the work of translating, and it says something that the Jehovah's Witnesses organization were not even willing to put out there, who it was that did the work of translating. One final thing to note about Noor's presidency was that he prioritized foreign missions. In 1942, the Jehovah's Witnesses were evangelizing in 54 countries. In 1961, they were up to 185. nor would pass away in 1977. And they've gone on to have four more presidents since then. Jehovah's Witnesses today claim a worldwide membership of 8.7 million people. They claim adherence in 239 lands. countries and territories with nearly 120,000 congregations. Whereas the majority of Mormons, again another American cult, are very much stateside, nearly two-thirds of all Jehovah's Witnesses are in other lands. They still do their proselytizing door-to-door, although thankfully, if there's one good thing to come out of COVID, it was that that door-to-door peddling of a false gospel largely came to a stop. I don't know how much they're ramping that back up again, but their publications are still widespread. And the Jehovah's Witnesses, they consider themselves to be, of course, as we mentioned before, like the Mormons, the true people of God. From their website, JW.org. Jesus Christ didn't agree with the view that there are many religions, many roads, all leading to salvation. Rather, he said, narrow is the gate, and cramped the road leading off into life, and few are the ones finding it." There in rendering of Matthew 7, 14. Jehovah's Witnesses believe they found that road. Otherwise, they look for another religion. That's an actual quote from their website. Wow, we believe we're right, otherwise we believe something else. What a wonderful argument. I'm gonna have to use that one myself. We believe we're sincere. Doesn't that just convince your heart? Anybody, the Hindus, the Muslims, anybody could take that one. Well, we think we're right. If we didn't, we'd change our view. So what attracts people to the Jehovah's Witnesses movement? Novelty, again, new religions spring up. People are very interested in new things. They don't like to have to trace religious dogma through history, wade through the murky waters of history and learn things. They like the idea of sweeping away failed religious experiments, starting afresh. They give you tracks that explain any part of the Bible for you, so you don't have to be a Berean and study on your own. And those tracks, they're very much in, they promote a moral America. They want people to be good, and they promote having answers to life's difficult questions, practical solutions to some of the most acutely experienced difficulties that people have. And that stuff resonates with people. And then, of course, there's always the claim of exclusivity. that they claim to be the one true people of God. It's interesting to note here that Jehovah's Witnesses, some Catholics will call Protestants brothers and sisters depending on if they hold to Vatican II or the Council of Trent. Jehovah's Witnesses do not consider Orthodox Christianity in any way to be true people of God. Christians are not at all you know, long lost brothers and sisters, they're not at all. This is a quote from a 1975 Watchtower publication. Quote, Jehovah's Christian witnesses are the ones that have identified who Babylon the Great is, the world empire of false religion. The chief component member and mouthpiece in that religious world empire is Christendom. She is the most reprehensible member thereof because she claims to be Christian. Her blasphemies exceed those of pagandom. Her blood guilt exceeds that of all the non-Christian religious realm. If we're talking Catholics, there's definitely some blood guilt. I acknowledge that. But they do not in any way consider Christians to be family, it's Jehovah's Witnesses, or you're lost. So now we'll turn to some doctrinal errors briefly. Unlike the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses do not claim to have a creed, confession, catechism, systematic theology. Maybe Russell's six volumes, but those got superseded. And that series of studies in the scriptures, Charles Taze Russell said they were absolutely essential for understanding the Bible. He claimed that if you read his studies in the scriptures for ten years, but then went back to reading just the Bible, in two years the reader would revert back to darkness. So he believed they truly had light from God. in his studies. Of course, with how much each successive president contradicted Russell, the Watchtower Society has either reverted back to the darkness themselves, or Russell was not as accurate a Bible teacher as he thought he was. With over 150 years of tracts, magazines, and other writings, it would be impossible to refute every single heretical or unorthodox point of doctrine. And really, you know, there are some things you might read in a Watchtower magazine, and you might go, oh, that's true, that's good. Still throw it away. Don't bother keeping it. You go to my dumpster at Chick-fil-A, there would be a few good bites of food in there, but I'm not going to tell you to go pick through the dumpster to get it. There would be a few good things in a Watchtower publication. Don't bother skimming through to find it. Go read Louis Burkhoff or Dabney or something worth your time. If it says Watchtower, It's poisonous. Don't have anything to do with it. Just put it away. And I've chosen four main heretical teachings. Their Unitarianism. Their faulty New World translations. The fact that they believe Christ is Michael the Archangel. And then their failed end times predictions. That one would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. But let's look at Unitarianism. So this is, we start with this one. Charles Taze Russell himself called the Trinitarian Christian God, the one true living God, quote, the devil himself. Later Watchtower publications spoke of the Trinity as, quote, a false doctrine promulgated by Satan for the purpose of defaming Jehovah's name. Strong language there. While of course it's impossible for humanity to comprehend the Trinity, the Trinity is essential to salvation. If you do not believe that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit worked together in harmony to save you, you're not saved. You're not saved at all. If you're still in 1 John, look at, let's see here. maybe in Gospel of John. Oh, never mind, it's verse 12. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. in verse 20, and we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true, in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God in eternal life. What is the implication of Jesus Christ being the one true God in eternal life? Verse 21, keep yourselves from idols. Don't worship another God. Worship Jesus Christ. So the Trinity, of course, they all have a role in creating the world, giving the Word of God, and in justifying sinners, saving sinners. The Father plans salvation, the Son atoned for the sins of the people, and the Holy Spirit applies the benefits of the Son's death to the people that He atoned for. And to deny any of them personhood and deity is to have something less than biblical salvation at best, and it's to blaspheme God at worst, and to mock one of the members of the Godhead. And even in the Jehovah's Witnesses' faulty New World translation, the deity of Jesus can still be seen in verses such as John 1.18, John 5.18, John 20.28, as well as the deity of the Holy Spirit in Acts 5 verses 3 and 4. And even the personhood of the Holy Spirit is on display in John 16.13. But Jehovah's Witnesses, like all Unitarians, have chosen to set their minds above the revelation of God in attempt to make all doctrine comprehendable. God that we cannot understand everything about Him. We can know Him truly? Yes. We cannot know Him fully. Because we are finite, mortal creatures. He is the infinite, immortal God. And so we can know Him truly? Certainly. And we can know Him in saving grace, but we cannot know Him fully, comprehend Him fully. Secondly, their person of Jesus Christ that they present, kind of branching off of the Trinity. They do not believe that Jesus is fully God and fully man, which is orthodox Christianity. They teach that Jesus is the first creation of God, the archangel Michael. Very interesting. They believe that the angel Michael was changed into the mortal man Jesus and ceased to be an angel. But after Jesus died, he was awarded immortality as a reward for his virtuous, excuse me, life on earth, and recreated as a new and improved version of Michael, the archangel. Charles Taze Russell denied the resurrection, saying that, quote, the man Jesus is dead, forever dead. Well, he got to meet him, October 31st, 1916, and found out that was not the case. The newly recreated Archangel Michael slash Jesus is a spiritual being, and when he came back in 1914, it was, of course, a spiritual second coming, not a physical one. But errors abound here. Jesus is not a creature, not even the first creature. And I actually had a Jehovah's Witness take me to this passage, Colossians 1. One time in our house in Homewood, had some come to the doorstep And they tried to take me to this verse. Colossians 1.15. He, we're speaking about Jesus, the beloved Son is the subject in verse 13. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. They said, look, look, there he's firstborn. First creature made by God. I said, that's very interesting. I said, if you read verses 16 and 17, For by him all things were created." So the first creature created all things. How can that be if he's a creature? It doesn't make sense. All things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. And in case you didn't get it, All things were created through Him and for Him, and He is before all things. And in Him all things hold together. And when I said, so you're telling me that Jesus created all things? How can He create Himself? The Jehovah's Witnesses just actually laughed. And my heart was just like, and you're hanging your soul on this stuff. I said, I'm gonna pray for you, because you can tell that's illogical, and I can tell you can tell that's illogical. And I'm gonna pray that the Lord opens your blind eyes to see that it is. Very, very sad. But, of course, John, we've been going through on Sunday afternoons. Jesus, of course, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, John 1.1. Secondly, Michael and Jesus have not had any kind of existential crisis where they swapped roles with each other. That's just first-order nonsense. And then Jesus' second coming will be a physical coming. Let's go to Acts 1. This is very straightforward language in the Scriptures. It's not some secret spiritual coming. It's a physical coming. Acts 1.9. The disciples, these are the last words of our Lord here on earth. Acts 1. Verse 6, they ask Him, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He tells them it's not for you to know times and seasons. And then, when He has said these things in Acts 1 verse 9, as they were looking on, He, Jesus, was lifted up and a cloud took Him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as He went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way you saw Him go into heaven." A physical, bodily return. Go to 1 Thessalonians 4. We'll just look at a few of these briefly for the sake of time. 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 16, For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. There's going to be fanfare, heavenly fanfare, when Jesus comes back. All the earth is not going to be groaning anymore because the Redeemer is going to be coming back. And it's not going to be a secret spiritual thing, like some hyper-preterism, some nonsense. So how does this Jesus-save-anyone, this Jesus-Michael-the-archangel-existential-crisis-character-save-anyone? Well, Jehovah's Witnesses hold that by virtue of his righteous life, Jesus fulfilled what Adam should have done, Adam and Genesis 1, and balanced the scales. Jesus removed the stain of sin from Adam And now that Jesus has removed the stain of Adam, grace has left us faithful to pursue faithfulness to watchtower teachings and the dissemination of those teachings. We are given a balance, a clean slate, when we accept the sacrificial death of Jesus. And it's up to us to pursue faithfulness to the watchtower. Those who are truly devoted to the Watchtower may be elected to be a part of the 144,000, that number from Revelation 7 that the Jehovah's Witnesses make a big deal out of. When Nathan Homer Newell was president, they had 105,000 when he took over. And so they only thought there were going to be 144,000. And once they went past that number of 2.2 million, now they're up to 8.7, they've got to have some kind of elite class to fill that 144,000 that was of particular interest to them. And so those 144,000, they are the only ones who are born again. By that they mean they're given bodies akin to the body that Jesus or Michael had when he was recreated after the man Jesus died. Only those 144,000 go to heaven to be with the Unitarian God. Very small crowd he surrounded himself with. Very interesting that in that same chapter, Revelation 7, there's a myriad, a countless number that's surrounding the throne giving praises to God. All other Jehovah's Witnesses who don't make the cut of the 144,000 are left on the earth in a recreated physical body to be ruled over by Jesus slash Michael and the 144,000. For all those who are at least decent people, They are given a millennial period in which they get a second chance to earn eternal life with those on the earth. Can't be in the 144,000. But failure to earn the favor of God throughout the probationary or purgatorial millennium will result in the annihilation of your soul. And this is how the Jehovah's Witnesses offer a false hope to those who died before 1879 when the Watchtower was founded and never got a chance to learn the one true way of salvation. Because this is the problem, see, when you have a cult that springs up. You have to do something with the people that were around before your cult started. If you're going to claim to be the only way to God, well how was God getting people to himself before your cult started? And that's a fair question. That's a question that should be pressed. And so that's how they get around it. Well, there's going to be a millennial probationary period. Obviously not a shred of this is anything close to biblical. There are not two classes of saved individuals. Whoever believes in Jesus has eternal life and has passed from death to life. John 5, 24. Jesus did not merely die to press restart. He died to purchase his bride. The soul is not annihilated. Matthew 25, 46. And these will go away into eternal punishment, Jesus says of the goats. But the righteous into eternal life. Remember the parable of the rich man and Lazarus? The rich man saying, I'm tormented in this flame. He wasn't worried about being annihilated. He was worried about the ongoing torment. And fourthly, there are no second chances after death. Hebrews 9.27, and just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment. And that's why we urge people to repent and believe in the gospel. Because you're not given tomorrow. And after that, it's game over. The fates are sealed. And then fifthly, we do not earn our salvation by adherence to watchtower teachings. It's the free gift of God. But now onto the New World Translation. Very quickly. F. W. Franz, who would later be the fourth Watchtower president after Nathan Homer Knorr, he said in 1954 under oath to the Scottish Daily Express that, quote, angels of various ranks controlled the translators. Angels of various ranks, excuse me, controlled the translators. So again, claiming some kind of divine hand over this work. The Jehovah's Witnesses claim that their New World Translation is, quote, without any sectarian religious coloration. They, of course, make efforts to obscure the deity of Jesus Christ, and we can't go into an exhaustive treatment of all those things. If you're interested, there's a book that Robert Countess has done criticizing critical analysis of the Jehovah's Witnesses New World Translation. Good book. A little technical, because you get into Greek and stuff, We're just going to look briefly at two arguments against the New World Translation that you can use. Guess what? You don't have to know seminary Greek to do this. That's why I'm bringing this to you, because you can use these arguments, brothers and sisters, when Jehovah's Witnesses come to meet with you. And if I'm going too fast, can't get notes, I'll be happy to send you this stuff. I'll print off my pages so you can read them to whatever you need to do. want to equip you for sharing the gospel. But, really quickly, John 1.1, a very obvious verse that the Jehovah's Witnesses mistranslate. It's interesting when you go to thrift stores and stuff and you find New World Translation, New Testaments, I like to grab them and see where they fall open to. Many fall open to John 1.1, right? Because Protestants have been going there like, look, look, this is wrong, this is wrong. But John 1.1, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Well, in the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Word was a God. That last phrase has been changed. This is a little technical, but we're going to go with it. The Jehovah's Witness argument goes something like this. Because the Greek word for God, theos, does not have the Greek definite article, there's a fancy term for that called anarthros, an indefinite article, which is a, should be inserted, rendering the translation, and the word was a god. But the Jehovah's Witnesses are not at all consistent with their own translation approach. Anarthurus, that is, lacking a definite article, Theos, appears 282 times in the New Testament, and only 16 of those times is it translated in the New World Translation as A-God, lowercase g-God, God's little g, or Godly. They only follow their own translational principle 6% of the time. 16 out of 282. Example, in this same John 1. You can take them to this. Let's read on John 1. Verse 6, verse 12, verse 13. God, Theos, appears. All in the genitive case, of course. It's the nominative in the Greek in 1.1. But that doesn't mean that it has to be rendered any differently. It's without warrant. that should be rendered differently. But they don't translate in verses 6, 12, or 13, there was a man sent from Agod, whose name was John. He gave authority to become children of Agod. in verse 12. Or, they were born not from blood, or from a fleshly will, or from man's will, but from a God, in verse 13. The fact that these three verses have God in the genitive case, that doesn't change anything. It doesn't warrant any translation that they've made. The end result for the New World Translation is puzzling in that it tells us, remember, Jesus was supposed to be an angel. And now we're reading that he's a God? I thought he was the Archangel Michael. So, which is it? He cannot be worshipped as a God, but he's still worthy to follow, or he cannot be worshipped as the God, but maybe he's a God. It's very, very contradictory. And so their failure to biblically understand the unique personhood of Jesus is on full display for all of us to see and really ridicule, because that's what it deserves. And so this same agenda is in 2 Peter 1, another passage on the deity of Jesus Christ. I don't read the New World Translations, so these pages are not flipping to the right spot. 2 Peter 1. Okay, 2 Peter 1.1, if you read it in the ESV, I know in the King James it's a little bit different, but in the ESV, 2 Peter 1.1, we read, Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Well, they put our God and the Savior, Jesus Christ, in the Watchtower translation. They supplied the definite article here to make it sound like two different people are in view. We got God, the Unitarian God, and then we have the Savior, Jesus Christ, who pressed restart for you. Two different people. Because they don't believe Jesus is both our Savior and our God, as Orthodox Christianity has always believed. The problem is, there is no definite article in the Greek. None at all. And so there was no definite article in John 1.1, so they supply the indefinite article. In 2 Peter 1.1, the deity of Jesus Christ is on display again, except this time they supply the definite article in an attempt to hide his deity. But if you look down, again, verse 11 in the New World Translation, it says, "...of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." What is interesting to note about verses 1 and 11 is that the Greek is exactly the same, except for one word. Verse 1, it's, Our God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Verse 11, Our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ. but it's referring to the same person. So when Jesus is referred to as God and Savior, they choose to supply the definite article to make it sound like two different people are in view, even though that's not what they did in John 1.1. But when Jesus is simply being called Lord and Savior ten verses later, that's not as clear a reference to deity, so they can afford to translate it properly and don't have to sneak any definite or indefinite articles in the text. You smell a rat yet? Something's up with this. It's not at all, whoever unnamed translators did this, a shoddy job to say the least. Clearly, the Jehovah's Witnesses have an agenda to push using their own translation of the New Testament, but their translational principles are arbitrary, supplying either indefinite or definite articles where it suits them without any kind of uniformity. and they only follow their translational principles 6% of the time, this is not translation, this is dissimulation. And then fourth and finally, coming to the end, failed end times prophecies. In the March 1st, 1975 issue of Watchtower Magazine, the Jehovah's Witnesses upheld the biblical standard for prophecy found in Deuteronomy 18, 20 through 22. If the prophecy was not fulfilled with 100% accuracy, the false prophet was to be slain. It was a capital crime to falsely prophesy. And so the logic is simple. If the all-knowing, all-seeing, cannot-tell-a-lie, sovereign-over-the-future God tells a prophet something, there's no chance it could fail to come to pass. Not a chance. God knows the future beginning to end, says Isaiah. How does he know it from beginning to end? Because he planned it from beginning to end. He knows it all. Past, present, future. All at the same time. It's all in the mind of God at the same time. If you can speak about time in reference to God. So when imposters who don't know everything and don't control the future pretend to speak for God, there's a high price to pay. In the Watchtower publication, Aid to Bible Understanding, Jehovah's Witnesses claim to be the true mouthpiece for God on earth at present, and God reveals things to them and they quote, faithfully speak Jehovah's word. But do they? A double-edged sword. Jehovah's Witnesses' devotion to publishing mean that they leave a doctrinal paper trail of all their failed prophecies and preventing archival will access to past magazines. They don't want you going too far back in the archives, might dig something up. Well, the problem is people have those magazines and they have published the failed prophecies and we're going to look at a few of them. The Jehovah's Witnesses you meet on your doorstep are not going to likely have access to such material and they're going to ask you where you got it. I've had one ask me, well, former Jehovah's Witnesses, oh, they're liars, you can't believe them. They left us, they're liars and all the rest. Your magazine got your name on it. You might have retracted it, but your magazine, and the fact that you had to retract it, tells me you might not be speaking as the mouthpiece of God with 100% accuracy. On at least 13 different occasions, the Watchtower has made false prophecies about the end of the world. They claimed it would end in 1877, 1886, 1914, 1915, 1925, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943. The Third Reich was really giving them fits. 1946, 1950, and 1975. Here we are, 2023, and the church is marching on. Here are just a sample of quotes from Watchtower publications. Rebecca said not to read all of them. There's a long list. But just some quotes from the Watchtower magazine. 1877, the end of the world is nearer than most men suppose. 1886, the time has come for Messiah to take the dominion of the earth. Newsflash, he already has it. 1889, we present proofs that the setting up of the kingdom of God has already begun and that the battle of the great day of God Almighty, which will end in 8014 with the complete overthrow of Earth's present rulership, is already commenced. Note, the 1915 edition of the same publication, they changed to 8014 to 8015. Oh, I can't make this stuff up. July 15th, 1894. We see no reason for changing the figures, nor could we change them if we would. They are, we believe, God's dates, not ours. But bear in mind that the end of 1914 is not the date for the beginning, but for the end of the time of trouble. 1904, 10 years further on, 10 years from the end, the stress of the great time of trouble will be on us soon, somewhere between 1910 and 1912, culminating with the end of the times of the Gentiles, October 1914. Here we are 109 years past and still the truth marches on. May 1st, 1914. There is absolutely no ground for Bible students to question that the consummation of this gospel age is now even at the door. The great crisis that will consume the ecclesiastical heavens and the social earth is very near. Charles Taze Russell himself said of World War I before he died, that the present great war in Europe is the beginning of the Armageddon of the Scriptures. Nope. 1922, the date 1925, or past 1914 and 15 now, the date 1925 is even more distinctly indicated by the Scriptures because it is fixed by the law of God to Israel. One can see how even before 1925 the great crisis will be reached and probably passed. If you're speaking for God, you don't need words like probably. Don't remember reading probably in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea. Those guys spoke with authority. They didn't have to use terms like probably. Just a little note. 1923. Our thought is that 1925 is definitely settled by the Scriptures. But then 1930 happened. The great climax is at hand, 1931. Armageddon is at hand, 1933. The incontrovertible proof that the time of deliverance is at hand. Yeah, you can keep saying at hand, what's the quote from the Princess Bride? You keep using that term. I do not think it means what you think it means. Very applicable here. 1933 again, that Jehovah has now opened these prophecies to the understanding of His anointed is evidence that the time of the battle is near, hence the prophecy is of profound interest to the anointed. 1939, the battle of the great day of God Almighty is very near. See, these things are so vague. If you're speaking for God, give us a date. Don't say very near in Ed Han. And then from 1940 to 1943, the Watchtower made at least 44 predictions of the imminence of Armageddon. And because that, you know, World War's going on, it's engulfing the planet, that's why it's called World War, people are thinking this is, you know, likely the end. So I won't read you all of those. It's mostly disasters at hand, Armageddon's at hand, final thing, final end of all things is at hand, several quotes there. And then in 1950, past the Second World War, the march is on. Where? To the field of Armageddon for the war of the great day of God the Almighty. 1953. Armageddon is so near at hand it will strike the generation now living. 1955. It is becoming clear that the war of Armageddon is near to its breaking out point. Oh, it's finally becoming clear. All these failed prophecies, I didn't know if we were going to get it clear or not. 1958, when will Armageddon be fought? It will be very soon. And so people begin to see that this was a farce. It was. And so they begin to put on the brakes. And so in 1968, the October 8th edition of Awake magazine, they admitted that they had lacked divine guidance in making these predictions. And Here's what they say. We talk about companies issuing an apology today. Here's their apology, October 8, 1968. Quote, true, there have been those in times past who predicted an end to the world, even announcing a specific date. The end did not come. They were guilty of false prophesying. Why? What was missing? Missing from such people were God's truths and the evidence that he was guiding and using them. But what about today? Today, we have the evidence required, all of it, and it is overwhelming. Well, aren't you just reassured? They didn't punish themselves for false prophesying. They didn't go forth with any capital punishment. And so here's their overwhelming evidence, except now they've selected a date of 1975. May 22nd, 1969. All the evidence in fulfillment of Bible prophecy indicates that this corrupt system is due to end in a few years. 1973, the Great Tribulation is very near. According to the Bible's timetable, the beginning of the seventh millennium of mankind's existence on earth is near at hand within this generation. Sounds like you've heard that before. And so, 1975, the fulfillment is immediately ahead of us. Very short must be the time that remains. And in 1974, they said that the World's End was so very near that they actually, in print, commended the Jehovah's Witnesses who sold their homes and property to devote themselves to full-time service before the wicked World's End. You can tell a lot by how much somebody believes something but what they practically do about it. I remember when the old Mayan calendar was supposedly deciphered and they said that December 21st, 2012 was the end of the world. We had some neighbors at our time that He was a massive doomsday prepper. Now December 12th, or December 21st, 2012 is long since come and gone. Well, this guy said, oh, he's getting ready. Man, it's going to be a battle. You getting ready? I'm like, brother, I believe the gospel. I'm ready for anything. And he said, well, man, I'm talking about, you know, he was building bows and arrows and just bunkers and all the rest. I said, well, I'll tell you what. You seem pretty hung up on this. I said, why don't you just sign the title of your car over to me? Go ahead and give me your credit cards and debit cards and any cash you got, anything you're not going to need to fight with. Since the end of the world's come anyway, I mean, you're not going to need that stuff. Guess how much I got out of the guy? Nothing. And guess what? December 21, 2012, came and went. So, you know, But some of these Jehovah's Witnesses, they sold their homes and stuff. And so they, even as recently as 2006, they've been prophesying Armageddon's near at hand. There's probably more quotes. There's so many, dozens and dozens of these quotes out there. They claim to be the mouthpiece of God on earth, yet they have a 100% failure rate. 100% failure rate for predicting the end of the world, even openly admitting one time that they gave false prophecies, didn't apply the biblical standard of punishment for it. And then right after they said they were wrong about their prophecies, they, oh, we've got it figured out now, and they went right back to the old error, and they lost even more followers. droves left after the failed 1975 prediction. Would to God that droves more would leave in our own day. It's a false religion. So what do we do with all of this? Well, when a Jehovah's Witness is on your doorstep, no 19th century cult is of God. These things are just men who are putting their own minds on the scriptures. They don't like all the different denominations and they want to brush aside all the of church history and start afresh. And Charles Taze Russell, Joseph Smith, they're all in the torments of hell with the rich man right now. And I think we should secondly expose the lying perjurer, Charles Taze Russell, for who he is. That's who they follow. They don't follow Jesus. This stuff isn't from Jesus. It's from the imagination of man, from whose heart are only evil imaginations continually, from his youth. I would expose the double standards of the New World Translation. We looked at John 1 and how they only translate Anarthurus, Theos in verse 1 and don't do the same thing in verses 6, 12, and 13. And 2 Peter 1, and yet they add the definite article there and then take it right out in verse 11 when the deity's not on display. These things need to be exposed. And then using the New World Translation to show how it's impossible for Christ to be Michael. Where is this ever taught? has to come from the imaginations of men. And then expose the lack of credibility that the Jehovah's Witnesses have for their claim to be the mouthpiece of God on earth. 100% failure rate. 100%. And so we dismantle, we repair. Give them the gospel of the free grace of God who's never told a lie. Who declares men justified before his throne. and seals them with His Holy Spirit. And in God's Gospel, the blood of Jesus actually atones for your sin. There's nothing left for you to do but believe. And then live a life that expresses your love to God for what He's done for you. It's free grace, brothers and sisters. And if they will not leave the lives of the Jehovah's Witnesses to turn to God, then their soul will not be annihilated, but will suffer an eternity of wrath and hell. There's no annihilation. Eternal punishment, says Jesus. So I exhort you, take these things and equip yourselves for this battle that's out there. These are one particular band of Satan's minions, and we need to know how to bring the gospel to these souls. And the Lord would use us to rescue precious souls from the bonds of Satan that are called the Watchtower teachings. Let's pray. Our Father, our God, we do indeed pray that you would overthrow the work of the Watchtower Society, that you would trample it under your feet, that you would bring an end to all their operations and their deceptions, that they would no more disseminate falsehood in your earth. We pray that you would help us, Lord, that you would bring Jehovah's Witnesses across our paths. Help us to use these things to show them the darkness of Charles Taze Russell and all of the Watchtower teachings that you would open their eyes to see the truth of your gospel, the truth of your word, that you have given us a word, and it is nothing Charles Taze Russell ever said. We pray that you would hope in their eyes to see the true Jesus, that He's not some angel that is morphed into man or any such nonsense, but that Jesus Christ is fully human, fully God, begotten of the Father, who's seated at the right hand of His Father on high, ruling and reigning, and He must be worshipped. Lord, I pray that You would indeed make all knees to bow, make all tongues to confess that Jesus Christ is God. Oh, that they would do that now before that great day when every single knee He has made and every single tongue He has made will confess who He is to the glory of the Father. Oh, that You would make them to bow the knee now, to kiss the Son lest He be angry and they perish in the way. Thank You, Lord, for saving us. Now use us, we pray. in your mighty work of saving others and drawing sinners to yourself. I pray these things in your name that you might be glorified. Amen. All right. Thank you for your patience. We will now go to prayer. Men will meet downstairs and the sisters will pray upstairs.