Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look
us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this
message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
See. You this morning, how about
that? Going to be back in the Lord's
house to be back with you. Had a wonderful vacation for the
last week and 1/2 or so, but glad to be able to be back with
you and ready to go as we continue our Sunday School
series on world religions and cults.
And a couple weeks ago, my last Sunday School with you, we
introduced the Jehovah Witnesses.
And today we're going to look at some of the fundamentals of this
group that are called the Jehovah's Witnesses.
And I will tell you there is a whole lot that we are going to
look at. We certainly can't cover
everything in one lesson, but we do want to give you a little bit
of the background other than just knowing well that they are
a cult. We want to know why they're a
cult. We want to know what they
believe and why they believe it. We want to know those things.
So as we continue on in our series so that we're better able
to be able to witness the grace of God to these people who were
lost and they are so very, very lost.
And I want to remind you is we talked about this a couple weeks
ago and well, I know you've probably forgotten.
It's been a couple weeks. I've forgotten a lot of things
over the last couple weeks with all that rest that I've.
But I do want to remind you that we see all of those folks that
are out there in front of those Watchtower track racks that they
have. And whether it's at a tea
station or whether it's in the middle of downtown Brockton,
Taunton, the Mansfield commuter rail station or going door to
door. We see them all over the place.
And they look like they are so joyous almost about the fact
that they are wanting to be able to give out the word of God or
at least what they believe is the word of God.
But I want to remind you that a lot of what you see in those
people that are out there is not really joy.
It's obligation, duty, and a lot of fear as well.
And the reason why is because they works based salvation that
the only way that they will ever have a chance of going to heaven
or to be part of the Kingdom, if you will.
The only way that they'll be able to do that is that they
have to be able to go out once a month and be a publisher to be
able to go out and give the word of God.
And that's why often times you will see that they're standing
there, but they're not going to engage you.
You can talk to them, but they're not going to talk to
you. Often times if you see them
going door to door down the street, they call it the
shuffle, the fact that they'll walk down the road but they're
not walking fast because they're trying to get their one hour
done and then be done and they're trying to hit as few
doors as possible. So they can say they did it, but
not that they really had to talk to a lot of people.
I don't know about you, but when I'm really thinking about things
rightly, and I have to be careful how I say this when I'm
thinking about things rightly because I'm not thinking
rightly, I'm not paying attention to souls.
But when I'm thinking rightly, I want to talk to people about the
Lord. It's a Saturday morning, I'm
hoping the people will answer their door.
If I'm driving from house to house and knocking on someones
door, I want them to be able to answer because I want them to
know that Jesus Christ can change their life like it
changed my life. But the Jehovah Witnesses don't
have that hope. They don't have that assurance
in any way, shape or form. And literally they're standing
out there hoping and praying, one, that nobody will talk to
them, but two, that this will be enough along with all of the
other works so that they can be part of the Kingdom and be part
of the 144,000 or those who are also part of the larger group
that will be part of the Kingdom.
And so today we're going to give you a lot of background about
the Jehovah Witnesses and we're going to talk a lot about some
different things about them them to help you understand more
about them. Now they are the Watchtower
Bible and Tract Society is often called the Jehovah Witnesses.
Now they started as the Watchtower Bible and Tract
Society, and the publishing arm is still called the Watchtower
today. So oftentimes if you see those
pamphlets, if you see those booklets, they're often just
called the Watchtower. That's the item that they have.
But that's not a different group.
It's the same group that are the Jehovah Witnesses.
And for many years, the Jehovah Witnesses were based in
Brooklyn, NY. And one, a very, very large
building that in many different areas is labeled as Watchtower.
You see right there on the right and then also on the center to
the left, you'll see the background of a very large sign
that points out towards I believe the Hudson River that
says the Watchtower. That was a conic building in
Brooklyn for almost 100 years. And it was just recently, over
the last few years that it's been sold.
I can imagine prime real estate like that in Brooklyn and how
much money they probably sold that for.
And they have since moved to Warwick, NY.
They are still based in New York, but no longer in New York
City. And the name Jehovah Witnesses
is derived from Isaiah chapter 43, verse 10, which says this Ye
are my witnesses, sayeth the Lord and my servant, whom I have
known, that ye may know and believe me and understand that I
am he before me. There was no God formed, neither
shall there be after me. And so the beginning of that
verse says, ye are my witnesses, sayeth the Lord.
Now I'll remind you that the Jehovah Witnesses have a
different Bible. It's called the New World
Translation and I want to be careful and how I present it
because the New World World Translation is not a different
translation of the Bible, is a different Bible all together.
And certainly we have things that we could say about
different Bible translations and how they have perverted the word
of God over the years. But the New World Translation is
in a whole different category as they wholesale strip anything
about Jesus Christ and his deity out of the word of God and
without any type of thought about what the Greek or the
Hebrew might say They don't like it, doesn't agree with doctrine,
it's removed, it's just taken out.
And so in Isaiah 43 verse 10, the New World Translation says
ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah.
So actually take the name of the Lord and change it to Jehovah.
And so we know that the Lord's name is Jehovah, but that's just
a very minor change from the many major changes they take.
But in saying all that, I'm saying that they are called not
just the Watchtower, which they originally were.
Now it's just the publishing arm that's called that.
They are called Jehovah Witnesses.
And as we talked about a couple weeks ago, you even find
onlinejw.org is where you find all the information about the
Jehovah Witnesses. Now I will say I have found a
lot of conflicting information about how many Jehovah Witnesses
there are in the world. And I've looked at Jehovah
Witness numbers and I've also looked at other numbers as well.
Numbers I have from 2014 all the way until 2000, I believe 21.
And I will say that the number that I find is somewhere around
20 million worldwide. But it's unclear if that's the
amount of people that during a year have actually gone to a
Jehovah Witness meeting, have gone to a Kingdom Hall or to one
of their regional assemblies, compared to the number of
publishers. And publishers are the people
who go out, they're members, and they go out once a month to be
able to give their version of the Word of God to people.
It seems like there's probably somewhere around 20 million
Jehovah Witnesses or those who have attended A Jehovah Witness
meeting in a year's time. But probably 1/2 of those are
regular attenders, members, publishers of Jehovah Witness
doctrine. You know, what's amazing to me
is that when I saw that number, I kind of thought it was a
mistake. I thought there's got to be more
of them than that because it seems like they're everywhere,
doesn't it? But yet the numbers are
minuscule compared to other world religions and cults that
we'll look at. Certainly the Mormons would far
outnumber the Jehovah Witnesses, but to me, it almost seems like
like it's opposite from just what we see.
But, and this isn't my message this morning, I don't want to
get off into a different area, but, well, I guess I'm going to
anyway. But it just reminds us a small
group of people can make a big impact.
Well, we know we're a small church.
Yes, I know we're small church. People sometimes tell me I'm a
small, we're a small church. Like I didn't know we're small.
I know we're small. This building can only hold so
many people, you know and, and I know, but listen, God does great
things with small groups of people.
God took 12 disciples. Well, 11 you consider one went
out, but they put another one in. 12 disciples turn the world
upside down by Acts chapter 20 And, and so yes, so we're a
small group. God uses small groups regularly
to do great things. And certainly this is not a
group that is doing great things.
But the idea is if they are doing this with falsehood, how
much more can we with the Holy Spirit who lives inside of us,
do great things for God? But anyway, they have about 20
million a year that attend some sort of meeting at a Kingdom
Hall. Now I'm going to show you a
couple different videos this morning.
It's been my habit during the series to show some videos, not
videos from people that are on the outside looking into these
groups, but rather people who are on the inside so that we can
look at those types of things from their own lens and then be
able to take those things apart and break them down a little
bit. So the first video I want to
show you here in just a moment is a video showing you what the
experience is at a Kingdom Hall. So we got that queued up.
Let's go ahead and watch. All around the world, people
come together every week at places of worship called Kingdom
Halls. Have you ever wondered what
happens inside a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses?
It's a place where Bible study programs and lectures are held
each week. The first time I attended a
meeting, I felt very happy. The atmosphere was so good.
I've never seen anything like it anywhere else.
The people are loving, orderly and show an interest in people.
Every meeting is open to the public.
Seats are free and no collections are ever taken.
Families are invited to attend and learn together.
All meetings begin and end with song and prayer.
One meeting, usually held on the weekend, includes a 30 minute
Bible discourse especially designed for the general public.
After that, there's a question and answer discussion based on
an article in the study edition of the Watchtower magazine.
Participation is always voluntary.
At one of the meetings during the week, we not only study the
Bible but also receive training in public speaking.
Everyone is invited to the Christian meetings, including
those who are not Jehovah's Witnesses.
You can go into any Kingdom Hall and receive the same program of
Bible instruction. Bible education, upbuilding
association, and the opportunity to praise God await you at
Christian meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses.
To find a Kingdom Hall near you, please visit the About Us
section and fill in the Congregation meeting search.
In many ways, I think it's more powerful me for me to show you
videos by these groups themselves.
If I was to show you something that was to debunk that, well,
you might say that there was bias there.
And of course, I think most of my lesson is to be able to
debunk what we see, but to be able to hear them from their own
mouths, to be able to hear what they say.
There's a lot of different things that we could say about
that. First of all, one gentleman
called them Christian meetings. I want to remind you that the
Jehovah Witnesses are not a Christian group.
They're a cult. And the reason we say that is
because they do not believe that Jesus Christ is God.
Well, that would be primary number one.
What would be a Christian doctrine would be that Jesus
Christ is God, that God the Father, God the Son, God the
Holy Spirit and the Trinity has been absolutely denied by the
Jehovah Witnesses. I do find it interesting.
They say no collections are made, but they say that there's
a box in the back that I found and that everyone's expected to
give on the way out. And so it would be like saying
that at here at Liberty Baptist Church, we didn't have
collections for three years because we had a box in the back
during COVID. You know, it's of course we had
collections. So there's some intellectual
dishonesty even in some of the things that you hear from that.
But I also heard this is that you could go to any Kingdom Hall
and hear the exact same thing. Now, why would that be?
Well, it's because really Bible study is not presented through
the Bible, but it's all about the Watchtower.
You saw a lot of those pamphlets being open.
Now, if you were to go to Lighthouse Baptist Church this
morning over in Holbrook, and by the way, please don't do that.
We'd like you to stay here. But have you been watching?
But no, we're thankful for them. But I will tell you this,
whatever Pastor Crump is preaching this morning is
probably not what I'm preaching this morning.
And what he's preaching tonight is not what I'm preaching
tonight. And if you go to other good
Bible preaching church, what really, if you go to any Bible
preaching church, it's going to be different, isn't it?
Because we're we have autonomy, because we all are separate.
We're all joined together by Christ, but yet we're individual
bodies and that God leads each of us individually.
There is none of that and that every single one has to follow
the Watchtower. That's why it's not Bible study.
It's really Watchtower pamphlet study more than anything because
everyone is going to study the same thing every week.
And you can't do that by just studying the Bible.
You have to have some sort of program that's going to keep
everything together and the study is all almost completely
through the Watchtower. Now we understand that it's not
just the fact that the Jehovah Witnesses do a great amount of
public publishing of the Word of God.
Again, that's what they call it, but they also also, excuse me,
conduct many home Bible studies as well.
And the numbers I have here from about 10 years ago was that they
conduct somewhere around 9.2 million home Bible studies a
year. Now I don't know if that's 9.2
million people, individual people, or if it's 9.2 million
Bible studies, maybe 10 for a person or 20 for this person.
I, I don't know it that's not broken down that way.
But I will say this, it's a significant amount of Bible
studies. What they want you to do if they
talk to you at a Watchtower track presentation or track rack
presentation, what they want to do is to be able to have you let
them into their, your home and to be able to talk to you more
about the Watchtower. And So what does that look like?
And I have another video from jw.org as well to show you that.
Welcome to your Bible study. Millions around the world enjoy
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What will you learn how to have a happy family life?
How to cope with anxiety, how to draw closer to God and why you
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Most paragraphs have key Bible verses highlighted.
Your teacher will also read and discuss with you other verses,
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By reading scriptures, discussing questions, and
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Finally, after reviewing the lesson, your teacher may say a
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This is flexible, but to maximize the benefits of this
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The Bible is the world's best guide to a happy life.
Discover how it can help you in this interactive Bible course.
It says the Bible is the key to a happy life, but what do you
not see? A lot of the Bible, and it's a
lot of the Bible closed and a lot of the materials being
opened follow the materials. Now, I do want to say this
because I want to be careful. You got listen, we want to what
we don't want to be intellectually dishonest in how
we present these things because I believe that Christianity wins
on the merits. Amen.
We don't have to be intellectually dishonest.
There are times I teach discipleship here at Liberty
Baptist Church that we use a curriculum as well.
Pastor, don't you use a curriculum?
Well, we do Dan Woodward here for many years taught the
discipleship course and went through the ABC's of Christian
growth. And I think he went through the
AB CS 26 lessons he did in about three years.
But man after my own heart. So it took him 150 weeks to get
through 26 lessons. But there's a lot to cover,
isn't there? But I would say this, and This
is why it's so important and and it was really an admonishment to
me and watching this is that we have discipleship that we are
care. We have to be careful that even
though there is a book that's open, the Bible has to be open
as well that it's not just that we take for granted.
Look, you can trust me. I'm going to read the verse to
you can trust me. I'm not going to lead you
astray, but really it shouldn't be about trusting me.
It should be about trusting the Bible.
This is why it's so important that you bring your Bible to
church. Have the copy of the word of God
with you. Open it up while I'm preaching.
When we say turn to such and such a place, turn there.
There are many times because of the sake of time or because of
how the verse fits with the message.
I'll read the verse to you, but I find it more common.
Even the verse that I preach, or rather the sermon I preached a
couple weeks ago on the Davidic covenant on Sunday night.
That's a pretty deep subject to be able to talk about.
Well, we turned all over the Old Testament, the New Testament.
The reason why is I want you to be able to see it.
I want you to be able to see the word of God for yourself.
Because listen, it's not about trusting me.
Don't trust me, trust Him because his word and it's his
way. And so I do want to be careful
that we don't pound on them so much for not having the Bible
open that we want to make sure that well, we have our Bibles
open as much as we possibly can. Again, this is not trying to be
unfair to them to say, well, they do that, but then we do the
same thing. I do want to show you the
difference in how maybe we can or I can do better and how I
present some of those things too, because you need to know
where these things are in the world of when the word of God.
Well again given background of the Jehovah Witnesses is getting
back to that. In the late 19th century in
Pittsburgh, PA and 18 year old Charles Tays Russell, 18 years
old, started a Bible class called the Millennial Dawn Bible
Study in which he started to teach some of his heretical
doctrines that would later become the core of Jehovah
Witness theology. Intent on distributing his ideas
as widely as possible, Russell published the first editions of
the magazine's Watchtower and Herald of Christ Presence in
July of 1879. And you'll remember, it was
during those infancy years of the Jehovah Witnesses that many
of those end times prophecies were first given.
Do you remember? We read almost a dozen of them a
couple weeks ago. We read 1 after another after
another when they said that the world was going to end in 1914.
Remember. And Charles Tays Russell was at
the forefront of that teaching during that time.
In 1881 he incorporated and created The Watchtower Attract
Society and at that time it became again the infancy of what
would later become the Jehovah Witnesses.
Now Charles Tays Russell died in 1916, two years after his
prophecy did not come true. However, there was one who took
his place and his name is Joseph Franklin Rutherford, and he was
the 2nd president and leader of the modern Jehovah Witnesses.
And many of the things that we see today in the Jehovah
Witnesses, many of the doctrines, many of the manners
and practices were really crystallized during the time of
his leadership beginning in 1916.
However, there was a great deal of discontentment and turmoil
within the Jehovah Witnesses that time.
They have one seminary, and in 1930, about 3/4 of the seminary
students had dropped out over the years because of
disagreements with the direction of which they're going.
Even the Jehovah Witnesses at that time said we can't sign up
for this. We got to get out of this.
And so 75% by 1930 had dropped out, citing conflicting
doctrinal differences. It was during Rutherford's
tenure that the Jehovah Witnesses were first called
Jehovah Witnesses, not simply the Watchtower Bible Tract
Society. And under Rutherford's watch,
several of the group's distinctive doctrines appeared,
including the idea that Jehovah Witnesses had replaced the
Jewish people and the requirement, listen, that every
Jehovah Witness distribute Jehovah Witness literature.
This was all under the leadership of Joseph Franklin
Rutherford. Now, the Jehovah Witnesses, as
you saw in the first video, meet twice a week at places that are
called Kingdom Halls. These are not churches.
They are called Kingdom Halls. And while that might look like a
cross that's there in the front, it's actually just the lectern.
One of the things you'll find in a Jehovah Witness Kingdom Hall
is there are no crosses inside. There are no pews.
In fact, there are no stained glass windows.
There are no candles. The Jehovah Witnesses believe
whether a cross occupied or empty is a Pagan symbol because,
again, they do not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ.
Kingdom Halls have no choir, no organ.
There's no baptistry, no altar or communion table.
There is no type of liturgical garb whatsoever that you would
see from other denominations. The hall is plain and
functional. And you'll notice that many
Kingdom Halls actually either one, don't have windows or two
like you see right here, have windows that are frosted over so
that there can be nobody from the inside that seeing outside
or vice versa. And I've done a lot of research,
or I've done a fair amount of research on why that is.
And I found a lot of conflicting reasons for that and none that I
could actually present to you as the fact of why it is.
But you'll notice architectural in Kingdom Halls, there are very
few windows or none or building codes require them.
They are in the Kingdom Hall but then glazed over like that so
nobody could see it. Now I would say as a preacher,
sometimes I kind of wish those were glazed over so we couldn't
see what was going on outside. But it is interesting that the
sunlight is not allowed to come in.
I think there's something symbolic about that is wall as
well. The Jehovah Witnesses do not
sing hymns as we would sing hymns.
However, they do have their own hymn if you will, called the
Kingdom Songbook and each meeting starts and ends with a
prayer to Jehovah, asked in Jesus name but prayed to Jehovah
distinct specifically. Now, there's many distinctive
doctrines that the Jehovah Witnesses hold to, and we're
going to go through a lot of them in rapid fire fashion.
I can't promise you that. We'll talk about each and every
one of them. Again, we're going to make some
comparisons to Christianity here in the next few weeks, but I
want to just give you some of the background here to at least
keep you familiar with some of these things this morning as we
look at the fundamentals of the Jehovah Witnesses.
First of all, their own translation of the Bible, which
is called the New World Translation is the only version
that can be trusted. All other Bible versions have
been corrupted. Now this is important because if
you were to have a conversation with someone about the Bible and
their Jehovah Witness, they are going to out of hand reject
everything that you say because you have a corrupted version of
the Bible. I've talked before with Jehovah
Witnesses and one of the first things that I, I like to talk to
them about is what do you think about Thomas?
And they're like, what do you, what do you mean about Thomas?
I said, well, you know, Thomas said when he saw Jesus, do you
remember doubting Thomas? And you know, I, I, I, unless I
put my hands, you know, in a finger in his hand and then his
side, you know, I don't believe it.
But when Thomas saw Jesus, he exclaimed, My Lord and my God.
Now that's one of the very important verses in the New
Testament showing the deity of Christ.
It's one of the most simplest verses that any of us can share
with anybody. You don't even need to know the
address of where it is in the Bible because pretty much
everyone has heard of Doubting Thomas before in the Bible or
not. They may not even know who he
is, but they've heard of doubting Thomas before.
So to be able to present him as my Lord and my God, it's
something to be helpful. But the problem is in the New
World Translation, that verse as it is doesn't exist.
No, it's there. It just doesn't say my Lord and
my God. And So what do you do?
You have to come from a different tact.
And we'll talk more about that in a few weeks.
But we're we're almost talking two different languages.
And that's what makes it so very difficult with the New World
Translation. We're going to go much deeper
into the New World Translation next week.
Jesus was created by Jehovah as a spirit creature named Michael
the Archangel. So a confusion between Jesus and
Michael. Jesus is not divine, has always
been subordinate to his heavenly Father, Jehovah.
And I've had conversations, I think Vince, and I've had
conversations before with Jehovah Witnesses where they
fixated on the fact that Jesus was lower than God the Father.
And we have made the point, and I'm sure you have as well, if
you've had a conversation with Jehovah Witness, was that Jesus
submitted himself under the Father during his life here on
earth, that Jesus willingly submitted himself.
But that was an assignment of that time and it wasn't a
lessening of his deity because he's 100% God and 100% man
during that time. He said I am my father or what?
There's no way that he was trying to say that that he was
lesser than, but just that in that mission that he had, God
the Father sent the Son Christ to die on the cross for sins.
Jesus was a perfect man, but he could have sinned and failed in
his mission. Jesus only became the Son of
God. It is baptism.
Since he is not God, Jesus must be worshipped or prayed.
Must not be boy. That's a big difference.
Let me say that right must not be worshipped or prayed to.
Jesus died to atone only for the sin of Adam, the inherited sin.
Jesus was raised from the dead as a spirit creature.
His body disappeared. Jesus started ruling God's
Kingdom invisibly from heaven in October 1914.
You remember we saw that video about that a couple weeks ago
about how once it was an incorrect prophecy that they
changed and said, oh, did we mention that it was be Invisible
Kingdom, even though they're talking about a real Armageddon
and a real end of the world? Then they said, oh, well, since
that didn't happen, we've got to change that up.
And they have taken great pains to be able to reconfigure a
prophecy that obviously went wrong because we're still here.
So next Jesus chose Jehovah Witnesses to be Jehovah's
earthly organization in 1919. Joe Witnesses have replaced
Israel and 144,000 mentioned in Revelation 14 verse one are
spiritual Jews. And really, you can't get around
the fact by going to Revelation chapter number 14 that that
those who you find that are listed are actual Jews.
I don't see a way around it when all 12 tribes are mentioned.
I don't know any way else around it.
There are many who get caught up with wrong doctrine about that.
Only 144,000 persons since the time of Jesus can't enter the
new covenant and go to heaven there to rule with Jesus.
Only 144,000 persons needed to be born again or anointed with
Jehovah's impersonal Holy Spirit.
Listen, the Trinity is Pagan theistic teaching meaning this
that they would say that we as Christians not their type of
Christians even though they use the term Christians.
They would say for them that Father, Son and Holy Ghost are
three different gods and that we are serving a polytheistic group
of gods. And for us, we know that the
Godhead, as it's called in our King James Bible is 3 and one
and one and three, that there is not three separate gods, that
they are all one God. And again Jesus said I and my
father are one. And so that is is certainly
blasphemous. There is no such thing as an
immortal soul. The dead know nothing.
A doctor related to soul sleep and annihilationism, basically.
But when you're gone, you're gone.
There is nothing else if you are to receive judgment.
And again, that's a damnable heresy.
Next, Jehovah would never punish people for eternity.
There is no such place as hell or the lake of fire.
Jehovah exercises selective foreknowledge.
He chose not to know that Adam and Eve would sin.
And there's nothing in the Word of God that would suggest some
sort of selective foreknowledge that that God chooses to not
know certain things, that God knows the beginning from the end
and has known the beginning from the end since before the
beginning. And that sounds like I made a
mistake there, but I didn't believe it or not, that he knew
the beginning from the end before the beginning, that
before time even began, before Genesis 11, God knew how
everything would play out. And he always has.
You say, I don't understand that.
I don't know that I completely do either, because we're linear
people. We see things in the beginning
and end. But the Bible says, and it's
true, just because you and I can't fully grasp it in the
limited mind that we have doesn't mean that it's any less
wrong. Listen, if you can understand
your God, you don't have much of A God.
I mean fully understand him. God has given us understanding
in these 66 books. But I'll say, if you can
understand every nook and cranny of your God, then you don't have
much of A God. No, our God is infinite.
He is all knowing. He is all powerful.
He's omnipresent. No, no, I don't know.
But I do know what he says. I believe it because He said it,
by the way. There's something, there's a
word for that faith, the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen. Death acquits a person of his
personal sin. After Armageddon, the dead will
be physically resurrected to live on the earth, not the
Armageddon that was supposed to happen in 1914.
Apparently after the resurrection, the unsaved dead
will get a second chance to be saved and live forever in a
paradise on earth. Salvation depends upon works and
being faithful and obedient to the end.
There is no salvation apart from membership in the Jehovah
Witness organization. Now listen, that's a cult, if
there ever was one, to be able to say that you cannot be saved
unless you're part of this church that only existed for
basically the last 150 years. There are so many flaws with
that thinking it's unbelievable. Now listen, could you imagine me
saying that the only people who are going to get saved are the
people for Independent Baptist? Could you imagine me saying
that? And I think there may be some
men Baptists believe that's true.
I don't know, but I don't think they think it's true.
But they might be surprised when they meet other people in heaven
other than independent Baptists. But I will say this all joking
aside, I know that there are people from other denominations
that are saved and that love God and that although we have
fundamental disagreements about the word of God and we're not
trying to pretend that we don't, we will say this.
They do know Jesus Christ their Savior, and we get to heaven.
It's not just going to be independent Baptists that are
there. The the bond between US and
heaven is not going to be denominational.
The bond between US and heaven will be the blood of Jesus
Christ. That's what it will be.
And to be able to say that you're only from this group, you
can be saved is again, absolute rank heresy.
Next, there is no assurance of salvation, even for those with
the heavenly hope. Again, you got to keep working.
You got to keep going. You got to keep doing.
Jehovah's relationship, or revelation rather, to his chosen
representatives is progressive. The light keeps getting
brighter. This accounts for changes made
to previously held interpretations regarding the
end times. Whenever those in the Governing
Body modify a form of belief, they attribute the charge or the
change to increase light. We saw a couple weeks ago that
there were somewhere over a dozen different changes that
were made to the doctrine of blood transfusions and what
could be made and what couldn't be.
And you and I look at that and say, how could somebody be so
wrong? And still people follow them.
But the answer is that they have this doctrine of increased
light. Well, over time, we're going to
learn more and we're going to understand more.
And we made mistakes more, but we got it right this time.
But could you imagine saying, well, we got it right this time,
You're still wrong, But no, this time we got it right, you're
still wrong. No, no.
But this time, no. We really got it right this
time. No, no, but no, but, but this
time, no. Trust me, we really got it right
this time. Again.
Ignorance is so important in this system because people
really can't know how many times they have been wrong about the
end times or about the patriarchs walking the earth who
are not, or about blood transfusions or about any of
these types of things. But this idea of increased light
just basically means this. Listen, we can be wrong as much
as we want, but eventually, one day we'll get it right.
Now the theme of this is the governing body.
Do you see that? The governing body?
Keep that in mind because we're going to look at that more in a
second. Now, the Jehovah Witnesses
claimed their authority comes from the Bible, divinely
inspired Word of God. However, listen, the Bible can
only be properly interpreted and applied with the help of
publications prepared by the Watchtower Society.
They can only be properly interpreted and applied with the
help of publications prepared by the Watchtower Society or as
they call themselves, Listen the faithful and discreet slave.
They say that they are the slave of Jehovah and that they are to
be faithful and discreet, and as such they are the only ones who
are able to properly interpret Bible doctrine.
The Watchtower. According to Watchtower Society,
a mature Christian does not advocate or insist on personal
opinions or harbor private ideas when it comes to Bible
understanding. Rather, he has complete
confidence in the truth as is revealed by Jehovah through his
Son Jesus Christ and the faithful and discreet slave,
meaning that the real revelation comes from God through Jesus to
the Watchtower Society. And you cannot have any personal
opinions of your own whatsoever. Now, this is what's taught.
Now could you admit? Listen, it's obvious that when I
preach the Word of God, I want you to believe what I believe.
I mean, if I didn't believe that, then I wouldn't be very
earnest about what I was doing, would I?
In fact, I'd be a charlatan if I didn't want you to believe it.
And I want you to believe it not because I believe it.
I want you to believe it because I believe that's what the Word
of God says. But in the end, one of the Bible
truths, one of the Bible principles, one of the things
that's fundamental about being a Baptist is something called
individual soul liberty, which means this.
We're all individually accountable to God.
You may believe one thing, I may believe something else.
We all have to believe what the Word of God says, but in the
end, let God be true with every man a liar.
That's what it comes down to. And so no, I'm not minimizing
Bible doctrine whatsoever. I'm not saying, well, you have
your truth and I have my that's the garbage that's out there in
the world today that's being propagated by all these
different thoughts. There's no truth.
It's just wishy washy. You have your truth and I have
my truth. And listen, that's that's
absolutely let me use a non Bible term for that hogwash.
That's that's what it is. But I will say this, that the,
that we understand as Baptist that, well, there are going to
be people who look at things differently and we're going to
have to just give it all to the Lord.
And that if you don't look at everything exactly the way that
I do, you're out because you are a rebellious independent
Baptist. It's not supposed to work that
way. Now, again, are there doctrines
that we would look at and say, well, yeah, these are important,
that, well, every doctor is important, But you understand
what I'm saying, That they, that if someone came in here and
said, well, I'm a member of Liberty Baptist Church, but I
don't believe in the deity of Christ, we'd have a problem,
wouldn't we? But there are some other issues
that we would look at and say, well, we're going to all do the
best we can to be able to love one another and be able to do
right by one another. And then we just give it to
Jesus Christ. But a cult would literally say
you do what we do down to the NTH degree or you're out.
And that's what it says here. Now, who decides these things?
That's an interesting question. According to an April 15th, 2013
Watchtower publication, the earthly part of Jehovah's
organization is structured in this way.
What's that first group, the Governing Body?
This is about 9 men who meet together in New York.
They are the ones who make all of the decisions for the Jehovah
Witnesses, including at the end times.
When the end times are commencing, literally everyone.
Is Jehovah Witnesses supposed to wait for what the Governing Body
tells them to do? Nobody to do anything until the
Governing Body tells them what the plan is.
And so from there it goes to the branch committees, the traveling
overseers, the bodies of elders, congregations.
Those congregations are the Kingdom Halls, and finally the
individual publishers. And again, the publishers are
those who personally distribute the literature.
That is the hierarchy that's there, such as the power and
authority of the men who make up the Governing Body, that no
witness dares challenge or question them.
You cannot challenge, you cannot question a Jehovah Witness
Governing Body member. They are perceived as Jehovah's
representatives here on earth. A Jehovah Witness cannot
disagree with what he is told. He must accept the published
literature and the word of the elders whose job it is to
enforce loyalty. And again, unity is good.
I think we'd all agree unity within a church is a wonderful
thing. We should be united about the
word of God, shouldn't we? But unity with threats is
coercion. It's not real unity.
And to be able to say that, you have to believe every single
thing that this Watchtower publication says.
And if you don't, then you are not loyal to the group and you
can be expelled. You said, do they really expel
people? Well, if someone agrees,
disagrees, and makes their objection known, they will be
disciplined. And the ultimate fellowship or
ultimate punishment is to be disfellowshipped.
And some of you here have known people in the past and you've
been at our church who have been disfellowshipped from Jehovah
Witnesses. I don't want to name people
without their permission, but some of you are familiar with at
least one gentleman who's been here before with it was
disfellowship, disfellowship by the Jehovah Witnesses because he
expressed opinions that were different from the Watchtower.
Now supposedly now this doesn't always play out, but what is
supposed to happen is a disfellowship member is shunned
by all witness, friends and family, sometimes resulting in
decades of estrangement. Those still in the organization
or advised not to have anything to do with the shunned
individuals, Watchtower materials say do not look for
excuses to associate with a disfellowshipped family member.
Now, we'll say this because I know several, and we have
several who have been part of this world either through
themselves or through their family in the past.
Not every family follows that. Not every family is going to
disfellowship a family member because they believe something
different about the Word of God. Thank the Lord for those who at
least have the sense to be able to do that.
But the. Actual doctrinal teaching from
the Watchtower is this is what's to happen.
It's very similar to an Amish shunning that it's like someone
doesn't exist. Now again, does that always
happen? No, it does not always happen.
But this is what is taught is supposed to happen.
And I think the Jehovah Witnesses realize it doesn't
always happen, which is why the Watchtower makes such a big deal
about it in different times and occasions.
So the Jehovah Witnesses maintain a high level of control
over what their congregations learn.
Independent study is anathema. That's why you saw, hey,
whatever, whatever king of Hall you go to, we're all going to be
learning the same thing because they're all in the same week of
materials. They're all following the same
thing. Because independent study is not
only not encouraged, it is told it cannot happen.
Listen, this is a quote from, again, the Watchtower.
All who want to understand the Bible should appreciate that the
greatly diversified wisdom of God can be known only through
Jehovah's channel of communication, the faithful and
discreet slave. I'm going to read that again.
All who want to understand the Bible should appreciate that the
greatly diversified wisdom of God can only become known
through Jehovah's channel of communication, the faithful and
discreet slave, which is the Watchtower Society.
That means this. You can't know the Bible without
them. You can't understand the Bible
without them telling you what the Bible says, and you can't
study it for yourself. Now listen, has God-given us as
a church leadership? Yes.
You're a pastor or a Sunday school teacher or or even others
that will teach the Word of God and preach and model the Word of
God. He absolutely has.
There's no doubt about it. We're thankful for the
leadership that God has put in place in his churches, not just
here at Liberty Baptist Church. And it seems kind of
self-serving to say that because, well, I'm the leader,
but really the Lord's the leader, but he's given us human
leadership as well. But listen, you know what I
really want you to do during the week?
I want you to study your Bible without me.
Now, if you want to call me and ask me a question, that's fine.
Hey, pastor, I read this. What do you think about this?
Or, or if you want to read the Bible together with me, Hey,
that's great. But listen, the end goal is to
get you to read your Bible on your own every day.
Do you know why? Because I may be your teacher,
but I believe it was John who made clear in one of his
epistles that there's a teacher that's inside of you and that's
the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit ought to be your teacher
and your guide. And listen, I want to be able to
teach you. I want to be able to guide you.
I want to be able to help you that this guy's calling upon my
life and I'm thankful for. But listen, if all the teaching
and guidance you get from the Word of God is just here on
Sunday morning and maybe even Sunday night and Wednesday night
and Sunday school, praise the Lord, that's four hours.
That's not even taking 4 hours to teach.
That's just 4 hours of service. Well, if it's services, maybe a
little bit more than that. But anyway, you understand what
I'm saying. The idea is this, You need to be
in the Bible every day, by the way, you need to be able to do
it yourself, to read and have the Holy Spirit speak to you.
And not just take what I have prepared, but be able to say the
Holy Spirit will allow me to and help me to prepare something on
my own and teach me and help me. Dan Woodward.
I keep quoting him this morning because I keep looking at him
out of my, my left eye here. But he says if I, if I just got,
got food when I came to church, I'd starve.
He said, I come to church for dessert, right.
I want to get a little bit something extra.
And again, the thought process is this.
If you just ate three times a week, you'd starve.
You got a feast on this every day.
And by the way, here's the good news.
He wants us to feast on it every day.
He desires to meet with us and desires to grow with us.
And next week, by God's grace, I want to look at the New World
Translation. I've had a copy in my office for
several years, and I want to look at some comparisons of
verses. I want us to be able to see why
is the New World Translation so different from the Bible.
And we're going to explain why that is and why it makes it so
hard to be able to talk with Jehovah Witness.
But then we are going to talk about how we can win them to
Christ. I want to leave you with this
and I'm going to be done because I'm going to remind you this,
and I've said this almost every week and I will continue to say
this every week. It is so vitally important.
Are we attacking the adherence of any of these religions and
cults? We are not.
We are attacking the authorities and we're attacking the articles
of faith because those people, those adherents are the ones
that we need to love to Jesus Christ.
They are the ones that are out there that are standing there
and they might have those nice clothes on and they might be
smiling, but in the inside they're wondering, am I going to
make it? Have I done enough?
Well, I get to the Kingdom, and what they deserve is not listen,
not our anger that they're out there peddling false doctrine.
And listen. I understand a righteous sense,
some of that. But with deserve, even more than
that is our pity and compassion. And that compassion and pity
ought to move us to be able to share the gospel with them.
Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of
Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing
to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us
know by contacting us at info@mylibertybaptist.org.
Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,
MA. May the Lord bless you as you
grow in His Word.