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Grab my notes right here and we are going to talk today.
Oh, hello. If you're watching online, we're
glad to be able to see you and we'll be talking about the JW's
and the fundamentals of the faith.
Now we talked about the fundamentals of the Jehovah
Witnesses a couple of weeks ago, but I want to go deeper, just as
we did with Islam and not just talk about their fundamentals,
but how do their fundamentals match with the fundamentals of,
well, the word of God. Because as we often say, the
Bible says let God be true and every man a liar.
Listen, it's not about being a Baptist, being a Jehovah
Witness, being a Mormon, being a Muslim, being a Catholic.
Listen, it's about being a biblicist.
Now again, I'm a Baptist because I believe being a Baptist is the
way to follow the Bible. But at the same time, I'm not a
Baptist. And then follow the Bible.
I follow the Bible, and that makes me a Baptist.
A real following this morning. All right, I'm on decaf this
morning. Man, imagine if I had caffeine.
All right, boy, I would be like out of here.
All right. But anyway, someone might have
spiked it. John.
Thank you. I can.
I can still hear John. All right, so I'm feeling frisky
this morning. All right, so let's let's go.
No, but no, all joking aside, it's good to be a Baptist, but
we're Baptist, not out of tradition or because our parents
were or because it's just something cultural.
We're Baptist, I believe, because we want to follow the
Word of God, and that takes us to that logical conclusion.
So as biblical believers, how do we compare what the Bible says
about key doctrines to what the Jehovah Witnesses teach?
Now we're going to look at 5 different areas this morning, by
God's grace as the time allows, to be able to look at what the
Jehovah Witnesses believe and how it applies the Word of God.
Now you can see some commonalities with some things
because obviously we talked about the Muslims and how they
don't believe in the deity of Christ.
And well, the Jehovah Witnesses aren't going to believe in the
deity of Christ either. And so there'll be some overlap
of what the Word of God says. And I will be able to take for
granted a little bit that we've gone over some of those things
before. But we do want to compare and
contrast the truth and error. And we'll do that here this
morning. And the 1st place that we're
going to do that is in the issue of creation and evolution.
Creation and evolution and the Jehovah Witnesses reject
atheistic evolution. You say, what is atheistic
evolution? Atheistic evolution means that
there is no God and that there was a Big Bang and from that Big
Bang came everything that we see around us.
Theistic evolution, however, is a way that there are some groups
that try to marry 2 completely different thought processes that
there's God and there's evolution, theistic God
evolution, the evolutionary process that normally we think
of and try to marry the two together.
The Jehovah Witnesses very much believe in theistic evolution,
and you're going to see that in just a moment by God's grace in
a video that I want to show. You have three different ones
today that and not from my perspective, but from their own
perspective from jw.org. And if we have any problems
showing the videos, and I know that we're still working on
getting that fixed, you can always turn around and watch.
And if you're online, you'll have no problem watching that
which we're about to show. But in the meantime.
But then let's see if we can queue up the first video.
The universe is vast and awe inspiring.
Earth and life on it are amazingly complex.
How did it all get here? The Bible book of Genesis says
that there is a creator, but the account is often misunderstood
or even dismissed as a myth. Is what the Bible says about the
origin of the universe plausible?
Scientists estimate that the universe is 14 billion years
old. This implies that the universe,
including Earth, had a beginning.
The Bible agrees, Genesis 11 reads.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
The account does not say when or how the universe began.
Rather, it focuses on the creative process that took place
on earth over six periods of time, which the Bible calls
days. Were these 624 hour days as many
believe? No.
The Hebrew word used in the Bible for day can refer to
various lengths of time. Genesis even summarizes the six
days of creation as one day, the day that Jehovah God made earth
and heaven. Each day in Genesis chapter 1
must have spanned extremely long periods of time.
The accounts perspective is also important.
The writer describes the creative periods as they would
have appeared to an observer on the Earth had someone been
there. He would have seen events that
started in one period and then progress into the following
periods. Light penetrates the atmosphere
to reveal alternating day and night.
Earth was covered with water and vapour filled the air.
The dense clouds lifted from the waters that covered the earth,
forming an expansive sky between them.
Water receded to uncover dry ground and the first plants
appeared. The atmosphere cleared further
to reveal the sun and the moon. God created living creatures in
the sea and flying creatures above, and in the last period
God created land, animals and humans in harmony with the
Genesis account. The Bible says Of course every
house is constructed by someone, but the one who constructed all
things is God. The Bible does not speak in
scientific detail, but it's account of creation is logical
and reasonable. The Bible also offers logical
and reasonable answers to other important questions.
Does our planet exist for a purpose?
What is the meaning of life? What does the future hold?
To see the Bible's answers, go to jw.org or fill out the online
request for one of Jehovah's Witnesses to visit at a time and
place convenient for you. All right.
Yeah. So it's made pretty clear that
they believe in the biblical account.
However, they dismiss the very literal biblical account of
which they are claiming to hold on to in saying that each day is
not an actual day, a 24 hour literal period, but rather a
longer period of time. And this goes all the way back
to Charles Tays Russell. And it was Charles Tays Russell,
yes, the founder of the Jehovah Witnesses, who said in the
beginning we have merely the physical forces out of which the
grand structure is made by a gradually unfolding, or if one
prefers to say so, an evolutionary process that there
is a divine plan of evolution appears on the face of the whole
chapter saying Genesis chapter 1 to say that.
Listen, if you have a plain and honest reading of Genesis
chapter 1, you find evolution. And the answer to that is nobody
for thousands of years thought that to be the case until
Charles Darwin really codified some who were atheists who
wanted to find a way that God was not the creator of all, but
really created what is popularized now as the theory of
evolution. So Jehovah Witnesses believe
that the six days are actually 6 epochs of time, each one lasting
around a period of 7000 years. So a day is not really a day,
each one is 7000 years beyond that before day one that the
earth was formed. But yet was uninhabited and void
for those 13 or so billion years that were mentioned.
And so it is the Jehovah Witnesses way of trying to be
able to say we believe the Bible, but we also believe in
the evolutionary process as well.
Which two thoughts do not harmonize at all.
Excuse me? The March 2014 Awake magazine
states the Bible does not support fundamentalists and
creationists who claim that the creative days were literal 24
hour days. They say the Bible does not
support that. In another Awake magazine just
recently, they said this God created the universe, including
the earth in the indefinite past in the beginning.
As Genesis 11 says, modern science agrees that the universe
has a beginning. A recent scientific model
suggests that it's almost 14 billion years old.
And the same article speaks of the false ideas of creationists
that could lead one to dismiss the Bible altogether.
And basically they're saying this, we have to embrace
evolution because if not, nobody will believe us, they won't take
us seriously. And the fact of the matter is,
we embrace the truth for what it is, and we leave the
consequences to the Lord. And so, sure, if a biblical
account of creation is what the Bible says, which it does, then
we embrace it. And what?
Well, we just let the chips fall where they may.
We believe God and we don't believe what we believe out of
the Bible, depending on what the consequences might be and how
we're perceived in public. That's certainly not belief.
That's certainly not faith. Now we understand that the world
was created in six literal days. Now, contrasting to what the
Bible says, what do we find? We find that in the evening in
the morning we're the first day Genesis chapter one in the
evening in the morning we're the second day that over and over it
is reiterated that these days are literal morning and evening
days, literal 24 hour cycles in the way that we would know them
today. Exodus 20 verse 11 when the 10
commandments were given, it was said for in six days the Lord
made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is and
rested the 7th day wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and
hallowed it. So they're very in the very Ten
Commandments is shown that the earth was created and all around
us in those six days, including the fact that Romans chapter 5
verse 12 says there was no death before sin.
Can you imagine animals living in those epochs of time they
would have had to continue to live and to procreate.
Romans 512 states wherefore is by one man.
Sin entered in the world and death by sin and so death passed
upon all men for that all have sinned.
We know there was no death before the fall of creation.
So again, there's just really no way that you can harmonize what
we see in the Word of God and also the Jehovah Witness view of
evolution. Now, they did make a point that
the word day as it's rendered in the Hebrew doesn't have to be an
actual day. And I would concede that that is
true. The word Yom, that's what it is
in the Hebrew. The word Yom can often mean or
maybe not often, but occasionally mean a day in the
sense of an epoch and era and age.
And we mean that today too, don't we?
So times we use the word day and we don't mean it in a 24 hour
cycle. We live in the day of AI right
now, don't we? I mean, everything's AI right
now. You turn on the news, you turn
on a television show, a movie, everybody's talking about AI.
Where I mean, it's not like it wasn't around before people
would talk about it, but we're, it's everywhere right now.
AI. We live in the day of AI, but
nobody thinks, well for the next 24 hours people are going to be
dealing with AI. It's very understood in the
context of the way that you use it that it's talking about not
just a 24 hour period, but something much longer.
So while the word Yom in Genesis chapter one could be referring
to a longer age than 24 hours, the very essence of the chapter,
the evening and the morning or the first day, the context makes
it clear what's being spoken of. It's not using one of those
occasional references to something as the day of AI or
the day of Christianity or the day of whatever you would want
to speak. You know, we're talking about
back in the day. That's a great illustration of
that. No, no, what are we looking at?
No, we're looking at a 24 hour period that's found in the word
of God. And so that's the first contrast
that we would make with Jehovah Witnesses.
And again, there are many more that we're going to be able to
cover this morning. Understand that, but we'll give
you some of the highlights here today.
The second deals with the character of God, the character
of God. The Jehovah Witnesses deny the
truth of the Trinity, focusing on the Father alone, in which
they call Jehovah. And again, we would call Jehovah
God Jehovah as well. Jehovah is his name.
There is no doubt about that whatsoever.
However, they focus on Jehovah. In fact, we'll look at this next
week, Lord willing, as we get into how to converse with a
Jehovah Witness in the right way.
They will want to have a conversation with about this.
What's God's name? And they will probably get most
people off on a tangent of which they normally don't think of.
And really, we're having a conversation right before
church. The one of the greatest things
you can do is is to be able to take that say.
Well, before I answer that, let me ask you this.
Who do you believe Jesus Christ is?
And really, that gets them onto a whole different track that
they probably don't want to be discussing at that moment.
The Jehovah Witnesses fixate on the name of Jehovah to the point
that they say we are commanded to be able to call him Jehovah.
Now Jehovah is his name. In our King James Bible, when
you see capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, the King
James translators have done that to us in their wisdom to be able
to help us to understand where the name of Jehovah is the Lord.
However, we find nowhere in Scriptures where we are
commanded or we are in sin. If we do not call him Jehovah,
there's nowhere found in the Bible.
As I mentioned last week, in the New World translation, the New
Testament, the name of Jehovah is added multiple times,
hundreds of times where it's never even found in the Greek
text. And so the Jehovah Witnesses
have made this a very core belief.
And I'll, I'll take this as an aside for just a moment too.
They, they, they believe that if you do not use the name of
Jehovah properly, that again is a grave error.
But I do find it interesting that they call themselves JW's
because it would seem like that's a very flippant way to be
able to use the name of Jehovah. For somebody who fixates on the
name of Jehovah. What was that yet, JW Jim
Weather. But I've been using your name in
vain for the last several weeks. Boy, no wonder.
No wonder if you look so agitated, Jim.
But everybody's feeling good this morning, aren't we?
All right, this is good. But Ralph, you know, we're all
we're all set, man. This is good.
Yeah, he's good. He's good.
But the JWS, they will do this. And, and again, this isn't me
saying that they call themselves JW, jw.org.
We just talked about that. It would seem like if you have
this high reverence for the name of Jehovah, you wouldn't just
call him J. So I, I just, that's just a side
of something that I've been kind of chewing on the last few days.
Now the Jehovah Witnesses do believe that God is a loving and
merciful God, which I hope no one here today would argue with,
because certainly we believe the same, that our God is loving,
our God is merciful. However, they believe that
Jehovah is so loving that there is no punishment for sin and
there would be no punishment for sin whatsoever.
But however, this does run contrary to the very nature of
God itself, because while God is merciful and while God is
loving, he is also a God who is just as well.
Why do you think Jesus Christ needed to go to the cross for
our sins to fulfill the penalty of which we could not, We would
have had to pay ourselves that Jesus Christ took that upon
himself. But they believe that God is so
loving that he could not be just and that he could not be someone
who could make people to be able to answer for their sins.
And this goes so far and we'll look at this in just a moment
that their belief of life after death has been skewed quite a
bit because there could not be a literal place called hell
because God would never quote send anyone there.
We'll be showing you a pretty powerful but also very, very
manipulative video about that in just a couple of moments.
Why I'm so passionate about showing these videos, not
necessarily because it's, you know, fill in time and I have
less to teach, you know, but it's because I really want you
to see these things from their own mouths.
Not just me saying it, but also to be able to maybe understand
propaganda, to be able to understand how to spot it and to
be able to identify when verses are being used improperly, those
types of things as well. The Jehovah Witnesses also
refused to acknowledge that God is omniscient going so far.
You know when we say omniscient that God knows everything, right
Omni? Everything That God is all
knowing? In fact, they believe that God
had no idea that Adam and Eve were going to sin.
If Adam and Eve were going to sin, then God and his omniscient
should not have created them. And so God selectively decided
not to know what would happen with Adam and Eve after they
sin. And again, there's no biblical
foundation for this whatsoever. Our God is all knowing.
He knows the beginning from the end because he is the beginning
and the end, the alpha and Omega.
And in case you're curious, he was before the beginning and
he'll be after the end because in the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth. And I love the fact that even
Genesis 11 doesn't make the plea to believe that God was.
It just states that he already was.
There's no longwell, let me explain to you why God really
did exist. You know, it's just like you
already know He exists, right? So let's get right to it.
And that's the beautiful opening to the Word of God.
It couldn't be. It just could not be that God
had no idea. By the way, if He didn't know
about that, what else does he know about?
I'll tell you this, not a comforting thought that God
wouldn't have known that they were going to send.
Does that mean that He doesn't know when we're going to send?
What selective foreknowledge does he have?
When does he take it? And again, when you get away
from the moorings of the Word of God, you can go anywhere and no
one can argue with you. And so when the faithful and
discreet slave, which again is what they would call themselves,
decides on a new doctrine or changes a doctrine when it's not
connected to the Word of God, you can't really argue with it.
You just have to keep following along where they have taken you.
And so the character of God is this.
And we'll look more at Jesus Christ specifically in a few
moments, but the character of God in general, there is no
Trinity. God is not all knowing.
God is loving and merciful, but He truly is not just, and He is
certainly not the God of the Bible.
Well, third goes hand in hand with #2 which I just alluded to
a moment ago, which is life after death.
The witnesses believe that the dead simply cease to exist.
Of those who have died without being part of their quote UN
quote elect, of those who are the quote UN quote redeemed,
they just simply cease to exist. Death acquits a person from
their own personal sin. Some will be resurrected, yet
others won't. Now turn your Bibles to Romans
chapter 6. And I want you to do that to
kind of get you ready for what we're about to see, because I do
want you to see if you can spot several places of error and
again, an emotional manipulation as well in the video that we're
going to see. So go ahead and turn to Roman 6.
I'll give you just a moment to be able to do that.
And then they'll be queuing up the second video.
We'll show that just a moment, but I want to make sure
everyone's got the pages where they are.
And we'll look at Roman 6 in just a moment.
But in the meantime, let's roll that second piece of footage.
Many religions teach that God condemns the wicked to eternal
torment after they die and hope that this fear of torment
prevents them from doing bad. Does God really punish people
after they die? The Bible reassures us that the
dead are unconscious and that they know nothing at all.
If the dead are unconscious, they cannot suffer.
Does that mean God does not punish wicked people at all?
No, God explained to the first human couple how they would be
punished if they rebelled against Him.
God said nothing about torment or hell.
He simply said you will certainly die.
And after being expelled from the Garden of Eden, that is
exactly what happened to wicked Adam and Eve.
They passed away and became dust.
The Bible says that after death one is no longer accountable for
past mistakes because the one who has died has been acquitted
from his sin. But there is an even greater
reason why a hell of torment could never exist.
The Bible tells us God is love. Would a loving God command that
sinners be tormented not just for minutes, but for all
eternity? Consider the following.
In Bible times, God condemned the practice of sacrificing
children in the fire to false gods.
He said that such a cruel deed never even entered his heart.
We hate the idea of such brutality because we are made in
the image of a loving, merciful God.
Clearly, we do not need to worry that our dead loved ones might
be suffering punishment somewhere.
The Bible tells us that they are at peace, at rest.
But why do good people die? What happens to them when they
die? What hope is there for our dead
loved ones? To learn more, go to jw.org and
search for these topics or fill in the online request for one of
Jehovah's Witnesses to contact you.
Again, the emotional manipulation of the video with
the small child, with the flames, with the music swelling
at the right times is very, very high.
But what we also see was there was a lot of of mistruth, I
mean, from beginning to end, from the point of being able to
say the verse from Ecclesiastes that the dead know nothing.
And, and really that was contrasting the idea.
And Ecclesiastes don't have time to turn there, but we could.
And I would encourage you to look up any of these verses on
your own. Again, there's certainly nothing
to be hidden here whatsoever. The way to debunk these types of
false doctrines is we will go straight to the word of God.
But the idea was, what's the book of Ecclesiastes about the
vanity of life, that you just keep going and going and doing
and doing. But Solomon, for the more he
got, the more he did, he realized, I still feel
unfulfilled. But really the idea was, listen,
what you're going to do, you do it in this life because the
decisions that you make in this life affect the life to come,
but not the fact that there was no life to come whatsoever.
That just wasn't taught. It says those who are dead were
acquitted from sin. That was the big one to me.
Romans chapter 6, like, you know, basically saying that
look, so when you die, you are found not guilty anymore for
everything that you ever did. The question would be then why
would Jesus need to die on the cross then if there was a full
acquittal and if they were acquitted of those sins when you
die, then why couldn't you also be one of the elect as well?
Well, what does Romans chapter 6 actually say?
Well, again, it's important to go to the word of God says this.
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? Now is this being talked to
about to believers or unbelievers?
This is talking to believers here.
God forbid. How shall we that are dead to
sin live any longer therein, though he not?
That so many of us that were baptized into Jesus Christ were
baptized into His death, therefore we are buried with him
by baptism into death. That like as Christ was raised
up from the dead by the glory of the Father, Even so we also
should walk a newness of life. For if we have been planted
together in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the
likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man
is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed,
that henceforth we should not serve sin, For he that is dead
is freed from sin. What is it talking about that
once you are saved, you're free from the sin you used to live
in? It's not talking about, it's
talking about a completely different that video talks about
something completely different than what is being mentioned
there at all. I mean, absolutely to be able to
take something over here and say no, no, look over here, don't
look at that. And what they are hoping and
praying that people will do is not open a Bible and not look at
these verses and say, well, well, I mean, that's what it
says. It says it in the Bible, but not
realize, well, it says that in the Bible, but it's taken and
twisted so much that that's out of context, that that's not at
all what's being said. And that's certainly not just
being said here. Is God love?
Absolutely that God would condemn people to hell.
No, when Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which is
lost, the desire was that all come to repentance.
That was the desire of Jesus Christ at the heart of God.
Even today that he finds no pleasure in the death of the
wicked. He makes that very clear in the
word of God. You know, it's not God that
condemns. Remember, the hell was prepared
for Satan and his angels. But at the same time, there are
those who continue to rebuff the advances of Jesus Christ.
They rebuff the gospel. They do not want it.
It's not that Christ desires that again, that's why he died
on the cross for his sins. But yet they say this place does
not exist. The Bible makes it clear it
does. And no one talked about it more
than Jesus did. Jesus talked about it quite a
bit. You can go to Revelation chapter
20, Revelation chapter #21 it's a place, a lake of fire, of
torment, of smoke. You can talk about the rich man
and Lazarus, all of these things.
The rich man and Lazarus isn't a parable, I believe, because
parables don't name people. So here's Lazarus, who's in hell
and torments. The Bible says no, no, these are
very, very real things. And then to try to equate the
children going to hell with those who are being sacrificed.
And again, the the absolute disingenuineness and the
dishonesty of the Jehovah Witnesses in that video.
Because many Christians believe, as I do as well, that those
before an age of accountability, those who don't know how to
accept Jesus Christ their Savior, are safe with the Lord.
That a child who was one or two years old or even older who
could never call upon Christ to save them are safe with the
Lord. Just as David said when his
newborn baby died. He says that I will go to him.
I will be where he is someday. In indicating that that David
would see that child in heaven, you say, well pastor, how does
all of that work? I don't know how all of that
works other than the Bible says so.
And so I don't need to know all the insurance and outs of it
other than to just trust what the Bible says.
And just so try to equate children being sacrificed to
false gods like Molech. And to say that, well, that we
would be saying that's what God is doing is is again, so
dishonest on its face. And so you could see a great
difference between what the the leadership of the Jehovah
Witness would say about life after death and what the Bible
says. But then we also see the 4th and
perhaps even the biggest difference would be in the deity
of Christ. Now we've used the word deity of
Christ. What do we mean?
We're talking about that Christ is God right now.
Jesus made it very clear over and over and over again that he
was God. He was accused of that at his
trials. He was attempted to be stoned
when he said I and the Father are one.
Everyone knew as time went on of who he was.
He was very quiet about it at first to allow people to come to
their own conclusions at their own time.
But when times allowed it, and when Jesus in his perfect wisdom
sought the need to, he made very clear who he was.
And there was no doubt by the time he was on the cross who he
was. And people had to make that
decision, each and everyone on their own.
But yet the Jehovah Witnesses would say that Jesus is not God.
He is the Son of God, but not God the Son.
Say that that sounds kind of confusing, no?
Well, that he is literally a son of God.
Like I am the Son of Victor, but I am not Victor, right?
I am the son of Victor. We would say that God is not
just the Son of God, but he's also God the Son, meaning that
he is the Son of God, but he's also God himself because he's 3
and he's one. Say, pastor, how is all that for
the Trinity? We don't understand all of that
other than to say the Bible makes it clear that's what it
is. We're not worshipping 3 gods.
We worship one God and three persons and the Godhead.
So what do they believe about the deity of Christ?
Well, we have our third and final video and it hasn't been
going good this morning. Man, this is great.
We hadn't had to crane our necks or, you know, get back pain
today to watch it. This is good.
So thank you for fixing that, Brother Anthony.
So let's watch this last video. Many people regard Jesus as the
most influential person in history, but is he Almighty God
himself, or was he simply a good man?
Many people personally met Jesus and some of their accounts are
found in the Bible revealing who Jesus really is.
For instance, an Angel spoke to Jesus mother about her unborn
son and said this one will be great and will be called Son of
the Most High. When Jesus was being baptized,
God's own voice confirmed Jesus identity.
This is my Son, the Beloved, whom whom I have approved.
What did his followers believe? When Jesus asked who they
thought he was? Peter responded.
You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
What did Jesus enemies say? Those wanting to kill him
explained why, according to the law, he ought to die because he
made himself God's son. What did Jesus himself say about
his identity and relationship to God?
He told his followers, The Father is greater than I am.
Even after his death in resurrection, Jesus said this
about his future. I am ascending to my Father and
your Father and to my God and your God.
The biblical record makes it clear that Jesus is a distinct
person separate from God Almighty.
In fact, the Bible teaches that although Jesus is a powerful
spirit creature in heaven, he is still subject to his God and
Father. Still, God has given a special
assignment to his Son to bring everlasting life and happiness
to all humankind, just as God originally purposed.
What else does the Bible say about Jesus?
Did Jesus really perform miracles?
Why did Jesus die? Will Jesus return?
To learn more, search for thesetopics@jw.org or fill out
the online request for one of Jehovah's Witnesses to visit
all. Right, you can have you can have
wonderful graphics and good music blasphemy still blasphemy.
And what we just watched was blasphemy of the highest order.
It's interesting that they use the verse that I had just
mentioned to you about the Jesus calling himself the Son of God
and and they're being upset the Pharisees and such at that.
What will they were upset because they understood that
that term Son of God meant that he was deity that if you go to
the book of Daniel and you find the term the son of God and see
that that was made very clear in Daniel Chapter 7.
I believe that that yes, that the Son of God was God, that not
just a, a relationship of God and a lesser form of God or some
other spirit. No, no, they understood.
And for them to use that very verse, I thought was quite
ironic that they didn't explain why they would have been so
upset. And certainly that would be the
case. The person of Christ is the
single most important issue of Christianity.
Now Jesus is the cornerstone of the faith as it says in
Ephesians chapter 2 verse 20. You get the truth about Jesus
Christ wrong and everything else is wrong.
Jesus Christ, he is the chief cornerstone.
He is our foundation. We must get this information
right. Jehovah Witnesses believe that
Jehovah created the pre human Jesus as a spirit creature.
Did you get that term? That spirit creature manifest
himself as the Angel Michael, and that contradicts what the
Bible says about angels and about of all kinds of other
things, particularly Hebrews chapter 1.
After the Virgin Mary was with child, the spirit of Michael the
Archangel then entered Jesus the Teacher.
Jesus lived a perfect life, although he always could have
sinned and failed in his mid. He's always been subordinate to
his heavenly Father and he must not be worshipped or prayed to.
They teach that the cross is not called a cross.
He died on a what they call a torture stake.
But they refused to use the term cross.
They refused to show a cross. You will not find one in a
Kingdom hall. And although Jesus did die, his
body simply disappeared, was never to be found, and that he
is now again a spirit creature. And again, that was referenced
in that video. Although Jehovah Witnesses say
that Jesus is the Son of God, they deny that he was fully man,
that he was fully God, and they deny his resurrection.
They do not believe that he was the true Savior.
And so because of that, really nothing else on this list even
matters. You could just get to this point
alone and say, well, there's nothing here because they don't
believe in who Jesus isn't. A reminder, we identify cults
oftentimes 1 by usually a charismatic leader or group of
leaders that require a total allegiance and following.
But also we identify Christian cults by the fact that they use
the name and terms of Jesus. But yet at the same time, the
Jesus that they speak of is not the Jesus of the Bible.
We look at that Jehovah witnesses.
We'll be looking at that in the Mormons not too long as well.
And so they believe that the deity of Christ is not the case.
And 5th and finally, I don't want to, I want to just, we
don't have a video for this, but I do want to go over this
quickly. How are you saved as Jehovah
Witness? All right, we understand that.
Well, you accept Jesus Christ your Savior to be saved, don't
you, That you realize that you're a Sinner, only Jesus can
save you. You repent of those sins, you
call on Christ, you become a believer.
That's the way that it works. It's pretty cut and dry.
You understand what the Bible says.
You call upon Christ. Many of us remember the date,
the time we know where we were. And even if you don't know the
date and time, you remember what Jesus Christ did in your life
because it was a transformative moment in your life when you
pass from death unto life. Now the Bible says salvation's
deliverance by the grace of God from eternal punishment for sin
granted to those who accept by faith the message of the gospel.
It's the result of Jesus substitutionary death because of
his precious blood. It is undeserved on our behalf.
It's a gracious gift given to us by God through faith.
It involves repentance and calling upon the name of the
Lord. Now the Jehovah Witnesses have a
different view of salvation, one that relies on human works and
careful obedience. In fact, it's interesting that I
could not find a video on how to be saved.
It's interesting, you know, you go to most churches websites.
Our church has a page, my libertybaptist.org/jesus and you
find out about Jesus and how you can be saved.
Some churches have a video where the pastor will explain how you
can be saved. You know, you can search high
and low on the Jehovah Witnesses website, jw.org, All right, And
you can find out that there's no video that you can find like
that just to explain to somebody, how do I become a
Jehovah Witness? It's not that easy.
Well, deep in the murky recesses of the Jehovah Witness website,
I did find this page. And so I actually took a
screenshot to be able to show you this, and I'm not going to
break it all down for you here today, but this is a screenshot
that I just took this week from jw.org.
What must I do to be saved? You must believe that Jesus
sacrificed his life for our sins.
You must learn what the Bible really teaches.
Now may I remind you, that means that you must use a New World
translation, that you must follow the not just the New
World translation, but the Watchtower, the Awake magazines
and all of their publications because only those will show you
the true way of life. Because remember, the Christian
Church has been corrupted. It's been corrupted for
thousands of years. That couple 1000 years repent.
Of course we wouldn't argue with that in and of itself.
How do you be saved? You got to be baptized and of
course the word of God doesn't say that salvation is part of
baptism, does it? We'll see this morning.
Acts chapter 2. They were saved, were baptized
and they were added under the church that salvation comes
first. Baptism is a picture.
Maybe we're just looking at Romans chapter 6.
Death, burial, resurrection, the picture of what it is then you
must obey Jesus instructions. What does that mean?
Follow the Watchtower, you must do what they say.
There is total obedience without any questioning whatsoever.
Now, some of their directives uphold the moral stands of the
Bible. They forbid the lying, sexual
immorality, gambling in those areas.
The Witnesses are acting biblically.
But others, such as the prohibition against celebrating
birthdays, holidays, you cannot salute the fat flag.
These there's no basis in Scripture for these whatsoever.
You cannot take an oath in a court of law.
These are the types of things you cannot have a blood
transfusion. Remember we talked about this a
few weeks ago and how that changed over a dozen times that
edict changed a dozen times over the years.
And so obey Jesus instructions is not just well, first of all,
we don't obey Jesus instructions to get saved.
We get saved and then follow his instructions, but we follow his
instructions, not those of man putting words in Jesus's mouth.
And that's what the Jehovah Witnesses do.
And then you got to endure the end meaning this and get this.
If you get nothing else from this point right here, that you
can live your life as a good Jehovah Witness your entire
life, and you cannot know for sure that you will make it to
the end. There is no hope.
And that's why they continue to go to the Kingdom Hall.
That's why they continue to go to the meetings.
That's why they continue to stand by those communication
racks, and that's why they go door to door.
Why? Because they got to keep doing
it. And if you stop, you may not
endure to the end. There is no way that you can
truly know. Not a single Jehovah Witness has
assurance of salvation. They must remain faithful and
obedient until they die. Any witness could stumble and
fall and thereby lose hope of living forever in the restored
earthly paradise. Paradise.
Even the quote UN quote anointed remnant do not have any
assurance of salvation because they too could fail to cross the
finish line. Which means this salvation is
all up to you, but also through the organization, the faithful
and discreet slave. There is not a lot of comfort in
that friend. You know where there is comfort
to be able to be in the hands of Jesus Christ and know that He
holds you safe till eternity and that eternal life starts now and
last for, well, eternity. What a blessing that is, isn't
it? So how do we breakthrough, I'll
be honest with you, it's difficult, isn't it?
Because when they have their own Bible that have erased many of
the proof texts that we would use to be able to show someone
what it means to be safe. How do we communicate with them?
How do we help them? How do we talk to them, by the
way, how do we do so in a loving manner without mocking them and
making fun of them? Can you imagine how many of them
stand on those St. corners and already mocked and made fun of
and and they're already bracing themselves for you to come up
and do the same? How do we, in a loving and
compassionate way, show them Jesus Christ?
Well, we can find that out next week.
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.