Bless us now as we open your scripture
and we examine the non-christian cult of
Jehovah's Witnesses.
I pray that you'll open our minds up
and cause us to be receptive to your
spirit.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Okay, we ended up with number 8 on
the second page.
There's two statements down there at the bottom
of the page.
The first one is, if Jesus was God,
who ran the universe for three days while
he was in the grave?
This is a question commonly asked by a
Jehovah's Witness, kind of as a smokescreen.
They want to fit everything logically into their
mind and they have a misconception about the
nature of the Father and Christ.
Now, this statement kind of shows their ignorance
of what we believe.
We don't believe that Jesus was ever the
Father.
Christ was never the Father.
He is a totally distinct person, separate from
the Father.
Now, this statement confuses that fact.
When a Jehovah's Witness says God, he most
often means the Father or Jehovah.
When we say Jehovah, sometimes we mean the
Father and sometimes we mean Christ.
But the Bible teaches that Christ is Jehovah,
but Christ is not the Father.
The Father is the name for the first
person in the Trinity and Jehovah can be
used for any member of the Trinity or
to So the terminology has to be watched
carefully.
This question, if Jesus was God, who ran
the universe for three days while he was
in the grave?
Jesus was God.
The question is, who ran the universe for
three days?
The answer is the Father.
It's very simple.
You don't have to really go into it
too much deeper than that, but you have
to make sure that you realize that Jesus
is separate and distinct from the Father.
Even though he always remained God, he was
separate from the Father.
We sometimes use the word God and mean
the Father, but usually when we say God,
it stands for the office, the Godhead, which,
depending on the context, can be talking about
any one of the three persons.
But we have to remember there is only
one God manifested in three persons.
It's not unreasonable to believe that.
It's just beyond reason.
The Jehovah's Witnesses try to simplify religions and
the nature of God so that they can
understand it.
But if you pin them down, they will
admit they don't understand the nature of God.
But whenever you touch on the Trinity, they
say, how can three be one?
It's not reasonable.
So the best comeback to that is, do
you understand the nature of God or is
it a mystery?
And they will always say they do not
fully understand the nature of God.
No one does.
If we can understand God's nature, then he
wouldn't be God.
If we knew everything he knew, he'd be
no more than we are.
Okay, let's look at the next question.
If Jesus was God, who was he praying
to in the garden?
Himself.
Same thing.
These two questions are our favorite ones of
the Jehovah's Witnesses.
You can use the same logic to answer
that question.
He was praying to the Father.
Okay, do we have any questions?
I want to open up this session since
it's going to be our last for questions.
Okay, now Jesus was
fully man when he prayed.
He had taken on the form of a
slave.
And that human nature did not want to
go through that suffering.
We've got to understand that Jesus was not
praying as God at that point.
But he had a human nature just as
we did, just as we do.
And we all know that our natural man
fights within us.
The spiritual man sometimes gets the worst end
of the deal.
But Christ had a human nature just like
we did, just like we do.
And when he was praying in the garden,
as a man, he didn't want to go
through that punishment and that pain.
But he said, not my will, but yours.
We're going to look real briefly at John
1.1. Now in the Jehovah's Witness Bible,
they have translated for John 1.1, in
the beginning the Word was, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was a
God.
The Greek says, in the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was toward the God,
and God was the Word.
There's one problem in the Greek, and that
is when they put the English underneath the
Greek, they did not capitalize the word God.
So in the mind of the translator, they're
differentiating that God from the other God.
But the same word in the Greek itself,
without the translation underneath, is theos.
And numerous places in the New Testament, this
word is directly referred to as the name
of the Father, or referring to Jehovah.
They say it's unreasonable to assume that the
Word could be with that God, or could
be that God with whom he was said
to be.
He couldn't be the God and be with
God at the same time.
It's unreasonable.
And in their appendix, they have a long
section on John 1.1. It covers about
four pages in real small print.
And I've gone over this real carefully, and
the only thing that they can come up
with as a final statement on why they
mistranslate that verse is this statement.
The first part of the statement I'm going
to read, we agree with.
And then you'll see the last part of
the statement, you'll see their reasonable conclusion why
they have to do it that way.
In the original Greek, there is no definite
article, the, before theos, which is God.
And it's presumptuous to say that such a
definite article is to be understood.
So that the sentence should therefore be translated,
and the Word was God.
Now that's a fact so far.
There is no article before the Word God.
And it's presumptuous to think that one should
go there.
Okay, here's what they say about that.
That would mean that the Word was the
God with whom the Word was said to
be.
This is unreasonable.
For how can the Word be with the
God, and at the same time be that
same God?
That's their whole argument.
They have no basis for translating it that
way, other than the fact that it's unreasonable
in their mind to have the Word be
with God, and at the same time be
God.
Okay.
Now, if you want to further combat that
error, you can look in the context.
If they're going to be putting an article
before the Word theos, then they have to
be consistent.
They have to do it every place.
They can't just pick and choose where they
want to put it.
So if they're going to say a God
in verse 1, then in verse 6, they
have to say there arose a man that
was sent forth as a representative of a
God, because you have the same type sentence
structure in that verse.
You have to say a God.
That wouldn't be right.
Then farther on down, verse 13, and they
were born, not from blood, or from a
fleshly will, or from a man's will, but
out of a God.
Next verse 18, same sentence structure.
No man has seen a God at any
time.
Okay?
You kind of get the point?
They have to be consistent.
Let me read you Caldwell's rule that we
have on this page.
A predicate nominative preceding the verb does not
take the article unless the context demands it.
That's the rule that maintains that in John
1.1, it has to be translated, and
God was the Word, or and the Word
was God.
No article.
And in that long appendix they have in
the back of the KIT, they have verse
after verse after verse that they use for
explanation on why they do what they do.
But every single one of those verses points
out that Caldwell's rule still holds in those
verses.
The verses they give as proof do not
prove they are right.
They prove they are wrong.
Because if you hold to the rule, which
is recognized by all Greek scholars, those verses
point out the fact that the verse is
correctly translated in the regular Bibles, and the
Jehovah's Witness translation is wrong.
But people don't take the time to check
those verses out.
They read this big long list of verses
and they say, well, look, all this is
evidence.
We must be right.
They don't take the time to check it
out.
All those proof texts are evidence against them
on this point.
Isaiah 43.10 is very interesting about that.
I'm reading out of New Record standard here.
You are my witness in the presence of
the Lord, and my servant from when I
was chosen, in order that you may know
and believe me, and understand that I am
he.
Before me there was no God formed, and
there will be no one after me.
And that shows the wonders.
Right.
That's probably the key verse when we're trying
to understand the nature of God.
It has three things in that verse.
You are my witnesses, whom I have chosen,
that you may know and believe and understand
that I am he.
Before me there was no God formed, neither
shall there be after me.
Then the next verse is good too.
I, even I, am Jehovah, and besides me
there is no Savior.
Now that is correct if you believe in
the Trinity.
But if you do not believe in the
Trinity, that makes that verse false, because we
know the Savior is Jesus Christ.
But here in the American Standard, it says,
I am Jehovah, and besides me there is
no Savior.
We know there is a Savior besides the
Father.
But this verse is correct, because Jesus is
Jehovah.
Revelation 1.8 points that out.
Matthew 1.23, very important.
Let me read it out of the New
World Translation.
The last part of the verse says, And
they will call his name Immanuel, which means,
With us is God.
Out of their own Bible they say the
name of Christ, which is another name, is
Immanuel, when translated means, With us is God.
They don't put a God at that point.
With us is God.
A little bit more interesting is over in
the Greek.
It says, With us THE God.
Not a God or not God in general,
but THE God in capital letters.
So that's very important.
Look at Isaiah 9.6. We'll hit that
from another angle.
For unto us a child is born, and
unto us a son is given.
And the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Remember we talked about Jesus is not the
Father?
This verse had me stumped for a long
time, because I couldn't fit this into my
theology.
How can Christ be the Everlasting Father?
I checked this verse out with a guy
named Dick Knowles who taught the Catholic thing,
and he said, Look in the Hebrew Bible,
and in the Hebrew Bible it has, instead
of Everlasting Father, it is translated from the
Hebrew Father of Eternity.
And it all cleared up at that point.
If Father of Eternity is the correct translation,
as all the Hebrew Bibles state, then there
is no conflict at that point, because we
know that Christ created all things, and he
was before all things.
He goes back to time indefinite.
There never was a time when Christ didn't
exist.
And he could be called the Father of
Eternity, because there was nothing before him.
He was always with the Father.
This word Mighty God here in Isaiah 9
.6 can be backed up in Jeremiah 32
.18, who shows loving kindness unto thousands, and
recompenseth the iniquity of the fathers into the
bosom of their children after them.
The Great, the Mighty God, Jehovah of Hosts
is his name.
Now, we've had the verse in Isaiah 9
.6 that says, Christ is the Mighty God.
Here it says, Jehovah is the Mighty God.
We've got a problem here.
Now, are we to assume like the Jehovah's
Witnesses that there are two Mighty Gods, one
Jehovah and one Christ?
No.
Turn back to Isaiah.
You might have to keep coming back to
this verse a lot of times when you
talk to a Jehovah's Witness.
Isaiah 43.10, Before me there was no
God formed.
That lets out anything before the Father or
before Jehovah.
Neither shall there be after me.
I, even I, am Jehovah.
Besides me there is no Savior.
Now, there is only one God.
His name, if we want to use the
Jehovah's Witness terminology, is Jehovah.
He is the only Savior.
But the fact that they fail to realize
is Jehovah is manifested in three persons.
We can have plurality in unity even as
the body is made up of many organs.
All the organs make up the one body.
If you wanted to get something that is
purely one, unity incomplete, we'd have to go
to the one-celled amoeba, and nobody would
compare God to a one-celled amoeba.
But the higher the living organism, the more
complex its unity becomes.
John 10.30, I and the Father are
one.
What did the people that were around there
think he was saying?
Did they think he was saying, I'm one
in purpose and in spirit?
A lot of the prophets and the priests
of the day made that claim, and that
didn't rattle anybody's cage.
But when Jesus said, I and the Father
are one, what did the Jews do that
were standing around?
They picked up stones to kill him.
Nobody could say, I and the Father are
one in that sense and mean I and
the Father are one in essence and power.
Just before that, he said, before Abraham sprang
into existence, I am, which is what he
said to Moses.
Christ said to Moses from the burning bush.
So he was perfectly understood by the hard
-hearted and ignorant Jews.
Why the Jehovah's Witness people can't understand it,
I don't know.
But even the Jews understood that.
Question?
Okay, let's
read a little further.
Okay.
Verse 33 says, The Jews answered him, For
a good work we stoned thee not before
blasphemy, and because thou being a man, makest
thyself God.
They understood what he was saying.
Then Jesus said, we called the people of
God back in the old times, the judges.
And you get upset because I said I
am the Son of God?
Now read on.
If I do not the works of my
Father, believe me not.
But if I do them, though you believe
not me, believe the works, that you may
know and understand that the Father is in
me and I in the Father.
That's the key to the whole thing, that
verse.
Christ was in the Father, the Father was
in him.
Right.
Well, that might be what he was saying.
But are we ever one like Christ and
the Father are one?
No.
That is the ideal.
He prayed that we might be one, even
as they are one.
But that doesn't happen.
We don't reach that until we become glorified.
That's the ideal, though.
But I haven't seen anybody yet that could
match up to that.
Now, I don't understand exactly what the term
means, that we are in Christ and Christ
is in us.
I don't understand that.
But like we said before, 164 times Paul
states that the believer is in Christ or
Christ is in the believer.
And it doesn't mean in union with.
It means in, positionally.
So positionally we are in Christ.
Practically, we don't measure up.
That probably is the key.
But you'll never be able to convince a
Jehovah's Witness of that because he doesn't believe
that we can be positionally in Christ.
Yeah, we have some tapes available by John
on that, the positional unity and the practical
unity.
And it gets complicated.
When I talk to a Jehovah's Witness, I
never get that far, because either they come
to the point where they realize the New
World Translation is dishonest, or they don't want
to talk about anything anymore.
Once they believe the New World Translation is
dishonest, they're no longer a Jehovah's Witness.
They can't be a Jehovah's Witness and believe
that this book is dishonest.
They come out of it.
So as far as arguing over verses, doctrinal
verses, it's absolutely futile unless you can break
down their foundations, right here.
And that's what we talked about the first
week.
Okay, back into Isaiah.
There's so much good stuff in Isaiah.
Mark these down in your Bible if you
have a pen or a pencil.
You'll always need to go back with these
when you're talking about the nature of God.
They'll say there's lots of gods.
You take them back to Isaiah and show
them.
Thus saith Jehovah, the
King of me, there is no God.
This verse was the one verse that led
a Jehovah's Witness girl that I was witnessing
to out of it.
And she accepted the Lord after seeing this
one verse from the 1901 American Standard.
It uses the word Jehovah.
And she could relate to that as a
Jehovah's Witness.
And after showing her the basis of their
Bible was wrong, she was open.
And when she saw that verse, things just
clicked in her mind like that.
Let me read that to you again.
Listen carefully.
Thus saith Jehovah, the King of Israel, and
his Redeemer, Jehovah of Hosts.
There's two Jehovah's, both saying, I am the
first and the last, and besides me there
is no God.
That's devastating evidence.
Okay, skip down to verse 8.
Fear not, neither be afraid, for have I
not declared unto thee of old and showed
it, and ye are my witnesses?
Is there a God besides me?
There is no rock, I know not any.
Jesus is called the rock, but there is
no rock besides Jehovah.
Okay, here's another good point that when you
deal with a Jehovah's Witness, ask a Jehovah's
Witness who created the earth.
You know what he'll say?
Jesus Christ.
Okay, look at verse 24 of Isaiah 44.
Thus saith Jehovah, thy Redeemer, and he that
formed thee from the womb.
I am Jehovah that maketh all things, that
stretches forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad
the earth, who is with me?
There's nobody with him.
He did it alone by himself.
Jehovah's Witnesses will say that the Father did
this through his master workman, Christ.
Okay, the illustration they'll use is an architect
can say, I built that Golden Gate Bridge
because I designed it.
Somebody else actually did the labor, but I
really built it because I am the master
designer, and I just had workmen go out
and do the job, but I am responsible
and I built it.
They'll say that's what's happening at this verse,
but we have to look at the verse
again and see if that can be a
possibility.
I am Jehovah that maketh all things, that
stretches forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad
the earth, who is with me?
Okay, now maybe in the further stretch of
imagination an architect could say, I made that
bridge, but he could not say, I alone
made that bridge by myself and there was
nobody with me.
He could not say that because then he
would negate the fact that he didn't actually
do the work.
He had other people do the work.
He couldn't make that statement.
So unless the Bible here is fabricating a
lie, we have to say that Jehovah did
it all alone by himself.
If you hold to the idea that God
is manifested in three persons, we've got no
problem.
But if you hold to the fact that
there is more than one God, you've got
a tremendous problem all through scripture.
Question?
Isaiah what?
4028.
Hast thou not known?
Hast thou not heard?
The everlasting God, Jehovah, the creator of the
ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is
weary.
There is no searching of his understanding.
That's a good one.
Even that last part, there is no searching
of his understanding.
We can't understand him.
And in Deuteronomy 29.29, it says the
secret things belong unto Jehovah.
Question?
Yeah.
The main ammunition of a Jehovah's Witness is
taking two unrelated scriptures and fitting them together.
And you can prove anything you want that
way.
Okay, let's look one more in Isaiah 48
.12. Hearken unto me, O Jacob, in Israel
am I called.
I am he, I am the first, I
also am the last.
Yea, my hand hath laid the foundation of
the earth, and my right hand hath spread
out the heavens.
Notice several times in Isaiah we've seen that
Jehovah is called the first and the last.
And in Revelation 1.8, 1.17, 21
.6, 22.7, and all those verses under
the next heading on our paper say that
Christ is the first and the last.
Okay, let's look one more time at Galatians
4.8. You've got to know that one.
Albeit at that time, not knowing God, you
were in bondage to them that by nature
are no gods.
And if a person is not a slave
to Jesus Christ, who is he in bondage
under?
Okay, now this is a very important statement
that is being made.
Because it's said that these persons are in
bondage to those who are by nature no
gods, but yet they are called gods.
But when we say God, we think of
the God because there is only one God
by nature.
Sometimes you have to go over that point
50 times to a Jehovah's Witness to say
that even though Satan is called the God
of this system of things, he is by
nature no God.
Okay, we looked at John 8.58 last
time.
I had a question this morning.
A person came up and said, I shared
John 8.58 from your mimeograph sheet, and
the Jehovah's Witness denied that there was such
an edition as the 1950 edition of the
New World Translation.
Then he went back and he checked it
out.
He asked all the elders and the overseers
in the church, and they say, no, there
is no 1950 edition.
They would like to believe there is no
1950 edition, because it has so many glaring
errors in it.
The worst one is in John 8.58,
where they make up a Greek tense to
fit the verse, and we saw that last
time.
Okay, John 18.5 and 6.
They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus said unto them, I am he.
Okay, now this I am is the same
I am as when they picked up stones
and tried to stone him back in John
8.58. Again, he says, I am.
Verse 6, when therefore he said unto them,
I am he, they went backwards and fell
to the ground.
That he is inserted for clarification.
Okay, let's see what it says in Greek.
John 18.5, ego ame, the same exact
statement as Christ made in John 8.58.
Now, why would they fall backwards if he
said, I am Jesus, or I am he?
The statement was so powerful, I am, the
same statement that Jehovah made to Moses in
the burning bush.
That statement was so powerful that in John
8.58, the Jews took up stones to
stone him for using that sacred name.
That's the reason the Tetragrammaton appears, the YHWH,
because in Hebrew, the words I am were
sacred, so they took out all the vowels
in the sacred writings.
All they had left was YHWH.
That statement was so powerful, it knocked all
the guards over backwards in John 18.6.
That's how powerful that name is.
Okay, Mark 14.62. Then Jesus said, I
am, and you persons will see the Son
of Man sitting at the right hand of
power and coming with the clouds of heaven.
There's that name again.
I am.
Okay, now, real quickly, we'll look at some
things in Revelation.
This is the best proof that Christ is
one with the Father, or Christ is Jehovah,
depending on how you want to look at
it, because they both say, I am the
first and I am the last.
Christ says it, Jehovah says it in the
Old Testament.
You cannot have two firsts and two lasts.
The first one is Revelation 1.8. We
saw that a little bit last time.
That's where it all starts.
The problem is, in Revelation, the Jehovah's Witnesses
pick the book apart, and they say, here
John is speaking, here an angel is speaking,
here Jehovah is speaking, here Christ is speaking.
And whenever you try to pin them down,
they say, well, that isn't that guy, that's
the other guy.
So, if you read the context, start from
the very first, read all the way through,
then you can prove it to them.
But you can't just take out a verse
out of the middle and prove anything, because
then they'll take you back to a verse
out of the first part and say, see,
it says Revelation, Jesus Christ, which God gave
to him and through an angel, etc., etc.
So, if you want to take the time
to go through, start at the first verse
with a Jehovah's Witness and read down to
verse 8.
Otherwise, he'll back you up and say, wait
a minute, this isn't Christ speaking, this is
Jehovah speaking.
Verse 8 says, I am Alpha and the
Omega, saith the Lord God, who is, and
who was, and who is to come, the
Almighty.
They shy away from that word Almighty because
that only refers to Jehovah in their mind.
But we've got to understand that Jesus is
called Jehovah all through the Bible.
He's not called the Father, but he is
called Jehovah.
Now, they'll say, this is not Jesus speaking.
You've got to go from the beginning, read
through there, and keep reading down to about
verse 17.
Because I asked an elder in the Jehovah's
Witness church, who is speaking?
He said, Jehovah, not Christ.
I said, who's speaking all through here?
Who's talking in verse 17?
When I saw him, I fell at his
feet as one dead.
And he laid his right hand upon me,
saying, fear not, I am the first and
the last.
I said, who's that?
Jehovah.
That's Jehovah.
I said, okay, read the next verse.
And the living one.
And I was dead.
And behold, I am alive forevermore.
And a color just drained from his face.
And he says, oh, I'll have to check
into that some more.
I'm not real sure anymore who that was.
So, once you point that out, that the
whole context is talking about Jesus Christ.
The Father never died.
Christ did.
Okay.
Revelation 21.6. And he said unto me,
they are come to pass.
I am Alpha and the Omega, the beginning
and the end.
I will give unto him that is a
thirst of the fountain of the water of
life freely.
He that overcometh shall inherit these things.
I will be his God.
He shall be my son.
That's Christ speaking.
He is the one that gives water from
the fountain of life.
He is the one that is the first
and the last, the Alpha and the Omega.
Okay.
Chapter 22.
Just to be sure we know who's speaking
all through, I'll give you the key verses.
22 verse 7 says, behold, I come quickly.
Is the Father coming quickly?
No.
Christ is coming quickly.
Verse 12.
Same chapter.
Behold, I come quickly.
And my reward is with me to render
to each man according as his work is.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the
first and the last, the beginning and the
end.
Verse 16 kind of pins it down real
close.
I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify
to you these things for the churches.
I am the root and the offspring of
David, the bright and morning star.
Then the last one, he who testifies these
things saith, yea, I come quickly.
Amen.
Come, Lord Jesus.
We looked at Micah 5.2 and Isaiah
9.6 already.
But Micah 5.2 and Hebrews 7.3
are key verses.
So have those in mind when the Jehovah's
Witnesses say that Christ is a creature.
Those are two verses they can't dispute.
Before we get into the Jehovah's Witnesses and
false prophecy, there's a couple of verses that
Walter Martin uses when he wants to stump
a witness on something.
First one is John 2, verse 18 and
19.
The Jews therefore answered and said to him,
What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that
thou doest these things?
Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this
temple, and in three days I will raise
it up.
Just to combat that idea, take them over
here and say, What did Jesus say he
was going to do with his body?
Now, if they say, Well, he wasn't talking
about his body, he was talking about the
temple, take them to verse 21.
The Jews said the same thing in verse
20.
The Jews therefore said, Forty-six years was
this temple in building, and you're going to
raise it up in three days?
But he spoke of the temple of his
body.
He was going to raise his own body
up in three days.
They've never been able to answer that question.
The other one that kind of goes along
with this, they say that Christ was unconscious
for three days while he was in the
grave.
Do we have any evidence that Christ was
conscious when he was in the grave?
What sign did Christ say to the Jews
that he was going to be raised up
from the dead?
They wanted another sign.
He said, No sign will I give you
but the sign of Jonah.
Now, the analogy is, Christ said, This is
the sign I give you.
Just as Jonah was in the belly of
the whale for three days and three nights,
so the Son of Man shall be in
the belly of the earth for three days
and three nights.
Now, if we can prove that Jonah was
unconscious in the whale, then the Jehovah's Witnesses
are right.
But what did Jonah do when he was
in the belly of the whale?
He prayed.
Can you pray when you're unconscious?
No.
So that verse kind of does him in
at that point.
Matthew 12.38 through 40.
There's three persons said to have raised Jesus'
body.
That's the problem.
See, God is said to have raised it.
Acts 2.32. In John 2.19, Jesus
said he was going to the spirit of
him who raised Christ from the dead.
The Holy Spirit is said to have raised
Christ's body from the dead.
All three of the persons in the Trinity
had a hand in raising Christ's body.
So that's another good point for the Trinity.
And Peter 1.11. 1 Peter 1.11.
One other thing while we're kind of on
that subject.
1 Corinthians 6.19 and 20 says your
body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 3.16 and 17 says your
body is the temple of God.
We've talked about Christ being part of the
Trinity, but we haven't talked too much about
the Holy Spirit being part of the Trinity.
Write those verses down.
1 Corinthians 6.19 and 20.
1 Corinthians 3.16 and 17.
They go together.
And the verses on the raising the body,
Romans 8.11, Holy Spirit raised Christ's body.
Acts 2.32, God raised Christ's body.
John 2.19, Jesus raised his own body.
Okay, now there's two more.
There's two verses we want to talk about
real quick, and that's Luke 4.8 and
Hebrews 1.6. These are two verses that
drive the Jehovah's Witnesses crazy.
Luke 4.8 says, And Jesus answered and
said unto him, talking to Satan, It is
written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,
and him only shalt thou serve.
There we have from Christ's own mouth, Thou
shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him
only shalt thou serve.
Then look at Hebrews and see what God
says to the angels.
Hebrews 1.6, And when he again bringeth
in the firstborn into the world, he saith,
Let all the angels of God worship him.
Verse 8, But of the Son he saith,
Thy throne, O God, is for ever and
ever.
Here the Father is calling the Son God.
They've never had an answer for this.
This knocks out the fact that they believe
that Christ is not God.
This knocks that out, and it knocks out
the fact that they believe Christ is Michael
the archangel.
Verse 5 of Hebrews 1 says, For unto
which of the angels did he say, At
any time thou art my Son, and this
day I have begotten thee.
Implying that at no time to no angel
did he ever say, You are my Son.
That's kind of two birds with one stone.
Now there's a quote from the April 1,
1972 Watchtower that has been real helpful to
me.
When we talk about Jehovah's Witnesses and false
prophecy, many times a Jehovah's Witness will say
nobody ever said or claimed that the Jehovah's
Witness organization is a prophet from God.
We don't believe the Watchtower Society is God's
prophet.
But in April 1, 1972 Watchtower says, A
third way of coming to know Jehovah God
is through his representatives on earth.
The question is, does Jehovah have a prophet
to help them, to warn them of danger,
and to tell them of danger, tell them
of things to come?
These questions can be answered in the affirmative.
Who is that prophet?
This prophet was not one man.
It was a small group of footstep followers
of Jesus Christ known at that time as
International Bible Students.
Today they are known as Jehovah's Christian Witnesses.
They're kind of stuck with that now that
they've printed it.
They claim to be God's prophet.
So then, how do we know whether they're
a true prophet or a false prophet?
First of all, look at Deuteronomy 18.21.
Start at verse 20.
But the prophet that shall speak a word
presumptuously in my name, which I have not
commanded him to speak, or that shall speak
in the name of other gods, that same
prophet shall die.
Verse 21.
And if thou say in thy heart, How
shall we know the word which Jehovah hath
not spoken?
There's the test.
That's what we're looking for.
How shall we know the word which Jehovah
hath not spoken?
When a prophet speaketh in the name of
Jehovah, if the thing follow not, nor come
to pass, that is the thing which Jehovah
hath not spoken.
The prophet hath spoken it presumptuously, thou shall
not be afraid of him.
But if he speaks a word presumptuously, verse
20, he shall die.
So that's the test of a true prophet.
Now, is the thing going to come to
pass?
And let's look at a few things.
The question I've written down here, have the
Jehovah's Witnesses ever said anything in the name
of the Lord that didn't come true?
Let's see.
I've got the book Jehovah's Witnesses and Prophetic
Speculation here.
And this thing is full of false prophecy,
just absolutely packed.
Here, I've got the quote from Watchtower Reprints,
Volume 2, page 1677.
This is talking about the false prophecy in
1914.
This is before that time when they were
still looking for 1914 to be the end
of the time of trouble.
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.
So they're speaking in the name of the
Lord.
These are 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.
Later they changed that to go the opposite
way.
So now we turn to Matthew 7.15
and we check out the fruit of a
false prophet.
This chapter is really good.
Matthew 7.15. Beware of false prophets who
come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly
are ravening wolves.
By their fruits you shall know them.
Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs
of thistles?
Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good
fruit, but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil
fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit,
neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good
fruit.
Okay, this talks about fruit and we're talking
about, in verse 15, prophets.
The subject of the whole passage is beware
of false prophets.
Then it talks about fruit.
Now, we know the fruit of an apple
tree is an apple.
The fruit of a grape bush is grapes.
The fruit of a true prophet is true
prophecy.
What is the fruit of a false prophet?
False prophecy.
Now, the Jehovah's Witness does not want to
believe this is talking about false prophecy.
He'll say this is talking about fruit, not
prophets.
But look back to verse 15 and see
what the thought is they're trying to get
across.
Now, how can a Jehovah's Witness be said
to be a wolf in a sheep's coat?
We saw two weeks ago that they smuggled
doctrine, false doctrine, into the text.
In many cases, in their New World Translation.
In this sense, I believe the Jehovah's Witnesses
are wolves in sheep's clothing.
Because they literally attempt to pull the wool
over the eyes of the unsuspecting Jehovah's Witness.
When they smuggle preconceived watchtower doctrine right into
a doctrinal verse.
With no indication that it's been tampered with.
I believe this is what it means.
That, you know, outside they look good.
But inside, when you get right down to
the people that are making the command decisions,
they are ravening wolves.
Okay, and further on down on this page,
we have some quotes out of this book.
You can see that time and time again,
they have made false prophets, false prophetic statements.
1922, they said the date 1925 is even
more distinctly indicated by the scriptures than 1914.
So nothing was ever said in the scripture
about 1914.
But 1925 is even more distinctly indicated by
the scripture.
And 1923, they said, our thought that is
that 1925 is definitely settled by the scriptures.
How sure?
The Christian now has much more upon which
to base his faith in the coming destruction
than Noah had on which to base his
faith in the coming deluge.
So now they're comparing themselves with the situation
in Noah's time.
Question.
These are taken from Watchtower, let's see, Watchtower
magazines in 1922 and 1923.
I might add that there's a syllabus that's
called, they've
taken full copies.
Good, that'll be real handy.
Let's see, this is taken from a section
of the book that just listed the things
in chronological order.
I don't see the thing here.
You probably have to check the Watchtower reprints
because I don't have the month of the
issue, just the year.
Question.
But what is the test of a true
prophet?
We saw in Deuteronomy, if the thing doesn't
come to pass, then that prophet shall die.
As far as the Bible's concerned, the Watchtower
society should be dead and buried because they
said something, even if it was only one
thing, in the name of the Lord that
didn't come true.
According to the Bible, they are to be
disregarded.
Yes, the problem is to get them to
admit, well, we didn't say that in the
name of the Lord, we were just saying
indications by scriptures are.
But they did say in the name of
the Lord, they say, we are God's prophet.
Anything that a prophet of God says on
the subject of God has to be true.
Otherwise, he's not a prophet of God, he's
a false prophet.
Just like Joseph Smith of the Mormon religion.
He is said to be a prophet on
the same level as Isaiah and Jeremiah and
anybody you want to pick in the Old
Testament.
Yet, time after time after time, false prophecy
come out of the guy.
Yeah, that's what we read.
Do they
believe that anybody?
No, they believe that the faithful worthies of
old, they call them, are part of the
144,000 class, which will be resurrected to
heaven.
And they will be the heavenly class.
And after 1930 or something, when they got
more than 144,000 members in their sect,
they had to change their theology.
So they made two classes.
Now they have a heavenly class, which is
all booked up.
And then they have a earthly class, which
is the remainder.
OK, good point.
They believe that these people will be resurrected
during the millennial time.
If they haven't had a chance, they'll get
a second chance at that time.
Yeah.
Then at the end of the thousand year
reign of Christ, when everybody gets their second
chance, if the Jehovah's Witness are, if they
are found faithful at the end, then based
on the merits of their own work, Jehovah
will grant them the free gift of eternal
life based on their own works.
Question.
OK, they had to cover themselves on the
1914 issue.
They said that 1914 is going to be
the end of the time of trouble.
Nothing happened in 1914.
Absolutely nothing.
They couldn't point to anything that could get
them out of the bind.
So they said, well, Christ came down from
heaven.
The great dragon was thrown out of heaven.
Christ came down to set up his kingdom.
He's here spiritually, but he's not here physically.
And they use the verse in Matthew, what
shall be the sign of your coming?
They translate that, what shall be the sign
of your presence?
So they're looking not for his presence, but
of a sign of his presence.
Question.
Yeah, handle me and see.
There's a kind of a fine line here.
They say, we don't believe flesh and blood
can enter the kingdom of heaven.
And we believe that also.
But Christ had a body of flesh and
bone.
It was a glorified body.
Wasn't the same as ours, but it was
a physical body.
Not flesh and blood, but it said flesh
and bone.
So there's a little area there that is
a little bit unclear.
See some question.
Yeah, you can get the reprints from the
Watchtower.
Watchtower reprints, I think they're six or seven
dollars for an entire year.
You can get all the issues of the
Awake and the Watchtower.
That was the April 1, 1972.
Yeah, I've never had that problem.
When I show them something, they believe it
and they try to change the subject.
Because most of the stuff I have is
documented.
I've got a lot of stuff at home.
But if I can read to them, they
recognize the style of the writing.
And nobody has ever said, well, that's not
true.
Because if they ever said that, and they
were proved to be wrong, they'd be in
big trouble.
Question.
Yeah.
Well, the problem you're going to have there
is if you say, go through the Bible
verse by verse, they can't understand it.
Because they don't have the mind of God.
You, being born again, can understand the things
of God.
But they, being the natural man, the only
way they're going to understand the Bible without
being born again is if they follow somebody
that attempts to render the Bible down to
easily understood things, which may or may not
be true.
So, yeah.
They're completely dependent on that Watchtower material, even
to the songs they sing in their services
on Sunday morning.
It's all printed in the Watchtower.
They don't make a move without consulting it.
Because unity is the most important thing.
That's good.
Any more questions before we close?
I just want to say that there's a
little magazine in the bookshelves, and it looks
exactly like a Watchtower magazine.
Yeah, that's good.
I leave that laying around the fire station
for the two Jehovah's Witnesses to pick up
by mistake.
Question.
Many other Jehovah's Witnesses that I've counseled with
have come out of it because of the
material in their own Kingdom Interlinear translation, proving
that the Jehovah's Witness organization has smuggled in
their own doctrine, preconceived ideas right into the
text.
And that's been the most fruitful tool that
I've ever used dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses, their
own book.
Okay, is that it?
One more.
That's the easiest way to get it.
No, you can walk up to the back
of the meeting.
After they're through, they have a bookstore at
the back of each Kingdom Hall.
And for $2, they'll sell you the book.
Another way to get it is if a
Jehovah's Witness comes to your door, you can
ask him to sell you his.
He'd be glad to because they get points
or credit or something else for selling books,
any kind of books.
Okay, let's have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you for what we've learned
this morning.
I pray that you'll be able to use
this material through us.
Help us to be open and clean vessels
for your use.
In Jesus' name, Amen.