Understanding the Jehovah's Witnesses (Dr. James White)

obviously if I've been asked to speak on the subject of Jehovah's Witnesses something tells me you have a fair representation of the witnesses here on on the island how many of you have had them knock on your door at some time the past everybody laughs okay how many how many found it to be an opportune time to be trying to talk to the witnesses when they knocked on idea okay all right it can be a tremendous challenge for many many reasons frequently is because you are not in the frame of mind or preparation but in reality when you think about it these folks are normally spending five hours a week preparing to talk to you and we might spend five minutes a year grand total preparing to talk to them so it's not really a fair battle and in my experience most Jehovah's Witnesses who are regular in there doing what's called service ministry where they're going door to door and even be considered a active publisher and hence to beyond what what might be called the membership roles of the watchtower I didn't really have membership roles but they do report the number of active publishers an active publisher needs to do ten hours a month and I ask you to think for just a moment how large would the Southern Baptist Convention be if the actual number of Southern Baptists was based on how many had spent ten hours in a month going door-to-door and outreach what's that yeah would it be one of the largest Protestant denominations no wouldn't and yet there are I've got this specific number in here but nearly 8 million Jehovah's Witnesses who follow that category and so you start doing the the math and you discover that it's a a very large group and a much much more dedicated group than almost any others to be perfectly honest with you there are a lot of things about the society there they're very interracial racially mixed there aren't they don't really have issues along those lines that something needs to be said for them as I said you know you see them going door-to-door and and even in Hawaii they wear their ties and not for the reasons that certain people are wearing their ties today who we won't mention on video because that would be really mean of me to do that so I won't but you can email me if you want details but anyways I mean you know they're dedicated folks are out there with their families and as we get into what Jehovah's Witnesses believe I think you'll have to agree with me that what the cults will do for a lie most Christians won't do for the truth and it should be I hope it is somewhat challenging to us to realize that at this very moment there are hundreds if not thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses going door to door most doors are slammed in their faces and for most witnesses the primary witness they have of Christian truth is from behind a slammed door go away or a cult bang and while the statement may be true every former Jehovah's Witness that I know of who has embraced Christ I know a lot of former Jehovah's Witnesses after the 1975 failed prophecy of Jehovah's Witnesses over a million people left the Watchtower Bible and tract society but 99.9% of them did not end up in a Christian Church 99.9 percent of them ended up as the religiously abused the burned out the we will never darken the door of any religious institution again people and even the witnesses who are still a part of the society and they continue to grow not at the speed that they used to grow but they continue to grow and I certainly a higher speed than Southern Baptists are growing those Witnesses believe that they are part of the great crowd they do not believe that they are in Christ they do not believe they have the benefits of justification they cannot partake of what we would call the Lord's Supper they're only partially justified and they will not live forever in Christ's presence they will live on a paradise earth and if they mess up while living on the paradise earth they will be wiped out it's called the doctrine of eternal insecurity at least as I would identify it they don't have a whole lot of reason to be happy and to rejoice they really do not and so I hope that as we think about these things and as we look at the situation these folks are in we will be challenged to realize that if we have the truth they need to hear that and we don't have to track them down they'll track us down now of course after you have your first really decent conversation with a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses there will be a big invisible X drawn on the front of your house I've watched it happen of I've seen them on my block you know and okay here they come you know I'm um you know and they go to the neighbor's house and then and then they go the other neighbor's house and they don't even look at my house because they know that one of those terrible active opposers lives there and so that's the term that they use they have their own whole bunch of terminology that's be careful if you do learn it in using it because if you use it they'll assume you're former Jehovah's Witness and Jehovah's Witnesses are not allowed to have any contact communication conversation with a former drove as witness and so they act factually use that I remember very clearly one Jehovah's Witness woman insisting that I was somebody else you're a former Jehovah's Witness no ma'am I have never been associated with a watchtower by own tracks I know you're a foreman I know who you are you name is Chuck love and I got out my driver's license those things can be faked your truck love you know and we're getting out of here and and I know that I knew Chuck love was and I knew he's a former travels witness but what may but that's how deeply ingrained the idea of shunning really is and so you need to be careful in the encounters the if you if you see if you let on that you know where they're coming from the witnesses have been taught to look for sheep like individuals who are willing to be led and if you are one who is going to give an answer and you're going to defend your faith there is going to move on so you either have to be careful in how you make the presentation I have an advantage when they come I when I I flew into Hilo last Saturday week ago today as soon as I got my bags I look over and here's a guy in a tie and he's got a bunch of publications out on a bench and I knew exactly who it was so I went straight over to him the pastor's are trying to find me out in the pickup area to come in and find me because I was talking to Joe was witness and he was a Baptist until 1999 when he became a job as witness and looks like we had said could we have I didn't chance to say much to him there but I I started off my conversation with them this is my advantage I say well you know I'm a professor and I lecture and what you all believe so I tell them right up front I know where you're coming from I've studied your beliefs and so I just get I just in fact what I do when I speak with Joe is witness I say could I summarize what I tell my classes about what you believe and get your feedback on it and they're like sure you know and then I just give them the absolute best possible accurate summary using their own language and references from their own materials and they're just blown away and it always buys me at least some time to then give a witness to them how long depends on the individual but if you're not in a situation to do that then you need to be careful as you approach them but I'm getting ahead of myself talking about witnessing to them before I've actually explained you where they're coming from we need to understand where they're coming from you noticed and what they believe and so I'm go through the primary issues with Jehovah's Witnesses one thing to keep in mind we're gonna be talking about two different groups today and while they are the common folks who are knocking on your door you know it's either two young men and a white shirt and tie on on on mountain bikes or it's you know the Jehovah's Witnesses with their Watchtower and wake magazines very rarely is it some other group other than those two they're the ones that are known for doing the cold calling and and we might have the opportunity of talking to them and in looking at these two groups what you're going to discover is this morning we are going to be looking at a narrow range of topics Jehovah's Witnesses but something that you need to know in depth it's a narrow range of issues that we have with the society but you need to know the material fairly in depth with Mormonism is exact opposite it's a wide range of topics but you don't need to know it all that in-depth and so narrow range need to know it well witnesses wide range Mormonism and it actually makes it a little bit easier to summarize the witnesses but the problem is you will find witnesses who spend the entirety of their life studying these issues to an incredible depth and they're very very difficult to deal with the fact I would say that a witness who is a pioneer minister a pioneer minister is someone who spends a minimum of 30 hours a week going door to door at least that's why it was a number of years ago it could be more than that I know that I met a pioneer minister once it was doing 90 those individuals are so actively involved and so constantly training and reading that they would they are more than a match on issues regarding the deity of Christ of the Trinity for almost any seminary graduate that I couldn't I could name with a Masters of Divinity on almost any decent seminary let alone the not so decent seminaries which predominate today so we're talking about people I hope you you will not leave this time and jump on your on your white horse and head off to the local Kingdom Hall to save Jehovah's Witnesses in all likelihood you'll end up being one of Jehovah's Witnesses okay this is introductory this should be challenging this should be wow I need to know a lot more about the deity of Christ I need to be memorizing more scripture because these people know their Bible the problem is their Bibles a perversion it is a mistranslation and in the second part especially we'll be looking more of that but way too long introduction what is it about this pulpit I just wax on and the clock goes fast it's really I feel like I just started and we're 20 minutes in well I got 25 minutes left I mean this is weird I mean last night I went over time I never go over time I'm the guy at the conference that gets the conference back on time and here it's just it's the shirts I just realized I'm in an Aloha shirt Nisour like this let's tell another story hey the trade winds are blowing and assisting in fact it's getting a little warm yup pop pop those that's some like nice cool breeze through here anyways alright what are the primary issues number one jehovah is the only true god the Watchtower Bible and tract society will identify themselves as monotheists as we are but they are also Unitarians now I don't have time if we were just doing a lengthy week-long seminar something like that we'd probably want to fit in my presentation on the Trinity I have a book called The Forgotten Trinity that a lot of people found to be very useful to use as a textbook I can't spend too much time during our time together going over basic Trinitarian proof texts and how to understand the doctrine and things like that that is obviously vitally important if you're going to be talking with your hope as witnesses because from their perspective that is the key issue and they are very well-trained at asking the difficult questions and as I said normally are more than a match for most of the ministers of the churches that are that are out there today and so understanding the doctrine of the Trinity understanding we believe that there is one true and eternal God and that that one being of God is shared by three co-equal Co eternal persons the Father Son the Holy Spirit the father is not the son the son is not the spirit the Spirit is not the father we do not believe Jesus was the father juice was not a ventriloquist at his baptism he was not praying to himself in John chapter 17 it's the son who became flesh not the father not the spirit understanding those issues regarding the Trinity is extremely important because the witnesses are excellent at finding out where you actually don't understand the doctrine and then pounding that to death all right so they are Unitarians we are Trinitarians that means we're both monotheists but they believe there's only one person sharing the being of God we believe the Bible reveals there are three persons that share the one being that is God now most Jehovah's Witnesses don't even realize that we know the divine name Hova now that's not how it was originally pronounced there is almost no chance whatsoever that jehovah was the original pronunciation what's called the divine name most scholars would say that the divine name was pronounced yahweh and in the hebrew it's called the Tetragrammaton three letters yo hey wow hey and it is used thousands of times in the Old Testament most English translations unfortunately do not render it I think that we should render it and let people know that it's there you can always tell in your English translation when you're looking at the name Jehovah or Yahweh because in the English translation it will be lor D in caps the O and the R and the D will be in capital form but a smaller font size over against the standard lor D which is Hebrew term adenine and so if you see Lord God and God is in all caps but the smaller o and D as far as the font size goes the underlying Hebrew word there is Yahweh it's used thousands of times in the Old Testament most jehovah's witnesses don't think we even know that when they find out for example that we use the trinity hymnal in our church and there's all sorts of before jehovah's awesome throne is is a is a him all reformed Baptists know it's all we all our kids are brainwashed into knowing before jehovah's awesome throne and and so when they find out they're people who actually do know the divine name that can sometimes throw them for a loop and in fact as we especially during the Q&A time I'll probably mention to you all the best ways to approach to Hovis witnesses is through those texts identify Jesus as Yahweh as Jehovah in in the New Testament and so that can really catch their attention but they believe Jehovah is the only true God they are Unitarians and that's something very important to keep in mind now second issue Michael the Archangel is Jehovah's first and only direct creation please notice I said direct Jehovah has only without any intermediation created one thing and that is Michael the Archangel all right so Jehovah has created one thing Michael the Archangel he then becomes the master worker so that point number three all other things were created through Michael so you think about wisdom in the Old Testament you think about maybe the Word of God there's various ways that's been described but you have this master worker and this Michael then becomes the mechanism the means by which all other things are created I put other in quotes for a particular reason as you'll see this will come up when we look at one of the mistranslations in the New World Translation you'll see how this is relevant button so Michael is a created being but he's the only one directly created by Jehovah and then through Michael everything else is created he is not the creator himself because he himself is created but he is the master worker by which all other things have been made all right that's Michael the Archangel point number four Michael became Jesus Michael became Jesus now what you need to note here and I hope I do not cause any problems with the microphone if I walk down front here what you need to note here is that the arrows that I have put here are purposeful now you see how you can barely see that right now now watch this sorry about this mr. a cameraman person professional and all that stuff the farther back I get the brighter it gets it's the angle and when I get back here you can actually see it so I don't know why that is but that's life the the arrows are purposeful that is an arrow going that direction right there that's the beginning point that's a beginning point those are two sort of end points Michael comes into existence here he exists for a certain time as a spirit creature then he ceases to exist Jesus comes into existence for 33 years he then ceases to exist Michael is recreated and he continues to exist for eternity okay so what you need to understand is that the witnesses do not believe that man has a spiritual nature you do not have a soul you are a soul you're just a living being and so there is no spiritual aspect to man and there was no spiritual aspect to Jesus so it would be inappropriate to think that Michael a spirit creature indwelt a man Jesus that's that's not you'll notice there are no lines connecting these Michael exists as a spirit creature and then comes out of existence at the point in time that the man Jesus comes into existence he lives for 33 years and then he comes out of existence and Michael is recreated and then he continues to exist this day there is no line that connects these two because there is no spiritual existence of man that would allow there to be any connection there and that's the same thing with us as well this is one of the great sad things about jehovah's witnesses is that they believe that when they die they will cease to exist it's a full-on soul sleep concept but what's worse is that resurrection for them is not what resurrection is for you not the Greek term Anastas found in the New Testament means that which died coming to life again when Paul mentions the resurrection of Mars Hill that's when the people begin to mock because in the Greek way of thinking salvation was the spirit being freed from this physical body and so they understood when Paul was using the term Anastas as he was saying that that which died was going to come to life again that was just the opposite of what they thought salvation was so we believe in resurrection that which died coming to life again the jovis witnesses do not believe in that definition of Reza instead their resurrection is that they die they cease to exist and then when they are resurrected Jehovah recreates them based upon his perfect memory of who they were so there is no direct connection it's almost a science fiction idea and I can't help but think that many a Jehovah's Witness has thought about that teaching and realized that's not really going to be me I mean it's going to be some other creature that's recreated might have my memories but it's not really me uh which is a frightening thing I mean you know Jehovah's Witnesses lose loved ones just like we do and yet they they have so little hope and so little and to think they do so much for so little is truly an amazing thing to consider and to think about so anyways it's important to realize that the Jesus that the Jehovah's Witnesses are speaking of is Michael the Archangel that is that is who their Jesus is and he is therefore the one through whom all other things came into existence so so Jesus in Watchtower theology is a creature he is the first most exalted and greatest of all of Jehovah's creatures but he's not Jehovah God he's not deity but he is an exalted now today spirit creature also known as Michael all right so there's first four points quite number five the Holy Spirit is a force not a person I do not know if the Society contemplated suing Lucas and Star Wars for their obvious ripping off the force concept but I don't think that they did the Holy Spirit is God's impersonal active force the Holy Spirit is God's impersonal active force similar to the electricity that's running through the lights above our head water running through a turbine it's a force it can accomplish something but it's impersonal okay so much so that in the new world translation of the Holy Scriptures I stole Shane's copy here for purposes today in their own self-published I really hesitate to call it a version of the Bible it is a perversion of the Bible it is a purposefulness translation of the Bible without any without any question about that but in the New World Translation you will notice it will it says for example that one will baptize you people with Holy Spirit small H small s no article just like he will baptize you with water you'll baptize you with electricity you'll baptize you with holy spirit that is how it is consistently rendered in the new world translation published by the Society or and he will be filled with Holy Spirit right from his mother's womb Luke 1:15 or Matthew 1:18 she was found to be pregnant by Holy Spirit before they were United now you may have noticed even just from those few references that reading the New World Translation is as exciting as chewing aluminum foil it is a horrid translation it is just to say that it's wooden it means I mean you get splinters from reading this thing it's just it's just that bad but we'll have more to say about the the New World Translation have you got any idea I don't like the New World Translation is that if I communicated that okay just want to make sure you know it can be early on a Saturday morning you didn't have enough doughnuts or something like that and so you might not be catching that but just want to make sure it was clear that there's a small amount of animus on my part toward the New World Translation as we will see number 6 jehovah has an organization the faithful and discreet slave of Matthew 24:45 I think about Matthew 24 remember the faithful and discreet slave even though his master is away you know he doesn't act like the Masters away he remains faithful so on and so forth this the society identifies with themselves the Watchtower Bible and tract society based in Brooklyn New York and if you want to know all things Watchtower their website as Watchtower dot-org and that's where you can get official information so on and so forth about the watchtower society this is Jehovah's only organization on earth there are there is not a group of organizations you are either associated with the Watchtower Bible and tract Society or you are in rebellion against Jehovah God that's all there is to it it's just that simple it's a very black-and-white world for Jehovah's Witnesses at that at that particular point number seven there are three groups in salvation I remember very clearly well the first theological things I remember as a young person I grew up in a pastor's home was the fact that when we lived in Pennsylvania right across from my backyard was a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses and so you know my dad told me well these people believe that only 144,000 people are going to heaven and and you know all the rest of stuff and it was right around the time where they had the 1975 prophecy in fact we left Pennsylvania in 74 so they were ramping up to that and and I just remember a lot about those those folks and so the first group is called The Anointed class now what's the word anointed in Hebrew anyone mashiac Messiah that's what the Messiah means The Anointed One and the Greek word for anointed is Christos Christ so this is the Christ class the Christ class and it's made up of 144,000 individuals no more no less it's not meant to be taken as a non literal number anything like that they may be moving toward that now be perfectly honest with you but has happened yet it has always been taught to be 144,000 literal individuals from the time of Pentecost until the Battle of Armageddon that's not a lot of people over 2,000 years period of time that's that's a fairly small number of individuals The Anointed class would include everyone basically this would be directly connected to what we would identify as salvation these people are in Christ they are justified they're in the New Covenant and if you ask well how do you know whether you're the anointed class I'll answer that in just a few moments right now I'll just have to skip that and show you how this works later there is very little chance very very very little chance that the witness knocking on your door or passing out watchtowers at the airport claims to be of The Anointed class the vast majority United class today is found only in Brooklyn New York so if you're visiting Brooklyn you might run into some folks who call themselves of the anointing class but a very very very small chance that you would run into someone on the island who claims to be of the anointed class instead the vast majority of jehovah's witnesses 99.99% are part of the great crowd the great crowd and they do not the the terminology they would use is that the anointed class has a heavenly hope and the great crowd has an earthly hope so the 144,000 when they die they are resurrected as spirit beings and they rule and reign with Christ who is one of the hundred and forty-four thousand because it's the Christ class the great crowd are resurrected as physical beings and they lived forever on a paradise earth and that therefore you know I if I really want to cut to the chase and talking Joe as witnesses say do you haven't heavily hope or an earthly hope that's not type of terminology we normally would use but that's type of terminology that's their language at that point so 99.99% of the people that you will talk to at the door claim to be of the great crowd and then it's real easy I mean watchtower society thought and practice is black and white then there's everyone else so it doesn't matter if you're a Baptist or a Presbyterian or Eastern Orthodox or Assemblies of God or a Buddhist or a Mormon or a Muslim you're all just everyone else you are apostate religion you are under Jehovah's wrath that's just all there is to it it's just that simple that's those the three groups when our mageddon takes place whenever that is and it's always held out to be it could happen this very day when Armageddon takes place then everyone who is not associated with Watchtower Bible and tract society will be wiped off the face of the earth and if you die in that judgment you will not be resurrected if you die the day before that you will be resurrected during the Millennium taught Jehovah's ways and given an opportunity to live forever in paradise on earth but there will be a great test at the end of the millennium and even Jehovah's Witnesses of the great crowd do not have any guarantee that even they will pass the test of faithfulness at the end of the millennium there just there is no concept of acceptance and security in Watchtower or theology it's just it's just it's just not there and so you can see in in the mind of the follower of the watchtower they've been taught that if if they listen to what you're saying and they in their heart and mind disassociate from the society and embrace what you're talking to them about and Armageddon happens the next day they're going to be wiped out with no opportunity of resurrection whatsoever they'll never have any opportunities whatsoever they'll just be wiped out and so that's sort of one of the ways the society keeps its people in is by basically saying you never know I mean if you'd have to be absolutely certain that we're wrong because if we're right and Armageddon happens tomorrow so much for you you don't have any opportunity of a resurrection okay now I said that there's an interesting way they know basically exactly how many of the anointed clasps are still left on earth not exactly but they've got a good idea this is how they know the Society has was called the Memorial Supper and it takes place on Nisan 14 that is the day of Passover normally the Thursday before Easter in in our calendar in 1974 1974 click there we go 4.5 million people gathered around the world to observe the Memorial Supper but only ten thousand seven hundred and twenty three of those 4.5 million people actually per took at the elements let me explain what that means when you see the kingdom halls around here locally if you've stopped and looked at them or visit or something like that or just stopped and maybe read the sign outside you'll see there are a number of congregations that meet in that Kingdom Hall in in Phoenix it's very common to have two English and then one Hispanic or two Hispanic and one English congregations meeting in a particular Kingdom Hall on a staggered schedule which makes sense when you think about I mean you build one building and you have three different congregations that can utilize that one building not only does that make economic sense but you've got three different congregations for helping to maintain the building as well and so you have that going on how then could everybody meet at once on one night if all three congregations met at the same time the building wouldn't contain it and so what they do is they rent halls lecture halls library meeting rooms high school auditoriums cetera etc for that one night so that all Joe is witnesses and all people interested in Jehovah's Witnesses can meet at one time that's a the number there then represents much more of the the people the range of people the society is impacting is that number much more than even the active publishers what would happen then is the elements the the bread and the wine are passed down these rows and the elders walk along the sides and they are watching very carefully and in the vast majority of those meeting places the elements are simply passed by by every person in the room the bread will get to the back of the room untouched the wine untouched but they're watching and if someone partakes they make note of that now if they don't know who you are and you don't have a lengthy history with the Watchtower Bible and tract society they're not going to consider your action to be relevant but especially around Brooklyn you're somebody who's been with the society for forty years you're in leadership you partake that is your way of stating I am of The Anointed class because the Lord's Supper is the new covenant meal and by partaking of it you're saying I'm part of the new covenant and only the Anointed class is in the new covenant the great crowd only has the benefits of association with the anointed class so it's a two tiered system I remember this one I need to find this every time I do this presentation I I go I keep forgetting to do this there's this great graphic it's not my blog I just need to look it up and stick it in here I was actually looking this going I knew there is something I need to put in here what was it now remember what it is I'm staying here maybe during the break I can track it down if I can get online there's this great graphic that the society has produced where you have the great crowd and they're looking upward they're not looking at Christ are not looking at Michael they're not looking at God they're looking at these small group of elderly people they're looking to The Anointed class and The Anointed class is looking up to heaven toward Christ so you see that the average Jehovah's Witness he gets the benefits only as he is associated with and and dependent upon and obedient to the anointed class and then the anointed class has direct access to God all right so what we have then is in 1974 four point five million per took I'm sorry we're there point two four percent per took look at the percentage that's the important thing in nineteen eighty five point seven attended 0.17% per took eighty eight nine point to around nine thousand per took about point one percent nineteen ninety four twelve point two eight see the numbers going up twelve point two eight million attended on Memorial supper point zero seven per took two thousand one fifteen point three million zero point zero five six percent per took though the number went up slightly remember these are older folks so they don't really wear themselves so much about that and two thousand eight the last time I get numbers on the number of partakers and this isn't interesting they're not telling us number of partakers anymore but the last time I could get numbers seventeen point almost eight million people worldwide attended the memorial supper remember they're only 14 million Mormons and that includes every Jack Mormon on the planet so you've got seventeen point eight million people worldwide gathering for the memorial supper and again about 0.05 six percent per took of all of those people now the reason for this and the reason that the number is going down I will explain after we take our break that means you have to come back and I know you're sitting on pins and needles you're not even going to be able to eat anything because you can be so excited to find out why that why is that number going down I've always wondered but we'll we'll take our break now and reassemble at ten o'clock okay so we were looking at the a memorial supper and we already looked all these numbers now the numbers going down why well because of what is called the 1914 prophecy 1914 prophecy The Watchtower Bible and tract society teaches that Christ returned invisibly in the fall of 1914 assuring in the last generation of Christians on the earth hence one generation from 1914 Armageddon will take place now if you're doing math that was a long time ago and by almost any stretch of the word imagination or a generation were well past that generation in fact initially when the 1914 prophecy came in the idea was you had to be a certain age you had to have eyes of understanding in 1914 had to be at least ten most people who were born in 1904 are not around anymore there are very very very very few people left on earth that were that are that old and so this prophecy is slowly being altered by the society they're doing it very very slowly very deliberately but they have learned that sudden prophetic changes are not good for religions like theirs and so they're doing it very slowly they're introducing new understandings of groups and so on and so forth and it used to be back in 1980s if you got the awake magazine the the banner for the awake magazine we'd be talking about proclaiming the good news concerning Christ and visible return in 1914 and all the rest of stuff that's all disappeared that's all gone now witnesses in the 1980s knew all about 1914 witnesses in 2012 know considerably less about 1914 because it's talked about much less in their literature now interestingly enough historically the society first taught that Christ returned invisibly in 1874 and that Armageddon would take place in 1914 1915 1918 1825 1943 and 1975 so far those are the there's a brief list of the various false prophecies of the society you would think that Harold Camping would have taken a clue from the witnesses but he did not and so we see what happened today yo y'all know Harold Camping right y'all remember May 21st and all that stuff I when I was in when I was in Glasgow Scotland riding the train into into downtown Glasgow all every stop had the end is near May 21st 2011 you know all over the place and it was it was sad because you know I see all these plot people walking by these and they're going to be sitting there on may 22nd May 23rd and yet again the faith takes a shot in the eye because the faults teacher but you know the only person to have ever debated Harold Camping on his false prophecy yeah that was me yep we had a debate about oh I don't know about not about 10 11 months beforehand in 2010 and I even offered during the debate I said The Herald on May 22nd I'll gladly take over for you on the open forum and I'll do a week's worth of programs on how to actually interpret the Bible and he didn't find that funny at the time he's he's issued a partial apology this past week so maybe maybe now he'd take me up on I don't know now so all of that helps us understand that why the percentage of partakers is decreasing the number of partakers as a percentage keeps decreasing as that generation gets older and older the Watchtower Bible and tract society teaches God stopped calling people into the anointed class in 1935 now if you remember 1935 I'm not trying to pick on you but you're one of our senior citizens and that generation is surely passing away and passing away quickly now what does the Bible say about three classes well I would just suggest you write these texts down and take a look at them we're not because I still have all the New World Translation material to get through I'm not going to invest my time in looking at them but in essence in Romans chapter 8 we are told that either you are in Christ or you're outside of Christ you are the spiritual alive or you're spiritually dead you're either in the spirit or you're in the flesh there is no intermediate group it's like being partially pregnant you can't be partially pregnant either you are or you're not either you're justified or you're not justified either you're in Christ or you're not in Christ this idea of a middle position just simply has no biblical foundation what's whatsoever if we look at book of Revelation the great crowd in Revelation chapter 7 is around the throne of God in heaven it's not on some paradise earth someplace and they even have to try to twist the meaning of the book of Revelation at that particular point as well so it is a fruitful area of discussion to challenge the witnesses on this particular issue and hence the biblical text might be of assistance to you at that at that point let's take take a look some startling to statistics and then look at the New World Translation the 1974 up past it too quickly sorry about that 1974 baptisms one hundred ninety three thousand nine hundred ninety nineteen ninety nine baptisms 323,000 for thirty nine the sixty seven percent increased note 2010 baptisms 294 three sixty eight a nine percent decrease and so their numbers are down it's difficult being an authoritarian cult in a postmodern society but their numbers worldwide are down even though 294 approximately three hundred thousand baptisms is a pretty healthy number for the vast majority of denominations which are experiencing decrease in the number of baptisms in the 1974 memorial attendees four point five million 2010 memorial attendees eighteen point seven million a percentage increase of three hundred and eleven percent during that time period and again those attending that is a little bit more of an accurate number reflecting the people who are influenced by the society then the number of active publishers is the number of active publishers again putting in ten hours a week most nominations would disappear if we if we numbered them based upon that kind of numeration all right okay now new or old translation how many of you have ever seen the New World Translation I mean I obviously I have the pastors here but when the Joe is witness comes to your door have you noticed they normally carry a book bag with them or at least one of the people in the group will have a a book bag with them and they have their publications they have their watch towers they have their wigs they have books field service ministry manuals that they will use that have questions in them and they can look up answers to the questions that might be asked of them something like something like that and then of course they will have the New World Translation and along with this they'll have a blue case bound volume called the kingdom interlinear translation of the Christian Greek scriptures oh and this is well let's just put this way if Christianity is a religion of the book if you twist the book you twist the faith and that's what this is I describe it here as a single most dangerous piece of anti-christian literature around because it is anti-christian it fundamentally alters the teachings concerning Christ the first time I remember one of the very first times I ever met with Jehovah's Witnesses I was a second-year Greek student at the time in Bible College and at the time I was not aware that John 1:1 is not the best place to go when talking with Jehovah's Witnesses it's not that John 1:1 is not an important verse as Shane was pointing out in the introduction it is in the beginning his Word was with God the Word was God they mistranslate as the word was a god but it's just that Jehovah's Witnesses can respond to that verse in a comatose state it takes no thought on their part at all to respond John 1:1 you bring it up they've been been there done that got the t-shirt you want to try to get independent thoughts started in their minds and getting them to rehearse and re say something they've said a thousand times before isn't going to do that but I didn't know that at that point and so John 1:1 came up and there's a woman sitting across me she's a housewife she's a housewife and she gives me a three and a half to 4 minute long pre memorized speech on the significant of significance of the lack of the definite article in the third clause of John 1:1 in Greek and it sounded really great except that I was a second year Greek student and I had a Greek text in my hand it wasn't a nail in interlinear in fact personally I find in Linear's to be a complete waste of trees seriously I mean if you and if you don't know enough Greek and interlinear will do no good for you and if you know enough Greek you don't need the interlinear so it just they exist they I've something's going on here I can tell right now the way Shane's turning around looking at people and I am just a tremendous flow of interlinear in fact and I taught Greek for Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary for a number of years I told my students I install a special feature in the doorway of this classroom if you walk into this classroom with an interlinear you will receive 20,000 volts and I think they believe me they're just there is that there's absolute waste of paper anyway so I had an actual Greek text so it's just the Greek text and so I took it and I handed it across to it I said could you show me a Greek article now she's just given me a three and a half four minute speech on Greek articles and she didn't even know which way to hold the text let alone could she find a Greek article she didn't know what it was now did I just to embarrass her no I was pointing out the fact that she was trusting what the Watchtower Bible and tract Society had taught her but the same time I hope we feel somewhat intimidated by the fact that here's someone who's at least concerned enough to have taken the time to have memorized something like that because they think it's true but it was it was a learning it was a learning experience on my part and by the way before we look at these mistranslations whatever you do and I don't care whether it's the Mormons Jehovah's Witnesses please do not leave this place and go run into one of these people and without doing your own study without doing more looking into these things start talking about something like well the Greek says or after the section on Mormonism going well Joseph Smith made a false prophecy at such-and-such a place because they'll catch you out they'll catch you out I was sitting in a restaurant with a friend of mine he was a an employer over a number of people one of his employees had asked him to meet with him to talk about drove as witnesses so this is off of this is away from work and we met together at a Denny's or something like that the employer and I had just ridden like 80 miles on a bike together or something like that and gotten cleaned up and went to lunch with these guys and we started talking with this fellow and I can tell immediately this Jehovah's Witness was a very sharp guy he knew his stuff very very well and very quickly we got into some key issues and one almost Colossians chapter 1 which I'll show you here in a moment the mistranslation is found there and I said well it's just I'm sorry but that's just not an appropriate translation whatsoever he goes oh do you read Greek I said yes I do and he opens up his New World Translation and he turns to the front and he he takes out a folded piece small piece of yellowed paper he opens it up and he slides it across the table to me he says what does that say and there you had two lines of hand copied Greek and like I said the paper is yellowed from age and he sort of sits back I love Donna said well you you actually miss copied this letter right here but what the whole thing says is let no one take you captive through inflate and empty philosophy and his eyes became big as saucers he said I have carried that piece of paper for more than 20 years and you're the first person I've had many people claim to be able to read Greek and you're the first person who actually read it so be careful before you say well the Greek says really translate that I'll be careful because later on the conversation I slit a paper across to him at the time I was scholar in residence at Grand Canyon University and I slid a paper that I had written the watchtower just massacred Ignatius of Antioch and had totally grossly misrepresented him I was teaching church history at the time and so I gave him a copy of the paper I'd written on and he he's looking down it goes Oh James White we know James life and I just went and he looks up and it's like there's a snake about raided him and turns out actually he had heard me on local radio stations and sort of wanted to do what I do in apologetics but as a Jehovah's Witness we had if we had a very good conversation the point is be able to back up what you're saying don't don't run out of here and say well the Greek here says and I go really and then it causes a major problem we already looked at John 1:1 here you have the New World Translation in the beginning the word was and was with God and the Word was a God they base all of this on a just a simplistic misunderstanding even though they will have some very complex defenses of it I have debated one Jehovah's Witness formally Java's witnesses will not do public debates and he is no longer a jehovah's witness I knew he wouldn't be for very long they actually excommunicate the term they used as disfellowship people who do that kind of thing partially because to do what this fellow does in defending watchtower side he had to read my books he had to read my book on the Trinity had to read Robert Bowman's stuff he had to read what's called apostate literature and you're not allowed to do that and so he's now started his own cult called the witnesses of yah aah it's a I don't know it's gonna go anywhere but you never know most people didn't think the watchtower side would go anywhere and certainly didn't think Joseph Smith was going anywhere either so who knows what it could be 100 years from now but some there are some very complex defenses of this mistranslation and this misunderstanding of what's going on in John 1:1 but again as I mentioned earlier you don't want to go to this text with one of Jehovah's Witnesses at the beginning of your conversation once you've established some foundations maybe but not in the beginning your conversation not when you're trying to get to person to actually start thinking on their own because if they're going door to door they know how to respond to John 1:1 they it doesn't even get the thought process started in their mind John 8:58 she is said that most truly I say to you before Abraham came into existence I have been instead of ego eimi I am which we don't have time now though it's a wonderful study there's I've got an entire chapter in my book forgotten Trinity on the I am sayings of Jesus John 8:24 858 13 1918 5 through 6 it is very clear to me that Jesus uses this phraseology in a very important way of himself but the point of course of the translation of the New World Translation is to remove the the language that Yahweh uses of himself a nexus 3:14 being used of Jesus let me just mention briefly the best way to handle the I M sayings is not to go from John 8:58 back to Exodus 3:14 the best way to present this as is to look at John all of John's uses and find that he's really drawing this from Isaiah and the Minor Prophets especially Zechariah and Zephaniah and Isaiah the minor for the major prophet and then from that make the connection back to X is 3:14 because an X is 314 when God says I am that I am I hey cher i a hey in Hebrew the Greek is ego eimi ha own I am the one existing and the one existing is ha own not ego eimi so even though egg limeys used there a sharp witness and there are plenty of sharp witnesses we'll catch you up on that so make sure that you're looking at it in in the appropriate fashion tips might be good to go the right direction Romans 9:5 New World Translation says to whom the forefathers belong and from whom the Christ spring according to flesh : God who is over all be blessed forever amens they put a pretty much a full stop so that Jesus is not being described as God you can compare the New King James which says of whom are the fathers and from whom according to flesh Christ came who is over all the eternally blessed God amen now again there I think there's good reasons to see the Romans 9:5 is a reference to deity of Christ different English translations are more or less clear in rendering in that way the New King James seems to be the clearest again a full discussion of the syntax patristic uses from the early church etc etc found in the forgotten Trinity I mentioned you Colossians chapter 1 and I mentioned at the beginning of our talk the word other was in quotes this is why here is the New World Translation you'll notice the word other is in brackets he is the image of the invisible God the firstborn of all creation because by means of him all other things were created in the heavens and upon the earth the things visible and the things invisible and whether they are Thrones or Lordships or governments or authorities all other things have been created through him and for him he is before all other things and by means of him all other things were made to exist now when the New World Translation first came out in 1950s there were no brackets around the word other and there was such a hue and cry on the part of New Testament scholars that they inserted the brackets in the later editions of the New World Translation but they still will defend this insertion and you can see why they have to put it in there if Jesus is Michael the Archangel then he did not create all things he created all other things because he himself is created and so they stick the word other in there and if you really are really really interested the defense they use is they use what's called the partitive genitive in the firstborn of all creation in verse 15 they're big on going going to that term they think firstborn means first created the Greek term prototokos does not mean the first created and in fact it's Old Testament usage is the one who has preeminence over all things but they think it means the first one created that is first one created by Jehovah God and that's how they defend their mistranslation it clearly is a mistranslation because it turns Paul's entire argument on its head they don't really concern themselves about that because the exegesis of the scripture in its original context is irrelevant to the watchtower all you have to do is look at their eschatology and you can see that finding all sorts of wild stuff to come up with the idea of 1914 and 1874 and every other number in between shows that the actual original meaning of the text is irrelevant to the society it's maintaining the society's authority in existence that is the all and all now Colossians 2:9 is one that I would recommend to your memorization I think in most of the situations where you're dealing either with Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses to be dependent upon the 28th book of the New Testament called concordance to find your verses I'll stop here let the coffee kick in you all can go concluded wait a minute there's no oh then you can figure out what I'm talking about you don't want to be looking up verses in a conversation with Jehovah's Witnesses because most the time they're not looking about they already have them memorized and that means they're in control the conversation and one of the things I've frequently heard from Christians who have talked with Jobos witnesses they they go I still feel like it got anywhere we covered so many different there's so many different topics that we covered it just didn't feel like we really accomplished anything if you want to control the conversation you have to have scripture memorized it's just absolutely necessary when I met with my first two Mormon missionaries I had 186 verses memorized I still have the list as well the piece of paper or someplace that I would memorize them then review them every few weeks and so on and so forth at 186 verses memorized within six months after starting studying Mormonism I had 654 verses memorized why because when you're talking with a missionary normally two missionaries sometimes when you're out at the Mesa Easter pageant or in Salt Lake City outside the gates the temple five or six missionaries I even walked into the Missionary Training Center in Provo Utah and was surrounded by about a thousand missionaries you do not have time to be looking up texts you've got to have the Word of God memorized and I I would highly recommend to all of us today it is sadly a lost art for most people and you yet don't you remember back in Vacation Bible School thy word if I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee how many of us memorize that Vacation Bible School huh it we've we we are so dependent on our devices and I'm the one where I'm terrible I am a device junkie I mean I've got my droid right there I've got an iPad in there a Kindle in there a MacBook Pro here I've got an iPod Touch that I lost on a cruise but somebody found they're shipping it back to me by some God yet but anyways and you know I've got all my stuff on there because I need to have all my stuff on there I mean I'll go out too when I go to London I go out with a group of folks that do Street ministry in Leicester Square anybody been to Leicester Square in London it's like Disneyland except it's real the buildings are real it's that beautiful you know how they have the the facades in Disneyland it looks like that's what Leicester Square really is and it's real it's it's just gorgeous and there's thousands and thousands of thousands of people's down near the the excuse me but haven't we had enough of this I can see my wife outside right now out on the beach going yeah oh that poor thing oh well anyways you shall not do this late this afternoon that's just all I can say okay anyhow where was I Moses in the bulrushes and London London and so what we do is we'd have a street preacher he starts preaching and the Muslims show up almost immediately and so the group around we set them out and they bring all the Muslims over to me and so I spend the whole night talking the Muslims so I've got on my on my iPod I've got the Quran and I've got the hadith and I've got the Greek text and and the textual critical material because the Muslims will say we've changed this you've changed it all of it you know I understand the gadget stuff I'm a gadget geek but as a result we very rarely memorize the Bible anymore and it's it's not a good thing this is one I would suggest your memorization partly because it's so nice in short it's that not a long one I'm sorry reminded of the Lollards you all know who the Lollards were the followers of John Wickliffe prior to the Reformation and they would actually memorize the English translation the Bible and what they would do is each person would memorize one of the books of New Testament so you'd have John and John would get up in the Lollard meetings and he would quote from the Gospel of John that he had memorized I think I'd be third John you know and Shane would be a Jude and get longer all that way anyway so people did memorize them Colossians 2:9 because this is the New World Translation because it is in him that all the fullness of the divine quality dwells bodily compare the new American Standard for in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form ha tiene toy cat toy Chi Ponte play Romo taste they ought a toss semantics host they ought they toss that's what I wrote on the we went to we have to lunch day for yesterday and I they write on the tables at this place and so I wrote out most of Ben odd when the waiter came by and one what that is in a Colossians 2:9 Greek they ought a toss means that which makes God dot it's not a divine quality you won't find a lexicon any where it says divine quality it's that which makes God God and what Colossians 2:9 is saying is that in him this is present tense is dwelling all the fullness of deity in bodily form and if the bodily form there is referring to his resurrection form I mean this is an extremely important text and given that Paul is speaking against a proto Gnostic heresy it makes a lot of sense so again discussion of that found in the Forgotten Trinity revelation 3:14 these are the things that the Amen says the faithful and true witness the beginning of the creation by God so they say see right there Jesus is the beginning of the creation by God and then everything else to create through him the NRSV has the words the Amen the faithful and true witness the origin of God's creation the NIV and lt have the ruler most have just simply beginning of the creation of God because the Greek term RK can have numerous meanings beginning origin source etc etc the problem is their translation of the term by God rather than of God is where again there are stretching I wouldn't call it a mistranslation but they are stretching of the realm of possibility greatly finally Graham Bowl sharps rule is found in Titus 2:13 and second Peter 1:1 and I'm going to need to I've got another graphic I need to put in here I someone needs to remind me this because I just realize this Titus 2:13 says looking for the Blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus now the rule in essence would tell us that God and Savior are both in reference to Christ Jesus that Jesus is being described as both God and Savior it's not our God and then and our Savior Jesus Christ it is our God and Savior Jesus Christ but the New World Translation says while we wait for the happy hope and glorious manifestation of the great god and of the savior of us Christ Jesus now the basic rule is when you have two singular nouns that are not names connected by Chi the Greek word and the first having the article in the second not having it both nouns are describing the same person now this is actually just one of six rules that the English abolitionist and Greek scholar Granville Sharpe identified right around the years well late 1790s early eighteen hundreds when I was in Bible College I did a extensive study of Granville sharps rule actually tracked down one of the earlier publications of his of his work in Titus 2:13 you can clearly demonstrate that in Titus 2:13 the only person view is Christ and the language used of him is drawn directly from these Old Testament sex again our time does not really allow us to go extensively into all of these things but if you'll look back at Psalm 130 verses 7 through 8 XS 37 23 and ech and I'm sorry Ezekiel 37 23 and XS 19 5 you will see that what Paul is doing in writing to Titus is he is drawing specific language of redemption that is specifically about Jehovah God and applying it to Jesus's work in his words to Titus and so we can look back at the Old Testament context we can say see these are things that Jehovah does and then look at Titus chapter 2 and say see what is being said in the context is that Jesus is Jehovah and we're looking for the great the appearance of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ and that this is not some separate God this is not some other God this is Jehovah manifest in the flesh this is the son of God who has come and is dwelling amongst us and again your knowledge of the Trinity and your knowledge of your own faith will be greatly deepened by taking the time to know how to respond to Jehovah's Witnesses but it's always best to do that before talking to the witnesses not afterwards that's that's sort of getting it backwards shall we say so keep that to keep that in mind yeah yeah in that great that's lovely it would be pretty wild if it was raining over here and it wasn't over there that would be that would be pretty interesting second Peter 1:1 new American standards is by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ New World Translation says by the righteousness of our God and the Savior Jesus Christ again trying to make a division now you don't have a context in the introduction to an epistle but what you do have is the fact that in 2nd Peter Peter utilizes for Grandville sharp constructions this is what's interesting in all the other places the New World Translation accurately translates the Grandville sharp constructions because it doesn't challenge their theology when it comes to 2nd Peter 1 1 they miss translate it because it challenges their theology so for example on the screen we have 2nd Peter 1 1 in 2nd Peter 1 11 compared to one another the top two lines in Greek the next two lines in the transliteration of the Greek and then in English the bottom two lines and you can see looking at any one the only difference between 1 1 and 1 11 the word order is identical everything is identical except that in 1:1 it's our God and in 111 it's our Lord and no translation I know of says our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ as if we have a lord and then someone else who Savior but at John 1:1 they don't want to say our God and Savior so no matter what else you say the writer of 2nd Peter which I believe was Peter the lot of people say wasn't but the writer of 2nd Peter is communicating one thing with great clarity and that is for him Jesus is our God and Savior otherwise he wouldn't use the exact same form the language in these other places to communicate what he does okay it just it just would not make a lick of sense all right now looking at the clock and trying to be as as efficient with time as we possibly can be what I'd like to do is I would like to preempt orally answer a question before we take our break and if I if I if we're more efficient maybe we can get to lunch a little bit earlier or something like that we'll just we'll see how this works

Channel: LaneCh

Views: 47,486

Rating: 4.6453204 out of 5

Keywords: Jehovah's Witnesses (Religion), dr james white, christ, deity, jesus christ, god, christianity

Id: -Mr-Q1mRkUc

Length: 72min 37sec (4357 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 16 2014