A good friend is considering joining the Jehovah's Witnesses. What should he worry about?

Freerepublic ^ | 1/31/2013 | Me

[Dallas59]

When I come by my friends house they are always there. They are polite to me but act like I'm interfering. Anyone here associated with them or been to their church? Thanks.

[LukeL]

Ask them about all their failed prophecies, that the 144,000 spots in Heaven have already been filled, than sin in the milenial Kingdom can get your soul forever destroyed.

[HereInTheHeartland]

There is a lot of stuff on the web about them. Just put “are Jehovahs witnesses a cult” in Google; and probably lots of good info will come up.

[Dallas59]

I have nothing against the Catholic faith. Being raised a Baptist there are certain practices I disagree with, but I have never been turned away or or was disregarded by the Catholic church or my Catholic friends. But there is definitely a tension between the two JW and me when I’m at his house.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Prime target for cults. They prey on cases like his.

___________________________________________________________

Exactly. And they are preying on Mexican illegals around the border. We have had many of them at our elementary school. They don’t celebrate ANYTHING and ALWAYS sit out (in the library) during school celebrations.

[RushingWater]

When they come to the door, I ask them when their birthday is and then wish them Happy Birthday for all the missed birthdays. The elder one gets a concerned look on his/her face . . .

[Charles Henrickson]

A good friend is considering joining the Jehovah's Witnesses. What should he worry about?

His eternal salvation. The JWs are a false religion, teaching wrongly on the person and work of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity--well, they mess up just about everything.

[lapsus calami]

 

 

What Vendome says - those JWs are exploiting an opening. It's past time to mobilize. If he has family that's on good terms they need to close ranks with him STAT.

 

 

[nonsporting]

He should fear the end of all those who die in their sins, not having placed their trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Those who wished to be judged on their works will come up short and be cast into the lake of fire (the 2nd death) where the smoke of their torment will rise forever.

[nonsporting]

He should fear the end of all those who die in their sins, not having placed their trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Those who wished to be judged on their works will come up short and be cast into the lake of fire (the 2nd death) where the smoke of their torment will rise forever.

[Revolting cat!]

I was once a prime target for cults myself. The Moonies, Scientologists, Nichiren Shoshu. Almost joined all of them, if not at the same time, but my inborn cynicism and mockery wouldn’t let me. He’s fortunate to have you as a pal.

[fso301]

JWs act cultlike but are probably more accurately described as a sect. Give them credit, they stood up to the Nazis and as a result were persecuted much more severely than mainstream Christian groups. As a JW, he will likely withdraw from you but not necessarily sever relations.

[Bulwyf]

They are a cult pure and simple. What your friend should be worried about is a one way ticket into the place we all want to avoid...hell.

If he really wants to be spiritual, tell him to look up a christian church that teaches on the gospel in the bible, not a bunch of man made crap.

[Rebelbase]

“He’s Catholic (not practicing) and going through tough times right now. Two of them come by almost everyday”

The JW rag Watchtower slams Catholics. To bring a Catholic into the cult is the ultimate challenge for the door knockers.

[cricket]

Is he worried. ..or are you. Who is asking the question? Seems like he needs to think of ‘what’ he is getting from JW; that he cannot find in a more traditional Church. If, in fact; he is wondering. Also; if ‘wondering’ then why not explore more; before deciding.

JW are ‘weird’ in my book. . .but actually know some - before I ‘knew’ who they were; and they were/are in fact, very nice people. Am thinking this ‘faith’ is either mainstreaming a ‘bit more’. . .or our ‘mainstream’ is becoming less so.

(No offense to anyone in JW)

[Shery]

They talk about Jesus to get you to talk about Him, then they feed you what they call the truth, that he is not God’s son, etc. They even came around to our house when we lived in Germany! Their Bible interpretations are using possible text translations, but not the ones used by scholars. Scholars look at the topic of the text to ascertain how the translation should go for words that can be used in different ways. What the JWs do is to use the word in the translation that best fits their own doctrines, and not the actual text. Therefore it distorts the text. It is very dangerous for people who are not grounded in the Word of God. They should NOT allow these people in! The sad thing is that many of the Bible translations in use today, supposedly to help people understand the Bible, leaves them still in the dark. Some words are not translated in such a way as to define the true clarity of a sentence, leaving one open to interpretation by false doctrines and traditions of men. The NKJV, the NAS, ESV are supposed to be the most reliable. While the others make for easier reading, they sometimes use lesser meanings and it truly does make a difference sometimes. Therefore, it gives false teachers and the JWs an opening that a better translation would help to prevent. If a meaning can be twisted...

[Bulwyf]

They are a cult, they are not saved, anything not saved is a cult, there’s no gray area here.

[Revolting cat!]

Low info voters, low info believers. All the information is out there, then what is it, laziness, loneliness, low intelligence?

[Joe Bfstplk]

>>Whenever they or the Mormons would come to my door, I would invite them in on the premise that after I listened to them, they would listen to me explain the Catholic faith.

They always left and never came back. LOL!<<

Once when they called on me, I asked them if they believed in love, charity, goodness and kindness. Yes, they exclaimed.

So I said let’s start with the charity, how much money were they going to give me.

Thagt ended the interview.

[Charles Henrickson]

Last year I preached a sermon in which I dealt with some of the major errors of the JWs. I posted the sermon here on FR:

"Who Are the April Fools? How Do You View Jesus?" (Sermon for Palm Sunday, on 1 Cor. 1:18-25)

Here are a few paragraphs:

- - - - -

Last week there was a ring at the door, and I answered it, and a man and woman were there, handing me a tract and inviting me to a special event coming up. I’ve given you a photocopy so you can see what it says. On the front you can see the questions: “How Do You View Jesus? As a Newborn Baby? A Dying Man? Or an Exalted King?” And there are pictures there to go with it: Jesus as a baby, Jesus as he is dying, and Jesus as a king. Then below the pictures is the invitation: “You Are Invited to Hear the Answer Thursday, April 5, 2012.” Then I opened up the tract, and it says: “Jesus is now reigning as an exalted King. But what does this mean for you? Many believe that Jesus died for them. Yet, how can one man’s death almost 2,000 years ago mean life for others today?” The people at my door, of course, were Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the tract they gave me was from their Watchtower Society. So how do we respond to their questions? Think it through along with me.

“How Do You View Jesus? As a Newborn Baby? A Dying Man? Or an Exalted King?” My first reaction is, “What, is this a multiple-choice question? I only get to pick one?” Because my answer would be, “D. All of the above.” “Newborn Baby,” check. “Dying Man,” check. “Exalted King,” check. They’re all true. And you can’t have one without the other. You’ve got to have all of them right, and not pit one against the other, in order to have the Jesus of the Bible, the only Savior of sinners.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses do not get any of these views of Jesus right, and they do not keep them together. The implication of their tract is that you should not get hung up on Jesus as a newborn baby, like at Christmas, or on Jesus as a dying man, like during this Holy Week, but instead you should focus on Jesus as the exalted king.

Now, is Jesus the exalted king? Yes, he is! No doubt about that. And even the picture of Jesus they have on their tract does have some truth behind it. If you could see it in color, you’d see a Jesus with white hair and fiery eyes, wearing a white robe with a golden sash. And that image does resemble the description of our exalted Lord that John gives us in Revelation 1, as follows: “I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.”

Jesus as a glorious, exalted king. And so he is. But the Jehovah’s Witnesses conveniently leave out other images of Jesus that we find in the Book of Revelation, especially that of Jesus as “the Lamb who was slain,” who by his blood has redeemed us sinners. That part they leave out. But again, you can’t have one without the other.

No, you’ve got to keep all of these views together to have the real Jesus. Even the “newborn baby” the JWs get wrong. They do not believe that the Christ of Christmas is the incarnate Son of God, God in the flesh. The Jehovah’s Witnesses would not be able to confess what you just confessed in the Nicene Creed, namely, that the Lord Jesus Christ is “the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.” The JWs have revived the old Arian heresy from the fourth century, that Jesus is just a created being--at most “a” god, small “g,” but not true God in his nature.

But most certainly he is. And there is no salvation, for you or for anyone else, without Jesus being precisely that, that is, the Son of God incarnate. Only God in the flesh could rescue us from our predicament, from the sin and death in which we were trapped.

But people do not want to believe that, that our situation was so bad--that I am so bad of a sinner that I cannot save myself by my own efforts, that it took the death of the very Son of God to save me and to give me life. This is insulting to our pride. We think we’re good enough on our own, that if we try hard enough and are good enough, we can work our way into heaven. That is what the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe, and that is what they try to do. But they are the real fools, from God’s perspective, because they are rejecting the one and only Savior that God has sent.

- - - - -

This is the Jehovah's Witness tract I preach against in the sermon:

[Miguel Alberto]

Please don’t associate Seventh Day Adventists with Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are very different and did not start from the same place at all.