Jehovah’s Witnesses

Weldon Langfield > Jehovah’s Witnesses

Jehovah’s Witnesses witness for Satan, not Jehovah. They reject God in rejecting the godhead, also known as the divine nature and trinity, a non-biblical term from the late middle ages. God is three non-autonomous persons: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. On  the Apologetics Press website dated October, 2015 (accessed November 27, 2023), Kyle Butt provided a condensed definition: “…One God in the Bible exists simultaneously in three personalities—the Father, the Son and [the] Holy Spirit—each one partaking of the Divine nature.” JWs on the other hand teach the Father, Jehovah, alone is divine. Jesus was created. The Holy Spirit is a thing—God’s active force.” Let’s take a break to select subscribe, the thumbs up icon and notification bell. That way you support the channel and thank you very much.

Ecclesiastes 1 says “There is nothing new under the sun.” Similar errors arose during  the apostles’ lifetimes, so many passages address JW antichrist errors (1 John 4:3). If the JWs were a Major League Baseball team, they would quickly strike out.  

STRIKE 1: JWs teach only Jehovah is divine; yet God  describes himself as plural. Genesis. 1:26 declares, “…God said, “Let Us make man in Our image.” The Hebrew Old Testament says  God  is also “Elohim,”  The i and m at the end make it plural. God wanted man to fill the earth.  Genesis  11:7 says, “Let us… confuse their language….” 

Strike 2: Jehovah’s Witnesses cite Colossians 1:15 as proof h is created “He is the… the first-born of all creation.” Yet the next verse  says, “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities…” (Col. 1:16). No book, especially an inspired one, would contradicts  itself in two sentences. Verse 15 cannot mean Christ was created. Jesus could not have been created if he created everything, as the next verse says, Some view the passage saying the first born in a Biblical family had enormous privileges,  and Christ first born has the privilege of creating everything. Others hold  Romans 8:29, which says “the first-born among many brethren…” and  explains verse 15  this way:  Jesus is the first born from the dead meaning he is the first to be  raised never to die again. Thomas touched Jesus and exclaimed, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28).

According to John 8:58, Jesus’s name is  the same as God’s at the burning bush, “I am.”  John 1:1, 14 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  Philippians. 2:6-7 declares,  “Although He existed in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant….” 1 John1:1 says of Jesus, “…Which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled.”

Strike 3:  JWs teach the Holy Spirit is not  a person.  An article at Watchtower Online is entitled Why the Holy Spirit is Not a Person (accessed November 16, 2023). Isaiah 63:10 says  wayward Israelites “…grieved His Holy Spirit….” Persons, not things,  can be grieved. Matthew 12:32 says “Whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come.” At the last supper Christ promised when he left,  the Spirit would come. John 14:16, 26 says: 

The Father…will give you another Helper… that is thee Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him…The …Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, HE will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

Things can’t  talk, but the Holy Spirit talks. Acts 8:29 says, “…the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.” When Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit, he lied to God.  Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? You have not lied to man but to God” (Acts 5:3-4). When Russell decided  everyone was out of step but him, did he consider he might not understand? Did he consider Isiah 55?

 For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.

 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways,

And My thoughts than your thoughts.

                                                                                   Conclusion

A pyramid originally covered  Charles Taze Russell’s tomb. An online article, What is the Spiritual Meaning of a Pyramid? (updated September 24,2023 says Pyramids “serve as enduring symbols of … self-awareness, transcending…religious boundaries.” JW’s are not Christians.

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Jehovah's Witnesses: Wicked Doctrines with a Seamy Start

The “Bible Student Movement,” small groups in various cities, foreshadowed Jehovah’s Witnesses. A class was begun in the 1876 by successful businessman Charles Taze Russell in Pittsburg. Members elected him  their Pastor.  The carefully organized group  focused on denouncing organized religion. Russell collaborated some with Nelson Barbour until 1879, the year Russell published  magazine The Herald of the Morning Dawn now called The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom. Circulation grew from 6,000 to around 20 million today. Awake! has a similar circulation. Russell incorporated the printing facility,  “Zion’s Watchtower Bible and Tract  Society,” at Pittsburg  in 1884. Before we continue, please select subscribe, the thumbs up icon  and the notification bell. Expenses are covered. We  appreciate your support. 

In 1886, the society published a series of seven books. Russell wrote 6. The last was authored after he died by J.  F.  Rutherford, Russell’s lawyer and successor; considered by many co-founder of the movement. Originally entitled The Millennial Dawn, it  is now Studies in the Scriptures. Headquarters were relocated to  Brooklyn, New York. The society steadily acquired real estate  including entire city blocks and soon became a financial empire. It was recently relocated to Upstate New York, and  owns state of the art equipment and facilities. James 3:14 says “bitterness and selfish ambition” war against the truth. Tracking Russell is a tragic trail of scandals. Let’s examine a few.

The first  surrounded Russell’s wife, Maria Frances Ackley, who left him in 1897. She was originally attracted  to Russell’s  teachings, and functioned as unofficial  co-director of “Zion’s Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.” Six years after leaving, she sought legal separation on the grounds of mental cruelty, forced celibacy and cold, indifferent treatment. Ackley was awarded  $6,036 alimony, around $140,000, in 2023 money. The trial spawned investigations of Russell’s religious enterprises, which   were conducted through several subsidiaries, all under a holding company 99.9% of which he controlled.  Russell answered to no one; he received a substantial stream of wealth from a financial megalith successfully organized to hide his assets; thus Ackley’s meager alimony settlement.

Second was “The Miracle Wheat” con.  A March 22, 1911 Brooklyn Eagle article, “Pastor Russell’s Miracle Wheat: Fraud And Deception In Watchtower Roots,”  exposed the con. The  U.S. Department of Agriculture sued Russell  for falsely claiming “Miracle Wheat, ” which he sold for $60 a bushel and $1per pound, far above the price for ordinary wheat at the time By claiming its yield was six times greater than ordinary wheat. USDA research found Russell’s wheat yields were below average; and authorities required him to refund all money.  (Leslie Rumble, Radio Replies, 2:1,352).   In 1911 the Brooklyn Daily Eagle published a caricature of Russell and beneath it this question: “If Pastor Russell can get a dollar a pound for miracle wheat, what could he have gotten for miracle stocks and bonds…?”  

In a third scandal, Russel claimed to preach long messages to massive crowds around the world. In February, 1912, The Brooklyn Eagle  published an article, “Pastor Russell’s Imaginary Sermons,” and said  during his world tour, Russell bought newspaper advertising to publish sermons he “delivered” to massive crowds in distant places. Yet he never presented them. Instead, the Eagle wrote of a “typical” so-called presentation, “His first stop after sailing from the Pacific Coast  was Honolulu. Russell bought blocks of advertising space in advance and  published long sermons he supposedly delivered to large crowds.  He published a long sermon he claimed to have presented in Honolulu. According to the  Hawaiian Star, “He was here for a few hours with a Bible students’ committee…but did not make a public address….” Investigations revealed he repeated the sham at other, renown, venues. 

Conclusion

Russell coined the phrase, “Millions now living will never die.”  perpetrated other scams, surrounding failed date-setting for the end. 

Mark Twain said, “It ain’t the parts  understand in the Bible that bothers me; it’s the parts of the Bible I do understand.” Jehovah’s Witnesses were founded and now continue trying to determined what cannot be determined: the time of the end. Jesus said in Mark 13:32, “But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.”

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