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"...The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."
I Timothy 3:15
Jehovah’s Witnesses or Satan’s Salesmen?
Bible Proof of Some Basic Heresies of This Sect
Forrest L. Keener
Available in Tract Form. Contact the Editor.
“To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." (Isaiah 8:20)
A young lady about thirteen or fourteen years of age and a boy probably eleven entered my driveway one Saturday morning. "We are young Bible students, and as part of our Bible training, we would like to ask you some questions." "Where do you attend church?" I asked. This subject they hoped to avoid for the moment, but when I insisted the answer came - "Kingdom Hall." They were "Jehovah's Witnesses."
Two stately young women without identifying themselves, handed me a tract across the yard fence, entitled, "Has Religion Betrayed America?" An interesting subject indeed, but a quick look at the material revealed that it did not deal with the title subject at all, but proposed to set you up for the Russellite doctrines. They were, "Jehovah's Witnesses."
Two young men rang my doorbell one Saturday morning, desiring to talk with me about "all the sickness and disease that was spread over the nation." They confessed, only when I -insisted upon identity, that they were "Jehovah's Witnesses." When I had quoted and applied far too much Scripture for their taste, one of them stated that I thought I was God Almighty and they left haughtily. When they leave, I am always left a little sick and with mixed emotions. I am angered, because of the hell filling heresy they will spread on down the street. I am also burdened because I know they are victims of their own snare, and are faithfully working their way to hell.
I write this tract because wherever you are and whoever you are, you will sooner or later be subtly attacked by someone, who will under question or after they have aroused sufficient interest in you, announce that they are "Jehovah's Witnesses." They are not. They are Salesmen for the Serpent. They are ambassadors of the devil. You might reply, "Now mister that is an unkind thing to say about anyone's religious convictions." I answer, "Kindness is not my first obligation, but truth." Paul said concerning false teachers. "I would they were even cut off" (put to death) (Gal. 5:8-12). The Lord said concerning false teachers, "Ye make them twofold more a child of hell than yourselves." He called them hypocrites, blind guides and fools (Matt. 23:14-23).
The swords of these mistaken crusaders are dripping with the blood of the unlearned and unwary. You, your children, and your neighbor's children are their targets. Do we have a right to ignore them, by saying "every man to his own religion"? Certainly not! They are more dangerous and less discriminating than the "mad scientist" who would poison a city water supply with deadly but undetectable bacteria.
I will, therefore, deal with just a few of their most vital and deadly heresies, and try to give some Bible instruction as to what your reaction should be, when they call. Since they are victims of their own destructive devices, I will give more space to Bible truth than to the "Jehovah's Witnesses" heresy which it refutes, so that if possible, I may help to enlighten any "Jehovah's Witnesses" who may read this tract, for I desire to see them saved.
A SATANIC APPROACH
When Satan came to Eve in the garden, he pretended that he wanted to enlighten her as to an opportunity to be wise and God-like (Gen. 3:4, 5). What he in fact desired to do and did was to slander God (Gen. 3:5) and bring death to the human race (Gen. 4:8 and Gen. Chapter 5). When any religious ambassador hesitates to identify himself, as did Satan in the garden, or tries to disguise the subject he really wishes to discuss, his approach is Satanic and his religion will almost certainly be the same.
"JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES" DENY CHRIST'S DEITY
By this I mean that they deny that Jesus Christ was Jehovah God, manifested in the flesh. They claim that He was a created being. They refer to Him in John 1:1 of their ridiculously dishonest and unscholarly translation of the Bible, "The New World Translation" as "a god" note the small g.
What does the Bible say about this? It says that Jesus the incarnate word, was God (John 1:1-3 and John 1:14). In Rev. 1:7, 8 and Rev, 22:13, Jesus is shown to possess the attribute of eternal self-existence, that Isaiah 41:4, Isaiah 44:6, and Isaiah 48:12 clearly teach is an attribute belonging exclusively to Jehovah God. In Philippians 2:9-11, the worship that Paul said belonged to Jesus Christ was exactly the same worship that Isaiah 45:22-25 said belongs exclusively to Jehovah.
Many acts that Jehovah of the Old Testament declared He would do, Christ did and declared His acts to be the fulfillment of those prophecies:
†Compare Isaiah 44:22, 23 which declares Jehovah to be the redeemer, to Eph. 1:7 which declares Jesus Christ to be the redeemer.
†Compare Isaiah 54:17 which declares Jehovah to be our righteousness, to I Cor. 1:30 which says Jesus Christ is our righteousness.
†Compare Isaiah 43:11 which teaches that only Jehovah is the Savior of man, to Titus 2:13 which says so plainly that Jesus Christ is that Savior. Col. 2:9, 10 declares that "in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" and that we are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power.
"Jehovah's Witnesses" deny this. Friend, this denial makes them not just "misled Christians" but salesmen for the serpent, ambassadors for Satan, enemies of Christ and the finished work of His cross.
"JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES" DENY THE "DOCTRINE OF HELL"
They claim that hell is the grave and that the wicked dead definitely do not go into literal and eternal fire to suffer forever. I must admit that I cannot blame them for wishing this were so. I did when I was lost. Scripture though is the criteria for truth and not human preference. What does the Bible teach? It teaches that the wicked shall be turned into hell and all nations that forget God (Psalms 9:17). If hell were only the grave as the "Jehovah's Witnesses" teach, how could a difference be made here between the wicked and the righteous, for the righteous also go to the grave.
The "Jehovah's Witnesses" beguile, with much unlearned talk about translation, pointing out that hell is translated from such words as Sheol in the Old Testament and Hades, Tartarus and Gehenna in the New Testament. Now most any Bible student knows that this is true, remember though that Satan never tells a lie, without wrapping it up in a truth.
The "Jehovah's Witnesses" thus claim that these words mean either grave or some temporal fire and never eternal punishment. This is the devil's punch line. It is near enough truth that the unlearned might well fall for it and yet it is 100 percent false. Not one single time is any of these words which are translated hell in the Bible, also translated grave, when speaking of a sepulchre, a hole in the ground or any resting place of the physical body, but only when referring to the state of death. There were physical graves in the Bible, but they were not one single time referred to by the Hebrew word Sheol or the Greek word Hades. So all their "scholarly talk" about translation is only a smoke screen of the devil, to divert attention from the Bible doctrine of eternal punishment.
"Jehovah's Witnesses" depict hell as something no one would need to fear. Both hell and the lake of fire are held forth in scripture as something to be greatly feared (Rev. 20:14, 15). It is referred to as eternal torment (Rev. 14:11, Luke 16:24 and Mark 9:43-48). The "Jehovah's Witnesses" either explain this all away, ignore it, or claim it to be a quick physical annihilation of the wicked, just whichever is expedient for their cause at the time. They never try to teach any truth from these passages, they just cloud them and abandon them.
Let's see what Christ taught about hell in Mark 9:43-48. Now the "Jehovah's Witnesses" cloud this passage by pointing to the original Greek word, which is here translated hell. This is of no consequence at all. Call the word clover instead of hell if you wish, you will still see what Jesus Christ was teaching about the place of this passage.
Please turn in your Bible to Mark 9:43-48, and read these verses carefully:
(1) Hell is the opposite of eternal life, for He constantly refers to it as the alternate to life. You must also see that it is eternal life to which He refers for He speaks to people who have temporal life and He speaks to them about entering into life.
(2) It is fire. Now again I remind you that even if the "Jehovah's Witnesses" translate this word clover instead of hell, Christ still assures us of the intent of His teaching by constantly saying that this place He is speaking of, is fire. In these five verses alone Jesus refers to hell with the word fire six times.
(3) This fire is eternal. He continually reminded them that this fire is not quenched. Now there is no earthly way in which you can give any and I mean any credibility to the "Jehovah's Witnesses" interpretation of this passage without accusing the Lord of having deceptive intent, in His teaching.
Certainly nothing would please Satan more than to persuade the world to "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die and there is no punishment in the hereafter." He has sent his salesmen around the world and so convincing to the natural mind is their "sales-pitch," that only God's word rightly divided, can silence their vile mouths.
"JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES" DENY THE BODILY RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST
In no place does Satan strike so vitally at the Gospel, as in this lie, for faith in His death, burial and bodily resurrection is absolutely vital to the salvation of the soul (I Cor. 15:1-4).
If you ask a "Jehovah's Witness" if they believe in the resurrection of Christ, they will say yes and probably try to drop the subject. If you, however, say the bodily resurrection, they will deny it. They try to establish their hellish denial with the misuse of such verses as (I Cor. 15:50). "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God." This verse in fact teaches exactly the opposite to their interpretation. Wherever the Bible talks of the resurrection of Christ it is without exception speaking of His bodily resurrection.
(1) The word resurrect means to raise from the dead. Who is stupid or profane enough, to claim that His spirit died and thus that His resurrection could possibly be spiritual? His spirit did not die. It was commended into the hands of God (Luke 23:46). He in the spirit went to paradise (Luke 23:43). His resurrection could not have been spiritual unless His death was spiritual.
(2) Wherever the resurrection is attested to, His body is the subject. In Matthew 28 and Luke 24, all will agree that the subject is the resurrection. In Luke 24:2 it was the absence of the body that gave them the first hint, of the reality of Christ's resurrection. In Luke 24:4 and 5 the angels said what these people sought was not there, but was risen. Were they seeking His spirit? No, they were obviously seeking His body. In Luke 24:16, the Emmaus disciples "eyes were holden" so that they would not recognize Jesus. Was it a body or a spirit that their eyes could have beheld and recognized?
(3) The Lord Himself said that His resurrection was bodily (Luke 24:39). He said to His frightened disciples, "A spirit bath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." He showed them His hands and feet. Is flesh, and are hands, feet and bones part of a body, or are they part of a spirit? Not only so, but Jesus took food and ate in their presence to prove that He was not "a spirit" but was physical and tangible (Luke 24:39). God is not the author of confusion. The "Jehovah's Witnesses" doctrine of the resurrection is exactly like Satan's. It is in fact his "sales-pitch." Ask one of them what happened to His body and see how close his answer comes to that lie the Roman soldiers were hired to tell in Matthew 28:12-16.
Flesh and blood (I Cor. 12:50) is a collective term used to refer to the natural, depraved, sinful body. No Bible student believes that this body will inherit the Kingdom of God. The Bible teaches that, that new body will be a (resurrected or translated) body of flesh and bone, quickened and sustained, not by blood but by the Spirit of God.
We could easily go on and establish with equal certainty that "Jehovah's Witnesses" promote equally Satanic, unscriptural doctrines on the subjects of Christ's return, the trinity, the Holy Spirit, the creation, the blood atonement, the nature of human blood, the scripture, heaven, patriotism, salvation, etc, etc, etc. They in fact with all their volumes and masses of pamphlets deal with, or should I say misdeal with less than seven percent of the entire Bible. Just try to find a verse by verse expository of any book of the Bible, written by the "Jehovah's Witnesses." You won't find it.
WHAT SHOULD YOU DO WHEN THEY CALL AT YOUR DOOR?
II John verses 7-11 has the answer to this question. John says they who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, are antichrist and that you should never admit them into your house or bid them God speed when they leave. Though the "Jehovah's Witnesses" do not directly deny that Christ Jesus is come in the flesh, they by denying His deity and thus His true identity and thus His work as "the Christ," most certainly do so by effect.
Therefore: don't let them in your house. Don't talk to them on your doorstep. Don't take their literature. You would be better off holding a live rattlesnake in your teeth. Insist on complete identity of all religious ambassadors. When you find them to be "Jehovah's Witnesses," or any such cult, quietly close your door. They are Satan's salesmen and you have no more business talking to them than Eve did talking to the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
May God lead you into all truth. Amen.