Cults No.3 Jehovah's Witnesses

Now let us say right at the outset of this second address in our series on the chaos of the cults that it gives us no joy or satisfaction to inquire into the teaching of groups who we believe have deviated from the truths of the gospel as revealed through our Lord Jesus and contained within Holy Scripture. I confessed to you that for a number of years I have deliberated as to whether I should engage in this sort of series on the basis that I would prefer merely or solely on a Thursday evening to expound biblical books, believing that the more Christian people are aware of the genuine, so the better qualified they will be to recognise the counterfeit and to be able to deal with it when it crops up. But I've been swinging my opinion a little away from that of late with the plethora of new cults that are arising and the problems that I had in the East in particular, my recent visits out there in dealing with those who had been caught up with the teaching of men who deviate from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And it seems to me that perhaps it could be helpful if we are informed at least a little as to the history and the teaching of these groups and that will give us opportunity also to examine our own convictions about the fundamental faiths or the fundamental aspects of faith which they deny. Well we're looking this evening at the Jehovah's Witnesses, which as I mentioned a moment or so ago along with the Mormons have been in existence for some time now. We're not dealing with something that's cropped up during the last ten years, though some of the groups that we'll be referring to in weeks to come have.

We are looking into the teaching of an organisation that has been around for many decades. It's a well-established sect which traces its origin back, as do many deviations, to the United States of America. There in Brooklyn, New York, is the headquarters of this vast religious organisation.

The Watchtower Society there is like a huge octopus that has tentacles in many, many countries. The JWs are famous because they are the movement which pedals its belief on the doorsteps of this country, the homes in this country, and around the world. It believes in and practices in a way that is extraordinary the power of the printed word, and so its presses in New York turn off books and magazines, not by the thousand or the tens of thousands, but rather by the million.

Its motivation, I believe and will argue, can be traced back to two things. The nearness of Armageddon, and also the necessity to work for your future immortality. You may qualify for immortality by being a kingdom publisher.

That means by taking a wad of books, tracts, magazines, selling them on the doorsteps, and perhaps getting an invitation in and leading a Bible study, and thus extending the kingdom. The more one does that, the greater the possibility of being in the millennium, and ultimately taking place with the Lord Jesus in the new heaven and the new earth which is to come. There have been over the years three presidents of the Watchtower Society, the first being a man called Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the group, who was brought up in Orthodox Christian circles, a Reformed church, whilst Charles Spurgeon was exercising a phenomenal ministry in London, reaching perhaps its crescendo in the 1880s.

Over there in the United States of America, Russell was organizing the Watchtower Society. The doctrines of earlier years in more Reformed or more Orthodox Christian circles that had made an impact upon him were the doctrines of salvation, coupled with the doctrine of eternal damnation. This really had quite a place in the early years of Russell's thinking.

And in his native town of Pittsburgh, as a teenager, he would warn his fellow citizens of the wrath that was to come, and the fearful nature of hell. He became disenchanted with that doctrine. It went sour on him, and ultimately he rejected it, and indeed the doctrine of eternal punishment has no place in the theology of Watchtower Society.

Strangely enough, and not understood, not realized by many, after a period of skepticism, of falling away from Christian belief in any sense, it was the Seventh-day Adventists and their teaching that hooked Russell out of his unbelief, and gave him an idea, gave him some concern to accept teachings of the New Testament, but to modify them into a structure which he believed the Lord God, Jehovah, was placing in his mind. Russell traveled widely around the United States of America, covering thousands and thousands of miles each year, preaching and also writing. And as I say, in the 1880s, he organized in New York the Watchtower Society.

Russell was a prolific writer. He was an enthusiastic worker. Alas, his domestic life does not stand to close inspection.

There was difficulty in his home. His wife eventually sued him and brought divorce proceedings. There was talk as to his business dealings, and indeed as to the credibility of his claim to know one of the two languages that is essential for any professional theologian, in other words, Greek.

But these reflections upon his character, I think, sometimes are overplayed by the critics of the J.W.'s, sufficient for us to say that Charles Russell, though I believe a misguided man, was enthusiastic and impassioned and sold out for the beliefs that he was propagating. In 1916, the presidency of the Watchtower Society was taken over by a man who is known as Judge Rutherford. Not all approved of Rutherford taking over from Russell, and as a result there was a split, or several small splits, from the main stream of the Watchtower Society.

But Rutherford was able to maintain his position as president, and indeed castigated those who broke away from the movement. Russell was not, or Rutherford was not, such a wide traveller as Russell, not given to as much public preaching. But he was a writer, again a prolific writer.

Between 1921 and 1940, some 337 million copies of books that he had written were distributed around the world. He resided in San Diego for some five years, but according to his next door neighbour, who actually wrote a critique on JWs, he, unlike most of the Kingdom Hall adherents, did not go from door to door. He liked seclusion to a degree.

Indeed his neighbour said that never once did he cross the threshold and press his bell and engage in conversation. His final years were spent at a place called Beth Sarim, which was a house of the princes, which the JWs built in the 1930s to give hospitality to such people as David and other Old Testament leaders when they returned on earth to rule with the Lord Jesus Christ. The third president of the Watchtower Society, the one who is controlling affairs now, is Nathan H. Knorr.

He assumed command on the demise of Rutherford in 1942, and in many ways he is even less conspicuous than his predecessor, although he is a great organiser. In the days of the two previous presidents, a great deal of the literature that was circulated in the society bore the signature of these men. But in Knorr's time, a change has come about, and most of the books that JWs have in the 60s and 70s are not identified as to who the author was.

They tend to be produced by a team of writers, presumably Nathan Knorr was the president or the controlling author. Perhaps the most significant thing that has happened in the history of the Kingdom Hall religion since Knorr took over is the publication of the Jehovah's Witness Bible in 1961. The names of the translators again have not been divulged, and apparently this body of men who are responsible have asked that their anonymity may be kept even after their death.

The JW movement has mushroomed during the period of Mr Knorr's presidency. For instance, when he took over in the early 1940s, the Jehovah's Witnesses were only in 54 countries, that is, they were only engaged in missionary work, in evangelism, in 54 countries. But in as recently as 1971, according to the Watchtower magazine that came out in January of that year, they were in 207 countries.

Well, I make reference to this because I think it's interesting to know something of the men who have piloted and steered this movement down the years. The writings of Russell and Rutherford are not that easily come by today, and you will find gross ignorance on the part of the majority, not those in leadership, but on the part of the ordinary JW as to what the early men were saying. But let's move over, having made reference to their founders, to the headquarters.

Now, in many ways, the organisational structure of the JWs is to some extent akin to that of Rome and the Roman Catholic Church. I mean by the latter illustration, the Orthodox, the traditional Roman Catholic, will look to Rome and to the Pope for guidance as to how he is to understand Scripture. The Roman Catholics, along with the Jehovah's Witnesses, recognize the inspiration of the Bible, but the Roman Catholic individually cannot interpret Scripture himself.

He needs the Pope. He needs the cardinals. He needs to place it alongside the tradition of the Church down the centuries.

Now, similarly, the JW will look to Brooklyn and to the literature that has come from Brooklyn to help him understand the Word of God. Now, in my opening address about the cults, I said that one of the things that they had in common was this. They tend to pour the Bible through a sieve.

They make the sieve themselves, and they sift the Bible through it. So, on the one hand, they claim to appeal to the Word of God, but inasmuch as they manipulate and modify the Word of God through the sieve, what actually you find are statements and doctrines of belief that are as contrary to Scripture as, shall we say, the climate in the equator differs from that at the North and South Pole. Now, it is to Brooklyn that the JW looks, either realizing it or not recognizing it as such, but it is to Brooklyn that he looks for an understanding and an interpretation of Scripture.

Thousands and thousands of volumes, or rather of, yes, thousands and thousands of prints have been made of various JW books down the decades, to that I've already made reference. But what I haven't referred to is the vast circulation of the magazine The Watchtower, 35.1 million every month. And this particular magazine, received in every kingdom hall, is really the means whereby the ordinary Jehovah's Witness and the ordinary congregation is kept in touch with the thinking of headquarters.

A JW cannot put aside the teaching of The Watchtower. This is the ex cathedra statement for the day in which he is living. So, there can be no elasticity amongst the Jehovah's Witnesses in their interpretation of Scripture.

If anyone falls foul of Brooklyn, then he or she ultimately will be debarred from the society. Now, there is in the book to which I made reference that's come from the States, the transcript of a microfilm of a trial in the 1950s, when there was in Scotland a case brought by the Ministry of Labour and National Service over against The Watchtower Society in the United Kingdom. It makes fascinating reading.

It's something that is completely unanswerable inasmuch as it did happen, and we have, as I say, the transcript here, and it can be checked with the authorities in Scotland. To go into all that took place between the prosecution and the defendant would go beyond the limits of my study this evening. But during the trial, reference was made by the council on behalf of the Ministry of Labour and National Service to false prophecy which they alleged to have been put out by Brooklyn.

And the question was raised as to whether false prophecy had ever been allowed and admitted by adherents of the Kingdom Hall religion. The answer of the defendant, one of the leading JWs, was this, yes, because you must understand we must have unity. We cannot have disunity with a lot of people going every way they feel that they should.

The prosecution comes back and says, let's return to the point. Do you admit that a false prophecy was promulgated? This was concerning the return of the Lord in the late 19th century. The JW agreed to that, and the questioner went on to ask why it was that the JWs will not allow anyone to question what is put out in the Watchtower magazine month by month.

The answer to that question would take too long to read, but as I say, it is here. And the essence of it is this, that as with the Roman Catholic Church, the fear is that if anyone is allowed to come to Scripture and make his or her own deductions and not abide by the party line of the Watchtower society, then the unity, the solidarity of the Kingdom Halls around the world would be threatened. We must march together in step, each believing what is put out by Brooklyn.

Now that is the essence of the answer that was given to the prosecution in this particular case, and it boils down to this one thing, that independence of thought does not exist and cannot exist amongst the Jehovah's Witnesses. Now, Headquarters itself can change and does change its dogma over the years. We will see this in particular when we come to prophetic speculation.

But the JW, as pointed out by Leith Samuel in the little book to which I made reference, the average JW is not encouraged to read too far back in earlier copies of the Watchtower magazine or the earlier writings of Russell and Rutherford, particularly if they were to read the former, they would find many inconsistencies and many errors. So the ordinary JW will take the Watchtower magazine as it comes, month by month, and acknowledge that this is the doctrine which is to be believed in, for our own era, the 1970s. Now, in the flyleaf of one of the recent editions of the Watchtower magazine, there is the claim made that since 1879, this magazine has been published regularly for the benefit of sincere students of the Bible, and over that extended period of time, the Watchtower has proved itself dependable.

Now, that is an extraordinary claim, which one could call into question by bringing one of the magazines early on in the 1880s and putting it alongside of one of the magazines in the 1913s and 14s, and another in the 1920s, and so on, because there has been a modification, and this one must come to, even trying to maintain an unbiased viewpoint in evaluating what has come out from the JW writers, there has been a modification in the teaching of the Kingdom Hall, particularly referring to Armageddon and the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But you see, and this is the very reason why the average JW does not read, decades ago, or the early volumes of the founders of the movement, the JW does not, the JW movement does not want the individual adherent to see the change and the modification that there has been over the years. So, Brooklyn is looked on in JW circles in the same way as the traditional Roman Catholic will look on the Pope and the teaching of Rome with its College of Cardinals.

The local Kingdom Hall then puts out faithfully the message of Brooklyn. It has a sort of antennae up to the sky and it picks up what Brooklyn is saying and it's transmitted. So, here in Worthing, as in the rest of the Kingdom Halls in this country and in the States and around the world, on any given Sunday you will have, in essence, the same study.

At any meeting of their various theocratic societies, which were instigated incidentally by Rutherford, you will have the same subject matter put out. It's a very monolithic structure, no flexibility at all, and there is no independence, therefore, of thought in the Kingdom Hall. Such a congregation as meets in the Kingdom Hall will be looked after by a man who will be called a company servant, the minister, the overseer of the group.

And then there are area or zone servants arranging meetings from time to time for the faithful. Above these are regional servants who report back to the board of directors in Brooklyn. Life in the Kingdom Hall consists of meeting with other members of the congregation and naturally enjoying fellowship.

There is some hymn singing, though according to two or three of these books written by ex-JWs, it's not in any way comparable to what would find in a normal evangelical service. Indeed, worship as we know it, within the orthodox evangelical church, could not be shared by the JW. As we shall see in a moment or so, their understanding of the person of our Lord is defective.

Their assessment of Calvary and its worth is abysmal. So, there can be no emotion, as we might have in our hearts, when we turn to such a magnificent hymn as when I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died. The emotional element in the Brooklyn religion is very minimal indeed.

It's not that easy to be emotional either, is it, when your assurance of salvation doesn't exist. There's a possibility, yes, provided you've clocked up enough hours on the door, and you've sold enough literature, and you've made sufficient sacrifice. Immortality may become yours, but there's no definite assurance that you can have.

And this incidentally is another basic common denominator amongst the cults. Assurance of salvation is too great a prize to give. Why? Well, you see, and we must acknowledge the logic here.

If a person knows he's saved, why engage in evangelism? Or why not sink back in lethargy, and let the world spin away to eternal perdition? I'm all right, jike. I'm in a dinghy. Pull up the ladder.

I really don't have any concern. Now, that's the sort of attitude that the cults do not want to breed. So, invariably, assurance of salvation is not conceded.

Rather, working for salvation is something that is admitted to. So, the dear Jehovah's Witness will come along, and press the bell, and do his stuff, and endeavour to proclaim the message of Brooklyn, and extend the kingdom that he is working for. Now, the effect of all this is well illustrated.

That is, the effect on a family is well illustrated in a little book that I've got here, that reached me from Australia, just a few days ago. It's quite hot off the press. It's written by a woman called Margaret Cathalfamo, and she first came into contact with the Jehovah's Witnesses in this country.

Then, she emigrated with her family to Australia, lost contact for a while, but then she came across some Kingdom Hall work in the area where she'd settled, down there, the other side of the world. And she makes reference to life as she used to know it, with a mother who was a JW in this country, the times when she was carted off as a youngster to the Kingdom Hall. She says, the meetings ran like this, Tuesday nights, one hour of book study, in which we read a Watchtower publication, such as Let God Be True, and Friday nights, one hour of ministry school, and one hour of service meeting.

Brothers and sisters were taught how to be good salesmen and counseled. Brothers were also taught to become public speakers and teachers. On Sundays, we had one hour of public talk, prepared direct from the society, that is, from Brooklyn, and one hour of Watchtower study.

Then she goes on in this book, with these reminiscences of life back in the UK, to the effect that it had upon her and her husband, when once again they were linked up with the JWs, this time in Australia. We were newlyweds, she says, and we were saving to buy a house, but we were often told at meetings that, quote, with Armageddon just around the corner, we should devote all our time to the Kingdom ministry, unquote. Saving meant working overtime, and this would take too much time away from the ministry, and of course, we dreamed of having a child.

Again, we were discouraged as, with Armageddon just around the corner, it was not right for Jehovah's Witnesses to bring more children into the world. Anyway, they take up too much time. Now, I wouldn't have made reference to these particular comments from this booklet, which, as I said, only just received, apart from the fact that this and similar comments are made by other JWs who have left the movement, and it seems to be the case that Kingdom Hall and the strictures that it imposes upon families brings strain and despondency.

There is a concern to get out on the doorstep and to put every other thing in mind right out, in order to maintain that thing that is the first prerequisite of being a Kingdom publisher and involving others, therefore, in the word that comes from Brooklyn. Valerie Tomsett, in the book, again, to which I made reference, this lady who lived in Hove and was a member of the Kingdom Hall, not so far from the Evangelical Church at Port Slade, she too makes reference to the impact and the strain that Kingdom Hall life had upon her and had upon her family. Well, one may say, if you're arguing this evening that strain and tension comes as a result of being a JW, then why in the name of sanity, if your allegations are true, don't people opt out of a movement in their tens of thousands? After all, we live in a democratic society, we're here in the West, we're not in the totalitarian system of the USSR, there is freedom of religion to opt in and to opt out.

But you know, one of the things that depresses me most, not just about the JWs, but this particular series that I'm giving and the hours of study, therefore, that have had to be put into evaluating these cults, one of the things that becomes very, very clear is this, it's not as easy as all that to opt out, when emotionally you have been linked into a system to which you have given volitional, that is intellectual assent, and your whole lifestyle has been erected around that system. To get out is not easy at all. You read the first chapter of this book, Youth Brainwashing and the extremist cults, it's almost frightening the way that adherents of a cult like the Children of God, of the Unification Church, it's frightening the brainwashing process that these converts go through, and to break away is not easy.

And added to the sociological and the psychological reasons, I would put another one, and that is a spiritual reason. I can say, and God can hold me to account for this, on the day of the judgment seat of Christ, that I have love in my heart, a passionate love, for every member of the Kingdom Hall, for every member of the Jehovah's Witness Society, that I believe that they are under a satanic delusion that is shared by countless millions of other people, not in their group, but still deluded from the truth that there is in Jesus Christ. And it's not just that easy to get out of a delusion.

All right, some of you may still be saying, well, why is it, theologically, if you like, putting that word in inverted commas, that the Jehovah's Witnesses and the teaching of Brooklyn has such a hold upon its converts? Not now just dealing with the psychology of belonging to a cult, we're talking now about the theology, the thing that makes the JW movement really tick. Well, there are three specific areas in which the JWs are in conflict with the Church of Jesus Christ, as it has been down the centuries. There are many, many more areas, but three in particular, which I list in the notes, but I'm not going through them one by one.

The first is Christology, the second is Soteriology, that is salvation, and the third is Eschatology, which somehow collected an X there instead of the S on the notes. As far as Christology is concerned, well, this would take an address on its own to show you the difference that there is in the teaching of Kingdom Hall, as opposed to evangelical Christianity, in respect to the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. The JWs will heap accolades on the Savior, but they will stop short of calling Him God the Son, the second person of the ever-blessed Trinity, and when you go wrong there, you go wrong all the way down the line.

But as I say, there's not the time this evening for me to show you how I believe that the JWs are in error in their understanding of Scripture concerning the Lord Jesus and in their evaluation that He is the first created being of Jehovah God. You'll have to check that one up yourself, or maybe take an earlier Bible study that was given here some three or four years ago, to which reference is made in the notes. It's their belief in salvation, actually, which really shows why the JWs are as enthusiastic as they are.

They believe that Adam alone was redeemed by the Lord Jesus, and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross gives the sons of Adam a second chance, but no more. That means to say, it gives you a chance, if you become a kingdom publisher, to earn salvation by proselytizing and by selling literature. And if you make the grade, then ultimately you'll get into the millennium, and as I said a little while ago, you'll have your position of living with Jesus in the new heaven and the new earth.

So salvation is something that needs to be earned, and this is the thing that keeps the pot boiling in the evangelism of the JWs. If you can get a person to believe this, then you can really mobilize them and motivate them, and if you've got an army of people who believe this, that's expanding all the time, then ultimately there is bound to be growth, and this the JWs are knowing par excellence. But to keep enthusiasm to fever pitch, it's good to make predictions concerning the return of Jesus and Armageddon.

I could read to you this evening prediction after prediction and comment after comment from the Watchtower magazines concerning the proximity of Armageddon. 1877, the end of this world is nearer than most men suppose. 1889, the battle of the great day of Almighty, which will end in AD 1914, is already commenced.

1904, the stress of the great time of trouble will be on us soon, somewhere between 1910 and 1912, culminating October 1914. 1914 itself, the great crisis, the great clash, is very near. Armageddon may begin next spring.

1917, they jumped over what they said in 14, I'll come back to that in a moment, we anticipate that the earthquake will occur early in 1918, and that the fire will come in the fall of 1920. Now note, I'm not speculating here, I'm not telling you what's come to me via hearsay as to what the JWs have been teaching, you can check all this in their magazines in editions gone by. 1930, the great climax is at hand.

1932, the end is only a short time away. 1940, the day for final settlement is near at hand, the witness work for the theocracy appears to be about done. 1942, the new world is at the doors, the time is short.

1944, the end of the world arrangement is now near. 1947, Armageddon should come before 1972. 1953, 1954 could well be the year.

1966, a climax of man's history is at the door. 1969, there is only a short time left. Well, I've given you enough examples, haven't I? 1914, according to the president of the society, that would be the year when the kingdom would come.

Writing in Watchtower magazine, 1880, the time of the Gentiles extends to 1914, and the heavenly kingdom will not have full sway till then, but as a stone, the kingdom of God is set up in the days of these ten Gentile kings, and by consummating them, it becomes a universal kingdom, a great mountain, and fills the whole earth. You know what happened in 1914. If any year was a most unfortunate year to pick for the advent of Jesus, that was it, and when the Lord didn't return, what happened? Well, they spiritualized the prophecy.

He has come, and he's collected the faithful JWs down the centuries, they're in the heavenlies, he came spiritually, but Russell didn't say that. Listen again. The time of the Gentiles extends to 1914.

Then, by consummating it, there will come a universal kingdom, a great mountain, which will fill the whole earth. JW prophetic speculation is wrecked on that one prediction by Russell, and he knew it himself. I was trying to find the quote, but it's from an earlier Watchtower magazine, when he says that if this doesn't happen in 1914, all his speculations and all his writings really amount to nothing at all, just a delusion.

That's, in essence, what Russell was teaching. But, as you know so well, the JWs, they reinterpreted this, and they brought up other dates for, uh, Armageddon, and they told us that Jesus had spiritually returned, as I say, in 1914. And, I could go on showing you how the date 1925 was important in their theology, in their prophetic scheme, and then 1975.

My, what was going to happen in 1975 is almost nobody's business. Los Angeles, Herald Examiner newspaper, July 21st, 1969, carries this article with banner headlines, Armageddon Jew in Seventies Witnesses Told. Armageddon, the end of the world for all but the Jehovah's Witnesses is...