"JEHOVAH'S
WITNESSES"?or
SATAN'S
SALESMEN?Bible Proof of
Some Basic Heresies
of this SectBy Forrest L. Keener (CB)
"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 them-
selves, 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 morn-
ing, 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" (put to death)
(Gal. 5:8-12). The Lord said concerning false teachers, "ye
make him twofold more the 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 a 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 By this I mean that they deny that Jesus Christ was
THE DEITY OF CHRIST
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, 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 belonged
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 Saviour of man, to Titus 2:13 which says so
plainly that Jesus Christ is that Saviour. Col. 2:9,10 declares
that "in [H]im dwelled 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 Chris-
tians', but salesmen for the serpent, ambassadors for
Satan, enemies of Christ, and the finished work of His
cross."JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES" DENY They claim that hell is the grave and that the wicked
THE DOCTRINE OF HELL
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, however, 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 Witness-
es" 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, remem-
ber, 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% 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 which
ever 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 us 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 alternative 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 In no place does Satan strike so vitally at the Gospel as
BODILY RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST
in this lie, for faith in His death, burial and bodily resur-
rection 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 resurrec-
tion, 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 interpreta-
tion. 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 hath 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 our new body (resurrected or
translated) will be a 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 atone-
ment, 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 7% of the entire Bible. Just try
to find a verse by verse exposition of any book of the Bible
written by the "Jehovah's Witnesses." You will not find it.WHAT SHOULD YOU DO II John 7-11 has the answer to this question. John says
WHEN THEY CALL AT YOUR DOOR?
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, do
not let them in your house. Do not talk to them on your
doorstep. Do not take their literature. You would be better
off holding a live rattlesnake in your teeth. Insist on com-
plete 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.
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