Nothing to say, yet
Transcription
Also, everywhere, but at the same time, they're a very secluded, kind of secretive society of people, so it's a little bit harder to get to know much about them, but hopefully you put a little bit more light in that for us this afternoon or morning. Again, just as a concept, we have not tried to do a survey of world religions, treating all things as equal, and this is not unbiased observation, because we, like they, actually do claim to know the truth, if the only difference is we're right. How do we know we're right? Because we have the actual word of the true and living God, and he has said so. So you may say to yourself, well, we know the Bible is true because it says it's true. That's a circular argument. It is, and you should accept that in this one case, because when the one who is truth himself declares that it is true, we can accept it. We're not seeking in the series to have a jujitsu move that we can pin our opponent down and say, ah, every time this will work. So this is not about arguments. This is about actually engaging with people on ideas. So we're not seeking to coexist, but because we have been given the authority to preach the gospel and the word of God by Christ himself, we must obey and do that, and he is surely with us. So as we look broadly, just super high level at all of the various cults that we have talked about, Mormonism fundamentally denies the authority of scripture. They have this idea of the great apostasy where scripture itself has been lost, muddled. There's many plain and precious parts that are missing, and so we can't really trust scripture, but what Mormons will rely on is we have the Holy Spirit, which will bear witness to the truth that they have, and ultimately, Mormonism has this idea that man himself progresses to be as God, and their practice of religion is Judaism 2.0. They add back in all of the ceremonial law. They add all of the works righteousness back in, and if you strive hard enough, he too can become a God, whereas the New Age has no authority in anything. Any spirit will do for the New Age man. In fact, you might say that man is God, or that nature is God, and the diversity of worship practice is really hard to put your finger in, but we can see through, and this is also true of secular naturalism, that there are ideas of New Ageism that have crept in all over the place. If you go into Target and you're looking for some shampoo, you'll probably be offered some magic crystals, although they're not going to brand them exactly that way, but nevertheless, even decor, and you'll see things in slogans, advertising, we're constantly bombarded with pagan ideas, whether we can identify them as such readily, but it is helpful to have those ideas put to our mind and say like, wait a minute, that's a cult worship. Secular naturalism would say that reason, reason itself is authority, that there is no spirit, that man is the center of the universe, because essentially we're the pinnacle of creation, although they wouldn't say creation, we're at the pinnacle of existence, and so man is essentially God, as the naturalists would look at it, and they absolutely worship, but they pretend that they're not. Buddhism and Eastern religions, this is the dominant worldview in the Eastern part of the globe, and there's a great emphasis on oneness, the interconnectivity of everything, and this idea of finding peace, and the path to peace in Eastern religion generally is emptying yourself of internal desire, it's pervasive in the Western world also, but it's often not recognized as part of our, it's again, under the guise of, well, this is just a way of thinking, a way of having peace, a way of finding rest, meditation kind of practices, and so those have worked their way into our culture in ways that we can't obviously find immediately, unless you're looking for it. With the Pentecostals, rather than denying the spirits, or relying on the spirit, they rely on him so much that everything is about the spirit, and you can test the spirit, because of course, we know the spirit is true, because it confesses Christ as Lord, whereas with the Pentecostal movement, it's rife with prosperity influence, and so actually, they're getting off track, they're abandoning the ideals and principles of fidelity to the Bible, and the finished work of Christ, they want the fruit of the spirit, they want the fruit of the gospel, but they value the fruit over the source, the objective work of Christ. With Islam, God is unknowable, again, another system of workspace righteousness, some scripture is accepted, and some of it is denied, as long as it is in keeping with what Muhammad had taught, so it's kind of a hodgepodge, very difficult to get into those cultures also sometimes, they tend to be a little bit more closed off, but with all of these, if we're using the word of God to advocate for truth, then we'll see that we'll have much fruit in that, so what about Jehovah's Witnesses as we close this off? One last time, what do we say when we're calling a religious movement or a sect a cult? So a cult is a group of people gathered about a specific person or person's misinterpretation of the Bible, so with the Jehovah's Witnesses, we see this with this character that we're gonna run into shortly, the Mormons, it'd be Joseph Smith, with Islam, it's Muhammad, with Buddhism, you get on the list. So Walter Martin has this book, The Kingdom of the Cults, I find it an excellent resource if you're dealing with something that feels like, well, maybe it's not Christian, you can look it up and you say, ah, clearly not, and Dr. Martin does an excellent job of laying out all of their beliefs, practices, origins, in a really kind of approachable way that you can have a reference. So they will tend to, in general, cults, have a misapplication of scripture or deny the authority of scripture, they have a constant appeal to new revelation, and we kind of see that comically, whether it's Muhammad or whether it's Joseph Smith, they get revelations from God that happen to be a whole lot like the things that they wanna do. They claim to have exclusive, true interpretation of the scripture, and they overemphasize prophetic gifts and healing, generally. So Restorationist Christianity. When we're talking about Jehovah's Witnesses, this is very common in, again, like I talked about this when I was talking about Mormonism, if you look at just after the Civil War and the Reconstruction era in the United States, you see this movement toward Restorationist Christianity. And so being that we're Protestants, we actually are, in a way, part of Restorationist Christianity. Even the cry of the Reformation was, at some level, we want to get ad fontes, back to the source, to get back to the original works, to get as close to apostolic teaching of the church and to know what the church's job is to do as we can. And so the Reformers were looking back at the patristic period and looking what the early church fathers and what the word of God was saying in great detail. And so we're also a Restorationist brand, but that's not exactly what I'm talking about when I'm talking about this other thing. So it is a sect of Christianity devoted to the idea that the truth of Christianity was lost just after the patristic era and that a return to orthodoxy is needed. And this is mostly happening after the Second Great Awakening. So we see several charismatic leaders who have a novel interpretation of scripture and they have, particularly at this time in the Reconstruction era after the Civil War, an eminent eschatology. And you can understand that because after the chaos and the destruction that we saw in the American Civil War, people were very raw. They thought all of these men have died. The South, particularly, was completely destroyed economically. Surely the end must be near. So we have several of these branches come out right around the same time. The Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement was basically Baptistic, but they wanted to create a Baptist Catholic Church. The entire world would now be conformed to their ecclesiology. This is now what has turned into the Disciples of Christ, which is still around today, or the Church of Christ. They have their roots in that. There's a group called the Christadelphians. These guys commit heresy. They didn't go so far as saying, like, we're gonna be Baptists, but we're gonna make this a Catholic Baptist movement with a view to dominate Christianity and restore it. These guys said, no, we like what these guys are doing. And they're somewhat related. This is all around the Philadelphia area in the East Coast. The Christadelphians shed the Trinitarian view. Again, a novel interpretation of scripture. And Salvation, in particular, on their leaders, that you can be saved, but only after you accept the doctrine that we are teaching, and then Baptism. So Baptismal regeneration occurs in this group. They basically became Adventists, as far as their dietary code. They believed that God was corporeal, that he was an embodied being, that God physically exists. We deny that. God is a spirit and has not a body like man. And again, because of the post-war era, these guys were generally pacifists. Very similar to Joseph Smith and the Latter-day Saints, who become Seventh-day Adventists. And so a lot of it is clinging on to, again, a works righteousness. We can control these things. We can be holy by doing these things. And if we just follow the rules hard enough, then we can restore Christianity to what it ought to be. And in that same vein, we meet this character, Charles Taze Russell. So they were not initially known as Jehovah's Witnesses. He started this Bible student movement. He did not believe, fundamentally, that he was starting a new religion. Again, it's because of this great apostasy. Actually, the exact same words that Joseph Smith refers to, that the church had lost its way, that after the church fathers and the apostles were on the earth, they died, and some of the core doctrine to their teaching has been misinterpreted, and the church has just gone off track. So Russell has a very literal interpretation of many passages in the Bible. This is where you get out of Deuteronomy, where there's prohibition against mixing of blood. This is why Jehovah's Witnesses will not accept a blood transfusion. That's not really what Moses was getting at when we were talking about mixing blood, but they take that, no, can't have any blood products. Why you would think that Moses was being told not to administer blood products, it's just a leap too far. It's an argument that proves way too much. So they were very active in the proselytization, emphasis on sharing the gospel as they understand it. So the Mormons are very, excuse me, not the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses are very, very busy as far as spreading their faith. They are strictly neutral in political affairs. They're not to deal with anything of the government. They're discouraged from voting unless it's local elections, again, pacifists. But what's interesting about them is they have this eminent coming of the kingdom on earth. They believe that even after 1870, Russell has this idea that the restoration of the gospel is gonna take place and that there will be a return of Christ and that the end is near. They reject Trinitarianism, they reject the immortality of the soul for man, and they reject the idea of hell, which is tough to do if you're taking a literal interpretation of the Bible. So demographics-wise, Jehovah's Witnesses are present in every single country all around the world. They don't have a majority population anywhere. Say with Mormons, you would say they're present in the United States majority and they're spreading, or particularly Utah and spreading. But with Jehovah's Witnesses, they started off on the East Coast of the United States and their corporate office is still in Brooklyn, but they don't have any one pocket where it's really taken hold. It's growing mostly in Latin America right now. Today, or as of 2022, they have 8.5 million publishers. Now, a publisher is an active member of the church who is out and sharing their faith, who is actually involved in preaching, or not preaching from the pulpit necessarily, but proselytizing out on the street. There are around 120,000 congregations worldwide, and there's an annual increase of about 0.4%. So that's not a tremendous amount of growth, and we'll get into why they're not growing and how they've lost numbers over the years. Only about half of Jehovah's Witnesses who would identify themselves on a survey of what's your chosen religion would actually be considered active by the church. There's a lot of people who are just passively involved in their numbers, but even those who are active are very active. 37% of people who are raised in the group stay Jehovah's Witnesses. So imagine that seven out of 10 of our children leave the faith. There's not a lot of consistency because they're being put into a system of works righteousness, because they must strive more and more and more. There's not a sweetness to the gospel. So their children don't stay, which for me is encouraging, and for you should be encouraging. However, of the attending or current Jehovah's Witnesses members, 65% of those are new converts. So they're losing people, and they're not keeping their kids, but they are pulling new people in. Why are they pulling people in? Because they're very, very busy. So last year they had 1.5 billion hours spent in preaching, and they shared material. Now this also includes family worship at home with 5.7 million individuals. So they keep a lot of statistics on this, and it's because the leadership at the local level requires reporting as far as what you're doing. You constantly have to be showing them your numbers. So if it feels like KPI reports for a multi-level marketing system, it is. There's definitely some top-end management that desires to know that you are definitely doing what you should be doing. So you can kind of see west coast of the United States, not a whole lot in the heartland, and then to the south. You have a high concentration around Mexico and Latin America. There's certainly kingdom halls, as they call their churches, close to us, even in the DFW area. So if you just think about that 1.5 billion hours divided by 8.5 million members, this means on average each member is spending three hours a week on evangelism. They are absolutely dedicated to this. And so while they don't have great numbers and they are not growing, these people are extremely motivated and very highly indoctrinated into what they believe and doing this in order to earn a spot in heaven. Although the numbers game is not in their favor on that. You can see this is their home office right at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. They originally founded in Philadelphia, but they moved their home headquarters around 1910 to New York. This is very expensive real estate. And so how they were able to keep this is because they're making a lot of money on distribution of materials and collecting tithes. Most of the doctrinal statements, beliefs, positions, all of the things in Jehovah's Witnesses tend to come out of their home headquarters. They have a leadership structure at the top that is revealing what God has spoken in terms of new revelation or clarification on their positions. And Jehovah's Witnesses have a very strong grasp of what the home office tells you to believe, but they're not necessarily excellent at what the Bible says writ large. They've been programmatically told like these are the things you believe. You're not encouraged to study individually. You're encouraged to learn what you've been told that you need to learn. Historically, they have been massive publishers. And so that office building in Brooklyn, it's mostly about publishing material. So Taze Russell believes that God has dealed with humans dispensationally throughout the years. So this is, again, taking a little bit of Reconstructionist theology, a little bit of dispensationalism that we would have seen from Darby and kind of blending this all together. We're kind of taking this salad bar approach to theology. So this latest dispensation, he believes, would mark the end of the Gentile times. He actually taught that in 1914, that the Gentile times, meaning from the time of Christ until 1914, had come to an end. And so we are now, you may be surprised by this, we are now living in heaven or in the kingdom time. Christ has returned already, in case you missed it. And we are now living in what is coming more and more as the full establishment of heaven. So he said that in 1874, that Christ had returned already as an invisible spirit. So Christ is not going to be bodily returning, but he is going to be the spirit of the age. And they have this theocratic idea that their government, their church will eventually take over all of the world and then bring the world into submission to God's true will. So they've definitely grown. They had around 50,000 people by 1910 worldwide that were associated with the movement. By 1912, and you got to start thinking about this, he really gains traction around 1900. By 1912, Russell is the most published Christian author in the United States. His materials are being sold and distributed to more than any other major, like all denominations, all groups, the number one author for religious material in the United States is Russell. He dies at age 64 while on a speaking tour in 1916. So the regime changes and Joseph Franklin Rutherford takes over. And because there's some eminent eschatology, because we're always saying the end is near, the end is near, the end is near. If the end does not come, then you've got to make some changes. There's a rebranding that happens. And this happens in cults often, but particularly for Jehovah's Witnesses. So in order to have more top down control and more uniformity within their congregations, Rutherford institutes a director in each congregation, not a pastor over each congregation that is chosen by the congregation, but rather appointed from the home office. Members are now required to submit weekly reports, something we still see today. And house to house preaching is made as a major emphasis. In 1920, this is very exciting, he announced that the Hebrew patriarchs, such as Abraham and Isaac would be resurrected in 1925. This would begin the thousand year reign of Christ and his earthly kingdom. So by the end of the 1920s, they lose about three quarters of their members because I think you would remember if Abraham and Isaac were resurrected. Turns out they did not, in fact, raise from the dead. So again, that causes you a problem. So by the end of the 1920s, we've got to again, make a branding shift. We've got to pivot. And so rather than being the Bible track society or the name that they were going on at the time, they changed their name to Jehovah's Witnesses. And that comes from Isaiah 43, you are my witnesses, sayeth the Lord. So they make a major emphasis on using, instead of the word Lord, using the word Jehovah. And a lot of their point of contention when they're actually speaking to Christians or other groups is that you guys are calling God the wrong name, that he has given us his name. So everywhere in your Bible that says Lord, or any other chosen word that God has expressed himself as, they say you guys are doing it wrong and it dishonors God. And so they're very forward about saying, no, his name is Jehovah. That's not actually right, but they still go with it. So they have this teaching initially that only 144,000 people would actually be saved. And when your church is only 50,000 members big, you think, well, that could work. But if you go to 8.5 million, this becomes a numbers problem. What is your desire to evangelize if the number of lottery tickets is shrinking for you? If you have more and more people, then how do you know that you're gonna be part of the 144,000? So they don't actually believe that anymore, although that's an often quoted statistic about their bad theology. But their current belief is that there is a true little flock, that these are people who would survive Armageddon, and the 144,000 will reign with Christ. However, there would still be a great multitude after the resurrection. So these 144,000 are the true believers who will have an exalted position, whereas the rest will be resurrected, but in a lesser way. So after the previous gentleman, we have our next president, Nathan Knorr. And he is instrumental because he commissioned the New World Translation of the Bible, which was finished in 1961. And so when you're talking to a Jehovah's Witness, you're not going to be using the same text when you compare scripture for scripture. And there's a couple of key differences that I think are worth highlighting. We'll show you some of those later. So from 66 to 75, their witness publications return, predicts the return of Christ this time in 1975. So they just get it wrong each time. If you have this charismatic leader who can tell you that no, no, it wasn't 1910, it's not 1925. No, now it's 1975. Because there's this big push starting about the 60s, when they published their new Bible, all the way till 1975, they see tremendous growth at that time because they believe that if you are in the church before Christ returns, then you have a chance of being part of that 144,000. So in 1966, there were only about 60,000 people. They increased up to almost 300,000 by 74. And in that year from 74 to 75, their numbers exceed 2 million people worldwide. So they're very effective when they're able to capitalize on uncertain times. They abandoned the idea of Armageddon after this because Christ, of course, did not return. And they said initially that the founders, maybe Christ would return within the lifetimes of the founders. Maybe taking the idea that this generation will not pass away. And so presently they said, no, that was a misapplication. And so we don't know when it's gonna happen, but they've given up the idea if a generation included the founders of the church. So the major way that they are growing numbers and sharing their faith is you'll see these guys posted up with kiosks at airports, at parks, at large events, and they go door to door. They are consistently publishing a publication called Awake. There's several of them, but if you're a member of the church, you need to have a subscription. In fact, everyone in your family will have their own individual subscription to the magazine, which is a way that they're collecting significant amounts of money for this. They give the materials away, but as you become a member, you're gonna be paying for that. So they've issued 6,000 issues of this publication Awake. So every month there's 17.8 million of these that get printed in 106 different languages. So what is Awake? What is their methodology? Will we ever feel safe and secure? Again, there's always this push of the uncertainty of the world, there's a problem, we all feel it. Technology, a blessing or a curse? Is the world out of control? Electronic games, is there a dark side? I really appreciated that one. Safe driving, the urgent need. These are common things. You get something that everybody can agree to. We all have this thing like, man, what is wrong with the world? And they come in and they offer, we actually have the answer. And they make it very approachable in a nice glossy colored magazine that yeah, sure, if you're not interested, or I'll take this. And they just wanna get you reading it. They just wanna have more contact, have another opportunity to have more time to sit down and talk to you. And over time, as they pull you in, there's actually a fairly high test for membership. They wanna know that you're a true believer, and that you're really with the program before they pull you in. And so the marketing and the salesmanship are built into them. And even when you're talking about a Sunday morning service at the Kingdom Hall, there'll be somebody who gives a message similar to a sermon. But there's a significant amount of time either rereading the publication materials that are sent out by the home office, or studying evangelism techniques, studying scripts, sending these are the things you say. So if you are having a debate or a conversation with a Jehovah's Witness, you're going to say, well, what about this? They have an answer for that. They have been pre-programmed and told, like if somebody says this to you, this is your answer. If A, then B. If C, then F. What do they actually believe? First and foremost, they reject the doctrine of the Trinity. The only true God is Jehovah. And they put a great emphasis on using his name. But this Jehovah God is only one person. So we believe that God is one being who exists eternally in three persons. But they would say, no, that's not right, that he is one person. Well, who is Christ then? They deny the full deity of Christ. They would say that Christ is a God, lowercase g, but not Jehovah God, not the same being. He was created as the firstborn slash spiritual being. So initially, they believe that Christ was created and they was called by God, Michael. So Christ is Michael the archangel. But then he is incarnate and born as Jesus. So this is hard to wrap your mind around a little bit. So they affirm the verse in birth, but not the incarnation. Wait, isn't Christ incarnate? Yes, but Christ is not capital G God. So God himself did not dwell among us. There is no Emmanuel for them. They believe that Christ was raised spiritually, but not physically, that he was a perfect man, but that he was not raised from the dead and that he lives spiritually now. So it's as though we have Michael turns to Jesus, Jesus afterwards, but a spirit only. What about the work of Christ? They deny penal substitution. They deny the imputed righteousness to us. This is underlying portion. They believe that Christ's ransom covers the sins of an individual because of Adam's sin, because of the fall. So they believe that Christ's work applies only to original sin, but you are responsible for all of your own acts and deeds. So there's no imputed righteousness. We do not have a merit given to us from Christ. Here's a quote from them. So it was by means of this master worker, his junior partner, that the almighty God created all things. The work of Christ was not the fullness of creation, that he's not the master of all things. He does not have co-equality with God, but that he was involved in the making of all things. They would place Christ on the throne ruling in heaven, but this is a more spiritual thing. There's not a physical return. So in 1914, when the Gentile times had ended, they would still believe that, but they're saying that Christ is spiritually working to grow the church and to bring his kingdom. So the second coming for Jehovah's Witnesses is not literal and it is not physical, but it's a spiritual second coming that works its way through. What about the Holy Spirit? They believe that the Holy Spirit is an invisible active force of almighty God, which moves his servants to do his will, but he's an impersonal force, an invisible active force that finds its source within Jehovah to accomplish his will over light years of space. So this is like the energy that God sends out, the motivation that we find from God, but not a person, not a helper, not a paraclete, not the one who dwells within us, but essentially this is like the will of God and his good feelings and vibes going towards you. This is what encourages you, but not a person, certainly not co-equal with Jehovah. So coming back to the idea of translational problems, here are two really good examples of ways that they have changed God's word. So John 1 in your English translation versus the Watchtower Bible, they would say, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was a God. Very subtle, one letter, huge difference, whereas the Bible says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. And you can actually go to the Greek on this, and there is no indefinite article in the Greek. There is not a way to say, so if you were to take a interlinear Bible and it says, and the word God, the word was God, I could speak in Greek and talk about the chair, but I can't speak about a chair broadly. I'm just speaking chair. So the grammar doesn't exist for them to say this. They have, out of whole cloth, inserted things so that it fits their theology. They've gone back and edited the text of God's word so that they have these preconceived notions about what they believe God says, and so they'll change things so it fits with what they want. Or, in Colossians 1, I'll read the real text first. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him. But they changed that to say, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, because by means of him, all other things were created. Not all things, but all other things. Christ is the agent, and all other things have come into being besides him, but Jehovah God created Christ, so therefore, everything else, Christ, has been deputized, made the agent of change by Jehovah. Or at the end, all other things have been created through him and for him. So they deny the eternality of Christ. They deny the power of Christ, the deity of Christ. And then again, lastly for them and their beliefs, this eschatology, that there are two classes of believers. There are anointed, the ones who are part of 144,000, and then the other sheep. So they've had to add in this idea of the others, because when you're a really small sect, you can go with 144,000, and when you get to 8.5 million, that becomes a problem. Salvation is achieved by proving one's worth by changing one's life according to the Watchtower Organization's directives. Literally, this is a quote from them. According to the central office, so it's not that if you're obedient to God, that they would actually put in black and white that you are saved by doing what these guys in Brooklyn tell you to do. The authority is always with the central office. There's a very hierarchical structure even within leadership in the congregations, and the appeal to being seen as being doing well. When they dress up, when they're out evangelizing, they're very well-dressed, they're extremely well-mannered, they're religiously, outwardly, very pious people. And that's authentic, because they're striving after their salvation. And you see this within many traditions that have a workspace righteousness. In some ways, they put us to shame because they really are trying their best. And you would be too if you thought every single moment God was watching over you, and your leadership of your church was just waiting to catch you and to discipline you. So particular quirks. Most of their theology is based in interpretations from their headquarters. So again, they're highly indoctrinated, but by no means is the average Jehovah's Witness a expert in what actually the Bible says. So even when they go out sharing, if you were to engage with some people, say they come to your door, and they have a conversation with you that they end up hitting some roadblocks, you're gonna have a senior level manager come back and see if they can work with you. And if there's significant resistance, they'll just shake the dust off their sandals and move along, because they don't want to have a real honest debate about what scripture says, because for them, if they have their own thoughts and are moving against what the home office says, then they could very well have punishment against them. So they believe strongly in holy and righteous living, and that church discipline is something they take very seriously. So this involves even shunning. If you are an apostate, even family members, mothers, fathers, understand, this would mean that if your son or daughter was not living according to the precepts of the church, for discipline, they will cut you off. And this is not an encouragement, this is not an admonishment from the elders, this is not treating you as an unbeliever, this is treating you as someone I don't know. You will become dead to me if you do not follow what you're told. And so there's this practice of disfellowshipping. If you have been found by the leadership to not be towing the line, your whole family and everyone will not talk to you. There are families who are split up for years and years about this. This is very hard for people to leave the church. This is why half of the members are not active. So it's easier for them to just quietly disagree than actually speak up. In general, they limit association with people outside of the church. This is a very cloistered community. They spend most of their time in church events and they don't take part in broader societal life. They're discouraged from reading anything that is anti-literature, anything that would be speaking against the authority of the church, anything that would be speaking against the doctrine that they've been taught. And personal Bible study, for its own sake, sitting down and reading your Bible to understand God's word is not encouraged. Rather, you're to believe what you are told to believe. There's programs and guides and publications that they want you to memorize, but not to read God's word for yourself. And that actually extends even further beyond that. Most of them will work in trades. They'll take on trade school, but college and going to further academic education is not encouraged because you're exposed to different ideas. Again, like I earlier talked to you, blood transfusion is not something, and I don't wanna get deeply into that because that's one of those odd quirks. Fun fact, at the end, I had a couple who came to my house and we started talking and I could see on their faces that they saw that we're not getting anywhere. And I encouraged them, well, let's just talk about Colossians 1. Let's just go through it. And they're willing to bring out their translation. I said, you know what? I feel like this is getting tense. Why don't we all pray and ask the Lord to bless our time together and just focus on this? And it was as though I had said something really offensive because as soon as I suggested that we pray together, they start backfilling. And they said to me, oh, we prayed before we came up here. Like, well, shouldn't we pray without ceasing? Let's do that. Let's all pray together right now and ask the Lord to open our eyes to the truth of this. Because if I'm wrong, I'd love to accept that. And they will absolutely not pray with you. So to say, like, we're not gonna pray together, what they mean when they say that without wanting to admit it is you believe in an entirely different God. Like, we're talking about the same Bible and I'm asking the Lord to bless our study together. They will absolutely not engage with that. And perhaps this idea, like, if we were praying along with me, then you will be found out and then maybe booted out of the church. So it's a very odd thing. They're very cloistered together. So over the years, we've seen them to be very prolific, very engaged, working really hard. But an encouraging trend I would note is that really after the, this even precedes the pandemic a little bit. Their numbers have started to really cavitate. You can only ring the bell that the end is near for so long. And that Christ's kingdom is right now without any visible manifestation of that, without their numbers falling off. And so this is a three-year rolling average of the number of hours spent in field service. It's significantly down. And this is actually even a year before COVID. You could say, well, maybe COVID really caused them to have to be inside and they can't go door to door and do all the rest of the work they were doing. But recall, those numbers also include people sharing the gospel with their children at home. So their numbers are falling off precipitously. And there's definitely an encouraging trend that way. But before we get too excited about that, it also is in some ways mirror church attendance and Christianity writ large. So it's not like they're falling off and the rest of the church is doing really great otherwise. It's not the same degree of drop, but we shouldn't pump our fist in the air quite yet on that. So once more, why are the Jehovah's Witnesses part of a cult? Their teaching is centered around the single charismatic leader, Russell. They have highly centralized power, which is common to cults also. Their authoritative structure, their righteousness, your standing in the church is dependent upon the people above you. There's a novel interpretation of scripture. They have a very strict holiness code, which is salvific in nature. It's not simply that they wish to live pious lives. It's that they believe that this is their path to salvation. They have an emphasis on new prophecy. They deny the deity of Christ, deny the deity of the Holy Spirit. They deny the Trinity writ large. And essentially this is, again, works-based salvation. It's all about the numbers that you're able to generate. So we've seen Ecclesiastes. This is nothing new. I think with all of the cults, this is something we should say to ourselves, well, how does this keep happening? Why is it that we see all of these various sects that have abandoned biblical orthodoxy, that have abandoned the core tenets of Christianity? Why is it that this is constantly some new thing that's happening? Well, it's actually not new at all. And one of the things that I think is a powerful, if you can get them to think about it, witness, is that all of these cults have basically seen their origin in at least to 5th century heresies that are longstanding. And this is a great graphic that we can say the Seventh-day Adventists and the Roman Catholics are binding into this idea of legalism, and they blend Old Testament Judaism with Christianity. Most modern and New Age religions have this mystical pursuit. They are just like the Gnostics. Jehovah's Witnesses are just like 4th century Aryans, where they are Unitarian in their belief in some ways, deny the full deity of Christ and the Trinity. All of the heresies that we see coming up with each of these cults are basically recapitulations of very old heresies. So when somebody says to you, now we can restore the gospel, because I've gone back and I've read some of the texts of the Bible, and we lost all the really good parts. They should also read all of the creed's councils and consider all the heretics, because they're probably just coming up with a brand new version of a very old heresy. So we've talked about all of these different groups, and Jehovah's Witnesses fundamentally deny the Trinity, have a works righteousness, and they're socially isolated. Things to consider about all of them. So to kind of put a pin on this entire series, what is our response to this? We have cults, and it's been well stated that the cults arise because of the sins of the church. We've failed to be faithful in the things that we are to do. We're supposed to clearly preach God's word and to contend for the faith once delivered to all the saints. So Philippians 3 has a really good summary, I think, of what our attitude ought to be toward the cults. So I'll read that. For many of whom I have often told you, and now tell you even with tears, walk of enemies of the cross. Their end is destruction, their God is their belly, and they glory in their shame with mine seven earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself. So in verse 18, we see the attitude. We see tears in Apostle Paul. He is not angry at these people, he is frustrated to tears. He is hurting for their lost state. He sees that they have been deceived, and although they are walking as enemies of the cross, he does not have hatred for them, but he has a heart of compassion toward them. And in 19, we see the diagnosis and the destination of these people. Their end is destruction because they have their minds set fundamentally on earthly things, things that they can touch, see, taste, hear, feel. They can grab onto the salvation that they've created in their minds. So what is the answer to that? We need a new citizenship, one that is from heaven, as we await our savior, Christ. So a citizenship gives you a couple of things. It gives you a new identity. You cannot be a single citizen. You must always be in relationship. So citizens belong to a community. That community is the church. And so it's not that the authority of the church is the thing that saves us, but the thing that saves us binds us together, and that places us in that community while we await our savior, Jesus Christ. And in anticipation of that authority, we know that Christ will be able to subject all things to himself. And in this section of Philippians, I just really love this. There's this structure that Paul is making his arguments, and it goes A's, B's, and C's. So while their end is destruction, we will receive a glorious transformation. While they glory in their shame, we glory in our arisen savior. While their minds are set on earthly things, our minds are set on heaven. This is the diagnosis that we need to achieve. This is the plan that we need to have. We need to enable these people to recognize that they are offered a citizenship in heaven with the promise of resurrection and trust in Christ himself. So again, this is not anything new, and this actually shouldn't be a surprise to us. Scripture is full of warnings to us and anticipations of you will have people trying to seek the oaths astray. Jesus says, children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard about the Antichrist coming, now many Antichrists have therefore come. Excuse me, this is John, 1 John. This is the way that we know that the last hour is near. Or in Thessalonians, let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will come unless the rebellion first comes, that the man of lawlessness is revealed and the son of destruction who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called God or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the great temple proclaiming himself to be God. This Antichrist, the spirit of Antichrist, for there are many, are seeking to take the throne of Christ and to claim authority, to have the truth, to say that he is equal with God. The Watchtower Bible Track Society, their home office has declared themselves to be equal with God. The authority of salvation, the place of righteousness, the way to heaven is in following what they tell you to do. Who is a liar but he who comes, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ, that he is fully God, that he is the sufficient salvation. This is the Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Matthew, Jesus tells us that many false prophets will come and they will seek to deceive even the elect if possible. In Romans, or excuse me, in Revelation it tells us he will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will triumph over them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings. And with him will be called his chosen faithful followers. So we know that we are not going to lose this battle. So what is the way that we will achieve victory in this battle? By the blood of the Lamb and the word of his testimony. And so we just need to be faithful to scripture in this. So with all of these, every single one of these cults, every single one of these pagan practices. So I'm not trying to give you guys a judo technique to win every argument, but it is helpful to have something in your back pocket to say, well, what's a study reference? Because I come into somebody and they're talking to me about other ways of belief and how do I answer that? And so I've given you all of the ones. So we're going to have the Apostles' Creed, that's number one. Then after that, John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1. So it's sometimes hard to remember that verse off the top of your head, but if you can just go to the first chapter of several of these books, it will give a lot of the answers that we're looking for. So broadly, if you're saying to yourself, well, it's the person I'm talking to, are they a cultist? Could they affirm everything within the Apostles' Creed? It's a simple diagnostic question. And so do they believe in God, the Father Almighty? Do they believe in Jesus Christ, his only son? Do they believe in the Holy Spirit? If they fall off on any of these sub-criteria, you know that they are not faithful to Christianity. So they're outside the big ring and the target. We may not agree on everything, but at least if they're getting close, then we can say, okay, Christian, non-Christian. Well, creation in Christ. John 1, in the beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the word was with God, and the word was God. Those who deny the deity of Christ, this is a great place to start. And so what do you think about that? We read just the very opening chapter of John. How is this? The true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, but he was not, but the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. So this is a great place, a great passage that you could just read with anybody who is in a cult, and this will churn up a whole lot of really good conversation. Colossians 1, talking about the deity of Christ. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him, all things were created in heaven and earth, both visible and invisible, with thrones, dominions, rulers, and authorities. All things were created through him and for him. So when you say to the Mormon, you believe that God created Jesus. Well, it says right here that Jesus created all things. The Jehovah's Witness, not all other things, all things. And so we just trust in the power of God's word to cut through those things. What about, say, Pentecostals, or people who are talking about, well, no, there's new revelation that we need to hang on to. Well, Hebrews 1 says, long ago and many times and many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the world. So a bonus of both creation and the final authority is ultimately the word that we have received through Christ. It is sufficient. We don't need to go anywhere else. So again, the ones, these are just really simple ways for you to have a tool belt to say, all I have to remember, Apostles 3, John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1. It's bonus answers. If you wanna go a layer deeper, and they say, well, you know, but you can't, yeah, we believe all of that, but in order to be saved, here's the things we have to do. You say, well, no, Romans 8 tells us, or Ephesians 2 tells us, for by grace you have been saved through faith and it is not of your own doing, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And you drop the microphone. Not really drop the microphone because you don't wanna slam them down, right? We don't wanna have this, that's it. You don't wanna close conversations with people. Maybe you encourage them. Like Paul is so encouraging in Galatians. Are you so foolish, having begun by the Spirit, are you now perfected by the flesh? Do you really believe that God, though he gives us his Spirit and opens our eyes, illuminates us, and gives us the opportunity to be in relationship with him, that now he says, now go do it all on your own. We need to fight against worse righteousness. Because to the pure, all things are pure, and to the defiled, the unbelieving, and nothing is pure. But both their minds and their consciousnesses are defiled. So when someone says, yeah, we can't eat that, we're not supposed to, they wanna bring back Judaism to you, they wanna have more dietary law, we wanna have a list of do's and don'ts, wanna have like the Mormons, the word of wisdom, or we don't associate with those things, we are gonna be apolitical, we're not gonna stay out of that, we're gonna have nothing to do with the world. Like, no, we're to be in the world, we're to be salt and light. We're not to have anyone constrain our liberty of conscience. So to kinda close this idea off, there's general principles that we need to consider when we're engaging with people in cults. You cannot reason someone out of a position that they were not reasoned into. They're indoctrinated. They have not been convinced of this position, they have been conjoled. They have not been taken to a place of, you know, I find it, I find it, yeah, I agree with that intellectually. You're not gonna win an intellectual argument with somebody on this. And so we're not seeking to win an argument, we're seeking to entice them to taste and see what the Lord has really provided. The relationship matters far more than your rhetoric. So practicing these things, or having all this stuff in mind, like you don't wanna have just one in the chamber ready to go, like, ah, you got a bad verse, I got a verse for you back, because that's essentially the same technique that they're using. When we put these objections up to a Jehovah's Witness, they're gonna say, nope, the program on this page of the pamphlet says this is the way I respond to that. What you're doing is you're building a relationship with them, because we must, again, have this fundamental heart that these are lost souls, that we fight against them, but with tears, because they're enemies of the cross. We must continually pray for open doors for them, and we need to trust that the power of God's word is sufficient, and it will not return void. So if we confront them with God's word for the purpose of showing them what God has truly said, then we'll be effective in that. So, any questions about cults? All of them. I'm gonna point you to Mark. Yes. Can you explain, and that's my question, all others, what do you mean by all others? So they would say that God created Michael the archangel, who becomes Jesus, but when they say all other things, they mean that God creates Jesus, and then by agency, God has given him the authority to make everything, whereas we would put God and Father, Son, Spirit, saying, come, let us make man in our image. The Spirit is hovering over the face of the waters. The God in Trinity, even the concept that God is love. Love requires relationship. He must be a triune being. So the pretext for us is the Trinity created all things, and that Christ is the agent of that, co-eternally, co-equally, no hierarchy whatsoever, but they're establishing a hierarchy to say that Jehovah God creates a being whom he orders and enables to do all of these things, but that Christ doesn't have the power to do all of it on his own. Anything else about Jehovah's Witnesses, Paul? Backed up to your conclusion, but where it says he is the radiance of the glory of God, he's exactly the nature, does the Jehovah's Witness Bible rewrite that to say he is the representation of his nature? Yeah, there's many, many verses. So Paul was saying that in the Jehovah's Witnesses Bible, in Hebrews, it says he is a representation of his nature, whereas it's not the representation, it's the exact imprint. He's like, this is, you know, Hebrews is telling us God the Father, Christ, equal, completely the same. Like Christ is the embodiment of that, and Christ even says, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. And so, yeah, they go through, and everywhere that their theology does not match scripture, then it's like, well, you could change your theology to match scripture, or you could change scripture to match theology. Taking the latter, and that's an important distinction. Jeremy? So where would they say the authority of the home office comes from? Ah, so the authority of the home office, this is basic, you know, like Russell, initially, has this rediscovery, and he feels that he's illumined by the Holy Spirit. And so they wouldn't say that they were putting their dictates on equality with prophecy and new revelation, but that they would say they're inspired by God. And so sometimes they get it wrong. They really hedge their bet. This is very similar to Catholic papal infallibility. Like, the Catholics believe that the Pope, when he speaks, he speaks infallibly, unless he makes a mistake, in which case he wasn't speaking infallibly at the time, and that's fine, and you should ignore it. So this is the same thing that they do, like when they say that Christ has returned, and that Abraham and Isaac are going to be resurrected in 1925. And they say, well, we don't really understand what God was telling us in that. And this is very common. This is the nice sleight of hand that all cults have the ability to do, because when it doesn't match up, then they say, well, we were wrong about that. Like, God's still faithful. We just got it a little wrong. You can still trust us. So then, you just have to prove to them how much it looks like where it doesn't match what's written in the Bible. Well, I, yeah, I mean, so I think there's certainly, if you had an honest Jehovah's Witness who was really interested in looking at the veracity of the Bible translation that they have, that's an extremely rare and searching person. And so I would say just making comparative Bible study and just really looking at the simplicity of the gospel, for them, I think would be the most effective place to start because if you will, line by line and precept by precept with them and say, like, here, you're wrong, here, you're wrong, here, you're wrong. I mean, how many of us have enough Greek and Hebrew scholarship under our belt that we could say, ah, see, but here, this letter doesn't exist. I mean, so some of that is not as useful, which is why I think the broad encouragement is to just speak the truth from God's word and let God's word do that work itself. Because the mechanics of very specific proof texting, this is not a legal argument, this is a relationship. And because they're a closed off community, it's really hard to have a relationship with them. All right. Yep. I'm not on the class, but I hope everyone can see, I guess two things, your presentation particularly brought it out today. When we're defending the faith, I think firstly, one, it's a great workout for your own image. You know, if your body never had to fight off an infection, never had a disease, you have extremely weak immune system. And you go through these, you can see how storming the church is a picture that our praise and walk through the night and through the call to the people and how we don't increase. These creeping confessions are coming out as an immune system response to a heresy trying to come from the church. And secondly, with that, it really does strengthen our orthodoxy. And you see that even in your presentation, you go through who is Jesus Christ, what is the Trinity, who is God, and as you defend the faith, you should, for us as a body or you individually, really strengthen what you believe and strengthen our orthodoxy. And I think your presentation is particularly focusing on that and we thought that's the way to go. Yeah, so it really does. All right, so next week, we have taken you from apologetics broadly to talking specifically about the Holy Spirit and how he saves us. Looking at the consequence of the salvation and the risk and reward, seeing heaven and hell and understanding how serious that is. We've seen people who are lost, whom we're trying to save in cults, and the cults have gotten something wrong about one of the attributes of God. They've gotten some facet of the Trinity or some facet of theology so wrong that they put themselves in risk of going to hell. So what do we mean when we say those attributes of God? What are those core things about God that we must get right? So next week, we'll start a series on the attributes of God and that'll be really fun. So I'm looking forward to that and I'm teaching next week too. So pray for me to get everything done and ready on time. So we'll pray before we take a break for service and let's go. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word, which is truth, capital T, truth, Lord, that it is sure and it is stable. Well, you do not change and that your decrees do not change, that you are not like a man that you should lie. Father, we are grateful that you are steadfast in your love and kindness to us. And we pray that we would be in turn faithful to you in Jesus name, amen.
