In this sermon, Mr. David Bowker shares his personal experience of being raised in the Watchtower movement and eventually leaving it. He explains how Jehovah's Witnesses are taught not to think critically and to rely on the organization's teachings. Bowker provides insights and tips on how to effectively discuss the Gospel with Jehovah's Witnesses, taking into account their mentality. He also briefly touches on the subject of the deity of Christ and encourages the audience to be familiar with relevant scriptures.

The tape to which you are about to listen was recorded during a conference of the Christian Colpertage Association held at Bournemouth in March 1973. The speaker, Mr David Bowker, was brought up in the Watchtower movement from the age of 11. He was born again and thereby liberated from the movement at the age of 26, some 18 months prior to giving this talk. Whilst he was with the Jehovah's Witnesses, he served as a full-time worker as a special pioneer and it is against this background that his advice is of particular value. Before the lecture begins, here very briefly is the speaker's own personal testimony. Well many of you know I was brought up a Jehovah's Witness for 15 years. My brother also he left the Jehovah's Witnesses at the age of 17 and became an atheist. I have to start with him but even as an atheist, desired truth in his life, read the bible, did not believe it, became convinced it was untrue and seized atheism, worldly philosophy, but desired God and he was led to the Lord by a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest. Some of you know this, for others of you this might sound quite peculiar. He turned to this man in desperation, desiring an authority of gospel, desiring truth and this man, at least to some extent, was a believer. He believed in the authority of the scripture and led my brother to the Lord. Praise the Lord. Amen. My brother afterwards tried to convince this man that he had no place in the Roman Catholic Church. Without any success, the man seemed to be a believer, so praise the Lord for that. Well, as an atheist, my brother had had many arguments with me which had failed utterly to convince me because I felt that what was he offering? Only atheism, but he was able to shape me to some extent. Following his conversion, I had to examine my faith rather more and I received God through primarily the ministry of the word. I didn't meet any Christians, apart from my brother of course, until after my conversion. Primarily the witness of the book of Romans actually. Be very specific, Romans chapter eight. And that really is my testimony. Since then, the Lord has been gracious to add unto me my wife and three of my wife's relatives. There remain yet six of my wife's relatives in this cult. That's my testimony. It is a glorification of the Lord in as much as in our particular case, there has been no ministry of individual Christians from the church whatsoever. In fact, I didn't even know what I had become. I had come to certain conclusions which I have realized were Christian, but I have so many preconceptions. I weren't aware that I had become a Christian. I thought I might have to start a new cult to teach these things. I'm delighted with it. The local fellowship of a local church have been very, very good to me. I've been quite overwhelmed by the welcome I've received amongst you. I won't talk too much about myself either, because again, that would take time. Many of you know me and know my testimony. I would like to just simply say that if anyone wishes to discuss further, we've been told that we must keep to time and this is right. We could go on for hours and hours and hours. It would not be edifying. It would be very exhausting. But you all know me now. I know many of you and I shall be here for the rest of the weekend. We might first ask ourselves why as Coleporters we are discussing the particular needs of Jehovah's Witnesses. You might think, well, there are many lost people in the world. There are in fact many cultists. I feel that as Coleporters, you are perhaps the people who are most likely to be of any help, any Christian help to Jehovah's Witnesses. So opposed are they to the ministry of the Christian church that a Jehovah's Witness would never willingly, indeed he never could, enter into a church for guidance. He would never speak to a minister or a committed Christian to find out his thoughts on the gospel or to learn from him. He would shun all such people as being of Satan. So as Coleporters, you have a very peculiar responsibility. I would say that you are probably the only people that most Jehovah's Witnesses will ever come in contact with who have a positive witness about the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's the first point. The second point is this. The influence that Jehovah's Witnesses have is only too well known by you. When you call from door to door, constantly their work is brought before you. There are only some 70,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in the British Isles. It's a small number, but I would make bold as to say that there are many hundreds of thousands of people who have, to a greater or lesser extent, been influenced against the gospel of Christ by the ministry of Jehovah's Witnesses. They may not have joined, but they resist the gospel to some extent when you bring it because of the influence of Jehovah's Witnesses. It would be impertinent of me to discuss too much with you about scriptural reasoning in defense of the doctrines of Christianity. I've been most impressed. You obviously know these far better than I do. So today, I want to share with you something of the psychology of Jehovah's Witnesses, how they think, how they reason, why they take the positions they do. And bearing this in mind, your knowledge of the scriptures, deep as it is, can be better able and better fitted to cope with their particular need. As Jeeves always says, we must study the psychology of the individual. I read recently in a magazine a rather funny story about a man in a country where they didn't really understand too much about modern inventions, who went to a watchmender with the hands off his watch, off his big clock, just the hands. And he said, watchmender, my clock isn't keeping time. These hands are going too fast. Would you repair them for me? And of course, the watchmaker had to explain that what needed repairing was not the hands, but what made them move. And this is really the trouble that many Christians have with Jehovah's Witnesses. You all know the scriptural grounds for your faith in the deity of Christ, in the personality of the Holy Spirit, in the physical resurrection of our Lord. But unfortunately, many Christians are not fully aware with the psychology of Jehovah's Witnesses, the motives that lead them to deny these teachings, why they think the way they do. So I'd like to just briefly discuss this in the time available. Firstly, you have to understand that a Jehovah's Witness is so drilled in his thinking that it is impossible for him to view you as having anything worthwhile to say. Jehovah's Witnesses view themselves as being the only people who are worshipping God in spirit and truth, the only Christians, the only people who believe the Bible. Indeed, Mr. Halflett might recall, last year we met a young man who was very surprised when we testified, as people who were not Jehovah's Witnesses, that we accepted the authority of the scriptures. This young man genuinely believed that only Jehovah's Witnesses remained who accepted the authority of the scriptures. And you must remember too that Jehovah's Witnesses will have more suspicion and more animosity, and I use that word quite deliberately, towards a coal porter or an informed Christian than they would towards one who was not active or not so informed. They believe that the truth of their teaching can be established by logical reasoning from the Bible. They can have some sympathy for people in church who don't know their Bibles well, because they feel that these people have never studied the Bible so as to see the truth of their teachings. But for such as yourselves, who obviously know the Bible, who obviously have a sufficient knowledge of it and devotion to it, and devotion to your Lord, to go out and preach the Gospel, they view you as hypocrites. This follows from their belief. Of course, some of them may have got to know you better individually, and this may have caused them to reassess this. But as a class, they must view you as hypocrites, because they view you as people who know the Bible well, therefore you must have seen the truth of their teaching, and because you love the praise of men rather than the praise of God, you have chosen to reject it willfully and support the false teachings of Christendom. Now I tell you this for one reason only. You must understand the great suspicion, the great animosity, and the great mistrust that you are confronted with when you meet a Jehovah's Witness, and only great love and great concern on our part can overcome this. It is a very easy mistake to make, but a very harmful one, to respond in kind when they quote to you scriptures to show them that they are disconnected, out of context, to fire back scriptures at them. This, I feel, is a mistake. You have to remember, too, that Jehovah's Witnesses are so schooled so as not to think this might seem a very, very outspoken thing to say. I'd like to tell you something about their teaching method. I will apologize once for repeating myself from last year and never again, but they are taught in this way. Suppose you were a new person just interested. A book is sold to you. This book is divided up into numbered paragraphs. The numbered paragraphs have numbered questions, and they will read to you question one and ask you what you think about it. You will give them their answer. They will then proceed to destroy your thoughts and show you that the real answer was that contained in paragraph one. Then question two is read, and the same process goes on. You will give your answer, what you think. They will destroy your answer and show you the right answer was in paragraph two, until eventually, and it's very hard to describe this, it gets to that automatically you stop thinking. I have a friend who's an expert in judo, and he says that when you first study judo you have to practice the throws and all the various positions that you occupy. Well, the time comes when you know the throws and you know judo so well that when the man makes a move, you automatically respond in the same unthinking way that you would remove your hand from a burning plate. There's no thought. It's a response. This is how Jehovah's Witnesses get friends. I got like this myself. The answer to question 47 is in paragraph 47, and by the time you've reached paragraph 47, you stop thinking. If you were studying with me, by the time I got you to paragraph 47, well, you'd have either given up, you would have seen what I was doing, and this of course happens, but if you got to paragraph 47, you would not be so foolish as to tell me what you thought if it differed with the answer given in paragraph 47. Do you see the subtlety of this? Do you? It means that if you bring a message to the Jehovah's Witness from scripture which contradicts what the Watchtower has taught him, it must be wrong. This follows automatically. It's a fact of life. The sun shines, morning comes, and you must be wrong. It follows that automatically. It simply devolves upon him to find out the error in your argument, you see. And even if he can't, you must be wrong because you disagree with the Watchtower society. So that perhaps helps you to understand basically what you're up against when you approach a Jehovah's Witness. You are, at least initially, viewed as a hypocrite, a servant of the devil, one who opposes the truth simply by virtue of the fact that you differ with him. No individual thinking is allowed a Jehovah's Witness. If he begins to doubt and begins to question, he is expelled from the Watchtower society as a heretic. This actually takes the form of a heresy court. I've gone through it, friend. And the punishment that is involved is that no Jehovah's Witness is allowed to even say a word hello to him afterwards. He is completely ostracised, absolutely. This is what he faces if he becomes a Christian. And bear in mind that he has had to drop all his non-Jehovah's Witness friends, all his non-Jehovah's Witness associations. This virtually means a complete new start for him. So although we know you're offering him all things in Christ, he has this to consider and face. This accounts for the fact that many of you may have noticed, I'm sure, when you talk to Jehovah's Witnesses, that they are most unwilling to consider what you say. And some of you have expressed to me they've been puzzled that they seem to sometimes see the truth of what you say but be quite unwilling to consider it, that it seems to be just going in one ear and out the other without making any visible impression. Don't let this discourage you. It is very often making an impression. But bear in mind that the Jehovah's Witness dare not admit that it is. Remember, it's a fact of life that you're wrong. In my particular case, I was witnessed to by my brother, lovingly, over a period of some time, during which he helped me enormously, but I never let him see it. And when I finally decided to accept Christ openly, he thought I'd had a sudden conversion. You know, he wondered how this had happened. He genuinely believed I had learned nothing from him. Bear this in mind if you ever get discouraged. We'd like now briefly to just discuss the reason why Jehovah's Witnesses reject some of the main teachings of Christianity, to understand them better. And it can be said as a general principle that their rejection of all the main teachings follows because they are rationalists. They believe that there is nothing in the Gospel message that is a mystery to human understanding. It is all to be established by proof and argumentation, and they are rationalists. Just to simply illustrate, on the matter of the deity of Christ, which they often discuss with you, they reject this because it is impossible for the human mind to fully understand it. Now, we know that Arianism is unscriptural. But were it not unscriptural, it's perfectly understandable, is it not? You see, the Father and the Son are completely separate. This is understandable. And very often you'll find that you get admired in a terrible morass when you discuss this subject with them because they will insist on you explaining to them how they could be equal and yet there could be a relationship of subjection, how they could be distinct and yet not separate. And so it is their rationalism, similarly with their rejection of the Gospel in Jesus Christ. We all know, and praise the Lord, that we did nothing towards our salvation. It was a gift. And this was a wonderful truth to me. But to the rational man, this is illogical, isn't it? Nobody gives anyone something for nothing. So the Jehovah's Witnesses have evolved the teaching that all that is gained by entry into their society is an opportunity to work hard for future life. Do you see, it's quite understandable. It appeals to the logic of modern man. And this is really the way they reason constantly. So I'd like to share with you just some hints and tips we have found particularly effective in taking into account their mentality in discussing the Gospel. It's a scene with a quick look at the cloud. First of all, because it's a subject they commonly raise, we'll talk about the deity of Christ. And for the sake of brevity, I'm assuming, I'm quite sure with utter confidence, that you'll know the scriptures I refer to. And this is a wonderful blessing. It saves a lot of time. The Jehovah's Witness will often raise this subject. Have you ever found this? When you say you're a Christian, say, ah well, you believe the Trinity, you see, and they start on this. And many Christians have said that it's very, very difficult to help them on this particular point, because you show them a scripture relating to the deity of Christ, but they show you another scripture. You say, I and the Father are one, but they say, ah, but the Father is greater than I. And so it goes on. And it becomes a scriptural slanging match, you see. One of you bats a text across the table, and he bats it back, and we get nowhere. This is because of their approach. They are not approaching the matter in faith. They are approaching the matter seeking to understand something which it is not given for us to understand. So let me suggest this approach. I'm pirating from the well-known book Jesus of Nazareth, Who is He?, by Arthur Wallace, which I gratefully acknowledge. I'm pirating it completely. But I would suggest this approach. Point out to the Jehovah's Witness that in Isaiah chapter 43, Jehovah reveals that he is the only Saviour. Before him there was no God formed, and after him there continued to be none. And make this the starting point of your discussion. Get him to commit himself on the fact that Jehovah alone is God, Jehovah alone is Saviour, and that any theology or any idea that taught belief in any other God is anti-Christian, because of this clear text. Get him committed on this point first. Then you can show him the absurdity of his theology which teaches belief in two Gods. They really have, I'm not being irreverent, a sort of Batman and Robin setup of God. Jehovah is the Almighty God, Jesus is the Mighty God. There are degrees of deity in the Watchtower teaching. Mighty God is not the same as Almighty God. In fact, they really teach that Jesus was promoted for his faithfulness to the rank of God, just as you might be promoted at work for faithful service. And to them the word God has become degraded in its meaning. They believe that God can have different meanings. In fact, they often try and justify this concept by quoting 2 Corinthians, which refers to Satan as the God of this world. Well, how blasphemous can you get comparing our Saviour as God to Satan as God? But they do this to degrade the meaning of the word God. So, avoid any argument. You simply say to them, if Jesus is a God, which they will admit, if Jesus is a God, if any form of worship can be applied, ascribed to our Lord Jesus as Thomas worshipped him, as Hebrews chapter 1 shows the angels worshipped him, well then he must be the God. Because Isaiah 43 shows there is only one God. And tell him it doesn't matter if he understands it. See, I very often say to them, incidentally, on this point, they say there are no mysteries in the Bible, and they approach the deity of Christ in a strictly rational way. I often try to illustrate them that they believe in mysteries by saying, you tell me how the Lord Jesus Christ multiplied the loaves and fishes. Oh well, by the power of God, oh yes, yes, yes, but how did he do it? How did he do it? And point out to him that many worldly people will refuse to accept this miracle on the basis that they've never seen it happen. It does not obey any known physical law. And they are forced to admit that they don't know how he did it. They accept it in faith. So this perhaps helps get them over the idea that the Bible contains no mysteries, which tends to be what they think. But at all costs, avoid this sort of slanging match in which they'll be trying to get you to prove how it could be, and you'll be trying to prove to them that it is. Point out to them that the reason that the creeds that have guided the Church for all these years are formulated in such difficult language, and it is difficult, is because this is the only way that the full message of Scripture can be coped with. We cannot have separation. But there's nothing against persons in our God. There is nothing in Scripture to show that Jehovah is one person. But the Scripture clearly describes Jehovah as one God, with no other God. Now on the matter of the personality of the Holy Spirit, I'm being griefed for time's sake. The problem here is simple, and again it's rationalist. Jehovah's Witnesses say the Holy Spirit cannot be a person since it, as they will call it. Incidentally, if I say it, I've been a Christian a year and a half, I don't mean it, you'll just have to forgive me, I'm sorry. So ingrained, is it? They will say that the Holy Spirit cannot be a person because he is said to indwell many different people. And they get very, very sort of, you know, almost worldly about this. They don't treat any other subject this way. They say, how can any one person indwell lots of people? It's ridiculous. Forgetting, of course, that he's a spiritual person. Well this argument can be easily disposed of by pointing out that Jesus Christ in John 14 said, if any man, I'm paraphrasing, you know, come, that I will abide in him. My Father and I will make our abodes in him. So if that proves the Holy Spirit isn't a person, it also proves Jesus isn't a person. We've attacked this particular teaching in a particular way, which some of you know about. There are many scriptures that clearly speak of the personality of the Holy Spirit. But if you read them to the Jehovah's Witness straight out and tackle him head on, you have a fantastic argument with him as to what constitutes personality. He will wriggle vents here and there to try and evade the impact of personality in the scriptures. So we do it in a rather roundabout way. We say to a Jehovah's Witness, have you ever heard of Christadelphians? They're a cult. You say this to the Witness, and they always have. They know all the different cults. Well, they deny a personal devil, and the Witnesses don't. How would you convince a Christadelphian, convict him from the scriptures that there is a personal devil, when they say, well, John 8, 44 calls the devil a manslayer, a murderer from the beginning. He abode not in truth. Well, would it surprise you to learn that Christadelphians take that symbolically? They say that it simply means that the devil, being the principle of evil, destroys us, and that it doesn't refer to a person. Well, they'll say, the devil tempted Jesus, spoke to Jesus, actually spoke to him, demanded worship, showing he had ego or will of his own. Surely that's conclusive. Well, would it surprise you to know that Christadelphians just simply take this to mean that Jesus was having evil thoughts? And if you get the Jehovah's Witnesses quite angry about this, well, that's not what the scripture says. The scripture clearly says, the devil said, you know. Having established that, committed them as to personality, then you can turn with them to a scripture such as Acts chapter 13, verse 2, as they ministered to the Lord and fasted. The Holy Ghost said, separate me, Barnabas and Saul, for the whereunto I have called them. The Holy Spirit speaks. The Holy Spirit reveals that he has will and purpose and has right to direct. But if you just read that to them frontally, well, then they start saying, oh, well, that simply means God said by means of the Holy Spirit. And then if you approach in that particular way, you tend to avoid this sort of argumentation. Then there's a point about the physical resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, which I feel is a very, very convincing point. You may know that Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe that Jesus Christ raised from the dead physically. I have to be careful here because I can't have you going around saying that Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe Christ was resurrected. They believe that that body that was in the tomb was taken away and destroyed by God and somewhere fertilizes the earth. And that on the third day, what was raised was a mighty spirit creature who assumed the form of bodies to mislead people into thinking that he had received a bodily resurrection. They wouldn't say that, but this is in effect what they teach. They teach that when the Lord came to Thomas and said, feel, that he was in fact masquerading in a materialized body. The Lord was not inviting Thomas to touch the wounds that were made on the cross, but he had materialized a body with wounds that looked just like them. Well, this is what they believe anyway. And I feel that this teaching is very vulnerable. I personally like to get Christians to speak about the personality of the Holy Spirit, for example, which is so clear. And this, you could refer the Jehovah's Witness to John chapter 2. I shan't look it up, you all know it. Where Jesus, referring to his body as a temple, said that, were it destroyed in three days, I will raise it up. Which incidentally shows that Jesus was not extinct during those three days, he was the one who raised it up. But it says in scripture that they saw that he referred to the resurrection of his body, and that this is how that was understood. I'm sure this is all well known to you, but it's all news to a Jehovah's Witness. That this is how that was understood is shown by the fact that his enemies, after his death, referred to this saying of his on two occasions, and they then later demanded a guard upon the tomb, because it was clear to them that he was going to have a bodily resurrection. So it was very apparent to them that if anyone had stolen the body, this would prove it. I mean, it logically follows in Jehovah's Witness theology that even if the body was still there, moldering about, and we could go and see it, to Jehovah's Witnesses that would be no evidence against the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As I say, all they believe that happened to the body was it was taken away and destroyed somehow, incinerated, burned, broken, I don't know, but it was just disposed of. In fact that's the word they used, disposed of. So that's a very good point. And then also, there is the point too, which is very very vulnerable in their teaching. I'm sorry if these seem disconnected by the way, I'm quoting to you things which are vulnerable in their teaching, because your ministry is this, they have built up this system like a lot of little bricks in their mind. If you can push one out, this, you know, seemingly small as it is, I know that belief in the physical resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ doesn't lead a person to Christ, but what you have to do is you have to knock a little brick out of the system, you see, and get them, then it's surprising. If you actually are enabled in the Lord's power to do that, they'll do the rest, you'll not be able to stop them reading the Bible. So we'll just go on to the place of the Jews. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Jews were completely cast off by God and that a modern-day Jew has no more significance in God's purpose than a Zulu. I mean, praise God for Jews and Zulus, I'm not wishing to run down Zulus, but that God has completely abandoned his people. Now you'll all be thinking of Romans chapter 9, but it's very significant, they've never systematically studied Romans chapter 9. Indeed, you'll not be surprised to know they've never systematically studied Romans. It's a book between Acts and 1 Corinthians. But they quote isolated texts from Romans chapter 9 in their writings and attempt to apply the whole of Romans chapter 9 to spiritual Israel. This can be done if you quote a bit here and a bit there. I think it's very, very good, and this has actually led to the conversion of at least seven Jehovah's Witnesses, just this particular point. Not that this has led to their conversion, but it's led them to re-examine their faith, and they've eventually entered into conversion, to read the whole of it, because it points out things that couldn't possibly apply to spiritual Israel, that they had turned away, they'd been made enemies of the Gospel for the sake of the Gentiles. A hardening had come upon them so that Gentiles might come in. This obviously does not apply to spiritual Israel. So again, this is a point which is particularly vulnerable in the Jehovah's Witness theology and teaching. I'd like to just, perhaps, take up further this point I've made about what we're trying to do. This is why I prayed as I did. We have to guard against, and I particularly have to guard against this. When I left Jehovah's Witnesses at first, I thought, whoopee, I've got the knowledge now, folks, I can go and convert a lot of them. And to my great surprise, this didn't happen. And while we're talking in this vein, which is perhaps not a way we would talk about other groups, you see, if we're talking about alcoholics or drug addicts, we would speak in much less a sort of intellectual vein, much less a matter of fact way, we'd urge them to consider their need of a loving, living Saviour. But with the Lord's grace, his breakdown, this system that's been built up. I was talking to David just earlier, you might have noticed, about my sister-in-law who, praise the Lord, was converted just a couple of months ago. And the brick that was knocked out of her system might seem a silly and insignificant thing, but you see, the Jehovah's Witnesses demand total allegiance to their theology in every respect. You may not disagree with them in one jot or tittle. I was in fact excommunicated for disagreeing with them on the interpretation of a single verse in 2 Thessalonians. That was the issue. I wasn't actually fully in the Lord at that time. And I didn't declare to them my faith. We just, we differed over the interpretation of 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 and one verse in it. And because I wouldn't abide by their teaching, I was thrown out as a heretic. Now in Margaret's case, what led her to Christ was, or to examine her faith, was a very simple thing. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Abraham and all the pre-Christian faithful will never get to heaven. They will receive an earthly resurrection. They will never see the Lord's face in heaven. And we came across Alan, this girl's brother, who is also a converted Jehovah's Witness, who was reading through Matthew with her. And semi-by accident they came across, semi-by accident, they came across this text in Matthew 8, 11, and I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the and I'm like, eh? I can't be there. And the thing is, not being irreverent about it, a silly point. I mean, I dare say many Christians never really considered whether Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ever get to heaven or not. But you know, this scripture shouldn't be there. But there it is. And the point was, this was the brick out of the system, pushed out of the system. She saw that she had never read the Bible for herself. She'd only ever read the Bible as the Watchtower directed her. And from then, being a Christian, intellectually, they therefore come into virtue. They have never met with Jesus. When they've met with Jesus, divert them from this. The remainder of this track is taken up with questions and answers. In many cases the questions are indistinct, but we have used a filtering system to try and make them more clear. Well, in the eyes of Isaiah 43, now we all know that the word in applied in scripture to men, Paul and Barnabas were worshipped. Firstly, they themselves, they don't take this. And the second point to make is this, that in the context of Isaiah 43, that Jesus Christ not only is called a God, and not only being worshipped. Now when Paul and Barnabas were worshipped, and John, a very, very good text, when John fell down before the angels, this worship is always immediately denied. But Jesus accepted worship as his. So I personally believe this. But strictly speaking, in answer to your question, that is the Jehovah's Witness Get Out, yes, and it does. They feel, used the man's plan of salvation, that therefore, in calling Jesus Christ Saviour, it had no real significance. He was merely an agent, you see. One might say that if you used flash to clean your floor, flash has cleaned the floor. But that doesn't mean to say that flash has humanity, you've just used it, you see. And this is really their argument, that because God accomplished his plan of salvation by allowing the creature, Jesus Christ, to die for us, well in that sense, that creature has become our Saviour. I sometimes say in answer to this, that I believe the Lord Jesus Christ has used me to lead some people to Christ as his ordained instrument. Does that make me anybody's Saviour? Which shows them that they were gibberish, obviously. That perhaps shows them something about it. And also the book of Titus. Now if you read the book of Titus right through, it refers to God our Saviour and Jesus as, in another chapter, it refers to Jesus as our great God and Saviour. I read this to Jehovah's Witnesses and ask them the question, who is our Saviour? God or Jesus? And if they come out with this argument that Jesus is only our Saviour, inasmuch as he was God's way of saving us, well I try and impress upon them the fact that this is really degrading the position of Saviourhood. As you say, your question, if Jehovah's Witnesses wish to evade the fourth of it, they can. Really, they don't sort of, you know, something that was accomplished relatively by God by using somebody else, you see. Even in the matter of creation, they speak, they will admit that Jesus Christ is the creator of this quite clearly. When they say it means nothing, God created somebody, God made himself a worker and let the worker do the rest, you see. So they have this agency view of Jesus. Jesus is our judge, Jesus is our Saviour, Jesus is our creator, but in all respect, he's only got Jehovah's agents. Frankly, I don't know what Jehovah's doing. I mean, you ask a Jehovah's Witness, what is there left for Jehovah to do? I mean, Jesus made us, Jesus saves us, Jesus judges us, Jesus doesn't have to. I mean, he's doing all these things as the agent of God. They are taught that they have their own highly coloured history. They are taught that all of history is. Unfortunately, in fairness to Jehovah, ask them what they think is meant by this. What exactly? And we should approach the subject legally. You believe Jesus is your ransom sacrifice. Now, exactly. And they will generally say, before I came to this, they will say that we all have a doubt. They will commit sins. So you then ask them, well, in that case, at Armageddon, it is because Jesus shares the nature, the essential nature and deity of his, but I find nothing in the teaching of the deity of Christ to deny the fact that the Son is subject to the Father, myself. Again, this is, you must understand, I've adopted my theology through research and study, and if it's wrong in any respect, or is not orthodox, well, I'm very, very open to correction. Well, this is how I see it. I mean, I freely acknowledge the subjection of the Son to the Father, but would not acknowledge in any respect that the Son is inferior to the Father. Yes? Could you tell me how did you have this witness as getting around John 3, when you approached them? A really very good question, and it's very involved. We're not involved, but it's a long discussion. They don't deny that it's necessary. They don't deny the Gospel. They split the Christian church into two classes. They believe that there are 144,000 people who are born again, and for them it is vitally necessary. They must be born again. They believe that these ones are born again, are children of God, are regent of the Spirit, have a heavenly hope. But they limit the number of people to whom this message can apply to the 144,000. Now, all the rest of Jehovah's Witnesses, all people who are now becoming Jehovah's Witnesses in the modern day, with very, very few exceptions, are not of this class. I mean, to illustrate how small, out of about a million and a half Jehovah's Witnesses, only 10,000 people profess this calling, so it shows you how few, about one in every 150. Now, they don't deny the Gospel message. They don't say the Bible doesn't teach this. They say it's inapplicable. You see my point? They say, yes, well, John 3 is all very well. I agree with you. It just doesn't apply to me. This means 144,000. It doesn't mean me. I don't need this because I'm not of that class, you see. And similarly, they in fact sort through the Bible, dividing it up into which applies to which class, you see. Romans 8 is a classic example. If you read Romans 8, they apply parts of Romans 8 to the whole church that is 144,000 and great crowd, parts of it just to the great crowd, and parts of it just to the 144,000, you see. And so, you've got to sort through seeing how much applies to you. And this is why the Watchtower Society is necessary because it tells you which parts apply to which parts do not. And they believe that since this calling, which is spoken of, is no longer applicable, the only way to get everlasting life is to associate with the remaining people on earth who have this calling, who are revered very much amongst Jehovah's Witnesses, as Mr. White has found out, because they think he's one of them. And so the whole point about the Watchtower Society is that it is a true organization because the remaining ones of the 144,000 are the leaders of it. And the only way you can get to God is by sharing in their reflective glory. And this is a subject we could really go on about. And if anyone doesn't understand this fully, I know some of you do, I'd gladly talk to you afterwards about it, but they simply say the gospel is inapplicable to them. They don't deny it. They simply say it's inapplicable. Despite the great value of your articles and how strong you have, would you say generally that it isn't a good thing to put the average Christian in your house? Yes. I'm glad you asked this. Should we encourage all the Christians we know at home to become ministers to Jehovah's Witnesses? No. No. We've been speaking, in a sense, let's not be proud about this, to people who have a deep knowledge of scripture because of the work we particularly do for the Lord. And not to put too fine a point on it, not very many Christians are, in my opinion, and I'm sure in yours, very well instructed in the scriptures. For them it's deadly. I know of people who have been out to help Jehovah's Witnesses out of their error and have joined Jehovah's Witnesses, particularly on the subject of Arianism at the Trinity. Without boasting, I can put up an argument in defense of Jehovah's Witness Christology that very, very few Christians could refute because they don't know their scripture well enough. I would say that if anyone wishes to help Jehovah's Witnesses and expresses a desire to help them, physicians have to be prepared. I mean, you wouldn't liberate a person on a patient unless they'd undergone a certain course of study. You should tell such a one that they will have to study their Bibles and their theology and read, you know, to quite a reasonable level of competency before they should do this. The average Christian should have nothing to do with them because the only basis, according to scripture, upon which we may receive them is to teach them. If we are not qualified, scripture says in 2 John that we may have no fellowship with them, we must turn them away from our doorsteps. And if we are not qualified to receive them, we should turn away from our doorsteps. And I think you want to be very, very careful here. I'm very conscious always. I do not want, and I'm sure you do not want, and the Lord doesn't want, young Christians, immature Christians, and frankly, badly or, you know, insufficiently instructed Christians to face this heresy, where most people in it are very well instructed in their heresy indeed. So, in a word, no. No. Q. Mr. Speaker, may I just comment on that? Because, many years ago, John Pryor of Chippenburg, who was one of the leading chandlers when he attended that, Jehovah's Witnesses called on him on Sunday mornings and he listened patiently to what he had to say. And then John turned to him and he said, now let me just briefly tell you about the Lord Jesus and I'm going to meet him in the palace. Q. Yes. Q. I'm not going to have to open the door. Q. No. Q. Oh, no. Q. This is what I have to do. No, more to take their literature, because if you take their literature they then are obligated by their system to make repeated backcalls upon you until you have to be frankly very unpleasant to get rid of them, you see. If ever you take their literature you start a chain of events which can only be stopped by very bluntly telling them that you don't want them to come again. I absolutely agree that every Christian can get involved in dealing in any depth. And I would like to just share a thought with you from the Bible, not to argue about it. I've been using Acts 13.2, but it could be anything, and just getting them to say, would you like to go home, read Acts 13.2 and pray about it, but I don't want to argue with it, and praise the Lord and shut the door. And that's it. But, you see, you have to be very, very careful about sending uninstructed people after people so deeply ensnared in heresy. Yes. Yes, Mr. White. Sorry, I was going to say that I think it was Dennis Cave that said in ten years as a Jehovah's Witness he had only been witnessed to five times by Christians. In thirteen years I was only witnessed to twice. I'm a little bit confused with the Jehovah's Witnesses adherence to 144,000, when the Scripture so clearly tells us who they are. Yes. And yet when you point this out to JWs, they say, well, that doesn't mean the actual tribes of Israel, but the Scripture just names the tribes as well. I think this is another case, I couldn't cover it for time, where you have to understand why they think the way they do. They have been taught that those who go to heaven float about like disembodied spirits. This is why if you sometimes read them, it was commented earlier by someone that if you read them 1 Corinthians chapter 15 about the resurrection body, the fact that our bodies are glorified, this staggers them, you know. It was you who said that, wasn't it, brother? I think about that. They believe that going to heaven is just floating about as disembodied spirits, and rather not to be liked. They rather, in a sense, one of the reasons they admire the 144,000 is they pity them, frankly. You know, they don't want to go to heaven. They think this is a terrible thing to happen, a great sacrifice, you see. To them, the idea of living forever on the earth, sitting, reclining under their luxuriant fig tree and vine with animals playing about, fathering children for a thousand years, perfect health, perfect peace, perfect prosperity. There won't even be weeds in their garden or mosquitoes to bite them, you see. This is quite literal, I'm not laughing, you know. This is quite literal. They think that this, to them, is the absolute acme or mecca of life. They need to believe this. This is their real, you know, driving force. I'm sure they must have talked to you about the wonderful things they hope to do, you know, building their houses just the way they want, you know, seeing the whole world, making round-the-world trips, you see. This being so, they have to limit their heavenly hope. How do they limit them to Jehovah's Witnesses, 144,000 Jehovah's Witnesses? That's what I mean. Where do they justify the fact that they are Jehovah's Witnesses? Well, they simply point out that in Revelation 7, where it mentions 144,000, because they want it to be a literal number, they interpret it literally. And because they don't want it to refer to literal Jews, they interpret that part of it symbolically. They say that scripture refers to literally 144,000, but the fact that it's 12 times 12,000 Jews is to be viewed symbolically. They don't actually believe that the whole class is made up of modern Jehovah's Witnesses. They believe that this class was started back in Jesus' day, that all the early Christians were of this class, Paul was of this class, Peter was of this class, and that down through the ages, they say some of the Reformers had been of this class. They often say people like Wycliffe and Luther, who had a degree of light, as much as they had at the time, were of this class. They insist that there has never been a time since Jesus when there wasn't at least one person on the earth who was of 144,000. And then they teach that towards the end of the days, this class assembled together as the Watchtower Society. And that's who they are. Revelation 7 is their key text for establishing these two classes. They see the 144,000 are seen first, and they are heavenly. The great crowd, which is what they refer to themselves, are seen second, dressed in white robes before the throne with palm branches, and they are earthly, they never get to heaven. It's useful sometimes to point out to them that elsewhere in Revelation, and they will admit this, the symbol of white robes refers to a heavenly state elsewhere in Revelation. And also, before the throne, we cast our crowns before the throne, is a symbol of that heavenly state. But they insist that there are two kinds of white robes, and two ways in which it can be before the throne. Again, you see, it is the motivation bringing the belief, rather than the scripture, you see. They want there to be two classes, so there are going to be two classes. Yes? I was saying that they love the Lord Jesus. Yes, yes. And I was asking, what else do you love? It's very revealing. I've yet, funnily enough, I've mentioned this to some of you, it's quite significant, maybe you can disagree with me, met a Jehovah's Witness who will say, I believe such and such. They always say the Bible says, or, you know, this can be proved. Think about it, when you talk to them, they not often use the words, I believe. And they don't say that they love the Lord Jesus. In fact, they don't refer to him as the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, they don't refer to him as the Lord Jesus Christ. Although they will admit that he is the Lord, but it's just not in their terminology. The answer is very simple, that you have to realise that they believe that their faith is true, because they always win arguments. Now, to them, the winning of the argument with you is an absolute theological necessity. You see? So if they begin to get into a point where they can see they're getting cornered, it doesn't occur to them that that could be because they are in error. It is because they don't know their theology well enough. So it is unprofitable to let themselves get into that corner, so they try their very best to get out of it. You see, if you really pin them down, they believe that the fault must be on their side, you see. They don't know their theology well enough to go with this clever Christian. So they try wherever possible to dodge out of it, because they would feel very, very guilty if they felt that you had been led to be stumbled from considering the Jehovah's Witnesses because they haven't been good enough at arguing. If you'd won the argument and gone away, they would have thought, gone away thinking, oh, that's a load of rubbish, I can even out-argue them. And they'd go home heartbroken thinking, well, there's a potential sheep that might have considered the truth more if I'd have been better able to argue my faith. So if they feel that gnawing sensation up to their stomach that they're getting caught for lack of knowledge as they see it, they try very hard to get out, out of consideration for you. They don't want you to be stumbled. Can I ask you a personal question? Not too personal. Depends how personal. How old were you when you actually started to minister on the Lord? Do I have an age limit? I was eleven. And that is older than usual, that was the age at which I was converted. Children are sent round the doors at the age of eight on their own, at the age of eight. Me and Nancy, we used to, I've told some people, this is a funny story, it just shows you how they think. We used to sometimes find areas of Dumfries where the people were very hardened against our message. We used to send our little two-year-old girl up the path first. And we schooled her to say, good morning, this is a Christian leaflet about the message of God, something like that, and hand it to them. It melted their hearts. And we sold lots of watchdogs. So we used to make Stephanie do it too. But I was converted at the age of eleven and immediately sent out on the doors within two months of my first meeting them. I was baptised at the age of eleven, my brother was baptised at the age of ten. And I think, looking at Sunday school, Christian Sunday school, I don't think we give our children sufficient credit for their ability to understand the Gospel. I think we tend to toll down to them a lot. I think so. You've asked me. I feel that as a Jehovah's Witness of eleven I had a thorough intellectual grasp of my religion. Even dealing with subjects such as death and hell and the afterlife, I was fully equipped to go out and argue religion with people. Well, obviously we don't want that, do we? I mean, we can't indoctrinate our children consciously. I think we ought to be aware that perhaps sometimes stories of Jesus are not sufficient for a child of eleven or twelve. I personally feel that if our children want to get more involved, that we ought to allow them to get more involved and not toll down to them quite so much. I personally feel that Sunday school seems to me, as an ex-Jehovah's Witness, very much to toll down to our children. But obviously we can't indoctrinate them in the same method. Well, we could, but we wouldn't want to. We wouldn't want to. Well, I think at this point we ought to release David. He's been standing up here for an hour and a half.