WHY I AM NO LONGER A "JEHOVAH'S WITNESS"
Manny Lago
INTRODUCTION
First of all I think that I need to explain how I got into the Jehovah Witnesses. My wife and I were Lutherans and I had graduated from Luther College intending to go on to the seminary, but my experience at school made me very discouraged about the teachings of the Lutheran religion and I decided to wait and see what happens. It was during this time that the Witnesses came knocking at our door, they had picked up on our discouragement and suggested to us a Bible Study. Not being properly grounded in the Truth, and being spiritually weak, but being hungry for Bible study, we were hooked! Someone had finally helped us to become excited about God.
My wife and I were responsible for my mother, my sister and her family, and my brother and his family in beginning a study with the Witnesses and eventually all were baptized.
I still had questions, but we had become a part of something; we were excited and finally felt that we were doing something that God wanted and commanded us to do. We were seeking out lost souls and teaching them. Who else was going out and doing the work? Nobody else that we knew was doing "The Work!"
WHO ARE THE JEHOVAH WITNESSES?
The Jehovah Witnesses are the second largest non-Christian cult in the world. Many have asked the question, "Why are they not Christians?" The reasons are many but basically, they deny these basic Christian teachings: (1) The Trinity, (2) The Deity of Christ, (3) The Existence of Hell, (4) The Fact that the Holy Spirit is a Person/God; (5) The Immortality of Man's Soul.
The Watchtower Society? (Jehovah Witnesses head quarters) is located in Brooklyn, New York. It is a group of men led by a president who holds that position for life. These men hold absolute spiritual authority over the approx. 2.5 million members. The Watchtower Society is looked on by its members as "God's Modern Day Prophet, God's Channel of Communication."
The society exercises FULL governmental authority over its members; it makes laws, operates the "kingdom schools," etc.
In order to begin to understand the Jehovah Witnesses, it is necessary understand some terminology that is used by the Jehovah Witnesses. (1) Battle of Armageddon: They believe that it is through the means of the "Battle of Armageddon" that God will soon wage war against mankind. destroying everyone on earth, except the Witnesses. The churches of Christendom will be the first to be destroyed. (2) Hell: The Witnesses believe that the grave is hell, eternal separation from God, no suffering involved.
Some other things that you may have heard concerning the Witnesses: First; they do not celebrate Birthdays and Holidays. Their so-called proof for this is offered as they make reference to Genesis 40:20-22 which refer to Pharaoh's birthday and Matthew 14:6 and Mark 6:21 which refers to Herod's birthday. Both of these were pagans and there was a death of some person involved with each of these events, therefore celebrating birthdays is strictly forbidden. They pledge their allegiance only to God and therefore they do not celebrate any national holidays, nor do they vote. Second; they also do not accept blood transfusions, referencing Genesis 9:4, "Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood." They use this as their basis for refusing a blood transfusion. They claim that this is the same as eating of the blood. It is interesting to note that this was not practiced by the Witnesses until 1944; they also at that time did not practice the taking of any vaccinations until the Watchtowcr Society changed their thinking on this subject. Therefore, if the Society changed their thinking on the blood issue, their members would accept blood transfusions.
As to the return of Jesus Christ: The Jehovah Witnesses believe that the Lord returned in 1914 and has been present ever since, ruling as King on earth through the Watchtower Society.
The Jehovah Witnesses also believe that the cross is a pagan religious symbol adopted by the churches of Christendom under the control of Satan. They hate the cross and new converts are expected to destroy any that they may own. The Jehovah Witnesses maintain that Jesus was nailed to a straight up-right stake without a crossbeam.
They also believe that the Father alone is God, and must be called Jehovah, and Jesus is merely a manifestation of Michael the Archangel in human form and NOT God, but a mere created being. God's first created creature. Thus, they deny the Deity of Jesus Christ. Furthermore they believe that the Holy Spirit is presented as neither God nor a person, but rather as an Active Force of God, an impersonal force. However, God's Word of Truth refers to the Holy Spirit as having personal attributes (cf. Acts 13:2; John 15:26; John 16:13).
As to what they believe in relationship to heaven, the Jehovah Witnesses believe that only 144,000 will go to heaven. They believe that this little flock will help in the rule of the people who will remain on earth in a paradise state.
If one wants to have salvation in the Jehovah Witnesses group then one must give allegiance in full obedience to the Watchtower Society and also full participation in its prescribed works programs. Without doing so (according to JW) it would be impossible to have salvation.
SO, WHY I AM NO LONGER A JEHOVAH WITNESS?
My search for truth was still far from satisfied, not for only myself, but also for my wife. We began questioning things such as: Why don't we use the Bible more, why do we depend on Watchtower's written material? Why could we not find many things in the scriptures that would back up what they were telling us? There was also the fear they would show when you would seriously question anything that the Watchtower would say... .it was like "How Dare You!"
My wife and I would not allow ourselves to accept anything claiming to be "truth" without checking it for ourselves in the Bible! We were desperate for the TRUTH!
The Watchtower Society, about 20 years ago, published their own version of the Bible calling it the "New World Translation Of The Holy Scriptures".
My wife and I began comparing scriptures with other translations and here are some of the changes made by the Witnesses to back up what they were teaching:
(1) Titus 2:13; "New World Translation"-"While we wait for the happy hope and glorious manifestation of the great God and of (the) Savior of us, Christ Jesus." Compare Titus 2:13 (NKJV), "Looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." Notice the addition of the word "the" in the Jehovah Witnesses Version. After studying the reading in the NKJV, we came to understand that Paul was referring to Jesus as "Our God and Savior." We realized that the witnesses had clearly changed this in order to deny the deity of Jesus Christ!
(2) John 8:5 8; "New World Translation"-"Jesus said to them, most, assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham came into existence, I have been." Compare John 8:58 (NKJV): "Jesus said to them, Most assuredly. 1 say to you, before Abraham was, I am." Notice again that here the Jehovah Witnesses translated Jesus' words "I am" to "I have been." once again, to obscure the fact that Jesus was making a direct claim to being God. The Jehovah Witnesses tried teaching us that Jesus was saying that He "just" existed before as Michael the Archangel! If we would read just one more verse (John 8:5 9), we would see that the Jews knew that Jesus was telling them that He was God, in fact, they wanted to stone Him for that claim! There are far too many other changes that the Watchtower has made to the Word of God, far more than time and space will allow. I had enough knowledge to realize the seriousness of changing God's Word. The Jehovah Witnesses were changing God's Truth and they were doing this just to bring people in to worship the Watchtower God. We found this type of attitude toward the Word of God quite sickening. Moses warns us of this in Deut. 13:1-5. Adding to God's Word brought death. John also gave a similar warning (Rev. 22:18-19). Hence, if anyone adds to or takes away from God's Word, he/she will he removed from the Book of life.
OKAY GOD, HELP US FIND THE TRUTH
After leaving the Witnesses, my wife and I searched a long time for the Truth; each Saturday evening we would get out the phone book and look up every religious group that we could find. Each Sunday morning we would go to one group, then in the evening to another group. We prayed to God for help; we were getting discouraged that there was no place for us! Finally, we found the Suncoast Church of Christ, in fact it was the closest religious group to our home. Thank You Lord! We moved very slowly at first, we didn't even give them our phone number or our address. We wanted to make sure that this was the Church that Jesus had started and we saw some good signs, but we would not commit ourselves until we asked all the questions that were critical to our decision.
Finally, after several visits, we asked for the preacher (Kick Walker) to come over our house to help us, we talked for hours and hours over a several week period. We were baptized on September 9th of 1990 and our two adult children followed us in December of 1990.
All of my life I have wanted to be a preacher. I had graduated from Luther College, with a degree in Religious Arts. I had been accepted to the seminary but something was not right and I did not go. But, within a very short period of time after our baptism, the desire to preach was stronger then it had ever been, especially since I knew that I finally had the truth to preach!
In January of 1991, my wife and I left for the East Tennessee School of Preaching and Missions with all our faith and trust in God because we had zero financial support! Brother David Pharr the director gave me the chance; I told him that if God wanted me here at the school, then I would make it! Well, I made it on Januaryof 1993 I graduated and in March of l993, I began my work with the Morton Church of Christ in Morton, Mississippi!
WHO CAN THE REACH THE JEHOVAH WITNESSES?
We must first try and reach their hearts by exposing the errors in the Watchtower Society. We must introduce that person to Jesus Christ through our own life, our conduct and our love! The only way that we can make our relationship with Jesus Christ something desirable is for us to show what our relationship with Jesus is all about. I am convinced that what leads someone to Christ is LOVE
Ask yourself why did the multitude follow Jesus? Was it because He showed how much He knew or was it because He showed how much He LOVED them?
Be patient, start by being a friend. Pray that God will help you in leading these souls to salvation and that comes through love, patience and understanding.
CONCLUSION
A very low point in my life led me to the Jehovah Witnesses, but I could have been led to the Lord's Church, if only someone had asked. Most of us were once where so many are today and I personally never want to forget that once I was lost and I thank God for the courage of all our brothers and sisters who have the faith and trust and the courage to do as Jesus COMMANDS us in Matthew 28: 19,20-"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age, Amen" (NKJV).
