Why I am not a member of the Watchtower Society.
Today I met some folks, who call themselves "Jehovah's Witnesses."
I had seen them trapsing through the apartment a few times, preying on single women, trying to "teach" them something. When they announced what was occuring within the apartment adjacent to mine.
Before I go any further, I have to admit something: I believe Jesus came to save sinners & that I am the worst, (In other words, I am a person who sins against the truth God has shown me.), but for that very reason, Christ came, so that in me, the worst, He might display _His_ limitless patience, to the honor of the only wise God, immortal, invisible, eternal, to our Father in Heaven be all dominion, authority & majesty forever & ever, Amen!
My neighbors have this in common with me then: we watch TV at times. Apparently this is a heinous crime. I suppose that I should report it to my supervisors at work. There is a TV at work & I have watched it for some number of minutes (which I cannot specify here due to a lack of ability to track such a statistic, I do after all have a job to do.) So, probably I am a worse sinner than my neighbor:
1. I sometimes look at the TV at work. Only God can forgive me of this sin, would say the Pharisees. (If you do not detect a hint of sarcasm, perhaps you should play a laugh track from a TV show.)
2. Though I at times desire to watch TV, I have not been able to afford the latest greatest model of TV from the local electronics store. Again, these "Jehovah Witnesses" would surely point out once again: that their Bible includes the term, Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Will Provide // God will See to It (A translation using a title for the Lord GOD who is my Savior & street / "common" language.)
3. I did not invite the two strange ladies wandering through the apartment building into my apartment. (Ladies, if you are offended by that & reading this, please understand: I do not desire for you to disturb the peace of my home. A. My wife was not at home. B. Don't bother my wife even if she is at home. You are not welcome in our apartment. I gave you a business card. It included this web address. You insisted that you could see, though you could not even read my name on the card, despite repeated attempts to justify yourself. If you need glasses to see, please wear them. I care about my own mother enough to ask her to wear glasses if she needs them to read, so when I am writing this, I am not saying anything I wouldn't say to my own mother: if you need glasses to read the Word of God & cannot afford them the Church of Ann Arbor is willing to help you purchase them. If you need medicine to heal the ailments, again, the Church is willing to hear your confession that Jesus is the Christ & that you, like all other humans (even us who know Jesus are in the church), make mistakes daily & moment by moment in need of God's grace ... please forgive me the "wrong" of caring enough about my own household to desire a safe apartment dwelling for my wife & any future children we might have, Lord willing. ... Please forgive me the wrong of seeking your own welfare & good health. It seems strange that you _claim_ to believe it Jehovah Rapha ... The Lord who Heals ... yet you do not obey His commands. He said, it is not the healthy who need a doctor / medicine / glasses, etc., it is the sick. In other words, if you insist that you know Him, listen to Him. He desires Mercy NOT a 1,000,000,000 year fast from TV before you can hear any of the Good News or be regarded as a civil human being. My neighbor has caused much less disturbance at the apartments than I have. There are others who party into late into the night at times & keep me & my wife awake & there are people out there killing, raping, committing arson, incest, & forms of perversion that I do not care to list on this site ... & you come into "our" space griping because 1 person watches TV. Please forgive me the wrong of saying wondering who you were in apartment. Is it wrong to say hello to a stranger in the State of Michigan, or does one have to be stamped, sealed, & certified with a certain JW code of ethics before you can smile with a pleasant layer of make up. BTW: None of the women in my family need make-up to be attractive or pleasant, & while they don't necessarily always put up a good front as you have been dutifully trained to do, my wife fears God & trusts in His Son: Jesus Christ, our Lord. I am not sure why you put on a Tammy-Faye-like masque. I am not sure who bewitched you into thinking like you do with odd ideas about God. [Does anyone know of anywhere that it states in the Bible that Hebrew as recorded in the Law, the Prophets, & the Writings, was the language of Adam & Eve in the Garden? That is a claim to knowledge which I do not see anywhere in the Bible. If it is true, it would seem imperative to me for all members of the Watchtower Society & all those who profess to go out as "Witnesses" on behalf of "Jehovah" to know Hebrew & repent of speaking "pagan" languages.) I have digressed, but I think you see where the line of legalistic reasoning gets a person: trapped & hopelessly bound in trying to perform little rituals such that you lose sight of eternity.
I asked them who they were, and they introduced themselves by what would be called a title. Later they asked me who I was, and I said, "Mert." I don't remember their names, quite honestly. I got little sleep last night & so am a little emotionally tense right now, as you perhaps notice from reading. It has been a much fuller day than expected.
I talked to a man in the group, who wore glasses. He didn't pretend to be able to see & then not see. He was honest enough to wear glasses. Praise the Lord! He can be healed! But those people that claim they are "doing good" & put on a cosmopolitan front, while in fact they don't know the One they speak of ... I have little patience for them. Praise God I have a wife who not only talks about Jesus, but cares enough to clothe & feed & keep a decent house when I am at the office or at the university.
I pity the man whose wife goes around all day "witnessing" for the Lord only to come home & condemn him because he watches a little news or is actually interested in watching a TV preacher tell him how to _know_ the Lord. I would rather eat no earthly food than talk to such a woman day after day. Again, Praise the Lord Jesus that He has shown favor by giving me a wife who is not fearful of eternal condemnation just because she glances at TV once in a while or of reading the Bible for herself, without the help of strangers. I am so thankful that she has listened to me as I sought to explain some passages of scripture to her, as we follow the One Teacher, the Lord.
(Again, I name no names here, I do not recall names & I merely list this out, because: A: time after time, this has been the pattern of Jehovah Witnesses: send out women to bother people at the gates of the city while the men cower in fretful worry in their ivory towers. It is also a pattern of some Muslims. It annoys me. When Jehovah Witnesses & Muslims must resort to shoving "fine young ladies" into public to defend God's name, it has already become obvious: they do not know God. These women know less than the men, because at least the men tend to discuss the writings in a rational way (I mean mere human reasoning, not the full reason of the Wisdom of God, but better human reasoning than human impulse for that is a sure road to hell.) So, as I think about it, probably, the lady was just doing what she was told to do by the bishop, boss, or whatever the head honchos of the Watchtower Society told them to to. So, perhaps in this way, she was doing the best she could. My apologies for any offense ma'am. I hope that one day you too will find peace in the Lord Jesus Christ)
ON THE OTHER HAND:
The friend I spoke with is so near to the kingdom I could hear it in his voice. God loves that man. The Lord Jesus heard him as he expressed a desire to "save" me. Praise God! The dude who held a Watchtower certified Bible cares about my eternal salvation enough to study the Scriptures with me. Praise the Lord. He apparently has better things to do with his time. He was kind enough to give me a business card. If it is God's will, we will meet, as the man said he wanted to. He was not ashamed to talk to me in broad daylight, which indicates that he is actually more bold than the women & more bold than nicodemus.
Two notes:
A. The title which rightfully due to Jesus as "the Firstborn over all creation" does NOT mean he is the first "created" being. There is a semantic trick that the devil plays on those who buy into this sort of pharisaical thinking ... namely: firstborn implies an actual "birth." This is to do what muslims call "associating" things with God. Jesus does not just say "I will associate with God" because he feels like & vaunts himself over all creation in a proud & arrogant way (actually, that is what satan did & tries to get us to do: to be "buddy-buddy" with God on our own terms). Nor does the Church "associate" Jesus with God, as in loose associations, i.e. a symptom of psychosis & other nervous disorders. No, that would be an impotent form of idolatry in reality, though it could also appear "as a from of godliness."
B. Jesus is the Firstborn over all creation. What this does mean is that He is the Heir. I.e. in hebrew & other cultures which practices primogeniture (primo = first; geniture = born) inheritance, the firstborn inherits the blessing & right to rule. This is how English Kings are typically selected, for instances. HOWEVER, in order to display His Mercy, God appointed Jacob as the firstborn heir of Isaac. Esau was physically stronger & physically exitted his mother's body first. However, what mattered in the end was: 1. God's decree which was revealed to his mother Rebekah before the two were born and 2. Jacob's faith-filled struggle to find favor with God & man in his actual day-to-day life. The reality of Jacob's faith was displayed in that he wrestled with God & was "wounded" walking with a permanent limp the rest of his life. ==> What do we see, struggle is NEVER evidence of a lack of faith, but may indeed be the greatest evidence of faith. For faith which is seen, is NOT faith. Faith is ALWAYS future oriented.
I. ==> ETERNITY WILL BE AN EVER INCREASING ENJOYMENT OF THE PRESENCE & LOVE OF GOD THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, RISEN & REIGNING FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE.
II. ==> ETERNITY WILL BE AN EVER-AGONIZING TORMENT FOR THOSE WHO ARE CONTENT WITH THE ABSENCE OF GOD IN THIS LIFE.
III. HOW THEN DOES RECONCILIATION COME?
POINT I. ABOVE IMPLIES THAT DAILY DIFFICULTY IS ULTIMATELY SOURCED IN THE REALITY OF HUMAN SIN & THE RELENTLESS PURSUIT OF GOD'S GRACE
(WHICH SOME HAVE DESCRIBED AS A "DANCE,"
BUT IS MORE APTLY DESCRIBED AS -WRESTLING- SINCE WE MUST NOT ONLY PLEASE GOD, BUT HAVE OUR OWN SELVES & THE EVIL WITHIN CONQUERED! SOME WOULD SAY THAT THIS SOUNDS AWEFULLY ORTHODOX, THEY ARE CORRECT. BUT GOING TO A BUILDING WITH INCENSE, BELLS, WHISTLES, PAINTINGS, STATUES, SECURITY SYSTEMS, ETC. WILL NOT -INHERENTLY- GET YOU CLOSER TO GOD. TALK TO THE PEOPLE THERE ... LIKE A JANITOR.)
POINT II. ABOVE IMPIES THAT DAILY COMFORT & A LIFE OF EASE IS -NEVER- AN INDICATION OF FAVOR.
BOTTOM LINE: ALL WHO -CALL- ON THE NAME OF THE LORD & CRY OUT TO THE LORD JESUS FOR SALVATION WILL GET EXACTLY WHAT THEY ASK FOR: SALVATION,HOPE, ETERNAL LIFE, PEACE, JOY, RIGHTEOUSNESS & ALL OTHER GOOD FRUIT THAT START FROM A GOOD SPRING. A SPRING SOURCED IN THE TRUE & LIVING LORD, NOT MERE TEXTUAL ANALYSIS.
I had seen them trapsing through the apartment a few times, preying on single women, trying to "teach" them something. When they announced what was occuring within the apartment adjacent to mine.
Before I go any further, I have to admit something: I believe Jesus came to save sinners & that I am the worst, (In other words, I am a person who sins against the truth God has shown me.), but for that very reason, Christ came, so that in me, the worst, He might display _His_ limitless patience, to the honor of the only wise God, immortal, invisible, eternal, to our Father in Heaven be all dominion, authority & majesty forever & ever, Amen!
My neighbors have this in common with me then: we watch TV at times. Apparently this is a heinous crime. I suppose that I should report it to my supervisors at work. There is a TV at work & I have watched it for some number of minutes (which I cannot specify here due to a lack of ability to track such a statistic, I do after all have a job to do.) So, probably I am a worse sinner than my neighbor:
1. I sometimes look at the TV at work. Only God can forgive me of this sin, would say the Pharisees. (If you do not detect a hint of sarcasm, perhaps you should play a laugh track from a TV show.)
2. Though I at times desire to watch TV, I have not been able to afford the latest greatest model of TV from the local electronics store. Again, these "Jehovah Witnesses" would surely point out once again: that their Bible includes the term, Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Will Provide // God will See to It (A translation using a title for the Lord GOD who is my Savior & street / "common" language.)
3. I did not invite the two strange ladies wandering through the apartment building into my apartment. (Ladies, if you are offended by that & reading this, please understand: I do not desire for you to disturb the peace of my home. A. My wife was not at home. B. Don't bother my wife even if she is at home. You are not welcome in our apartment. I gave you a business card. It included this web address. You insisted that you could see, though you could not even read my name on the card, despite repeated attempts to justify yourself. If you need glasses to see, please wear them. I care about my own mother enough to ask her to wear glasses if she needs them to read, so when I am writing this, I am not saying anything I wouldn't say to my own mother: if you need glasses to read the Word of God & cannot afford them the Church of Ann Arbor is willing to help you purchase them. If you need medicine to heal the ailments, again, the Church is willing to hear your confession that Jesus is the Christ & that you, like all other humans (even us who know Jesus are in the church), make mistakes daily & moment by moment in need of God's grace ... please forgive me the "wrong" of caring enough about my own household to desire a safe apartment dwelling for my wife & any future children we might have, Lord willing. ... Please forgive me the wrong of seeking your own welfare & good health. It seems strange that you _claim_ to believe it Jehovah Rapha ... The Lord who Heals ... yet you do not obey His commands. He said, it is not the healthy who need a doctor / medicine / glasses, etc., it is the sick. In other words, if you insist that you know Him, listen to Him. He desires Mercy NOT a 1,000,000,000 year fast from TV before you can hear any of the Good News or be regarded as a civil human being. My neighbor has caused much less disturbance at the apartments than I have. There are others who party into late into the night at times & keep me & my wife awake & there are people out there killing, raping, committing arson, incest, & forms of perversion that I do not care to list on this site ... & you come into "our" space griping because 1 person watches TV. Please forgive me the wrong of saying wondering who you were in apartment. Is it wrong to say hello to a stranger in the State of Michigan, or does one have to be stamped, sealed, & certified with a certain JW code of ethics before you can smile with a pleasant layer of make up. BTW: None of the women in my family need make-up to be attractive or pleasant, & while they don't necessarily always put up a good front as you have been dutifully trained to do, my wife fears God & trusts in His Son: Jesus Christ, our Lord. I am not sure why you put on a Tammy-Faye-like masque. I am not sure who bewitched you into thinking like you do with odd ideas about God. [Does anyone know of anywhere that it states in the Bible that Hebrew as recorded in the Law, the Prophets, & the Writings, was the language of Adam & Eve in the Garden? That is a claim to knowledge which I do not see anywhere in the Bible. If it is true, it would seem imperative to me for all members of the Watchtower Society & all those who profess to go out as "Witnesses" on behalf of "Jehovah" to know Hebrew & repent of speaking "pagan" languages.) I have digressed, but I think you see where the line of legalistic reasoning gets a person: trapped & hopelessly bound in trying to perform little rituals such that you lose sight of eternity.
I asked them who they were, and they introduced themselves by what would be called a title. Later they asked me who I was, and I said, "Mert." I don't remember their names, quite honestly. I got little sleep last night & so am a little emotionally tense right now, as you perhaps notice from reading. It has been a much fuller day than expected.
I talked to a man in the group, who wore glasses. He didn't pretend to be able to see & then not see. He was honest enough to wear glasses. Praise the Lord! He can be healed! But those people that claim they are "doing good" & put on a cosmopolitan front, while in fact they don't know the One they speak of ... I have little patience for them. Praise God I have a wife who not only talks about Jesus, but cares enough to clothe & feed & keep a decent house when I am at the office or at the university.
I pity the man whose wife goes around all day "witnessing" for the Lord only to come home & condemn him because he watches a little news or is actually interested in watching a TV preacher tell him how to _know_ the Lord. I would rather eat no earthly food than talk to such a woman day after day. Again, Praise the Lord Jesus that He has shown favor by giving me a wife who is not fearful of eternal condemnation just because she glances at TV once in a while or of reading the Bible for herself, without the help of strangers. I am so thankful that she has listened to me as I sought to explain some passages of scripture to her, as we follow the One Teacher, the Lord.
(Again, I name no names here, I do not recall names & I merely list this out, because: A: time after time, this has been the pattern of Jehovah Witnesses: send out women to bother people at the gates of the city while the men cower in fretful worry in their ivory towers. It is also a pattern of some Muslims. It annoys me. When Jehovah Witnesses & Muslims must resort to shoving "fine young ladies" into public to defend God's name, it has already become obvious: they do not know God. These women know less than the men, because at least the men tend to discuss the writings in a rational way (I mean mere human reasoning, not the full reason of the Wisdom of God, but better human reasoning than human impulse for that is a sure road to hell.) So, as I think about it, probably, the lady was just doing what she was told to do by the bishop, boss, or whatever the head honchos of the Watchtower Society told them to to. So, perhaps in this way, she was doing the best she could. My apologies for any offense ma'am. I hope that one day you too will find peace in the Lord Jesus Christ)
ON THE OTHER HAND:
The friend I spoke with is so near to the kingdom I could hear it in his voice. God loves that man. The Lord Jesus heard him as he expressed a desire to "save" me. Praise God! The dude who held a Watchtower certified Bible cares about my eternal salvation enough to study the Scriptures with me. Praise the Lord. He apparently has better things to do with his time. He was kind enough to give me a business card. If it is God's will, we will meet, as the man said he wanted to. He was not ashamed to talk to me in broad daylight, which indicates that he is actually more bold than the women & more bold than nicodemus.
Two notes:
A. The title which rightfully due to Jesus as "the Firstborn over all creation" does NOT mean he is the first "created" being. There is a semantic trick that the devil plays on those who buy into this sort of pharisaical thinking ... namely: firstborn implies an actual "birth." This is to do what muslims call "associating" things with God. Jesus does not just say "I will associate with God" because he feels like & vaunts himself over all creation in a proud & arrogant way (actually, that is what satan did & tries to get us to do: to be "buddy-buddy" with God on our own terms). Nor does the Church "associate" Jesus with God, as in loose associations, i.e. a symptom of psychosis & other nervous disorders. No, that would be an impotent form of idolatry in reality, though it could also appear "as a from of godliness."
B. Jesus is the Firstborn over all creation. What this does mean is that He is the Heir. I.e. in hebrew & other cultures which practices primogeniture (primo = first; geniture = born) inheritance, the firstborn inherits the blessing & right to rule. This is how English Kings are typically selected, for instances. HOWEVER, in order to display His Mercy, God appointed Jacob as the firstborn heir of Isaac. Esau was physically stronger & physically exitted his mother's body first. However, what mattered in the end was: 1. God's decree which was revealed to his mother Rebekah before the two were born and 2. Jacob's faith-filled struggle to find favor with God & man in his actual day-to-day life. The reality of Jacob's faith was displayed in that he wrestled with God & was "wounded" walking with a permanent limp the rest of his life. ==> What do we see, struggle is NEVER evidence of a lack of faith, but may indeed be the greatest evidence of faith. For faith which is seen, is NOT faith. Faith is ALWAYS future oriented.
I. ==> ETERNITY WILL BE AN EVER INCREASING ENJOYMENT OF THE PRESENCE & LOVE OF GOD THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, RISEN & REIGNING FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE.
II. ==> ETERNITY WILL BE AN EVER-AGONIZING TORMENT FOR THOSE WHO ARE CONTENT WITH THE ABSENCE OF GOD IN THIS LIFE.
III. HOW THEN DOES RECONCILIATION COME?
POINT I. ABOVE IMPLIES THAT DAILY DIFFICULTY IS ULTIMATELY SOURCED IN THE REALITY OF HUMAN SIN & THE RELENTLESS PURSUIT OF GOD'S GRACE
(WHICH SOME HAVE DESCRIBED AS A "DANCE,"
BUT IS MORE APTLY DESCRIBED AS -WRESTLING- SINCE WE MUST NOT ONLY PLEASE GOD, BUT HAVE OUR OWN SELVES & THE EVIL WITHIN CONQUERED! SOME WOULD SAY THAT THIS SOUNDS AWEFULLY ORTHODOX, THEY ARE CORRECT. BUT GOING TO A BUILDING WITH INCENSE, BELLS, WHISTLES, PAINTINGS, STATUES, SECURITY SYSTEMS, ETC. WILL NOT -INHERENTLY- GET YOU CLOSER TO GOD. TALK TO THE PEOPLE THERE ... LIKE A JANITOR.)
POINT II. ABOVE IMPIES THAT DAILY COMFORT & A LIFE OF EASE IS -NEVER- AN INDICATION OF FAVOR.
BOTTOM LINE: ALL WHO -CALL- ON THE NAME OF THE LORD & CRY OUT TO THE LORD JESUS FOR SALVATION WILL GET EXACTLY WHAT THEY ASK FOR: SALVATION,HOPE, ETERNAL LIFE, PEACE, JOY, RIGHTEOUSNESS & ALL OTHER GOOD FRUIT THAT START FROM A GOOD SPRING. A SPRING SOURCED IN THE TRUE & LIVING LORD, NOT MERE TEXTUAL ANALYSIS.