Did people with those signs outside the assemblies and meetings strengthen or weaken your beliefs?

by BonaFide 27 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  blondie

  I saw a couple of groups picketing a district convention. I have to admit that the jws starting shouting at them first even though they had been told not to.

  What had more of an impact on me was watching John Ankerberg's show one night (I lived alone) and while seeing that some of the points were not accurate, they mentioned a book and that all the copies had been ordered burned (The Way to Paradise). Now I had seen that book in my relatives libraries, they had not burned theirs and had no memory of being told to do so. I also saw several copies in the libraries at Brooklyn Bethel and Wallkill. While the info had not been accurate, it made me look into a very interesting book with information that I did not realize had been part of WTS doctrine.

  pagina 215	"who are these fathers whom Christ is to make Princes in all the earth?"
  pagina 216	"Abraham will be a child also"
  pagina 217	"They will hold those places as princes during the time of Christ's reign on earth"
  pagina 218	"Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will be...in the visible part of the kingdom as princes"
  pagina 219	"Jerusalem is to be the capitol of the new kingdom"
  pagina 220	"When you take up a more advanced study of the bible, you will find that the year 1925 A.D. is particularly marked in prophecy"
  pagina 221	"If so, how long before the antitype would come?"
  pagina 222	"Now let's see how accurately this type also outlines the time features of God's plan"
  pagina 223	"The year 1925 therefore, would have been the last jubilee the Jews would have kept, if they had remained faithful to their covenant"
  pagina 224	"We should therefore, expect shortly after 1925 to see the awaking of Abel, Enoch , Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Melchisedec, Job, Moses, Samuel, David, Isiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, John the Baptist, and others mentioned in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews"
  pagina 225	'The princes can easily radio their instructions to any part of the world. Think of Prince Abraham having some general instructions to give, calling "Attention"'
  pagina 226	"No doubt many boys and girls who read this book will live to see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Daniel, and those other faithful men of old, come forth in the glory of their "better resurrection," perfect in mind and body"
  pagina 227	"What a privilege to be living just at this time and to see the ending of the old and the coming in of the new! Of all the times in earth's history, today is the most wonderful"
  pagina 228	"You will have secured the services of the best decorators you can find. Some of them used to be undertakers; but since there are no more people dying, they have had to seek some new occupation"
  pagina 229	"Are we in heaven or crazy or what?"
  pagina 230	"They almost believe that they are in heaven; only they fail to see any angels with wings flying around. It gradually dawns upon them that they have been dead, and that they have been awakened"
  pagina 231	"There are no more obituary notices in the papers. Instead, there are lists of those who have been awakened"
  pagina 232	"When you try to explain some of the wonderful conveniences of the new kingdom they will look at you somewhat sympathetically, and think that you are telling some "whoppers", and that you must think they have lost their minds to believe such stuff"
  pagina 233	"We have a little machine on the top of the house which extracts all the power we can use directly form the air and sunshine and stores it for us to tap at any time... You must remember that we are living under the Golden Rule now, and not under the terrible rule of selfishness"
  pagina 234	"Maybe some dear mother who has lost a little one will find it again some morning in a crib beside her"
  pagina 235	"Maybe some fathers and mothers will read this book; and as they read, their longing hearts will cry out for the little ones laid away in the grave. Would it be possible to fold them in their arms again? Let such reread the above promises..."
  pagina 236	"As you begin to see what the kingdom of Christ means to all the world, does not your heart already begin to sing?"
  pagina 254	"Has the reading of this little book been a blessing and joy to you? If so, you will want to pass the good news on to others that they too may be made glad ... you will want to be one of those messengers of peace"
• 

  minimus

  Gary, you are too funny!

  Those that picketed, while I was a Witness, looked like weirdos. For most, their sight= "we're right, let's go back inside the auditorium".
• 

  carla

  I have read a few stories of ex jw's who did begin to question after seeing some of the signs at jw events. Wasn't it David Reed & wife that saw a sign that read something to the effect, 'jw's read your bible not the wt's' and he and his wife agreed that they did spend more time reading wt's and other lit than the bible so that was the beginning of the end for them, they read a bible and found the inconsistencies themselves.
• 

  blondie

  David Reed, a well known ex JW, who has the website "Comments from the Friends" wrote about that very thing.
  
  He wrote:
  
  "When Penni [his wife] and I were at a large Witness convention, we saw a handful of opposers picketing outside. One of them carried a sign that said "READ THE BIBLE, NOT THE WATCHTOWER".
  
  We had no sympathy for the picketers, but we did feel convicted by this sign, because we knew that we had been reading the Watchtower publications to the exclusion of reading the Bible.
  
  (Later on, we actually counted up all the material that the organization expected Witnesses to read. The books, magazines, lessons, and so on, added up to OVER THREE THOUSAND PAGES each year, compared with LESS THAN TWO HUNDRED PAGES OF BIBLE reading assigned.
  
  The majority of Witnesses were so bogged down by the three thousand pages of the Organization's literature that they never got around to doing all of the Bible reading assigned (the less than two hundred pages assigned).
  
  After seeing the picket sign, Penni turned to me and said, "We should be reading the Bible AND the Watchtower material."
• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  It was obviously "Satanic Persecution" that proved the JW convention had "The Truth".
• 

  I quit!

  The times I saw them I was a true believer in the Watchtower so I just thought they were trouble makers and apostates. On several occassion I confronted them. I don't remember what I said but I probably told them they were liars and to leave. I never saw them at assemblies when I was starting to have doubts or I may have looked at their signs more closely. If it gets attention from the press then it might do some good warning people about the WT scam.
• 

  drwtsn32

  Didn't affect my beliefs one way or another. But it made we think all apostates are raging lunatics.
• 

  JeffT

  For years there was a guy outside the conventions in the Seattle area holding up a sign with a phone number: xxx-FREE. The last DC we went to, when we were already on our way out, my wife wrote down the phone number. We called it a couple of months later. Turns out he was the pastor of a local church who ran a support group for xjw's. They were a very important part of our exit.