Dear SD-7,
Christopher, it is so good to hear from you again. You really see to be coming out of your previous funk. I just poked on to check on you as you dropped this post.
Liars tell lies.
Slanderers slander.
Mel, a Baptist friend has a JW wife from the same KHall we had gone to. He told her I left the JWs to become a Christian and she said that I must have "started smoking". You wrote,
“if the organization has flaws, they said, it's still 'the truth' and the best thing there is out here. Apostates, on the other hand, just want to have sex and abandon God altogether. I was quick to point out to the elder who said that that "you can't make statements like that about every individual."
I was a JW from age two to age 47, 45 years of indoctrination. I grew up 40 miles from the Brooklyn, NY headquarters. We went to all the BIG conventions in NYC. 6, 7, 8 day long INTER-national conventions. One GB member spoke after the other. NOBODY CAN SAY THAT I DON’T KNOW THIS RELIGION! My father studied 7 years with the missionary in charge of organizing the “60,000 Brothers” in Poland after they separated from Russia! I married a fourth generation JW! In 1969, in Yankee Stadium, N.Y.City we were told that Armageddon would come in 1975. When we left, we “KNEW” that we had the “truth” that nobody else had. We “knew” that only Jehovah’s Witnesses were “searching the scriptures” for “sacred secrets” to learn when the end would come. And we had “The Truth That Leads To Everlasting Life” book to spread the “truth.
We placed 100 MILLION “Truth” books. The WT tripled their membership. The silence from God was noticeable. Nothing happened. No new signs of the “end of the system of things”. Nothing. I graduated high school, went to work, got married, went to all the meetings, assemblies, conventions, Memorials, read all the books. Nothing except the WT printing how “Christendom” was spiritually asleep and they were keeping on “watch”. The WT printed that “individual” brothers read too much into mentions of 1975. It was OUR FAULT that we got “false hopes” we read in the WT articles we studied in the Khall.
You wrote above, “false religion is false for teaching doctrine that dishonors God”. Those words are always used by the WT to indicate “Christendom.” The words “doctrine that dishonors God” always meant the trinity, hellfire, immortal soul, the cross, Jesus being god. We “KNEW” that.
I got a Kingdom Interlinear at one of those NY City conventions and an Emphatic Diaglott from the Khall book counter and twenty-five years later started using them at the Khall. I saw over and over places where the Watchtower had changed the wording of scriptures in the New World Translation. The NWT was changed to make sure a reader wouldn't get the obvious impression that the Bible supported the Tri-une God, Hell and with fire, an eternal spirit in man, the 'T' shaped cross, or that "The Logos was god".
Changing the words of scripture is serious business : Condemned. Lying : condemned.
People, as individuals , not members of a sect or cult are told in The Revelation to Saint John chapter 22 verses 14 to 21
"Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying.
"I, Jesus, have sent My angel to attest these things to you for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright Morning Star."
Both the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" Anyone who hears should say, "Come!" And the one who is thirsty should come. Whoever desires should take the living water as a gift.
I testify to everyone who hears the prophetic words of this book: If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of this prophetic book, God will take away his share of the tree of life and the holy city, written in this book.
He who testifies about these things says, "Yes, I am coming quickly."
Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.
And the Watchtower says it is "the channel of communication" but the Watchtower has printed that it is not inspired which means they are "men who receive no direct information from above". And they print that the Elders are appointed by the Governing Body who is claimed to be appointed by Jesus to “give the meat in due season” which due season 41 years ago was used to tell us to place “Truth” books because Armageddon was coming in 1975.
It seems very ill advised to go to the Kingdom Hall at all or read their literature or even keep any of it. The Watchtower and its Governing Body is not anointed or appointed.
You are stronger than they are because you have God‘s spirit.
“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
“You are from God, little children, and you have conquered them, because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”
“God's testimony is greater, because it is God's testimony that He has given about His Son. (The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. The one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given about His Son.) And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
The one who has the Son has life. The one who doesn't have the Son of God does not have life. I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
(The First Letter of Saint John Ch. 4:1,4 & Ch. 5:9-13.)
What you must believe in is that Jesus is who his NAME, Yeshua Ha Moshiach says HE is. “Christ Jesus” translates literally to “Anointed Saviour”. Believe that HE is what his name says he is.
“I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
I have still been praying for you,
Blessings,
Paul