What message should be preached today?
For Twenty-One years as I associated with Jehovah's Witnesses, I always believed, as a Christian I was obligated to preach the Good News Of the Kingdom Jesus foretold in Matthew 24:14- When someone first begins a study of the Bible, and you're taught certain teachings, that look like they harmonize with the Bible as Matthew 24:14 does and you begin by believing that those teaching you are taught are what they make claim to being are true, it is an easy matter to be misled into believing something that is a false teaching. The reason being, when you first begin you have no knowledge or understanding of the scriptures, so you mildly accept everything taught, pretty well without question. Because it looks for all the World to be the truth.
When Paul said: "Woe is me if I do not preach the good news." That statement used to put me under a lot of pressure to spend as much time as I could in the field Ministry. Even at my job I would talk to anyone and everyone I could. I drove Truck and I always had my supply of books Watchtowers Awakes, Tracts, you name it. I generally always had this following scripture in mind that usually spurred me on to keep preaching. But not knowing that I did, I had a wrong understanding of it.
16"For if I [merely] preach the Gospel, that gives me no reason to boast, for I feel compelled of necessity to do it. Woe is me if I do not preach the glad tidings (the Gospel)!" {1 Corinthians 9:16 AB}
Of course as the years progressed, and my own knowledge increased, I began to see things I'd never gotten the sense of before. I mean anyone can claim special appointments to offices, as does does the Governing Body of Jehovah's witnesses, and they can have their material delivered door-to-door, to a variety of individuals. So in that material they set forth their own understanding and interpretations of various scriptural matters; but does that mean the individuals reading their material, will understand everything they teach in those articles? Lets assume the Governing Body really was the true Religion, what they would be teaching in those articles really would be the truth, wouldn't it? So, someone opens a Watchtower and begins reading it. What are the two main principle things needed to understand what they are reading? Now, this is something you don't even know yourself when you first begin. It takes time to learn and appreciate it, but because you do not know it to begin with everything you're reading will sound just beautiful, and appear possibly to you as the real truth, when in fact you are not understanding it at all, and are not aware of the falsehoods being taught because they look for all the World to be the truth. So, like your teachers who do not themselves understand the scriptures, you read Matthew 24:14 and because it says: "The good news of the Kingdom will be preached throughout all the inhabited earth for a witness to all Nations and then the end will come." Well! That's what it says! You feel you must involve yourself in this work. How can you argue what the Bible directly states?
You begin this work believing everything you are taught is word of God; in fact they even tell you to listen to them as though you were listening to the voice of God. Because they appear to you as having all the identifying characteristics of the true Religion, they have you solidly hooked.
Lets assume, Jehovah has taken a keen interest in you. You wouldn't necessarily know that would you? Un-be-knowns to you he has imparted his Holy Spirit to you, and two things have occured in your life, that because of your lack of knowledge to begin with, you were not even aware were necessary. One of those things is found in Matthew 13:11 where we are told this:
"To YOU it is granted to understand the sacred secrets of the kingdom of the heavens, but to those people it is not granted." {Matthew 13:11 NWT}
So, to begin with, even was the Organization you have now chosen to associate with were the true Religion, and you were seriously eating up their material when you first began, it wouldn't matter, would it, because to begin with you hadn't been granted to understand anything, even worse neither has the Organization you've picked to follow. Se we have a case of the Blind leading the Blind. What is this other thing that just may have occured in your life, un-be-knowns to you? Luke will inform us of that next:
"Then he opened up their minds fully to grasp the meaning of the Scriptures." {Luke 24:45 NWT}
Now you find yourself seated in a False Religious Organization, because now quite suddenly you begin to see the real truth of the Bible. Not all at once mind you, but a gradual process of Revelations of Truth are coming to you, and you slowly begin to see clearly all of the errors they have been teaching you. Knowing though if you were to question anything they were teaching you would , as they view it, be questioning God; so you stifle any questions you have, but all the while growing more discontent. So, you are faced with the option of walking away, or remaining in your seat; but now you know, this Organization you have chosen to associate yourself with, is the one Jesus warned would be on the scene just prior to his coming. The one that might mislead even the chosen ones if possible, and you begin to realise how they were able to mislead you. {Matthew 24:24}
You begin to examine more closely everything Jesus had foretold about his coming, and the words of Luke suddenly jump out at you; words you'd read many times before but never saw what he was saying that the one he mentioned was the one preaching the good news of the kingdom; the one Jesus had said, Not to go after. Those words next:
He said: "Look out that YOU are not misled; for many will come on the basis of my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The due time has approached.’ Do not go after them." {Luke 21:8 NWT}
I realised that we were the ones saying the due time has approached, because we were teaching the Christ was invisibly present in the year 1914 and the end was near. Armed with that realisation, I remembered the words of Paul at 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 which really cemented my suspicians; for note what Paul had to say about this very Organization, and notice Paul puts it right on the Doorstep of the Governing Body of the Watchtower Society. It could be no other:
"However, brothers, respecting the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we request of YOU 2 not to be quickly shaken from YOUR reason nor to be excited either through an inspired expression or through a verbal message or through a letter as though from us, to the effect that the day of Jehovah is here. 3 Let no one seduce YOU in any manner, because it will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness gets revealed, the son of destruction. 4 He is set in opposition and lifts himself up over everyone who is called "god" or an object of reverence, so that he sits down in the temple of The God, publicly showing himself to be a god. 5 Do YOU not remember that, while I was yet with YOU, I used to tell YOU these things?" {2 Thessalonians 2:1-5 NWT} Notice the point, 'I used to tell you these things.' That was the following:
12 "Now what I am doing I will still do, that I may cut off the pretext from those who are wanting a pretext for being found equal to us in the office of which they boast. 13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder, for Satan himself keeps transforming himself into an angel of light. 15 It is therefore nothing great if his ministers also keep transforming themselves into ministers of righteousness. But their end shall be according to their works." {2 Corinthians 11:12-15 NWT}
Notice in Thessalonians Paul told us this one would have an inspired expression? The Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses will tell you they are 'God's Spirit Directed Organization.' There's your inspired expression. He said they would have a verbal message. When they arrive at your door, you receive a very polished verbal presentation. I should know that, I worked putting mine together the night before going out the next day. Can't really say mine was all that polished, but I did my best. My letters consisted of my Watchtower Magazines, Awakes, Books, Booklets, Brochures, Tracts, and my usual duscussion on the nearness of Jehovah's Day. Then of course pointing them in the direction in what I believed at the time was the Faithful Slave; the anointed Brothers of the Christ, the Temple Class. That's what they themselves tell you about themselves. Sitting down in the Temple of God, they will tell their flocks to 'listen to them as though they were listening to the voice of God.' They put their Watchtower Magazine in the position of the Holy Spirit by telling their flocks, that, that Magazine is Jehovah's main principle teaching instrument. How's that for sitting down in the Temple of God? They fit exactly the descripion Paul gave of the Man of Lawlessness right down to the ground. The ones Paul said wanted 'a pretext for being found equal to us' he said; to the original Apostles. Paul warned us that they were false Apostle's deceitful workers. Transforming themselves into ministers of righteousness.
Up to this point we should realise that the preaching work as done by Jehovah's Witnesses is not an authorised work by Jehovah. It is a work done by a false Prophet designed to mislead even the chosen ones, as Jesus said they might possibly do. Truth be told none of the chosen ones are among them, because it's not possible to mislead them. Not for any too great a length of time at any rate.
Why is it though that none of them recognize the work the true anointed class would be doing now, and what actually was that work? Paul will show us just why they do not know what it is, and what it is:
"If, now, the good news we declare is in fact veiled, it is veiled among those who are perishing, 4 among whom the god of this system of things has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, that the illumination of the glorious good news about the Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine through. 5 For we are preaching, not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as YOUR slaves for Jesus’ sake." {2 Corinthians 4:3,4 NWT}
Notice? satan has them all Blinded. That is why they do not know, the work the true anointed class would be doing now; and you can bet your life they wouldn't be puffing themselves up as does the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses does. Constantly bragging about all of their so-called special appointments as does the Governing Body. To the point it makes you sick to listen to them. "We are God's Mouthpiece!" "We are God's Organization!" We are the Faithful; Slave!" "We are the Temple Classs!" "We are the anointed class!" "We are God's Spirit Directed Organization!" "We are the channel of communuication." The big joke of it is after all of that BS they do not even know the work the true anointed class would and should be doing now. They find themselves in a work a false prophet was foretold to do, and are not aware of it.
The work was the illumination of the glorious good news about the Christ, as Paul informed us and who would know better than one of the true anointed class? By contrast the Governing Bodies message was the glorious good news about the Governing Body. The Apostle John knew what that work was, and being one of the true anointed we can expect that he would:
17" And the dragon grew wrathful at the woman, and went off to wage war with the remaining ones of her seed, who observe the commandments of God and have the work of bearing witness to Jesus." {Revelation 12:1,2,17 NWT}
What was the attitude of the original anointed class? Were they all puffed as is the Governing Body? Not hardly:
we are preaching,
not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as YOUR slaves for Jesus’ sake."
Can anyone imagine that? An Organization that professes to be of the anointed remnant, not understanding a work a false prophet was foretold to do? Not even understanding the work the true anointed remnant were forertold to do in our last days? Jesus did say by their fruits you will recognize these men. Didn't he?
What was I doing all that time worried to death over not preaching the good news of the kingdom? While I wasn't even supposed to be doing that anyway? Not knowing when I went door-to-door I was actually myself a False Prophet and didn't even know that I was. Only because when I first began I was not granted to understand, nor did I have my mind fully opened to understand the scriptures. So in that Blind condition myself I was an easy mark for these False Prophets to mislead me. Not knowing it, I was trying to mislead others myself. Something I'm not very proud of now. At this moment in time the Governing Body has seven Million misled ones going door-to-door doing a work Jehovah has never authorised and that seven Million people are not aware of it. Seven Million followers of Men, but not of the Christ. Yet they will tell you that they are the 'Way of the Truth.' But do not know what is to be preached. Wannabe