Interesting question and seeing how JWs take seriously the preaching of the Good News worldwide, the answer would have to be YES. They will make every effort possible to get into the country ones it's politically stable and preach the good news. Although it is difficult to witness to Muslims, it's not an impossible task. Recently missionaries from Japan have been invited to serve in Blangladesh and that campaign is going very well.
SwordOfJah
JoinedPosts by SwordOfJah
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9
Iraq!!!....Will JW's go to where the 'need is greatest' after the war?
by digderidoo inafter iraq has been invaded/liberated.....will congregations begin to sprout up?
at the end of the cold war the witnesses increased their numbers in the eastern bloc quite dramatically from what i remember.. will the same happen in iraq?.
who will go to 'spread the good news'?....how many will say 'here i am send me'?
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48
HAVE YOU COMMITED A SIN AGAINST JEHOVAH.?????????
by nightwarrior inthe first question is whom do you show your loyalty to ????????????.
1 ) the organization....... 2 ) or to jehovah........... you have five seconds to decide,prove it to yourself by answering these questions,.
whom do you pray through,?????.
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SwordOfJah
Military procedures against enemy cities
If city that was attacked belonged to one of seven nations of land of Canaan (mentioned at De 7:1), all inhabitants were to be devoted to destruction. (De 20:15-17; Jos 11:11-14; De 2:32-34; 3:1-7) If left in the land, these would be a danger to continued relationship of Israel with Jehovah God. He had let them live in land until their iniquity came to completion (Ge 15:13-21)
For cities not belonging to the seven nations, terms of peace would first be proclaimed. (De 20:10, 15) If city surrendered, inhabitants were put to forced labor. If they did not surrender, all males and all women not virgins were killed. Others were spared as captives. (De 20:11-14; compare Nu 31:7, 17, 18.) Killing all men removed danger of later revolt by city and also marriage of these men to Israelite women. These measures also helped to avoid phallic worship and diseases among Israelites
Trees producing food could not be cut down and used for siegeworks (De 20:19, 20)
Chariots were burned; horses were hamstrung to incapacitate them for battle, and later they were killed (Jos 11:6)
WHAT WE LEARN OF HOW JEHOVAH HANDLED WARS OF THE PAST:
WHEN Jehovah gave Israel the land that he had promised to Abraham, morally debased nations were occupying it. The Bible candidly reports that God decreed the destruction of those wicked nations, and he appointed the Israelites to be the executioners. (De 7:2) Many persons have criticized that action. Others humbly acknowledge that it is hardly appropriate for imperfect humans to set themselves up as judges of God. (Compare Eze 18:29.) Their desire is to understand God’s ways. What do they learn?
This record clearly demonstrates that all people are accountable to mankind’s Creator, Jehovah God, whether they profess to believe in him or not. It shows that God is patient but does not shut his eyes to wrongdoing. (Ge 15:16) It makes clear that Jehovah leaves the responsibility for young children on the shoulders of their parents; he does not relieve the parents of this and thus allow them to feel that their actions affect only themselves. (De 30:19; Jos 10:40) It also shows that all who will turn from their bad way and worship Jehovah can be spared from destruction.—Jos 6:25; 9:3–10:11.
The Bible clearly identifies the wicked practices in which the inhabitants of Canaan indulged. Halley’s Bible Handbook (1964, p. 161) concludes: "Archaeologists who dig in the ruins of Canaanite cities wonder that God did not destroy them sooner than he did." The lesson is clear: Jehovah does not forever tolerate wickedness.
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24
Help! Does the sadness ever go away????
by Red ini see a counselor, i am on medication...but still several times a week a just burst out into tears when i think of my mom, sister, brother (all jw's) who are shunning me.
i miss them soooo very much.
it has been 2 years since i left (i also da'd myself).
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SwordOfJah
"I don't know what else to do. I see a counselor, I am on medication...but still several times a week a just burst out into tears when I think of my mom, sister, brother (all jw's) who are shunning me. I miss them soooo very much. It has been 2 years since I left (I also DA'd myself). Does it ever get any easier? What more can I do to help myself? I don't regret the decision I made, and will NEVER consider going back, but I miss my family very much... my heart hurts!"
RED: You heart hurts because you have made the wrong decision in your life. By disassociating yourself, what did you think? That everything was going to be fine with your family? You said that you don't regrest your decision and will never consider going back, but then your heart hurts? It seems like you, yourself, have made the decision. You've cornered your family members into a position where they have to choose loyalty to you or Jehovah. It seems that they correctly chose Jehovah as he can give them eternal life and you can't. An evil apostate will say that they are choosing loyalty to an Organization, this of course to justify your actions. But Jehovah does not justify your premeditated and calculated decision to disassociate yourself from his people. You burst into tears because your family shuns you, but did you not shed a tear when you turned your back on them and Jehovah? The truth hearts, I know. I know that you came hear so that the posters of this board would say things that you want to hear. But telling you the truth is far more loving than allowing you to live in a fantasy world where you imagine that you did the right thing.
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48
HAVE YOU COMMITED A SIN AGAINST JEHOVAH.?????????
by nightwarrior inthe first question is whom do you show your loyalty to ????????????.
1 ) the organization....... 2 ) or to jehovah........... you have five seconds to decide,prove it to yourself by answering these questions,.
whom do you pray through,?????.
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SwordOfJah
To ask a question like the one you did, did you sin against Jehovah or the Organization?, is minimizing the following of Jehovah's laws and commandments as outlined in the Bible. People that are evil will come up with all sorts of excuses to try to justify their wrong doing. Jehovah has made it very clear through the pages of the Bible what he approves or disapproves. Fornication, Adultery, Homosexuality, Bestiality are obviously sins against Jehovah and your own flesh. Jehovah did not leave it up for debate, he tells us it's wrong and that's the end of it. Satanic-thinking would lead you to believe that it's o.k. and that Jehovah will somehow overlook deliberate wrongdoing. Although Jehovah is the personification of the quality "love", he does balance it perfectly with another awesome quality "justice". Another way to justify wrongdoing is to close your eyes and imagine that the Bible is not the word of God. That way there is no consequences to your actions. Another way is to say to yourself that the Organization can't tell you what to do, and you repeat it so many times, and come here to find people that think the same way, so that in your own mind sin is no longer sin. You focus so much on what the Org can and can't tell you, that you forget that the sin is against Jehovah. Of course, Jehovah in his loving kindness, gives us ample opportunity to turn away from sin and follow all of his commandments in the Bible. This beautiful quality of loving kindness is constantly criticized on this board by members that accuse Jehovah of causing them harm for permiting things to unfold the way they have in humanity. They don't see the bigger picture and don't see things through Jehovah's eyes. This is also a serious sin and they will have face the consequences of their blasphemus words against Jehovah.
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99
Milton Henchel is dead
by beroea inthis morning they announce to the bethel family that brother milton
henschel passed away on
in the full time service for 69 years and was the 5th president.
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SwordOfJah
You people are the most vicious and evil people I have ever encountered. This thread proves my view.
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41
Paradise Earth
by kingdomseeker ini'm new here (not a baptized jw) and was just wondering about those in here who are against the jws.
does it mean you no longer wish to live in the kingdom that jesus christ preached about -- the paradise earth conditions before adam and eve sinned?.
... does it mean you all now believe what christendom teaches about the future -- heaven & hell?
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SwordOfJah
Hi KingdomSeeker, you made good points with the scriptures you quoted. Unfortunately these apostates and wanna-be apostates do not have faith in what is written in God's Word. They follow their own evil hearts and utilize this forum to spread their venom. Do they still want to leave on a paradise earth? Of course not, they want things their way, not Jehovah's way. After drifting away from Jehovah's Organization, they can't make up their minds on what they believe. Go ahead ask what they think happens when a human dies, you will see the confusion. They no longer possess answers to simple questions answered through God's Words. It's really sad. As you can see, as soon as you posted, other posters answered by trying to belittle you and make you feel like your stupid and they are smart. By ganging up against you, they get a chuckle in their evil hearts. Notice the stupid post of Outlaw, the idiot always accuses the brothers in Bethel of the same thing. I guess money is important to him so he wants to make it an issue with the Society. These people loose their minds after leaving Jehovah. They try to make it sound inocent by saying that they oppose the Society not Jehovah, but that's bull. They are so blinded by Satan that they can't see that just like Korah against Moses, their battle is against Jehovah, not the brothers.
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63
Virgin Birth Claim Disproves Biblical Inspiration
by AlanF inmany bible believers claim that the old testament contains over 300 so-called messianic prophecies.
however, a careful look at such claims shows that at least 80% of these have absolutely no connection with jesus, or with events beyond what the ancient writer was concerned with.. take, for example, the famous example of the supposed virgin birth of jesus.
this is based on the text of matthew 1:18-23 (nasb):18 now the birth of jesus christ was as follows: when his mother mary had been betrothed to joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the holy spirit.
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SwordOfJah
Faithful & Discreet Slave answers a similar question:
Questions
from Readers•
Can you please give me information pertaining to the translation of "young woman" in Isaiah 7:14 (Leeser translation)? Can you tell me if in the old translation it means "virgin"?—A. G., United States.Not only does Isaac Leeser use "young woman" at Isaiah 7:14, but also the Revised Standard Version Bible that was published in 1952. The Hebrew word there rendered "young woman" is, as you may already know, ‘al·mah´, and in the sacred Hebrew Scriptures this word occurs only seven times, namely, at Genesis 24:43, Exodus 2:8, Proverbs 30:19, Psalm 68:25, Song of Solomon 1:3 and 6:8, and Isaiah 7:14 now under discussion. If you will personally examine these Scripture texts you will see that in at least a number of cases ‘al·mah´ is applied to virgins, and it is possible that in all seven Scripture verses the application is to virgins, but we shall not be dogmatic. The oldest written translation of the Hebrew Scriptures is the Greek Septuagint (LXX), and this Greek translation was begun in the third century B.C. by Greek-speaking Jews. They admitted that ‘al·mah´ could mean a virgin by rendering this Hebrew word as "virgin" at Genesis 24:43 and at Isaiah 7:14, using the Greek word par·then´os, meaning "virgin." Thus it was the Jews themselves that gave the meaning of "virgin" to the Hebrew word ‘al·mah´ at Isaiah 7:14.
It is true that ‘al·mah´ does not necessarily mean "virgin" the way the Hebrew word b e thu·lah´ does, but it can be rightly applied to virgins and is so applied, and in such cases it becomes synonymous with virgin. The Compendious Hebrew-English Dictionary, published at Tel Aviv, Israel, defines ‘al·mah´ as "maiden, young woman." Wilhelm Gesenius’ Hebrew and Aramaic Dictionary (in German) says ‘al·mah´ means "a marriageable girl, a mature virgin; the word designates simply the girl as marriageable, not as a virgin, also neither as married or unmarried; according to Soncino, the woman (wife) until she had a child." With this the recent Lexicon, by L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner, agrees, saying the Hebrew word means "marriageable girl, young woman (until the birth of her first child)." The Hebrew and English Lexicon, by Brown, Driver and Briggs, defines ‘al·mah´ as meaning "young woman (ripe sexually; maid or newly married)." And even the Roman Catholic Hebrew-Spanish Lexicon, by Segundo M. Rodriguez, defines the word as "virgin; adult woman; marriageable." The word is understood by some to be drawn from the Hebrew verb meaning "to conceal," and hence means ‘concealed woman,’ that is, a woman that has not yet uncovered and exposed herself to a husband for the sexual act.
The divine Author of the Hebrew Scriptures doubtless had a purpose in using the Hebrew word ‘al·mah´ at Isaiah 7:14 instead of b e thu·lah´ ("virgin"). Her son was to be named Immanuel, meaning "God is with us." For instance, our magazine, The Watchtower, in its issue of October 15, 1946, pages 312, 313, referred to this prophecy and its fulfillment, and then on page 315, paragraph 38, it said: "They will thus be like Isaiah and his sons, Shear-jashub and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, and possibly a third son named ‘Immanuel’." In other words, the prophecy of Isaiah 7:11 may have had a first fulfillment in the case of the prophet Isaiah himself, through his having a child by a young woman or maiden. The birth of this child named Immanuel would, of course, not be a virgin birth. The reasonableness of this is grasped when we see that the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 concerning the birth of Immanuel by a maiden was to be a sign for the benefit of King Ahaz to whom the prophet Isaiah was then speaking. The virgin birth of a child seven hundred years later could hardly be a sign to wicked King Ahaz during his lifetime. In Isaiah’s case, therefore, the mother of the son Immanuel would be an ‘al·mah´ or young woman sexually ripe. But the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 was given under such solemn circumstances and amid such prophetical developments that prefigured the future that this prophecy of the birth of Immanuel by the ‘al·mah´ must have a fulfillment future from the days of King Ahaz. This is especially so since Isaiah said under inspiration: "Behold, I and the children whom Jehovah hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from Jehovah of hosts, who dwelleth in Mount Zion." (Isaiah 8:18, AS) So this child Immanuel back there in his peculiar birth and meaning of his name would be a wonderful sign of something to occur future. Hence Isaiah 7:14 would have a major, complete fulfillment after Isaiah’s time and at God’s own appointed time.
The Jewish historian Matthew, the writer of the book bearing his own name, wrote also in Greek. He quoted Isaiah 7:14 from the Jewish-made Greek Septuagint which uses the Greek word par·then´os, meaning "virgin." Describing the fulfillment of this prophecy, Matthew wrote: "All this actually came about for that to be fulfilled which was spoken by Jehovah through his prophet, saying, ‘Look! the virgin will become pregnant and will give birth to a son, and they will call his name "Immanuel",’ which means, when translated, ‘With us is God.’" (Matthew 1:22, 23, NW) Then Matthew applies this prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 to the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem by a Jewish virgin, Mary of the line of King David. How the virgin birth came about Matthew himself explains, as well as his fellow Christian writer Luke. The man Joseph whom she came to marry did not have relations with her till she had fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14. After that she uncovered or exposed herself to him and he had relations with her and she ceased to be a virgin. Thus we see how Isaiah 7:14 in its Hebrew original as well as in its Jewish-made Greek translation had fulfillment in vindication of the infallible truth of God’s sacred Word.
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15
Invitation to the Memorial...
by teenyuck injust looked at e-mail....rather than phone and say it, i get an e-mail from my mother:hello my beautiful dolls,.
please don't get angry.
i'm letting you know in case you may have remotely considered attending this beautiful occasion with your family.. .
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SwordOfJah
As I was reading your post, a couple of scriptures came to mind that I wanted to share:
[quote]My mother is the most phony, hypocritical, lying, scheming person I have ever known...next to my sister.[/quote]
Ephesians 6:1-3: " Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother"--which is the first commandment with a promise-- "that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth." "
Zechariah 7:8 "This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another."
Luke 6:37-42 "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. "[quote]I am just so tired of dealing with my mother....she will do anything for my sister. Never has for me. [/quote]
Proverbs 14:30 "A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones."
1 Corinthians 13:4 "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud."
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18
Are you confident about blood?
by eyeslice inthe issue of blood remains a tricky one.. personally, i think that the ot prohibition of blood is more of a statement of respect for life and in particular respect for the life of the animal that lost it life in providing food for man.
similarly, it was prohibited for a calf to be cooked in the milk of its mother.. with blood transfusions, no one actually dies and, therefore, in my view blood transfusion is more a matter of personal conscience than centrally dictated law.. undeniably though, it is clear that risks are associated with blood transfusions, particularly hepatitis c.. if an alternative were available, would you not choose this every time over whole blood?
would this not then justify the current jw stance?.
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SwordOfJah
hawkaw: That is a very interesting essay you wrote. Although, some of the medical terms were over-my-head, but I understood the conclusions you reached. I still choose to obey Jehovah's law regarding blood, no matter what everyone's interpretation of the law. In my mind, a law is a law and Jehovah did formid the consumption of blood. Are you not consuming blood when you are accepting someone elses blood? Also meditating on the example of the twin fetuses, is that really a good comparison to a blood transfusion? I think it would more resemble procedures like blood salvaging machines that creates a closed circuit, and these procedures are left to each conscience to accept. Once again, interesting analysis.
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C of C Just Arrived
by eyeslice incrisis of conscience has just been delivered by mail to my office.
i wouldn't dare let it be delivered to home in case my wife found out.. i am still "in", so the question is, should i read it?
and if so, are my days as a jw numbered?.
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SwordOfJah
Hi, I have read C of C and In Search of Christian Freedom. I am also one of Jehovah's Witnesses and I did not abandon the Organization after reading both books. Of course I have my opinion on both books, if you would like to discuss, feel free to email me.