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Jehovah’s Witness Part 3

Prepared and Presented by Titus Prevatt, Youth Group Student Leader

The Watchtower

Today in our apologetics spotlight we will be finishing another religion. Our final week on this religion will be based around The Watchtower society. But what exactly is “The Watchtower?”  The Watchtower society is basically the lawmakers for the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They discern what you can and cannot do as a JW. Basically this means that whatever they say, you must do or you are not a true JW. Now that we have a surface-level understanding of what The Watchtower is, let us dive into some of their beliefs and compare them to what we believe as Christians.

• The Watchtower teaches that Jesus is not God, which we have seen throughout their Bible translation in previous weeks. They believe that Jesus was the first creation of God.
o However, we believe that Jesus IS God and we see this throughout the Bible. This is a major distinction between most evangelical religions and other cults in the world.

• Next difference, The Watchtower Society has predicted either the end of the World, or God’s Kingdom coming to be established on earth 8 different times.
o Well my brothers and sisters in Christ, we are still here today amen? We believe that you cannot predict when Jesus will be coming again. I’m sure most of you have seen or heard the verse that says “The Lord Jesus is coming at an hour that you do not expect.” There are signs in the Bible that tell us roughly when Jesus will come again, but we will never know for sure.

• Now, this upcoming list is not unique to just Jehovah Witnesses, but I do think it is worth noting that The Watchtower Society prohibits its members (The members are the Jehovah Witnesses) from pledging allegiance to the flag, participating in any part of the military, or celebrating any holidays.

• Next difference is that The Watchtower Society tells its members that in order to be a Jehovah Witness, you must go door-to-door to talk about how Jehovah Witness is the one true religion. Those that do not obey the rules that God laid out for us in scripture will be considered wicked and annihilated from existence forever.
o We have talked about our belief in Hell many times, but one scripture to look to is Revelation 21:8. Also, we believe that we do not have to work for our salvation as we have discussed many times. A good verse that talks about salvation through faith is Ephesians 2:8-9. Let’s take a look at what these verses say. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

• The Watchtower Society teaches that the 144,000 in Revelation are already chosen and they are all Jehovah Witnesses. They will all be part of the new heaven that is created, and everyone else will be part of the new earth.
o Now this is a deeply discussed theological point with many different opinions on who the 144,000 are, however no one knows if they have been chosen yet. There is no way to be 100% sure that The Watchtower is correct on this.

• Next, The Watchtower Society prohibits its members from wearing cross necklaces or anything related to a cross because it is idolatry and incorrect theology. (It may be worth remembering that the JW’s believe that Jesus died on a stake.)
o There are some varying opinions on what exactly counts as idolatry, but I see no Biblical evidence that wearing a cross necklace is wrong, and we believe how Christ did in fact die on a cross according to the Bible. If anything, it’s a reminder of what Jesus did to pay for our sins.

• Moving on to another point of difference, they teach that the Holy Spirit is an active force that God uses throughout the world.
o We believe that Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity and lives inside of us. We do not believe it is Biblical to call the Spirit an active force.

• Lastly, the Watchtower Society prohibits its members from getting blood transfusions. They state that Acts 15:20, which says, “but should write to them [Christians] to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.” This verse is NOT stating that you should not have blood transfusions. It is talking about abstaining from eating food that has blood on it already.