Doctrine of Devils Session 14

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Doctrine of DevilsSession 14
Jehovahs Witnesses Part 1
Click to hear sound
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Jehovahs Witnesses
The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society
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Practices -- how they live

• No drugs alcohol in moderation
• Sexual purity
• Limited social environment
• Pervasive us/them mentality
• Everyone else is of the devil
• Heavy control
• Not allowed to read literature critical of JWs
• Children discouraged from higher learning
• Respect government but do not participate in
  elections

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Community life

• Congregations
• Attendance expected at weekly book studies (can
  be in homes)
• Full congregations meet in Kingdom Halls
• Ministers serve without pay
• Disfellowshipping -- kicking people out of the
  family
• Communion or Lords Supper
• Observed annually on date of Jesus death
• Nisan 14 -- March/April
• Only 144,000 elite may take the elements
• In 1999 the partakers worldwide were 8,755

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Iconoclasticoverthrowing traditional or popular
ideas

• No celebrating Christmas
• No celebrating Easter
• No celebrating Birthdays
• No celebrating Mothers Day
• No saluting of the national flag
• No blood transfusions

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Iconoclasticoverthrowing traditional or popular
ideas

• Jehovahs Witnesses say Jesus died on a stake
  rather than on a cross

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Presence in world today

• Over 7 million worldwide (i.e. members)
• (although there are about 17 million who attend
  the annual memorial)

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Charles Taze Russell 1852-1916

• Bounced from Presbyterian to Congregational
  churches
• Ended up contemptuous of all
• Age 17 -- Heard convincing argument that hell did
  not exist. SDA
• 1870 -- at age 18 organized Bible class

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The Russell era

• Captivated by Adventist preaching on Christs
  Second Coming
• 1876 -- joined staff of Adventist publication
  Herald of the Morning
• That group said Christ had returned invisibly in
  1874 and would take believers to heaven in 1878

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Charles Taze Russell

• 1879
• Took control of Barbours publication (Herald of
  the Morning / Midnight Cry), renamed it
  Watchtower
• Married
• Began feeling he
• was the 7th
• messenger
• of Revelation

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Jehovah Witnesses on C. T. Russell Milleniall
Dawn"

• 1886 Millennial Dawn Volume I The Plan of the
  Ages, 368 pages.
• 1888 Millennial Dawn Volume II The Time Is at
  Hand, 368 pages.
• 1891 Millennial Dawn Volume III Thy Kingdom Come,
  400 pages.
• 1897 Millennial Dawn Volume IV The Day of
  Vengeance, 672 pages.
• 1899 Millennial Dawn Volume V The At-One-Ment
  Between God and Man, 512 pages.
• 1904 Millennial Dawn Volume VI The New Creation,
  752 pages.

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Charles Taze Russell

• Here is the headstone above Russell's grave. Note
  that he was viewed as the seventh, or "Laodician
  Messenger" to the Churches (Revelation 314)
• The first six are listed as
• St. Paul,
• St. John,
• Arius,
• Peter Waldo (Waldenses or Vallenses from Vaudois
  (people of the valleys) ,
• Wycliffe,
• Luther.
• (The Finished Mystery, Karatol edition, 1918, p.
  64)

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Movement gets underway

• 1884 -- Incorporated Zions Watchtower Tract
  Society
• 1893 -- First major convention in Chicago
• 360 in attendance
• 70 baptisms

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1914?

• 1894 -- Watchtower set 1914 as the return of
  Christ and beginning of millennium
• 1914 came and went . . . remains key date for
  Jehovahs Witnesses
• The Creators promise of a peaceful
• and secure new world before the
• generation that saw the events of 1914
• passes away -- Awake! October, 1995

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1914?

• The Babylonian captivity, is defined as "the
  period from the fall of Jerusalem to the
  reconstruction in Palestine of a new Jewish state
  (around 538 B.C.).
• 70 years from 537-538 B.C. brings us to 607 B.C.
  which they use as the beginning of the
  fullfilment of Jeremiahs 70 years (also Daniel)

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Pyramidologymeasurements of Egyptian Great
Pyramid used to calculate dates

• 2141 BC the opening of the door of the pyramid
  directly aligned with the north star at that time
  was Draconis also called the dragon star.
• Significant dates are calculated such as
• 33 A.D. crucifixion of Jesus
• 1914 AD WW I
• 1453 BC is accepted as the date of the exodus of
  the Israelites from Egypt

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Pyramidologymeasurements of Egyptian Great
Pyramid used to calculate dates

• 1909
• Wife divorced him (Russell) and moved
  headquarters from Pittsburgh to Brooklyn
• 1916
• Died during train trip
• Buried near this pyramid structure
• "Thy Kingdom Come" vol. 3 (Originally published
  in 1890)

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Judge Rutherford 1869-1942

• Citing Isaiah 4310 HE CHANGED THE NAME OF THE
  GROUP TO Jehovahs Witnesses

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Judge Rutherford 1869-1942

• First visited by Watch Tower representatives in
  his Missouri law offices in 1894
• Baptized as a Bible Student in 1906
• When he took over, several groups splintered off

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Rutherford continues dating game

• 1918 -- Watchtower sets Christs return for 1925
• Millions Now Living Will Never Die -- article
  became book title two years later
• Worldwide anarchy was predicted to occur in 1920

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Expansion in Rutherford era

• 1919 -- began Awake!
• 1920s, 30s -- Extensive use of radio and
  phonograph records
• 1933 -- over 400 radio stations were carrying his
  Bible lectures

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Steady revision of doctrine and structure

• 1931 -- New name Jehovahs Witnesses
• Under Rutherford, membership grew from 10,000 in
  1916 to 100,000 in 1942

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Personality era ends

• With Rutherfords death, the era of charismatic,
  flamboyant leadership ended.
• Power now vested in the governing council.

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JW Bible translation

• New World Bible translation appeared in 1950
• Only one member of translation committee knew
  anything about the original languages of the
  Bible
• Knorr had two years of Greek
• What is the New World Translation?
• An authentic translation? No.
• Systematic re-writing of Scripture in support of
  doctrinal positions. Yes.

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1975 -- a new date

• 1966 book hinted that 1975 would see a new period
  in human history.
• August 1968 Watchtower set 1975 as year for
  Armageddon
• For JWs, period of growth leading up to 1975,
  then stagnation when the year came and went

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Major Doctrines - Beliefs

• Eschatology (end times)
• Soteriology (salvation)
• Pneumatolgy
• (doctrine of Holy Spirit)
• Christology
• (beliefs about Jesus Christ)

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Authority

• Watchtower Society claims to speak for Jehovah as
  His sole channel of communication on the earth.
• "...the Bible is an organizational book and
  belongs to the Christian congregation as an
  organization, not to individuals, regardless or
  how sincerely they may believe that they can
  interpret the Bible...the Bible cannot be
  properly understood without Jehovah's visible
  organization in mind" (Watchtower, October 1,
  1997, p. 587).
• "Only this organization functions for Jehovah's
  purpose and to his praise. To it alone God's
  Sacred Word, the Bible, is not a sealed book,"
  (Watchtower, July 1, 1973, p. 402).

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The Jehovah's Witness Organization is the prophet
of God

• "So, does Jehovah have a prophet to help them, to
  warn them of dangers and to declare things to
  come? These questions can be answered in the
  affirmative. Who is this prophet?...This
  "prophet" was not one man, but was a body of men
  and women. It was the small group of footstep
  followers of Jesus Christ, known at that time as
  International Bible Students. Today they are
  known as Jehovah's Christian witnesses....Of
  course, it is easy to say that this group acts as
  a "prophet" of God. It is another thing to prove
  it," (Watchtower, Apr. 1, 1972, p. 197).