When I started to become aware that I might have to leave the religion of my childhood, Jehovah’s Witnesses, I prayed the same prayer over and over again: Father, please show me what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false. I was desperate for the gift of discernment because I realized I had been badly deceived for the majority of my life.
How could I possibly have fallen for a false religion? Was I stupid? Gullible? Naive?
Well, yes and no. Yes, I was all of those things, but not any more than most people. The truth is that people of average to above average intelligence are perfectly capable of being duped.
As explained in a blog post for Psychology today, we often believe people whom we trust, and that effect can be amplified if many of the people we trust all believe the same thing:
“Although the effect of believing something due to trust often happens when just one person we trust causes us to believe in something, the effect is magnified when more people around us believe. Being recruited into a harmful cult by a trusted friend can be difficult, but leaving a cult — at which point all of our close friends are believers — is far more difficult. And growing up in an authoritarian regime, where everyone we’ve met seems to believe a certain thing, makes it that much more difficult to resist believing it too.” – Why Do Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas? | Psychology Today
I made an understandable mistake – I trusted my parents and the other spiritual leaders around me more than I trusted God. But just because the mistake was understandable doesn’t mean it was harmless. The Bible is clear about whom we ought to trust:
“Do not trust in nobles, in merely a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. His spirit departs; he returns to the earth; In that very day his plans perish. How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in Yahweh his God, who made heaven and earth, The sea and all that is in them; Who keeps truth forever; Who does justice for the oppressed; Who gives food to the hungry. Yahweh sets the prisoners free.”
We were not designed by God to live apart from him. We do not do well without God’s constant guidance. Yes, we have been given free will. The question is, how will we use it? When we make decisions based upon human reasoning and feelings, we often end up deceived and in a mess. But when we consult our heavenly Father about everything, things have a way of working out much better.
When Jesus’s disciples asked him to tell them about the last days, the very first thing that Jesus said was this:
“And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.” – Matt. 24:4-5
I believe that we are living in the last days that Jesus was describing in Matthew 24, which means that there is a pretty good chance that we’re going to be exposed to deception. We recently saw a vivid example of the type of deception Jesus was referring to when multitudes of Christians believed false prophets who claimed that they knew the exact date of the rapture despite the fact that Jesus clearly taught that “…that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” (Matthew 24:36) They were all sorely disappointed, and I pray that their faith has not been destroyed.
Now is not the time to get lazy about prayer, to think that we can reason things out for ourselves, or to start uncritically listening to random internet prophets. Now more than ever, we need God’s guidance and wisdom.
I have learned that God has a strange way of teaching lessons. In response to my pleas for wisdom and discernment, you would think he would just give me wisdom and discernment. But instead, He has repeatedly led me into intellectually or spiritually confusing situations to show me how easy it is to get fooled and how important it is to trust in his guidance. Be careful what you pray for!
So, what have I learned?
In a nutshell, we must truly love and submit to our heavenly Father. And we must have both God’s written word and his spirit.
We need the Holy Spirit to help us to understand the scriptures. Many people, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, claim to follow the scriptures, and yet they are deceived. What is missing? True submission to God and to the guidance of the Holy Spirit is needed. Reading scripture with a personal agenda and without God’s guidance can be very dangerous.
For example, I believe that Charles T. Russel, though he claimed to have studied the Bible with a pure heart, may have actually been studying with an agenda. He seemed determined to find something in the scriptures other than the faith of his fathers which so offended him. For example, the idea of the punishment of hell deeply troubled Russel, so he looked for another way to understand the scriptures. Similarly, another president of the Watchtower organization, Joseph F. Rutherford, seems to have come up with many doctrines that were based not on an honest exegesis of scripture, but on a personal agenda of his.
Other groups seem to have the opposite problem. They claim to be guided by God’s Spirit or his angels, yet their supposed revelations are completely contrary to what God has already revealed in scripture. Paul wrote in his first letter to Timothy that, “… the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons…” Yes, demons speak too. We must take exceeding care that we listen only to the Holy Spirit of God, and not to any other spirit.
Mormonism is an example of this type of deception. Joseph Smith listened to a being who claimed to be an angel of God, but who offered revelations that were contrary to what God had already revealed in his word. Smith failed to “test the spirits.” – 1 John 4:1
So, what are the hallmarks of a true teaching of God?
First of all, God has already revealed truth in scripture. The apostle Paul wrote that “all scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be equipped, having been thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) The Bible can be regarded as a sort of spiritual guard rail – its truths, once read, properly understood and believed, can protect us from deception. For that reason, instead of letting someone else tell us what the truth is, it is imperative that we carefully and prayerfully read and study the Bible for ourselves.
Another hallmark of the truth is that it will produce good fruit:
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness, self-control.” – Galatians 5:22-23
““Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, in Your name did we not prophesy, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name do many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’” – Matthew 7:15-23
Obviously from the text above, even those who claim to follow Jesus can be deceivers. Is the person you are listening to teaching Biblical truth and producing good fruit? Are they doing the will of the Father? Does their speech reflect love, joy, peace, and all the other qualities produced by the Holy Spirit? Is their life a testament to Biblical principles?
Jesus’s disciples loved Him, but they often allowed their own desires to trump what Jesus said, which shows that even true followers of Jesus can be led at times by the wrong spirit. When Jesus’s disciples, John and James, wanted to call down fire over a village of Samaritans who would not receive Jesus, He said this:
“You do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” – Luke 9:55-56
John and James were being influenced by a spirit of vengeance and destruction. If two of the disciples that were closest to Jesus could fall for a deception like that, how much more vulnerable might we be if we act out in our flesh instead of letting the Spirit of God guide us?
Something similar happened to Peter, as recorded in Matthew 16:21-23:
From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”
Peter was under the influence of the wrong spirit. He refused to accept the hard truth of what Jesus had just revealed to him. How many of us have had a hard time accepting something God has revealed because it would mean a trial or a hardship for us?
Many of the Pharisees of Jesus’s day were under the influence of the wrong spirit. They seemed to think that they were the guardians of ultimate truth. They had the scriptures and the only correct interpretation of those scriptures, or so they believed. And yet this is what Jesus said to them:
“And the Father who sent Me, He has borne witness about Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form. And you do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent.You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that bear witness about Me;and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. I do not receive glory from men; but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”
The Pharisees loved the accolades of their peers more than they loved God and his truth. They refused to acknowledge the authority of Jesus, claiming that they knew better because they were educated and had the scriptures as their authority.
What can we learn from this?
The only way to arrive at the truth and avoid deception is through radical submission to God. True, deep submission to God can only come through true love of God. Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life…” If we love truth, we will love Jesus. And our love will bring us to submit to him, to take up our cross and follow him, and to put his will ahead of our own every time. In turn, God will lead us in the way of truth.
Let us pray as did David:
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the everlasting way.” – Psalm 139:23-24
I’m going to tell you a little story from my past, but before I do that, I want to explain to you why this subject means so much to me. I want Christians to learn how to effectively evangelize JWs because I was a JW and because some of my most beloved family members still are. They have completely cut me off. I cannot speak to them. But you can. They come to your doors all the time, seeking to talk about the Bible with you. Please don’t ignore them or shut them down. They need what you have, and some of them have family members like me who are waiting for you to show them the truth.
Okay, on to my story:
When I was a JW, I delighted in engaging in online debates. I belonged to a discussion forum that was mostly about pop psychology, but which had a section just for discussing religion. A JW friend and I decided to create a discussion thread titled, “Ask me anything about Jehovah’s Witnesses.” We got a LOT of questions. Most of them were pretty predictable: “Why don’t JWs celebrate Christmas, Birthdays, Easter? etc. Why won’t JWs stop knocking at my door? Do JWs think that they’re the only ones who will be saved? Those all were very easy questions to answer. But a few brave Christians decided to challenge us on the deity of Christ. I was prepared with an arsenal of JW literature on how to prove that Jesus is not God. I’m afraid the Christians did not fare well. And there were even a few who said they were attracted to our way of worship. I felt very proud of myself, until….the apostates started coming. At that point, I jumped ship. Most Christians, unfortunately, are easy targets for JWs. Ex JW Christians, however, are a whole other beast.
Christians, you need to learn to reason like a seasoned Christian ex JW if you want to talk scripture with Jehovah’s Witnesses. JWs don’t think like you, and, generally, they are more prepared than you. I realize there are some Christians who have gone to seminary or studied a lot on their own. But for the rest of you, you probably have some learning to do before you will be effective in a Bible discussion with JWs.
The most important thing to get clear in your mind is this: What is your goal? Why do you want to talk about the Bible with a JW? Is it because you want to prove that you’re right and they’re wrong? Or is it because you care about their spiritual welfare? Is it out of pride or out of love? Unless your motivation is pure love, the endeavor will be pointless from God’s standpoint. The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13: “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”
In my last post, I wrote about why JWs are so resistant to change. JWs are taught to completely shun former members. So, they know very well that if they discover that JWs do not have the truth and feel the need to leave the organization, they will probably lose every person they know who is a JW, very often all of their family. They have everything to lose and only one thing to gain: Christ. Christ is more than worth “the loss of all things.” But most JWs think they already have Christ. So they are unlikely to feel motivated to question the doctrines of the organization that is likely holding their family and friends hostage. Just remember that if they do begin to question, it will cause painful cognitive dissonance, something most people try to avoid. If they are able to make it past that hurdle, then they will be faced with the biggest dilemma of their life: Do I pretend to believe something I know is not true? Or do I jump ship and risk the loss of everything and everyone I’ve ever known or loved?
If out of sincere Christian love you have taken some time to learn about JWs, you now understand more about how they think and what they have to lose, and you also feel secure in your ability to skillfully defend your faith, you are ready to learn how to talk to a JW about the Bible. And remember that if you are successful, you will need to disciple and support that JW through a very difficult transition.
How to begin?
JWs are taught to view non-JWs as potential students. They want to teach you what they know. They do not want to be taught by you. So act like a student. Ask sincere questions, the kinds of questions that will be difficult for them to answer.
At the beginning, it’s important to avoid the subject of the Trinity or the deity of Christ. Nothing turns a JW off faster than the subject of the Trinity. It has been drilled into them over and over that the Trinity is a wicked, pagan teaching that dishonors their God, Jehovah. You can return to this subject once you have made some progress in other areas.
Start with low lying fruit. JWs are taught that Jesus’ second coming occurred invisibly in the year 1914. This is the easiest doctrine to get them to question because most of them don’t understand it to begin with and it’s ridiculously easy to prove that it is incorrect. If you can get them to see the error of this one doctrine, everything else comes tumbling down. It’s like pulling that one Jenga block that’s holding it all up.
Charles T. Russel, the founder of the Watchtower organization, set many dates related to the end times and second coming, all of which turned out to be wrong. But the one date the organization never let go of was 1914. In the beginning, it was thought that Jesus would come, rapture all the faithful Saints, and set up his Kingdom on earth in that year. When that did not happen, instead of admitting that he had been wrong, it was taught that Jesus actually HAD come in 1914, only it had been invisible. It was taught that Jesus came to “inspect his temple”, or the worldwide body of Christ. Once that inspection was complete, apparently sometime in the year 1919, Jesus is said to have determined that the International Bible Students Association (which eventually became Jehovah’s Witnesses) was the one and only organization that was found to be adequately doing the will of God. For that reason, it was determined to be the “faithful slave” of Matthew 24 and Luke 12, the one and only “channel of communication” of Jesus Christ to mankind.
Russell based his calculations for the date of 1914 on the prophecy in Daniel about the “7 Gentile times.” The explanation for this teaching is extremely complicated and convoluted. But what you need to know is that Russel believed that Christ would come at the end of the “Gentile times,” which, according to the book of Daniel, would last 2, 520 years and would begin at the destruction of Jerusalem. Their critical mistake, other than the obvious one of date setting, was that they used 607 BCE, the assumed year of the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon, as their start date for the 2,520 years. But that date is supported by almost no one other than JWs. Most Bible scholars set the date for the fall of Jerusalem at 586/587 BCE.
But more important than the fact that the date was wrong was the fact that Russel was trying to set a date for something that Jesus clearly stated no one would know, not even He Himself:
“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” – Matt. 24:36
Further, Jesus warned about those who would try to deceive by claiming that He had come invisibly:
“Therefore, if they say to you, ‘Behold, He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out, or, ‘Behold, He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe them. For just as the lightning comes from the east and appears even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.” – Matthew 24:26-27
Jesus’s second coming will not be hidden. It will be obvious to all, just like a bolt of lightning.
JWs also teach that only 144,000 anointed Christians (all JW of course) will go to heaven. The rest of mankind, the so-called “great crowd of other sheep”, has the hope of living forever on earth, as long as they become baptized Witnesses and carefully listen to and obey the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I find that many JWs feel uneasy about this doctrine, and it is very easy to disprove.
There are just two main passages of scripture that are used to teach this doctrine. The first is found in John 10:16 where it says, “And I have other sheep, which are not from this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.” It is claimed by JWs that these “other sheep” are the same group that is spoken of in Revelation 7:9-17 called the “great crowd” or “great multitude”. It is taught that this “great crowd of other sheep” is not part of the new covenant with Christ (Luke 22:20), which means that they do not have Jesus Christ as their mediator. It also means that they are not permitted to partake of the communion bread and wine during the annual memorial of Christ’s death celebrated by JWs around the time of the Jewish passover. The only hope for this group lies in their willingness to attach themselves to the “anointed class” of JWs and follow their lead. The governing body of JWs, of course, are all of the anointed class.
This is all utter nonsense, of course.
The two groups spoken of in John 10:16 are Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus Christ. He was announcing his intention to bring the Gentiles into his sheepfold, which is exactly what happened after his death and resurrection. (Acts 10) The passage has absolutely nothing to do with two classes of Christians, one going to heaven and one not, within the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The interpretation of Revelation 7 is easy enough if you simply look at the entire context of the verses. The 144,000 are obviously a group of Jewish followers of Christ, if you want to take the passage literally. And the great crowd spoken of starting in verse 9 of chapter 7 is a group of Christians who have been martyred during the “great tribulation” and are standing before the throne of God in heaven.
What I find funny is that JWs seem to get the interpretation of this chapter of Revelation exactly backwards. They say that the 144,000 is a heavenly class and that the great crowd is an earthly class when, in fact, the text makes it clear that the 144,000 are on earth and the great crowd is in heaven.
This is an incredibly destructive doctrine for several reasons. The first is that it creates a two tier system of salvation that is completely unscriptural and sets the stage for the kind of totalitarian governance that we see within the Watchtower organization. It is an oppressive doctrine. And most importantly, it forces JWs to disobey a direct command of Jesus Christ regarding communion, “do this in remembrance of me.” – Luke 22:19. So serious is this command that Jesus said “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.” – John 6:53
The governing body of Jehovah’s Witnesses bars the vast majority of JWs from the table of the Lord. They are like the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’s day, of whom He said: “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.” – Matthew 23:13
JWs teach many false doctrines besides the two that I just covered. But if you can get them to acknowledge the falsehood of just those two, they are well on their way out of the organization.
But keep in mind this one thing: if you can argue a JW into the kingdom, then they can most likely be argued out of it. They need something more than intellectual assent to the true gospel. Paul wrote in Romans 10 that “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, leading to righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, leading to salvation.”
That kind of belief does not come from the intellect. It develops when the Spirit of God speaks to the spirit of man, as Paul stated in Romans 8: “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,” This happens when we have a genuine encounter with the Holy Spirit.
How can we help JWs to have that type of encounter? Pray for them. Let the light of God shine through your speech and actions. Pray with them if they will let you. Be patient and never forget that this could mean their life.
Many years ago when I was still a Jehovah’s Witness, I was going door to door with my mother offering literature. At one door, an older lady asked us to come into her house. I thought I was going to have a chance to give her my presentation, but she stopped me and said she didn’t want to hear it. What she really wanted to do was to tell me about a few of the many encounters she’d had with the Lord. She told me story after story of having her prayers answered in obvious and spectacular ways.
As JWs, we had been taught that members of “Christendom” (Christians) were deceived by the devil. Even so, I could not get this lady’s stories out of my head. I had a very hard time believing that she had been lying. My only option other than questioning my indoctrination, which I could not do, was to make myself believe that demons had been answering her prayers.
That encounter lived rent free in my mind for a long time. Actually, I never forgot it, and when I eventually began to question my allegiance to the Watchtower organization, like a dormant seed, it started to grow. I wish I could thank that lady now. She didn’t have to invite us in and tell us her stories. She could have simply ignored our knock or told us she wasn’t interested. Instead, she cared enough to make an attempt to reach our hearts.
In case you didn’t know, the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses is considered by many to be a dangerous, pseudo-Christian cult. The reason for that is two-fold. The first reason is that the level of control exerted over the faithful is extreme and, in some cases, even dangerous. The second reason is exclusive to Christianity. Jehovah’s Witnesses teach unscriptural doctrines that are so far outside what could be considered orthodox Christianity that it cannot be called Christian. They teach what most Christians would call “another gospel.” (Galatians 1:8) Many question whether or not JWs are even saved.
For JWs, waking up is dangerous. Depending on how long they have been associated, they stand to lose what to them may feel like everything they hold dear – their worldview, their family, and possibly all or nearly all of their friends. They are taught that dissidents, called “apostates”, are spiritual poison and must be completely shunned, which is why, if they have any doubts, they will often hide them at all costs. I remember feeling like I was bound and gagged. Once a JW is either expelled from the organization, called “disfellowshipping”, or formally disassociates themself, they are treated as if they had died, or worse, as if they had never even existed in the first place. This is unimaginably painful, often leading to severe mental illness or even suicide.
My Christian friends often ask me how they can talk to JWs in a way that might help them to wake up. First, remember what they stand to lose and be gentle and kind. Second, they probably won’t listen to you unless they are already questioning. If they are not ready to be intellectually honest, any effort at waking them up will probably prove fruitless. In that case, pray for them.
If you think your JW friend might be open to hearing you, try giving your testimony. (Revelation 12:11) Very rarely does arguing doctrine help, but it does happen. (I will write a future post on how to discuss doctrine with JWs.) Most JWs are well-trained to frustrate the average Christian with their labyrinthine eisegesis of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. A die-hard JW will reject even the most biblically sound, well-thought-out argument because they are conditioned to believe that no one can understand the Bible except for the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses. But it is much harder for them to reject or explain away your encounters with God.
The above approach is my favorite because it bolsters faith in God. If a JW loses faith in the Watchtower organization before they have had a genuine encounter with God, they almost inevitably become atheist or agnostic. In fact, it has been estimated by some that up to 90 percent of ex JWs are unbelievers. So, if you decide to use any approach other than giving your testimony or discussing the Bible, do everything you can to help them hang on to their faith in God.
What kicked my own awakening into high gear was the Covid lockdowns. The emotional manipulation and spiritual abuse perpetrated by the leadership became so painfully obvious during that time that I finally felt that I had to question my beloved organization. Most JWs will not be able to question their indoctrination until they can clearly see that the organization is suspect and may not deserve their trust. They will defend the interpretations of the organization to their dying breath unless they at some point are able to see the humbug behind the curtain, the flawed, imperfect, and even devious men behind the impeccable facade.
If you decide to try to show a JW the truth about the organization, make sure that you stick to the facts. There is a lot of unprovable conjecture on the internet about the Watchtower organization. But hard, verifiable facts are available. JWs are extremely suspicious of outside information about the organization and will almost inevitably dismiss any negative information as “apostate lies” unless you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that what you are presenting is true. Even then, they may either claim you are lying or that your source is biased and unreliable. And again, emphasize that just because the Watchtower organization is untrustworthy does not mean that God is.
Making JWs aware of their own history can also be a good way to wake them up. If the foundation is rotten, the building cannot stand. For many, all it took was to read some of Charles T. Russell’s original works and the scales fell from their eyes. Russell, the founder of the Watchtower organization who fancied himself a prophet of God, was very fond of setting dates for the second coming of Christ, and every date that he set was wrong. This made him a false prophet. For more on the history of the Watchtower organization’s many bizarre teachings and doctrinal flip flops, see jwfacts.org. In fact, that website is a treasure trove of information, not only on Watchtower history, but on all things JW.
Can you imagine being immersed in a reality that is really a mirage? Can you imagine then waking up to that fact? Can you imagine the disorientation and pain? The movie The Truman Show was an amazingly applicable parable about just that. There is a quote from that film that I find especially apt for helping people to understand JWs, especially those who were brought up in the organization. It is this: “We accept the reality with which we are presented.” That is true. But what happens when that reality starts to crumble? It can be both exhilarating and terrifying.
My Christian brothers and sisters, next time the JWs come knocking, maybe think twice about hiding in the back room or telling them to get lost. They are precious to God, and they need what you have. They are trapped and silenced in a cruelly seductive and demanding system of psychological control from which it is very difficult to escape. Many of them are genuinely seeking God, and what they have been taught by the organization really seems true to them. They deserve your love and compassion, not rejection or cruelty. “It is for freedom that you were set free.” (Galatians 5:1) JWs need the freedom that you probably take for granted. The most loving thing you can do is to learn how to speak to them effectively. And if your efforts are rejected, pray, pray, pray. Give them time. Give them grace. It could literally mean their lives.
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(All scripture citations are taken from the New King James Version of the Bible)
“We think caged birds sing when, indeed, they cry.” – John Webster
The enemies of God like to “kill, steal, and destroy.” (John 10:10) In my last post, I wrote about the freedom that Christ Jesus has given to his followers and explained how to experience and hang on to that freedom through strong faith in the promises and truths found in the scriptures. But some people find that even after coming to Christ and putting their faith in Him, they still feel as if they are under attack: depressed, anxious, angry, and stuck. Why is this? Often, it is because of unresolved trauma and deception from their past, which I believe was the case for me.
I am going to share my own very personal story of deliverance, knowing that it will likely bring much criticism, because I believe that true stories are powerful. I want others to experience the freedom and joy in the Lord that I have come to know. I want you to know that if you love Jesus, you do not have to live your life in continual struggle and defeat. There is freedom to be had right now, not sometime in the future.
After leaving Jehovah’s Witnesses and giving my life to Christ, I finally began to feel safe. I finally felt some measure of peace. But it wasn’t long before I started having episodes of deep depression. The intensity of these episodes did not make sense. They seemed to suddenly come out of nowhere. One day I got some clarity about this when I got fed up with what I was feeling and shouted, “get off me, Satan!” By the next day, I felt as if a massive weight had been lifted. The depression and heaviness disappeared, poof! It was replaced by a sense lightness and peace.
I wish I could say that that was the end of my battle, but it was just the beginning. The night that it was announced at the local Kingdom Hall that I was “no longer one of Jehovah’s Witnesses,” the spiritual warfare I had been experiencing intensified greatly. The enemy does not like to lose people, and he will fight tooth and nail when someone begins to escape his grasp.
Involvement with false religion is a major open door to demons. As a Jehovah’s Witness, I thought I had been serving the God of the Bible by serving the Watchtower organization. I was completely ignorant of the fact that I had been deceived by “doctrines of demons.” (1 Timothy 4:1) I thought that by my involvement with the organization, I had total protection from demons. But in fact, it was quite the opposite. Just like many occultists, I was not conscious of any overt demonic opposition while I was in the organization, although I was experiencing an enormous amount of anxiety and depression. It was not until I tried to leave and serve Christ that the wheels fell off and I was able to see the truth.
The warfare intensified even further when I started going to church. I had been taught as a JW that all Christian churches were demonic. Although that was something I no longer believed, the demons used that indoctrination to try to deceive me into believing that going to church was making me demonized. Saturday nights, I would often not be able to sleep at all so that it was extremely difficult to drag myself to church the next day. Sunday nights after church, I would wake up at around 3 AM and experience a barrage of negative, fearful thoughts. I would also sometimes hear knocks and taps in my room. For a short time, the deception worked, and I quit going to church thinking that it was making God angry.
What helped me was to hear the stories of other Christians who had experienced similar warfare after coming to Christ. Often, they had a background in the New Age, witchcraft, or in a false religion similar to the one I left. (See the testimony of Naela Rose) I started to realize that now, just as was the case after I officially left JWs, my experiences were not evidence that I was angering God, but that I was angering the demons.
That knowledge gave me the strength to fight hard. I decided that no matter what, I would not allow the demons to stop me from meeting with other Christians. But they were not giving up. I experienced all manner of attack – the nighttime attacks continued, my car broke down in multiple and bizarre ways, and I got hurt over and over in ways that made no sense. All of these things can be chalked up to coincidence if you take each incidence on its own, but taken together, it formed a bizarre pattern that could not possibly be blamed on chance.
Gradually, the Lord clearly showed me the path to freedom. He began to make me aware of the reality of demonization and how to find deliverance. I repented of anything I could think of that I had done that was related to occultism. I got rid of books that I had that were related to New Age practices such as meditation and yoga. I also got rid of crystals that I had used for healing. After that, I thought I was done purging. But there was one more health practice that the Lord himself had to warn me of personally, since I had not even considered that it could be dangerous.
One night, I had a vivid dream that woke me up to a pitfall I had been unaware of before. In the dream, I was being followed around by a big, ugly, scary-looking man. I came up to a bookcase and pulled out a familiar-looking book about homeopathy that I had used for years to help me prescribe remedies. I told the ugly man that I knew a lot about that book. Immediately, he attacked me, and then I woke up. I knew the dream was from God and that it meant something. As soon as I began to ponder the dream, in my mind I heard God say, “Get rid of all of your homeopathy books. Burn them!” I could hardly believe it! I had begun to understand that I had been involved in some ungodly health practices, but I was shocked to find out that homeopathy was one of them. I asked the Lord for confirmation, and I found it in this video. So, I took everything I had that was related to homeopathy, hundreds of dollars’ worth of books and remedies, and got rid of them. I tried burning a few of the books, but they were difficult to burn, and I ended up trashing most of it. After that, the knocking and tapping in my room stopped for a time, but I still had a long way to go.
One night, I prayed for help and relief and for God to provide someone to teach me about deliverance. The very next evening after I said that prayer, I was at church and a group of loving brothers and sisters surrounded me and prayed for me. I began to cry intensely and uncontrollably. I was feeling deep guilt and shame for the way I had raised my children. I was also in a lot of pain. One brother mentioned that he thought I might need deliverance. I realized in that moment that God had answered my prayer.
Although ultimately that couple did not feel able to directly help me with deliverance, they gave me a book and directed me to a church where I could find help. That book was Break Free by Vlad Savchuk, and the church was his church, Hungry Generation in Pasco, Washington. I knew about pastor Vlad, but I was afraid to go to his church. I had heard scary things about Pentecostals and about Hungry Generation in particular. My friend tried to reassure me, but I was not yet ready for something like that.
I knew I needed to find help, though, and although I was not ready for Hungry Generation, I thought maybe I could find some Christians to help me privately. Through Torben Sondergaard’s ministry, The Last Reformation, I found two ladies who were willing to take me through some deliverance prayers privately. The day that they prayed for me, I do not believe I experienced any true deliverance, although the process I went through may have set me up for what happened three days later.
For weeks, I had been slowly throwing away all of my old JW literature. I had an enormous amount of it, and I had been gradually adding it to the outdoor trash can week by week. The day that I went to those ladies for prayer, I had not yet been able to get rid of all of it. In fact, that day was trash day. When I returned home, the outside bin had been emptied, and I was ready to toss the rest of my literature. As I was throwing things in the bin, I hesitated when I came to my old New World Translation Bibles. I figured it would be fine to keep them since they’re just Bibles. But as I pulled them out of the box, I distinctly heard in my mind, “NO!” But even then, I doubted that the NO could have come from God. I convinced myself that it was okay to keep them.
That night, I woke up from a nightmare at 3 AM feeling sick and anxious. I was under attack again. I was so frustrated that this was still happening after I tried so hard to get delivered. I asked God to show me why he was allowing this attack to happen to me. In my mind, I saw the Bibles. I saw myself receiving one of them at the first annual meeting of Jehovah’s Witnesses that we had been able to attend in our Kingdom Halls via video link. I saw how worshipful I had felt about the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses and about the newly revised Bible that we called the “Silver Sword.” The Lord was showing me that the organization had been my idol and that those Bibles represented my idol. I also knew by that time that the NWT is a very bad translation. There are many problems with it, but probably the most serious issue is that the translators made terrible translation decisions that reflect their denial of the deity of Christ. (Click here for a playlist of videos on the problems with the NWT.)
I was completely aghast. I actually argued with God, “But they’re BIBLES, Lord!” All I heard from him was “NO!” So that morning, I dutifully marched those Bibles out to the trash bin and threw them in. It was a little painful, if I were to be honest. Just a couple hours later as I was sitting in on a Zoom Bible study, I started to feel very nauseated. Soon, I was in the bathroom throwing up. This didn’t feel like a normal illness. I had not eaten anything that could have given me food poisoning and I did not have a fever. I felt sort of panicky as everything came out. Sitting totally drained on the bottom of my shower, I started to form a question in my mind about what had just happened. Immediately I clearly heard in my mind, “this is your deliverance.” Again, it was hard for me to believe that it was the Lord speaking. I had expected someone to lay their hands on me and I would maybe manifest a little and then be free. But this happened at home in my bathroom, completely spontaneously, apparently in response to my intense desire to be free and probably even more, to my willingness to rid myself of all vestiges of the bondage to idolatry and false religion in which I had lived my entire life. I thanked the Lord. I think my exact words were, “if this is really deliverance, thank you Jesus!” He said to me, “Never again follow anyone but me!”
I experienced quite a lot of relief from demonic attack after that experience. But soon, the Lord started to speak to me about going to Hungry Generation. For about 4 months, he never stopped trying to get through to me. I continued to resist out of fear and because I felt very happy and comfortable in my church. I didn’t want to have to start over in a new church, 45 minutes away from where I lived. I had already been rejected and shunned by my entire family and all my JW friends. I was just barely getting established in a new life and feeling like I had been given a new family. I just could not believe God would uproot me again. But when I said, “Lord, don’t you want me to go to my church?” He gave me a firm NO.
But when, after a period of time of feeling relatively free, I had a vile nightmare, I realized that maybe I wasn’t really done with deliverance. I also noticed that I was having a very difficult time being respectful to my husband. Then, I caught two severe viruses in a row and was sick for two months straight. So, I finally gave in and decided to go to Hungry Generation, not to the Sunday service, but to the deliverance service that they hold once a month, hoping that if I went just once and got some more deliverance, that I would be able to stay at my old church.
On the drive to Pasco, I felt the Holy Spirit on me, showing me that I was doing the right thing. I really did not believe that anything was going to happen to me. But as I stood in that prayer line, I asked God to show me why He had me there. When the minister came and laid his hand on my head, I immediately started shaking uncontrollably. It felt as if my bones were going to come out of their joints. When he demanded that the demon inside of me speak out and answer his questions, I felt as if I was receiving clear answers in my mind, so I spoke out. It said that its name was Jezebel and that it had been in me since I was a baby. It said that it had ruined my health and my life. I don’t know if it was telling the truth about any of that, but what I do know is that something evil was in me and that that night it came out. It wasn’t long before I felt all the strength leave my legs and I fell down. I was declared free and sent into a room for counseling. (If this sounds bizarre, just remember the account where Jesus interrogated the demon who called himself Legion at Mark 5:9)
As you can imagine, I was very shaken by that experience. Afterwards, I felt like I’d drunk an entire pot of coffee. On the drive home, I asked the Lord, “Am I done now?”, and he said “no!” I asked him how much involvement he wanted me to have in that church, and he responded, “Total.” Even then, I thought maybe I could try going to both churches. But in the end, I had to obey the Lord and devote my time and energy to Hungry Generation.
For some people, deliverance seems to happen gradually, like peeling layers off of an onion. I have been one of those people. I think the reason for this is because demons hang on to us through mental strongholds, ways of thinking that are not in agreement with God’s truth. As we heal and bring our thoughts into agreement with truth, this removes whatever hold the demons have had, and they have to leave upon command. I had a lot of mental blocks which could only be dismantled through the process of renewing my mind. (Romans 12:2)
After my experience at prayer line, I actually experienced increased spiritual warfare for a time. The demons that I had given place to and which had not yet left me were angry and restless, likely knowing that I was on a journey that would ultimately lead to their ousting.
The friend and teacher that I had prayed for months earlier appeared the day that I stood up in church and shared my testimony. Ann Chojnacki is a mighty woman of God who answers the telephone prayer line for Hungry Generation. She has a passion for bringing people to Christ, praying for them, and building them up in the faith. She asked me to visit her in her home so that she could help me spiritually. This she did, praying for me, letting me talk, and helping me to understand my position in Christ. This considerably accelerated my spiritual growth. I also received more freedom through her prayers.
I enrolled in Hungry Generation’s Life Class, which is a 6-week-long discipleship program that ends in a three-day retreat where we received additional instruction, encouragement, inner healing, and deliverance. My experience there was beautiful. I received another deliverance when a friend laid hands on me and prayed that ungodly soul ties would be cut. Since I had received deliverance prayer the night before and nothing had happened, I assumed I was not in need of any more deliverance. But this illustrates the importance of pinpointing issues. As soon as she started praying, I instantly started to shake and cry and lose strength in my legs. Later, I got filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues for the first time. I can’t even describe the joy of that moment! The only thing that comes close is the joy a mother feels when she holds her baby for the first time. It is pure love!
Many have objections to the idea that a Christian could have demons. My question for those people would be this: since Jesus commanded his followers to cast out demons, from whom, then, do you cast demons out? I would submit that a Christian can have whatever they open themselves up to. It would be pointless if not dangerous to try to cast demons out of unbelievers unless they were willing to accept Christ before or immediately after deliverance because the demons are usually unwilling to leave a person who has given them permission to stay, and if they do leave, they will often come right back. It’s like a revolving door. But those who disagree feel that their objections to the ministry of deliverance are scriptural, ignoring or recategorizing the lived experience of Christians who have been through demonization and deliverance. I want to take a close look at two of those objections and scrutinize them in the light of scripture.
Objection #1: A Christian cannot be possessed by a demon because he is already possessed by the Holy Spirit.
This objection seems to be based on the fact that many translations of the Bible use the phrase “demon possessed” to translate the Greek term, daimonizomai. Literally, it means “demonized.” It does not signify ownership, but partial control of an aspect of a person’s life. A Christian cannot be possessed by a demon because he is, or ought to be, possessed by the Holy Spirit. But a Christian can be demonized, which means that there is some aspect of their life that is being unduly influenced by a demon or demons. How could this be?
Paul warned fellow Christians that they should not “give place to the devil.” (Ephesians 4:26-27) How might a person do that? Living a carnal life, given over to the works of the flesh, is an open invitation to demons. (Galatians 5:19-21) Some of the works of the flesh include:
Sexual immorality, including sex before marriage, adultery, and pornography.
Occultism, including certain New Age practices such as astrology, reiki, and yoga.
False religions.
Antisocial and narcissistic behaviors such as rage, jealousy, envy, and abusive speech.
Addictions, which are a form of idolatry.
Getting high or drunk.
Murder, including abortion.
One of the most prevalent ways that Christians give place to the devil is through unforgiveness. Jesus was very serious when he said that we must forgive in order to be forgiven. (Matthew 6:14) Very often, when a person needs deliverance, but no progress is being made, it is because that person harbors unforgiveness in their heart towards someone. When true forgiveness is expressed, that opens the way to freedom.
Objection #2: Holy Spirit and an evil spirit cannot exist in the same vessel.
2 Corinthians 6:14 states “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?” This scripture is often used to teach the idea that a Christian cannot have a demon. But is it saying that light and darkness cannot coexist? Or is it saying that it should not? Can a Christian be unequally yoked together with an unbeliever? Of course, it happens all the time. Should they? Absolutely not! So, this scripture cannot be used to defend the position that an evil spirit and the Holy Spirit cannot exist in the same vessel. They shouldn’t, but they can. If it were true that the Holy Spirit could not coexist with evil spirits, He would have to leave the earth entirely, as it is overrun with evil spirits.
Jesus made it clear that deliverance is for the children of God in his conversation with a Canaanite woman who wanted him to deliver her daughter from demons. Here is the passage:
“And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.” But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, “Send her away, for she cries out after us.” But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, help me!” But He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.” And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.” – Matthew 15:22-28
During his ministry, Jesus considered the Jewish people the children of God. (Deuteronomy 14:1) His death and resurrection paved the way for Gentiles (non-Jews) who believe on the Lord Jesus to be grafted into the rootstock of Israel and to be called God’s children. (Romans 11:17-18) As the children of God, we are entitled to the bread of deliverance. It is “the children’s bread.”
The casting out of demons was a prominent part of Jesus’s ministry. (Mark 1:34) And he commanded his followers to do likewise. (Matthew 10:8; Luke 10:17, 19) We have ‘authority over…all the power of the enemy,’ and we are expected to use that authority.
When I was a JW, I used to wonder, if Jesus cast out so many demons, why weren’t we doing as he did? It didn’t make any sense to me to believe that demonic activity had ceased since the first century. In fact, it seemed that it had only increased. It was a major revelation to me to find out that there are modern day Christians who cast out demons just as Jesus did, and that demonization is not, in fact, rare, but just as common nowadays as it was in Jesus’s time, maybe more. Although at first the idea of seeing a demonic manifestation made me very uncomfortable, I knew that Jesus dealt with that very thing all the time, and that his willingness to deal with it resulted in freedom and sanity for the people he ministered to. (Luke 8:35)
I am no longer uncomfortable with deliverance. In fact, I often pray deliverance prayers and command demons to come out in Jesus’s name. I have seen many demons cast out. Sometimes they manifest in ugly ways, crying, screaming, or causing a person to gag, cough, or vomit. Notice in the following scriptures that it was not uncommon in Jesus’s day for demons to cause a raucous as they came out: Mark 1:23-26; 5:2-13; 9:25-27; Acts 8:7. But once the person being prayed for receives their freedom, it is a beautiful thing to behold. There is such joy and relief. It is a miracle from God. If you would like to see a striking example of what I am talking about, watch this video.
People need deliverance. It is vital that as Christians, we receive our full freedom in Christ and that we also help others to receive their freedom. In my next post I will go into greater depth on how people can become demonized, how they can close doors to the demons so that they can be fully delivered, and how, afterward, they can remain free.
(Unless otherwise stated, all scripture quotations are taken from the Legacy Standard Bible.)
“So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” – John 8:36 (LSB)
Jesus said that he came to “set free those who are oppressed.” (Luke 4:18) What does that mean? If you are a follower of Christ, do believe that you have been set free? If so, from what have you been set free?
The apostle Paul wrote that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2) That means that because of what Jesus did on the cross, our sins are forgiven and no longer counted against us. For true believers, there is no condemnation, (Romans 8:1) and that means that we have eternal life.
When I was a Jehovah’s Witness, I never felt free of condemnation. The gospel we were taught was one of works, not of grace. So, many if not most of us felt the need to earn our salvation and, understandably, we never quit felt saved. This is because imperfect humans are incapable of earning their salvation and, on some deep level, most of us are aware of this. If we were capable, Jesus would not have had to suffer on the cross in order to provide a ransom to save us.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are not the only religious group that teaches a works-based gospel. Many Christians from many denominational backgrounds feel unsure of their salvation and their freedom. So, what if you know that you love God and that Jesus Christ is Lord, but you do not feel free? What if in spite of the beautiful thing that Christ did for us, there seems to be a dark cloud hanging over you? What if, although you know you are a Christian, it feels as if your mind is being assaulted with vile and condemnatory intrusive thoughts? What if, though you want very much to be holy, you have a particular sin that you just cannot seem to overcome?
In his letter to the Ephesians, the apostle Paul wrote about a war being waged by the Devil against followers of Christ. He said that in order for us as Christians to win this war, we must “put on the full armor of God.” (Eph. 6:11) The armor he spoke of is not physical, because our war is not physical. He said that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” – Eph. 6:12
This is primarily a war of the mind. Jesus demonstrated how to fight this war when he was tempted by the Devil in the wilderness right after his baptism. It is not won with physical weapons of war, but with truth. Every time Satan spoke to Jesus in an attempt to get him to compromise, Jesus shot back with the word of truth as recorded in scripture. The last attempt that Satan made to tempt Jesus was when he offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if he would fall down and worship Satan. Because of his authority as the Son of God, Jesus could rightly have spoken of his own accord. But instead, he chose to quote scripture: “For it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.” – Matt. 4:10
There are “spiritual forces of wickedness” that come against us too. In 2 Corinthians 2:11, Paul said that “we are not ignorant of his (the devil’s) schemes.” Paul was not ignorant, but many modern Christians are. This should not be. It is important that you understand how the enemy works so that you will be prepared to defend yourself and to fight back. Christians who don’t understand the need for their spiritual suit of armor or how to put it on can end up feeling oppressed and defeated.
What is the spiritual suit of armor? This is how it is described in Ephesians 6:13-17:
“Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. In addition to all, having taken up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, also receive the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God...”
Without faith, the other parts of the suit of armor do not work. You must always speak the truth and have faith in the truth that we find in the scriptures, “doubting nothing…”(James 1:6) You must have faith that you are the righteousness of God in Christ and that you now have the power to overcome sin because Christ lives in you. (2 Corinthians 5:21) You must believe that you now have peace with God because of the shed blood of Christ, and that consequently, you also have salvation. (Romans 5:1; 1 John 5:13)
The only aspect of the spiritual suit of armor that is offensive rather than defensive is the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Believing and speaking the word is our most effective weapon against the enemy.
Just as the Devil called into question Jesus’s true identity, saying “if you are the son of God”, the enemy does the same to us. In order to win the war against evil, you must understand who you are in Christ. We are not left in the dark about that, the scriptures are very clear. You need only believe the word. (Luke 8:50) What does it say?
We are hidden with Christ in God:
“For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” – Colossians 3:3
We are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ:
“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God., and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” – Romans 8:16, 17
“Listen, my beloved brothers: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?” – James 2:5
You are a new creation:
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” – 2 Corinthians 5:17
Christ lives in you:
“I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
You are chosen, royal, and holy. You belong to God:
“But you are a chosen family, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;” – 1 Peter 2:9
You are created in Christ for good works:
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” – Ephesians 2:10
You are a child of God:
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name…” – John 1:12
You are the righteousness of God in Christ:
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” -2 Corinthians 5:21
You are a member of the body of Christ:
“Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it.”
You are made alive with Christ and seated in the heavenly places in him:
“But God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” – Ephesians 2:4-7
You have authority over all the power of the enemy:
“Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.” – Luke 10:19
You might be thinking that these statements sound too good to be true. You might be remembering all the mistakes you have made and wonder how you could possibly be the person that God says you are. It may help you to understand that humans are made in the image of God. (Genesis 1:26-27) We are tripartite – body, soul, and spirit. (1 Thessalonians 5:23) It is our spirit that has been perfected and which is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but our souls are works in progress and our bodies await redemption. (Matthew 5:48; 26:41; 1 John 3:9; John 3:6; Romans 1:9; 8:15-16; Philippians 1:6; 3:12; Romans 8:23)
We are “hidden with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:3) When the Father looks at us, he sees his Son. Our righteousness is not our own, it is Christ’s, and when we abide in the Spirit, we do not sin. (Romans 8:4-10) If we do sin, it is because we are in the flesh and not the Spirit. As soon as we repent of that sin, we are quickly forgiven because we are under the shed blood of Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:5-2:6)
The enemy would love nothing more than to steal your identity and cause you to question your authority. He uses your past mistakes and insecurities to sow doubt about what the Bible says is true of you. This is because he knows that if you are secure in your identity and know your authority in Christ, he is powerless against you.
So, when the enemy speaks condemnation and doubt into your mind, what can you do? Make sure that the word abides in you, and you will be able to overcome the evil one. (1 John 2:14) The word of God is “living and active.” It is the “sword of the Spirit.” It is always true, because God cannot lie. (Hebrews 4:12; 1 Corinthians 1:18; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; Titus 1:2) Believe God and do what Jesus did, fire back with the word. Use the scriptures above as weapons of spiritual warfare and say them out loud in faith, applying them to yourself. Say: “I am the righteousness of God in Christ! I am a new creation! I am seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus! I am chosen, royal, and holy! I am a child of God! I am an heir of the kingdom! I have authority over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will hurt me!” No matter how strange it feels to say these things about yourself, know that if you are totally submitted to the Lord, it is true of you.
But what if you have a dark past that seems to have followed you into your walk with Christ? What if after believing and speaking the word over yourself many times, you still feel oppressed? What if you still feel that your sinful behaviors are out of control no matter how hard you try to change? What if it seems like the wicked intrusive thoughts won’t quit no matter what you do? This type of situation should be rare in the body of Christ, especially for those who are totally submitted to the Lord and know their identity and authority. But it is possible that you will need help from other Christians to be delivered from wicked spirits, especially if you are a new Christian who is struggling to grasp the truths I have presented in this post. (Mark 1:23-28; 1 Peter 5:8; Ephesians 4:27 – NKJV; Acts 8:7; 10:38) That will be the subject of my next blog post.
The first time I ever attended a Christian church, the pastor prayed that those in attendance would speak in tongues (the phenomenon where a person is miraculously able to speak in another language) and that someone there would also have an interpretation (1 Corinthians 12:10). Having been raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, I had been taught that spiritual gifts such as tongues had passed away after the first century and that any supposed miraculous gift was actually the work of the Devil. I panicked a little. I was beginning to believe that JWs were wrong about the gifts, but I was still very nervous. What if this pastor was actually inviting demons into his church?
Jehovah’s Witnesses are not the only religious group that teaches cessationism (the idea that the miraculous spiritual gifts spoken of in the New Testament have passed away). Many denominations that are in other ways considered doctrinally orthodox are also cessationist. As far as I can see, this teaching is not at all scriptural but seems to be based upon the fact that over the centuries, the church appeared to have largely lost the ability to operate in what many call the “sign gifts” (speaking in tongues, prophecy, miracles, and healing).
The first question to ask is this: is it actually true that the sign gifts ceased after the first century? The quick answer to that question is an emphatic no. We have record of the fact that the gifts were still in operation centuries after the apostles passed off the scene, although they seem to have become less commonly reported. Another important question to consider: if operation of the gifts did become more of a rarity as time went on, why would that have been? Was it because God had always meant to remove those gifts at that time, or because of something else? Is it possible that as Christianity became more mainstream and accepting of pagan traditions, that God withdrew those gifts from the majority of professed Christians because of their lukewarmness and/or idolatry?
Some cessationists claim to have biblical backing for their beliefs. The scripture they often use to back their claim is 1 Corinthians 13:8:
“Love never fails, but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.” (LSB)
Taken out of context, this text does indeed seem to indicate that spiritual gifts would cease. But the question is, when would they cease? Read in context, the meaning of this text becomes clear:
“Love never fails, but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.” – 1 Corinthians 13:8-12, LSB
What is “the perfect” spoken about in that passage? Some cessationists claim that it refers to the completed canon of scripture. They say that once the scriptures were complete and available for Christians to read, there was no more need of the sign gifts. But does that make sense? Do the scriptures anywhere teach that once all the inspired writings were compiled and canonized that there would be no more need of the miraculous? Do the scriptures anywhere explicitly state that “the perfect” referred to in 1 Corinthians is the completed canon of scripture? Of course not. But in the very same chapter we see a clear clue as to what is being referred to by the phrase, “the perfect.” In verse 12, we see that when the perfect comes, we will be able to see “face to face.” See who? Well, who is it that is prophesied to return to earth? Who are we going to see face to face? Matthew 5:8 says that “the pure in heart…shall see God.” Revelation refers to God as “the one who is and who was and who is to come…” In Revelation 3:11, the glorified Jesus is recorded as having said, “I am coming to you quickly…”
What can we conclude? It seems very clear to me that 1 Corinthians 13:8 is stating that when Jesus returns, there will be no more need of the gifts because we will be with him. Jesus has not yet returned; therefore, the gifts have not yet ceased. They are still available and in operation in the church today. And it is my opinion that the reason why we see the gifts operating so much more today than in the past is because we are getting very close to the return of Christ and those gifts are needed to empower the body of Christ to accomplish and to accelerate the work of the great commission. (Matthew 28:19, 20; Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8)
Another argument that cessationists often use is that because people in pagan religions experience supernatural experiences such as speaking in tongues, that the supernatural experiences of charismatic Christians must also be demonic. This is the argument that affected me the most and took the longest for me to overcome in my own mind.
It is true that demons are able to give power to their followers. Witches and warlocks do have supernatural experiences and can cause others to have supernatural experiences. But are demons the only spirit beings that have power? Of course not! The Bible is very clear about the fact that our God is much more powerful than Satan and that he does intervene miraculously in the lives of humans. (1 Kings 18:20-40) Throughout the Old Testament and the New we see example after example of God’s miraculous power and His desire to use that power to help His people.
When Moses and Aaron performed miracles before Pharo in Egypt, Pharo’s sorcerers were able to imitate some of those miracles. When Aaron threw down his staff and it became a snake, the sorcerers also threw down their staffs and they also became snakes. Does this mean that Aaron’s power came from the same source as the power displayed by those sorcerers? The answer became clear when Moses’s snake swallowed the snakes of the sorcerers. (Exodus 7:8-13) The devil may be able to imitate the works of God, but he will never be more powerful than God. And that is all he can do: imitate, and weakly at that.
If both Pagans and Christians can speak in tongues, does that mean that all tongues come from the same source? What was the source of the tongues spoken by the first century Christians? The Bible clearly states at Acts 2:4 that the Spirit, that is God’s Holy Spirit, “gave them utterance.” If the gifts of the Spirit have not ceased and they are all available for Christians now, then it logically follows that God must be the source of the miraculous tongues spoken by true Christians today, and that the same principle applies to all of the miraculous gifts. Satan’s weak imitations do not nullify God’s genuine displays of power.
The gifts of the Spirit are not an optional bonus that some Christians have access to but not others. We all have access to all of the gifts. We need them. Jesus instructed his followers to wait in Jerusalem until they received power from on high. They had already been given the authority to preach the gospel and cast out demons. So why did they need to wait in Jerusalem for the power?
We see a clue to the answer in what actually happened after the disciples received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. (Acts 2:5-13; 40-47) Three thousand people were saved and baptized because of what they saw and heard. Likewise, today when people hear miraculous tongues or see miraculous healings and deliverances, those experiences are often what convinces them that God is real, that he loves and helps people, and that they should listen to the gospel of Jesus Christ and be saved.
I have a friend who is a Christian now because he witnessed the miracle of deliverance from demons. He attended a church service where demons manifested and left people in response to commands for them to come out in Jesus’s name. Going into that service, he doubted even the existence of God or of the supernatural. He came out a believer.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit also endues Christians with great power and boldness to declare the gospel. (Acts 4:31) We need that power and boldness in order to accomplish our assignments as Christians. It is not natural for us to desire to speak to strangers about something that may make them angry or uncomfortable. But with the power and direction of the Holy Spirit, we both desire and are able to clearly and lovingly speak out.
Since I left the Watchtower organization and have become a born-again Christian, I have experienced the supernatural power of God in ways that I never thought I would. I have appreciated the reassurance I have received from those experiences because as a Christian, I am in a constant war with “the rulers of the darkness of this age.” – Ephesians 6:12 (NKJV). We have a powerful enemy, which is one of the reasons why our much more powerful God fills us with His power.
The first time I experienced a healing miracle was on a day when I felt the most powerless. I had severe pain in my hips which made it excruciatingly difficult to walk. In fact, I had to crawl even to get to the bathroom. But it was a Sunday, and I desperately wanted and needed to go to church for encouragement. I said a very bold prayer. I told God how much I wanted to be at church and asked him to put the bones in my hips back in place and take away all the inflammation. By that evening, I was walking without pain and was able to attend the evening Bible study at church. After the service, one of my friends informed me that the whole church had been praying for my recovery. It brought tears to my eyes to think of the great love of a God who would do something like that for me.
Since then, I have heard of, witnessed, and experienced many more miracles, but there is one in particular I want to share. Last Summer, I attended a Christian conference where many miracles occurred. I myself felt the tangible presence of the Holy Spirit while I was there and experienced the healing of my hip pain. But what was really amazing was the experience of one woman who had suffered from MS for 30 years with many, many symptoms. Several weeks after the conference, she came to my church and gave her testimony. She reported that before the conference, she could barely walk, needed oxygen to breathe, and was in enormous pain. This woman encountered the power of God at that conference in such a way that she fell down. She reports feeling heat all over her body and that when she got up, her pain was gone, her breathing was normal, and she could walk normally. Weeks later, she was able to report that she was off all medications but one which had to be tapered, she still did not need supplemental oxygen, and she was still pain free and able to walk normally. She shared doctor’s reports from before the healing and after and the documented changes were miraculous. God did that in response to her great faith, the faith of the minister who prayed for her, and the faith of the many who attended that conference. And I can confidently say that this is not a once in a lifetime experience. I regularly hear amazing healing testimonies from people that I know and trust.
The gifts of the Spirit are real, they are for today, and they are for you if you are a believer. The teaching that the gifts have ceased is a wicked lie designed to disempower God’s people and dampen their faith. Our God loves us very much and He wants us to enjoy all that He gave us when he sent His Holy Spirit to dwell within us.
As a Jehovah’s Witness, I had done the forbidden. I had just read the book Crisis of Conscience by Raymond Franz. In the months prior to this, as I described in an earlier post, After the Org, my world had begun to crumble. My whole life had been built on the belief that the Watchtower organization was God’s one true channel of communication, and now I was having serious doubts. As I contemplated what I had experienced coupled with what I had read in the forbidden book, I had a powerfully vivid vision of myself standing on a cliff while it crumbled away underneath me. Even as I experienced the vision, I knew what it meant. I had based my life on an unstable foundation, and the only hope I had of being rescued from a precipitous fall as that foundation crumbled away was the faith that God would catch me.
The Holy Spirit speaks, and He had been speaking to me in many ways in addition to that vision. But as a JW, I didn’t have a clear understanding of who the Holy Spirit is. In fact, I had been taught that He was a what, not a Who. In my post, God, Who Are You?, I described the process I went through in order to understand the deity of Christ. That was the hardest obstacle for me to clear in accepting the doctrine of the Trinity. Once I understood that, it was not long before I was able to also grasp the role of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit.
Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that the Holy Spirit is God’s “active force.” To them, there is no person named Holy Spirit, but only an energy, or power, somewhat similar to electricity. But even as a JW, it was difficult for me to understand why, if the Holy Spirit was an impersonal force, was He called a He in the Bible instead of an it? (John 14:16) Why, if the Holy Spirit is only a force, was it blasphemy to lie to Him? Why was the Holy Spirit called God? (Act 5:3-4) It was easy for me to accept that the Holy Spirit is a person and is God. What had confused me was being forced as a JW to accept the idea that he wasn’t. It was a relief to be free of that nonsense. If you are confused about the role and nature of the Holy Spirit, I recommend the this video.
What was also hard was learning to distinguish and accept the voice of the Holy Spirit in my life. I had been taught that only the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses can hear from God. If I ever even hinted that I thought God was showing me something or telling me something, I saw instant alarm in the faces of my family and friends. I honestly don’t blame them. We were programmed to be suspicious of any supposed message from God if it had not come through the organization. But in spite of that, I somehow understood in my spirit that God speaks to each and every individual Christian.
Reading Acts was confusing to me. I had always assumed as a JW that when the Holy Spirit gave instructions to the first century Christians, as in Acts 13:2 where a group of prophets and teachers were told to set aside Barnabas and Saul for a special work, they were hearing an audible voice. They could have been, actually. But the verse does not specifically state that. I remember praying to God to help me understand how he spoke then, and how he speaks now. He answered that prayer, and though I don’t claim to fully understand the Holy Spirit and how he moves and communicates in the lives of humans, I do think I have learned a few things that help me navigate my life now as a Spirit filled Christian. I am going to try to be as specific and explicit as I can in explaining what I see in the scriptures and in describing how I learned to hear from the Holy Spirit, as this is something that would have greatly helped me with my initial confusion after leaving the Watchtower organization.
I believe there are four influences on the human mind – the world, the self (mind and emotions), the Holy Spirit, and wicked spirits. As a Christian, I want the dominant influence over me to be the Holy Spirit. But we have a fight against the influence of the world, (James 4:4) our fallen flesh, (Romans 7:22-25) and against wicked spirit forces. (Eph. 6:10-18) How can we know which influence is dominating our thoughts?
The Holy Spirit will never tell you anything that contradicts the word of God as revealed in the scriptures, but it’s also important to realize that we may believe that the scriptures teach something they don’t actually teach. It’s very important to know the scriptures and to read them prayerfully. (2 Timothy 3:16; Titus 1:2; Malachi 3:6; 2 Timothy 3:5-7) The Holy Spirit’s influence will produce certain personality traits such as love, joy, and peace. (Galatians 5:22-23) His voice convicts, leading to true repentance, but does not condemn. (Luke 13:5; Romans 8:1) On the other hand, influences other than God, whether it be the world, the fallen flesh or wicked spirits, will entice and tempt, lie, twist scripture, bully, and condemn. (John 8:44; Matthew 4:1-10; Revelation 12:10)
If the Holy Spirit produces grief, it will be a Godly grief. We might feel sadness in empathy for a person who is lost and/or suffering, a longing to be reunited with dead or estranged loved ones, or a sadness over personal sins. (Philippians 1:23; 2 Corinthians 11:28-29; 7:9-10; Matthew 23:37-39) We may also cry under the influence of the Holy Spirit simply because we long to be with our God, which reminds me of the lyrics to my favorite song by Rich Mullins, “If I weep, let it be as a man who is longing for his home.”
God is love. (1 John 4:8) Sometimes when the Holy Spirit is intensely present, He will produce happy tears because His love and all of His other beautiful qualities can be so overwhelmingly beautiful.
The Holy Spirit communicates through the scriptures, dreams, visions, and through what many call the “still small voice.” (2 Timothy 3:16; Acts 2:17-18; Joel 2:28-32; 1 Kings 19:12) He also communicates through other Christians, either through what they say or what they write. The most reliable way to hear from Him is by reading the Bible.
Often, God will use the scriptures to give a personal message that many would call a “rhema word.” Wikipedia explains: “Rhema (ῥῆμα in Greek) literally means an “utterance” or “thing said” in Greek. It is a word that signifies the action of utterance.” Some scholars make a distinction between the two Greek terms, logos and rhema, that are both translated “word.” Logos is seen as referring more to the written word, and rhema to the spoken word. For that reason, a “rhema word” is seen as a word that God is presently speaking to you personally as opposed to words on a page that are meant for any reader. In my story about my exit from the Watchtower organization, I told of the first clear rhema word I had ever received:
One day I took a walk and had a little talk with God. I very insistently told him that if I was wrong about the organization, I needed him to show me NOW, and I mean NOW. I told him that if I was wrong, that I was maybe making the biggest mistake of my life, and I didn’t want to do that. As soon as I got home, I decided to do my daily Bible reading. I wasn’t doing it to find any answers. It was my habit to read every day. I opened the Bible to where I had my ribbon, 2 Corinthians 11. When I came to verse 3, I started to suspect I was having a supernatural encounter. By the time I came to verses 13-15, I knew I had my answer. I had received a rhema word from God, though at the time I had no vocabulary to describe it. Here are the verses I read which spoke to my heart:
“But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a pure and sincere devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough…For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds…For you gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves! For you bear it if someone makes slaves of you, or devours you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face.” – 2 Corinthians 11:3-4,13-15, 19-20 (ESV)
All at once, I understood the implications of the word I had just received. The Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses were false apostles. They were disguising themselves as angels of light. I began to cry my heart out. My whole world, my whole belief system, had come crashing down. And I knew that eventually, I was going to lose everything, including my parents, my friends, and my reputation.
I wanted to share that because it illustrates how vitally important it is to be able to recognize when God is sharing something with you. The Holy Spirit confirmed this word to me over and over in many different ways and receiving it was a turning point in my life.
Sometimes the Holy Spirit will reach you through the words of another person. This was the case for me when one day I was in unbearable pain and also feeling extremely depressed due to the long-lasting after effects of the Covid infection I had contracted months prior. I had been thinking about trying to find a local church to attend and had prayed God would show me where I could go. I had begun to listen to a local pastor’s sermons, and this day, after praying for relief, I decided to listen to him to take my mind off of how awful I felt. He happened to be teaching on the book of Isaiah and he read this: “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for in Yah, the LORD is everlasting strength.” (Isaiah 26:3-4 NKJV) The combination of that scripture and the pastor’s exposition of it dramatically changed the way I felt. I actually did feel peace, which was rare for me at the time. I often had prayers answered through the sermons of that pastor, and those experiences helped me to decide eventually to visit his church once I felt ready to take that step, which was many months later.
The Holy Spirit also speaks in ways that are more dramatic, such as through dreams and visions. I have had several dreams that I am sure were from God. I dream every night, but most of my dreams are inconsequential and nonsensical, like most people’s. But a few times I have had dreams that were so vivid and so full of dramatic imagery that I knew that they were not normal dreams. One of the most important of those dreams was about spiritual warfare. In this dream, I was running away from a tornado, but in my path was a massive cobra with its hood splayed wide. I couldn’t go around it, and when I came up to it, it bit me. But it turned out that it had no teeth and the bite did no harm. After the cobra bit me, I stepped on its head, and then my son also came and stepped on its head. In the bible, snakes represent evil spirits. God was showing me that although the devil may seem formidable and dangerous, he actually has no teeth and cannot hurt us permanently. This was also a vivid illustration of the fact that we as Christians have been given authority to “trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy.” (Luke 10:19 NKJV)
And now we come to “the whisper.” This is the most controversial and least reliable way to hear from God, because, especially for inexperienced Christians, it can be difficult to tell the difference between our own thoughts, demonically inspired intrusive thoughts, and God’s voice. The whisper is a thought in words that God plants in our hearts. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27 NKJV) It’s absolutely vital that we learn to recognize that voice. We can do that through spending plenty of time in prayer and in the word. Remember, God will never ever contradict his own word. For example, the Holy Spirit will not inspire you to take revenge, to perpetually avoid Christian fellowship because of offense or a false sense of superiority, or to slander (revile, criticize falsely in abusive terms) another person, especially a Christian brother or sister, because those things are unscriptural. They are not of God. (Romans 12:18-21; Hebrews 10:24-25; 1 Peter 4:8; Ephesians 4:31; 1 Timothy 6:3-5) Inspiration to engage in some of these negative behaviors can actually be cloaked in a way that makes it seem like it could be from God. We shouldn’t underestimate the ability of the enemy to deceive.
Often, the Holy Spirit will remind me of a scripture at exactly the right moment, either to encourage, inspire, or convict me, or so that I can effectively minister to someone else. Other times, the Holy Spirit might give some type of direction. He might plant a person’s name and face in my mind and a burden to pray for that person. Sometimes I hear a simple NO as a warning to me not to proceed with something I had planned to do, or I will hear the word GO when I am contemplating a certain course of action. When I feel I may have heard something from God but I’m not absolutely certain it is from him, I wait on God to confirm it. He will often do this by repeating his message many times and in many ways: through the still small voice, through the scriptures, through the advice of trusted friends, or simply through life circumstances. And I know that if I make an honest mistake, thinking that something I heard that seemed good and scriptural was from God when it really was my own imagination, the Lord is faithful and honors my sincere desire to obey him, even if I was misguided.
The Holy Spirit gives special gifts to His people. (Acts 1:8; 2; 1 Corinthians 12, 14) Contrary to what I was taught as a JW, those gifts are, indeed, for today. I see them in operation on a regular basis, and it is wonderful to behold. The gifts of the Spirit is a huge subject and one I may address in the future in a separate post.
As this world descends more and more into the darkness, it is vital that we learn to teach our “ears [to] hear a word behind [us], ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ whenever you turn to the right or the left.” (Isaiah 30:21) We must know the voice of our shepherd. (John 10:27) He wants to communicate. He wants to show us the correct path, and we need him to. If you are not used to receiving direct communication from God, I implore you to seek his face. Get to know the voice of our loving helper, our advocate, the Holy Spirit.
“Why do Christians believe in the doctrine of the Trinity? We believe in it because we are forced into this view by the triune God.” – Dr. David Wood
When I was a Jehovah’s Witness, one of my favorite publications was what we called “the Trinity brochure.” I thought it showed how utterly ludicrous the idea of a triune God really was. It filled me with scorn for Trinitarians and for “Christendom” as a whole. To my young mind, “the facts” presented therein seemed undeniable, irrefutable. I had never been taught the difference between biblical exegesis and eisegesis. I didn’t know how to check sources or read things in context. I just trusted that the monolithic-seeming Watchtower organization, the “society,” as we called it decades ago, was backed by God and that everything they published was of the highest possible quality. That being the case, I assumed that the (anti)Trinity brochure really was the last word on the Trinity. And it was no wonder that I felt strongly about rejecting the Trinity. The organization teaches that those who teach the Trinity are actually the antichrist:
“For centuries, the churches propagated the doctrine of the Trinity, claiming that the Father and the Son are part of the same entity. The antichrist thus shrouds in mystery the identity of Jehovah God and Jesus Christ. ” – Watchtower 2015 6/1 p. 15
In my last post, After the Org, I described the gut-wrenching process of waking up to “the truth about the truth”, coming out of the Watchtower organization, and becoming a baptized, born-again Christian. One of the most difficult parts of waking up was the realization that I really did not know anything, and that some of my most cherished beliefs might actually be dead wrong. The Trinity was my biggest bugaboo of all. When I first ventured outside the organization to find Christian fellowship, I landed in an online forum full of disgruntled JWs. Many if not most of them were aware that the 1914 doctrine was false, that the beginnings of the organization were dubious, and that it was currently plagued by lawsuit after lawsuit related to child sexual abuse. But everyone there still believed the majority of the JW doctrines, including the Witnesses’ stance on the Trinity.
It didn’t take long before I realized that the JW forum I was in felt wrong. One member in particular tried to help us understand that if the organization was wrong on 1914, which we all believed it was, there was no basis to believe it had ever been appointed as God’s one and only channel of communication to man, as it had always claimed. It had never had any real authority. It wasn’t long before that member was banned, which disturbed me. Why couldn’t he express his ideas? Actually, he had made sense to me. It was around this time that I decided to read the New Testament all the way through without my “Watchtower goggles” on. I was making amazing discoveries, which soon led me to another non-Trinitarian ex JW group. At least there, it was recognized that Jesus was of central importance and that it was okay for us to talk to him and thank him for what he had done for us. It was also taught there that there is only “one hope, one faith, and one baptism.” They helped me to understand the scriptures that showed that all Christians must be born again and that those who are will spend eternity with Christ in heaven. But something was still wrong. How could this tiny group of ex JWs be the only Christians in the world who were teaching the truth?
I began to search in earnest for a non-Trinitarian church to attend. I saw that Unitarian churches don’t teach the Trinity, but their disregard for the Bible as the inspired word of God was very troubling. I found all sorts of small, online groups that do not teach the Trinity, but it seemed that most of them were extremely works based and fixated on adherence to the Mosaic law. I saw that the group originally started by Charles T. Russel, the International Bible Students Association, was still active, but all the congregations were on the wrong side of the country, as was the case with other similar groups such as the Christadelphians.
It simply did not make sense to me that the Kingdom of God could be so impotent that the only vestiges of his true congregation were scattered so far and wide that it would be impossible for me to meet with any of them. Jesus said, “… on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it…” It seemed to me that either the gates of hell had actually prevailed against the congregation of God, or I was wrong about the Trinity. And if it was true that the Watchtower organization had never had any real authority, everything I had been taught had to be questioned.
It was then that I decided to actually consider what Christians had to say about their own beliefs. David Bercot, an ex JW turned Anabaptist, was the first Christian teacher I allowed myself to listen to on the subject of the Trinity. His video, Can Jehovah’s Witnesses Believe the Trinity?, explained the concept of the Trinity to me in a way I had never heard before. It was mind-blowing at the time. I left a comment on the video: “I already believe most of that. Why do we have to call it a Trinity?” The problem was that as a JW, I had had a wrong concept of the Trinity all along. Many JWs seem to believe that Modalism, the concept that Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are all the same person, is the Trinity. Bercot explained that Modalism, far from being the Trinity, is actually an anti-Trinitarian Heresy. He explained that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons who are in such perfect unity that they are actually one God. Now that made biblical sense to me.
Mike Winger was the first Christian apologist I listened to who had never been a JW. His video, The Trinity, Can We Defend it Biblically?, was very eye opening. It helped me to realize one inescapable truth: the Hebrews were not ever to worship any other God besides Yahweh/Jehovah. This was the very first of the 10 commandments. (Exodus 20:1-6) And yet, Jesus accepted worship. (John 20:27-28; Matthew 14:33; 28:8-9) And Father God says in Hebrews chapter 1: “Let all the angels of God worship Him (Jesus).” And in vs. 8: “But to the Son He says: Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.” God the Father is calling Jesus God and asking for him to be worshipped. JWs will try to explain these verses away by saying that nearly all modern Bibles have translated these verses incorrectly. Admittedly, I am not a Greek scholar. But when I checked the Greek for myself, it seemed the Witnesses were wrong. And the great thing about the internet is that if you’re not a Greek scholar, you can read or listen to someone who is, which is exactly what I did. In doing that, I learned about many, many areas where the New World Translation (the translation of the Bible specifically translated by and for Jehovah’s Witnesses) had been translated in ways that supported JW doctrine, but which did not reflect the meaning of the original languages.
Even as a new understanding about the nature of Christ Jesus was dawning on me, I had important questions. If Jesus is God, why did he pray to the Father? Why did he say “the Father is greater than I”? Why did Jesus say that only the Father knows “the day and hour” of the second coming?
I found that the answer to those questions is not that hard. Paul answered them in his letter to the Philippians:
“Have this way of thinking in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although existing in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a slave, by being made in likeness of men.” – Philippians 2:5-7 (LSB)
Jesus was fully God. But he was also fully man. He had “emptied himself” by becoming a man. He had voluntarily put himself in a position that was lower than that of the Father in order that he might live among us, experience what we experience, and eventually die a sacrificial death which would set us all free. He prayed to his Father because he needed to pray. Jesus remembered what life was like in heaven with his Father, which is why he prayed, “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was.” – John 17:5 (LSB) He remembered His former glory and knew that the Father would return him to that glory. Paul goes on to write of Jesus in Philippians 2:
“And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (NKJV)
Faithful Hebrews did not bow to any God other than Yahweh/Jehovah. The three young Hebrews, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego) preferred burning to death in Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace to bowing to a foreign God. (Daniel 3:8-18) So how is it that Paul felt justified in writing that “every knee should bow” to Jesus Christ?
Dr. Michael Heiser writes: “The ancient Israelite knew two Yahwehs—one invisible, a spirit, the other visible, often in human form. The two Yahwehs at times appear together in the text, at times being distinguished, at other times not. Early Judaism understood this portrayal and its rationale. There was no sense of a violation of monotheism since either figure was indeed Yahweh. There was no second distinct god running the affairs of the cosmos. During the Second Temple period, Jewish theologians and writers speculated on an identity for the second Yahweh. Guesses ranged from divinized humans from the stories of the Hebrew Bible to exalted angels. These speculations were not considered unorthodox. That acceptance changed when certain Jews, the early Christians, connected Jesus with this orthodox Jewish idea. This explains why these Jews, the first converts to following Jesus the Christ, could simultaneously worship the God of Israel and Jesus, and yet refuse to acknowledge any other god. Jesus was the incarnate second Yahweh. In response, as Segal’s work demonstrated, Judaism pronounced the two powers teaching a heresy sometime in the second century A.D.”
We see the two powers in heaven concept throughout the Old Testament. This was something that I was able, with God’s help, to see as I read the Bible with new eyes even before I understood the ancient Jewish thinking. As a JW, I had never understood why, when the Angel of Jehovah would appear to them, the ancient Israelites would call him Jehovah. (Genesis 16:7-12; 21:17-18; 22:11-18; Exodus 3:2; Judges 2:1-4; 5:23; 6:11-24; 13:3-22; 2 Samuel 24:16; Zechariah 1:12; 3:1; 12:8). I knew that in Exodus 33:20, God had said to Moses “You cannot see my face, for no man can and see me and live.” I also knew that it said in John 1:18, “No one has seen God at any time.” There seemed to be a contradiction. How was Jehovah appearing to the patriarchs and to Moses if it is not possible to see God? It gradually dawned on me that the person who was appearing to them must have been the preincarnate Jesus and that Jesus was and is Jehovah/Yahweh just as his Father in heaven, who cannot be seen by mortal humans, is. Jesus had to be a visible, audible, manifestation of the God of heaven.
It seems that first century Jewish Christians understood Jesus to be the second Yahweh/Jehovah, the one who manifested as the Angel of the Lord. But why was this impossible for most of the Jewish religious leaders to accept? It seems that they had lost the forest for the trees. They were so focused on miniscule details about who they expected the Messiah to be that they missed him when he came. Alfred Edersheim explains: “Of course, there was the danger that, amidst these dazzling lights, or in the crowd of figures, each so attractive, or else in the absorbing interest of the general picture, the grand central Personality should not engage the attention it claimed, and so the meaning of the whole be lost in the contemplation of its details.”
He goes on to explain: ” …all that Israel hoped for, was national restoration and glory. Everything else was but means to these ends; the Messiah Himself only the grand instrument in attaining them. Thus viewed, the picture presented would be of Israel’s exaltation, rather than of the salvation of the world. To this, and to the idea of Israel’s exclusive spiritual position in the world, must be traced much, that otherwise would seem utterly irrational in the Rabbinic pictures of the latter days.” They failed to realize the grand scope of the Messianic hope and thus, instead of welcoming their Messiah, Jesus, with open arms, they rejected him, even accusing him of having a demon.
In a similar way, Jehovah’s Witnesses diminish the role of the Messiah. Although they understand Jesus to be the Messiah, they deny his deity, prohibiting his worship in direct opposition to the Father’s own words in Hebrews chapter 1. Even worse, they accuse worshippers of Jesus of being demonically inspired. Just like the first century Pharisees, they attribute the work of the Holy Spirit to the demons. (Matt. 12:31-32)
Once I understood all that I have just presented, John 1:1 began to make sense to me. That one text was probably attacked more than any other by Jehovah’s Witnesses. I was well-trained to argue against its clear meaning since it was the one most often used by Trinitarians to teach the deity of Christ. It was wonderful to finally understand that John 1:1 had not been mistranslated or misinterpreted. It means what it says, and what it says is so elegantly beautiful that it brings tears to my eyes.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and theWord was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.
There was a man having been sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but he came to bear witness about the Light.There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens everyone. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to what was His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has been ahead of me, for He existed before me.’” For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” ~John 1:1-18 (LSB)
The true follower of Christ will not ask “If I embrace this truth, what will it cost me?” Rather he will say, “This is truth. God help me to walk in it, let come what may!” – A.W. Tozer
LIFE IN THE ORG
I must have been 5 or 6 years old. I was at my little friend’s house across the street from where I lived.
“You’re going to die in Armageddon,” I blurted out in cruel, childish innocence.
My friend’s father happened to overhear my statement. “Jesus loves everybody!” he said, “I think you had better go home now!”
This is such a long-ago memory that I can’t be sure of our exact words. But I do remember the feeling of confusion and rejection brought on by the neighbor’s reaction to my foolishness. I could not at that time possibly have understood that I had been taught regrettable religious lies by my family, who loved me dearly, and who themselves had been brought up with the same lies.
I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness. My parents, grandparents, and great grandparents had all been Jehovah’s Witnesses. It was all I knew for 46 years of my life until, during the recent pandemic lockdowns, I finally woke up.
My mother taught me about Jehovah God from a dark red book called “You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth.” I loved that book, especially the illustrations. It had bright, technicolor paintings of “the New System”, as we called it then. I wanted with all my heart to be there in paradise with the lions and elephants. And I loved Jehovah, who promised that everyone who obeyed him by being part of his organization would get to live there.
Jehovah’s Witnesses put enormous emphasis on evangelism. From the time I was a small child, I went “from house to house and door to door” (lyrics to a song we sang) distributing Watchtower and Awake magazines, brochures, and books. We were taught that canvassing our communities with the “good news of the Kingdom” was the most important thing we could possibly do for Jehovah. A core early memory of mine was was walking down a street while in the door to door ministry in a tiny town in north Idaho with my grandma. I was looking at my little brown shoes when grandma told me that I had beautiful feet because those feet were carrying a life saving message. (Isaiah 52:7) That conversation never left me and contributed greatly to my spiritual formation.
I was taught that everyone outside of “Jehovah’s organization” would be destroyed by God’s fire balls and earthquakes in the battle of Armageddon. We had graphic pictures of that in the red book too. This was worrisome to me, because it seemed like the kids in my fourth grade class at school were mostly pretty nice. I didn’t want them to die like that. So I tried to tell them. I even wrote a note about it during class and passed it around the entire classroom. As you can imagine, that did not go over well with my teacher.
Although I wanted to get baptized probably from the age of 8 on, my parents wisely made me wait until I was 12, almost 13 before I was allowed. By that time, much of my excitement about it had worn off, but I was still thrilled to officially “symbolize my dedication to Jehovah” through water baptism at the 1988 international convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Vancouver B.C. It meant that I could finally auxiliary pioneer (spend a 60 hours per month in the door to door evangelizing ministry).
Nearly every summer during my teens, I spent several weeks staying with my grandparents in Moscow, Idaho, where we spent nearly every day all day in the door to door ministry. I dearly loved and respected my grandparents. Their devotion to God and his organization impressed me. The skillfulness with which they explained their faith to perfect strangers inspired me. They were my role models and I hoped to someday be as adept and devoted as they were.
After I graduated from high school, I immediately went into the full-time ministry, which for Witnesses entailed spending 90 hours per month evangelizing from door to door and on city streets. Soon, I was also serving in a Spanish-speaking congregation, having learned some Spanish in school. My pioneer partner also wanted to be a missionary and was saving up to go to Ecuador. Although I didn’t have the funds to go, I wanted very much to go there with her. I hoped I would eventually be invited to Gilead, a school for the training of missionaries. My motives for all of this were good – I loved God and I loved people. All I cared about was pleasing Jehovah and doing the highest good for the greatest number of people possible. I truly believed that baptizing people into my religion was the way to do that.
Instead of moving to Ecuador or going to Gilead, I met and married my husband. We had three beautiful boys, all of whom we raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses, just as we had been.
Through the years, I had many experiences as a Witness that should have given me pause about the organization in which I had been raised. I saw much domestic abuse, physical as well as verbal, among my Witness friends. I heard about a case of child molestation at the hands of a Witness man. I had many severely depressed friends, heard about suicides, and went through several of my own nervous breakdowns. All was not well in our “spiritual paradise”, as Witnesses are taught to call the organization. But even so, I could not conceive of ever leaving it. In my mind, there was absolutely no way that “the truth” was not really the truth.
Although I would not have admitted it then, I believe things began to unravel for me during one of our annual memorial celebrations. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate communion the way Christians do it. Once a year, they gather to hear a talk about how Jesus died for our sins. During that talk, we are reminded that since only 144,000 anointed followers of Christ will go to heaven, that most of us will not need to drink the wine or eat the bread – the emblems, as they call them. Only the anointed get to partake. The rest of us observed by passing the bread and then the wine among us without partaking. We were taught that only the anointed know that they are anointed and that we were not to ask them questions about how they knew. They just knew, and if we had any question at all in our minds about whether or not we were anointed, we weren’t.
During one particular memorial of this kind, I had an extraordinary experience. At the time, I had no way to understand what was happening to me. Now I know that I was experiencing the presence of God through the Holy Spirit. I was given a vision inviting me to go heaven to be with Jesus. Embarrassingly, I could not hold back my tears. I just felt flooded with love and acceptance and I didn’t know what to do about it. I wasn’t supposed to feel this way. I was not supposed to be having this experience. It terrified me so much that I actually told God that if I was not really of the “anointed”, that I wanted him to take away the feelings. He did, so I assumed that I had merely had a psychotic break and that I should try to go back to normal.
However, over the years, I could not forget what had happened to me. I grew increasingly interested in finding out from “anointed” ones what kind of experiences they had had. I also grew increasingly impatient with some of the attitudes I observed towards Witnesses who claimed to be anointed. Instead of being believed, many were accused of being mentally ill. I dreaded that happening to me, especially since I had already had bouts of depression and knew that if I claimed to be anointed, it would likely be blamed on that. So, year after year, I would pass that bread and wine like everyone else, all the time wondering if it was wrong of me to reject it.
The only other time in my life that I remember feeling the way I did at that memorial was when I was a little child. It must have been during the time my mother had studied the red book with me. I was just becoming aware of God and learning to pray for real, not the recited prayers I was taught as a little one. I remember standing in my bedroom and suddenly being flooded with the presence of God. All I could think of was that I wanted him to hold me in his arms. I wanted to just crawl into his lap and stay there forever. I thank God for that experience and for the one I had at the memorial, because they eventually led me back to him. Unlike many others who had been raised as Witnesses, I knew there was more. I knew what it felt like to be in the presence of the Almighty.
Shortly before the recent pandemic, probably sometime in 2018 or 2019, I asked God to let me feel again the way I had felt about him as a child. With the exception of my experience during the memorial, it had been decades since I had felt the weight of his loving presence. He answered that prayer, but not in the way I expected. What I didn’t know then was that in order to get that back, I would need to come out of my beloved religion.
The organization of my childhood was simpler than it is now. There was no JW broadcasting, no JW.org, no digital Bibles or publications, no music videos. We just had our Bibles and our magazines. We had our meetings where my piano teacher played piano to accompany our singing of the “Kingdom Melodies.” But in 2014, everything began to change. Everything went digital and our governing body members overnight became celebrities after the launch of JW Broadcasting. I wanted to like this. I wanted to appreciate it. But something about it felt wrong. Something about it felt fake.
After several years, I got used to the new digital format. Although that niggling doubt in the back of my mind never completely left, I truly felt privileged to be able to remotely attend every annual meeting and every Gilead graduation, which in the past had been reserved for only a select few. I enjoyed the new music videos and getting to hear our beloved governing body members speak to us on a regular basis. But something changed in 2020.
WAKING UP
Most thought we would be back to our Kingdom Halls within a couple of weeks after we were shut down due to a novel virus. Somehow, though, I didn’t think so. I had seen enough of what it had done to China to know that this was going to be big. So when we first got the announcement that we would not be having in-person meetings, I cried and cried. I prayed for every single family in my congregation, asking God to protect them both physically and spiritually. Because our regular door to door ministry was also curtailed, we began to write letters to people in our communities instead. I wrote piles of them. I wanted people to know we hadn’t forgotten about them and that we still cared.
Soon, we started to hear news of a new vaccine being formulated. This was supposed to avert the worst of the danger and get us all right back to work and to church. Ever the medical sleuth, I decided to dive in and do as much research as I could about the virus and the potential for a successful vaccine. What I discovered could fill a book of its own. It had me very worried.
When it comes to medical treatments, the organization had never been overly controlling (except on the matter of blood transfusions, which is a whole other topic.) But for the most part, we had always been told that medical treatment was a matter of personal choice and that we should never try to manipulate one another in that very personal area. Sometimes we would have articles in our magazines about certain treatments, but the final choice on how to handle medical matters was always left up to us. That is how I assumed the pandemic would be handled – that the facts might be presented, but that we would be left alone to make our own decisions. My assumptions turned out to be incorrect.
Things began to feel ominous when we began having “governing body updates” once a month on JW Broadcasting. The niggling doubts I had had before about the direction the organization seemed to be headed turned into alarm bells as I became painfully aware of the fact that these updates were becoming more and more manipulative. The apparent purpose of the updates was to keep Witnesses informed about how the pandemic was affecting the organization and to instruct us on what the governing body felt was the best course of action regarding safety measures and medical treatment. This seemed like a radical departure from their normal stance on most types of medical decisions. And the videos used blatant forms of manipulation which were at the same time deceptive and persuasive to Witnesses who felt that the governing body was speaking for God. The outcome was that Jehovah’s Witnesses walked in lockstep when it came to their thinking and decisions regarding public health and personal medical decisions. Although the governing body claimed that Witnesses had personal choice on these matters, the truth is that there was no room for deviation. Those who fell out of step with the majority were often shamed or even excluded.
We were made to feel that if we didn’t fall in line with everything the governing body said, we were rebelling against God himself. If I had had no love for God, that wouldn’t have hurt so much. But I did, and it was excruciating. I had finally come to a place in my life where my conscience was at odds with direction coming from the organization. The problem was, I had always been taught that those men were the only ones in the world who had a direct line of communication to God and that to disobey them was to disobey God. How, after having that drilled into my mind for a lifetime, was I supposed to deal with the fact that these supposedly Godly men seemed to me to be manipulating in a way that was harming the people I loved the most?
Because of what I was seeing in the organization, I decided to engage in an act of rebellion. Though we were forbidden to look outside the organization for information on the Bible or the organization itself, I did it. I read a book written by an ex governing body member, Raymond Franz, who was kicked out of the organization in 1980 for holding a different opinion on certain theological matters. His book, Crisis of Conscience, is sort of a right of passage for ex JWs. Once you read Franz, for many there’s no going back. All is revealed, pandora’s box is open, you’ve taken the red pill.
Imagine dealing with the psychological pain of what I just described and at the same time being hit with the most painful disease you have ever faced. Right after I read Crisis of Conscience In the autumn of 2021, I came down with a severe case of Covid-19. Fortunately, I avoided the hospital. But probably because I already had an autoimmune disease, I became completely debilitated and non-functional. I stopped sleeping, could barely eat, and endured excruciating stomach pain and all-over body pain for many, many months. Probably the most painful aspect of the illness was that it caused severe depression and brain fog. I would have bouts of horrible physical pain and suicidal mental anguish. The level of suffering was utterly demonic. But it was through this suffering that I began to wake up to a greater spiritual reality.
Once I was well enough to think and read some of the time, I decided, as my dear friend Vivian describes it, to “take off my Watchtower goggles” and for the first time read the Bible without an agenda other than the desire to know God and to discover what he had really revealed through the pages of the scriptures. It didn’t take long for me to realize that there really didn’t seem to be any scriptural basis for many of the doctrines I had been taught. Even so, I had a lot of fear. I wondered if maybe I really was just a rebellious apostate. Maybe I was wrong and the organization was right.
One day I took a walk and had a little talk with God. I very insistently told him that if I was wrong about the organization, I needed him to show me NOW, and I mean NOW. I told him that if I was wrong, that I was maybe making the biggest mistake of my life, and I didn’t want to do that. As soon as I got home, I decided to do my daily Bible reading. I wasn’t doing it to find any answers. It was my habit to read every day. I opened the Bible to where I had my ribbon, 2 Corinthians 11. When I came to verse 3, I started to suspect I was having a supernatural encounter. By the time I came to verses 13-15, I knew I had my answer. I had received a rhema word from God, though at the time I had no vocabulary to describe it. Here are the verses I read which spoke to my heart:
“But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a pure and sincere devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough…For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds…For you gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves! For you bear it if someone makes slaves of you, or devours you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face.” – 2 Corinthians 11:3-4,13-15, 19-20 (ESV)
All at once, I understood the implications of the word I had just received. The Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses were false apostles. They were disguising themselves as angels of light. I began to cry my heart out. My whole world, my whole belief system, had come crashing down. And I knew that eventually, I was going to lose everything, including my parents, my friends, and my reputation. It was even possible that I could lose my marriage and my children, though I am happy to report that that has not happened and I hope it never will.
Through my studies, I saw clearly that all true Christians, not just the 144,000 “anointed ones,” are born again and would all see Christ and be with him forever. I eventually understood that Jesus is Lord and God and that I could actually talk to him, not just through him. I understood that the Father was my Abba Father and that I was his daughter. What joy to realize that Jesus really had been calling me all those years ago at the memorial! He really had been trying to get my attention, and I had told him no. I told my Lord no because of a man-made religion. It still hurts my heart to think that I did that.
After spending a few months alone with God and my Bible, I started attending the online Bible studies of David and Vivian Aspinall, an ex JW couple who have made it their mission to reach out to and help people who have been hurt by the Watchtower organization. I started to take communion at home while in Zoom meetings with those friends. It gave me such peace and joy! But at the same time, I was horribly conflicted about my relationship with my family, most of whom are Jehovah’s Witnesses. I was having to be more and more circumspect in my conversations with them to avoid having them discover my true beliefs. I knew that if they understand fully, they would disown me, and this caused massive internal conflict.
LEAVING
When I started to develop a strong desire to find a church to attend, I realized that I couldn’t go on pretending to be a “weak” and inactive JW. I needed to tell my parents the truth both for my mental health and simply out of obedience to God. I remember feeling stabbed to the heart when I read Jesus’ words at Matthew 10:37-39:
“He who loves Father or Mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.”
Nabeel Qureshi, an ex Muslim Christian apologist, quoted the above text in his testimony as he explained how the scriptures convicted him of his need to tell his parents, knowing that they would likely disown him, about his decision to follow Christ and leave Islam. The religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses is similar to Islam in some ways. Muslims living in countries governed by strict Islamic regimes risk their actual lives by leaving the religion. Nabeel was an American Muslim, which fortunately exempted him from that risk, but he knew that he could lose his family. JWs also risk losing all of their family and friends, especially if their families have been in the organization for several generations as mine had. Nabeel described the agony that I, too, felt as I contemplated the massive loss that I would endure and the horrible pain my family would suffer if I were to tell them the truth. And as I listened to his story, I knew that in spite of what would happen, I had to reveal the truth.
The hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life was to make myself drop in the mailbox the letter to my parents revealing my decision to leave the Watchtower organization. As soon as it left my hands into that box and I knew I couldn’t retrieve it, a deep and and uncontrollable sob shook my body and I couldn’t stop crying for hours. It was like having a limb torn off.
About a month after I sent that letter, I became aware that my local elder body had been alerted to what I had written and wanted to have a meeting with me. This sent shock waves of panic through my body as I realized I had several choices – one was to meet with the elders and tell them in person why I no longer believed that the organization was the only path to God, another was to simply refuse to meet or communicate with the elder body, and the third was to send of a letter of disassociation that I had preprepared for an occasion such as this. Choice number one, although the most honorable and possibly beneficial to my friends, seemed physically and psychologically impossible at the time. Just telling my parents had made me feel as if I was having a heart attack. I didn’t feel capable of facing a judicial committee. Choice number two could have preserved for a time some of my relationships, although it would have drawn out that stressful period of transition as well as very likely ending in my eventual disfellowshipping en absentia. I chose to send my letter. I felt a deep need to completely disconnect myself from the organization that had almost stolen my salvation, had stolen my relationship with my family, and had destroyed my mental and spiritual health. And I wanted to taste the freedom of living my life without feeling the need to look over my shoulder wondering if an old JW friend had seen me walking into a church or having a meal with my disfellowshipped son.
“Gretchen Guzman is no longer one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.” That was the terse announcement that was made at the Kingdom Hall I had attended. It is the same exact announcement that is made when a JW is kicked out of the organization for committing adultery, or molesting a child, or for any number of other heinous acts. When that announcement is made, no one is ever informed as to the reasons for it. Friends who don’t already understand the circumstances are left wondering what in the world happened. Was I an adulteress? An alcoholic? An abuser? Who would know? There is no honorable way to leave the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses. You can slink away, trying to remain unnoticed, while telling white lie after white lie about why you’re slowing down in your meeting attendance, all the time avoiding talking about the truth that is burning in your breast. Or you can tell that truth and get the disgraceful public announcement.
The freedom was amazing. I remember walking through the grocery store parking lot and looking at every person I passed with new eyes. These were beautiful, valuable people! They weren’t other. They were human just like me. I loved them although I knew nothing about them. You truly don’t realize the extent of the psychological and social damage a high control group can do until you leave one and that damage starts to heal.
CHURCH
The first Sunday evening I walked into a church, a local Calvary Chapel called Revival Church, it was like stepping through a wall of fire. I had been taught from the time I could remember that “Christendom” was the greatest evil in the world because they were misrepresenting Jehovah and had introduced idolatry into their worship. Although I no longer believed those lies, I had a visceral panic reaction to that place. My mind was in a fog and my body was in a cold sweat. Fortunately, a kind man saw that I was new and came up to talk to me. As soon as he discovered a little of my history, he took my hand and prayed for me. This was new! About halfway through the Bible study my mind cleared enough that I was able to pay some attention and appreciate the depth of the teaching. But afterwards, the lights went down and the pastor began to pray…and sing! That was new too and it set off another set of alarm bells in my head. “This is emotionalism and manipulation!”, I thought. I had been over exposed to cessationist “discernment ministries” on the internet and it added to my fear. But in spite of that, I found myself enjoying the music and prayers. After the service, I found the man I had earlier spoken to on the phone about this church. He took my hand and prayed for me too. And then he took me to meet the Pastor. The more we talked, the more I shook. It was overwhelming to be able to speak so freely to a religious authority. It was strange to see him in a T shirt and jeans instead of a suit and tie. But I liked him. I was already very familiar with his teaching because of having watched his live streams online. I knew he loved God and that he loved the word. That was enough for me.
My introduction to church life was bumpy. Past indoctrination had left me unbelievably fearful. There were so many triggers – the big cross above the stage, the worship band (drums!), contemporary worship music, casual clothing in church, unfamiliar doctrines…It was all so strange and uncomfortable. At one point I went weeks without attending because I would get so triggered. But that felt wrong too. I didn’t like being isolated without any friends or family to lean on. And I knew that meeting with other Christians was important according to the Bible.
So I prayed for guidance. I asked God to show me what he wanted me to do. I’m pretty sure it was not much more than 5 to10 minutes after I said that prayer that my friend, the elder at the church who had prayed for me, showed up unexpectedly at my house. He said some encouraging words and prayed with me again. How could I deny that was an answer from God? I started going to church again the very next day. I also made arrangements to be water baptized, which took place a couple of weeks later on May 14, 2023. That was the day that I declared in front of the entire church that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.
CONCLUSION
There is so much more to tell. But I will leave the rest for future posts. But for now, I just want to tell you that if you are in a high control religious group or in any other negative situation and feeling lost, there is hope in Jesus Christ. Call out to him. Ask him to show you the truth. If you do, I feel sure he will, and you will be made to understand what it means that he himself is “the way the truth and the life” (John 14:6), and that he loves you far more than you could ever have imagined!
