AWAKEN ISSUE #2 A JEHOVAH'S WITNESS PRESENTS THE WATCHTOWER BIBLE TRACT SOCIETY'S VIEWS OF ALL OTHER RELIGIONS. Mark Cotherman is a Jehovah's Witness. The following are his remarks about Christianity. They are consistent with the views of all followers of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, better known as Jehovah's Witnesses. Many people have asked me why I go to the trouble that I do to present facts about the Jehovah's Witnesses. I do this because they visit people door to door. They come uninvited. They all come trained to counter your objections. They come well versed in the perceived faults of any faith, but their own. They profess love of neighbor but on the other hand they privately despise all who are not followers of the Watchtower. It is unlikely that those who received their unwanted visits know their true feelings about other faiths. What Mr. Cotherman calls Christendom applies to all other faiths (Muslim, Hindi, Buddist etc). The following are Mr. Cotherman's words : Do you not agree that Christians should be awake in the time of the end. There are less JWs on welfare than RC also less in prison, on drugs, smoke, kill other "christians" in war, like in Ireland, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Central America (RC killing RC). Like Jesus said you will recognize his people by the fruit they produce- LOVE. Why don't you question your own beliefs about that? Your churches support of Hitler during WWII, while he was killing 10s of thousands. Including JW's for their LOVING their neighbors as themselves by not supporting him or any other WORLDLY nation. Or how about unity. Paul told the Corinthians to speak in UNITY. Where is your churches unity? Killing in wars is about the only thing their united in doing. A rotten tree can't produce fine fruit, show me your religions fine fruit compared to it's bloodguilt? Look at the fruits JW's ARE PRODUCING and compare them to the inquisition, Bible burnings, Wars, the history of Christendom. The JW's are a fine tree, christendom is going to be chopped down and thrown in the fire for it's worthless fruit. JW's also show their LOVE for people by warning them of the destruction of this system. We don't get paid for our door to door preaching. Show me where any other group preaches God's Kingdom as the only hope for mankind and then shows it by their actions. Christendom says that the U.N. is mankinds hope for peace. J.W.'s ACTIVELY preach that Jehovah's kingdom under his son Jesus Christ will soon destroy all false religion, governments and set up His own over the earth to mans eternal benefit. Jesus said you would recognize his followers by the fruit they produced. Show me YOUR religions fruit. A Christian is a person who wouldn't do to someone else what the would do to Jesus himself and they do what Jesus did and commanded. At Matthew 28:19,20 Jesus told ALL of his follower to go and make disciples if all of his disciples made disciples then all would be disciple makers. Kinda like taking a penny and doubling it each day. ALL WOULD BE PREACHERS. Jehovah's Witnesses produce the fruitage of God's holy spirit. Whether you or the Griese's want to recognise that is something that you'll have to answer for. But, JW's will continue to follow Jehovah God and his Son teaching other spiritual minded people to benefit themselves by being TRUE christians. Witnesses know the facts. We offer the solution to your faith and the fruitages of it...War, crime, immorality, abortions, drugs, broken families, child abuse, fear of Armageddon, enslavement to false doctrines, the burning anger of Jehovah. One of my best friend is 86. He's been a Witness longer than you've been alive. Who doesn't know JW history? The book your reading or someone who was there. He have EVERY Watchtower ever printed and almost all the books IN HIS HOME. The FACT is the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (Jehovah's Witnesses) produce the FINE FRUIT of TRUE CHRISTIANITY as specified by Jesus Christ himself. LOVE AMOUNG THEMSELVES. CHRISTENDOM can't take a step toward saying that. Her HISTORY prevents it. Inquisition, burning people as heretics, crusades, corruption of the papacy, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Central America and the list goes on. Why don't you attack for our lack of love for each other and our neighbors since we refuse to murder in war for any cause. We spend MILLIONS of hours each year trying to teach people the Bible so they will love their neighbors. Or, attack our lack of morals. The Bible teaches the highest moral cleanness if we didn't follow this that would be a sign of not following the Bible. We would have priests molesting children in schools (insurance companies will not longer insure the Catholic schools against molestation cases), premarital sexual relations, homosexuality would be acceptable, drug dealers, drug users, crime bosses, corrupt politians, extramarital affairs would be ok, ABORTIONS, wars, just stating facts about what to look for when the Bible isn't followed. Spread this to your family and friends to help them see the truth about "THE TRUTH." I'm not a pioneer, yet. September 1, 1992. Selling? Jehovah's Witnesses don't sell. Selling implies making a profit we distribute our literature to people WHO WILL READ IT and if they CHOOSE they can donate for it. Publishers have no (as you put it) quota of hours. Pioneers also put in increased time because THEY WANT TO. Pioneering is a voluntary action by individual Witnesses which they can stop anytime they feel they must. They don't get paid either. VB>Watchtower claims that governments and their agencies are agents of VB>Satan, The BIBLE says that the worldly governments are controled by Satan (1 John 5: 19) VB>but the Watchtower has no problems with many of it's VB>Pioneers sitting on Welfare. I guess that for Watchtower Pioneers, VB>it is no problem for an agency of Satan (welfare department which VB>is a governmental agency so must also be Satan's agency) to be VB>supporting the Watchtower. Your BIBLICAL logic escapes you. ----------------- END --------------------- Please note that future issues of AWAKEN will touch on points discussed by Mr. Cotherman. The following is one of my replies to Mr. Cotherman's messages. I think that you will find the facts to be most interesting. The following are some replies to Mr. Cotherman: MC> I didn't see 1975 in any of your comments. Only six millinum MC> were ending in the MID-70's. First of all I would like to thank you for taking the time to reply. You have brought up a number of points in your 3 messages to me. I would like to reply to each of your points. Please bear with me, while I prepare appropriate replies. Please also note that there are many beliefs that you and I share in common. I did not present my present belief system to you or to anyone else as the belief system to follow. I am sorry if I had not made myself clear on that point. From your statement quoted above, it seems that you did not receive the initial messages which I sent to you regarding 1975. The update message was just an addition to those messages. In the update message, you are very correct when you state that it does not speak of 1975 specificaly. This update message was drawing on info from the prior 3 messages on that topic. I will resend those three messages. I also believe that since you did not receive those messages you must have missed the two which discuss Ecclesiastes 9:5, which you had quoted from. I'll send that up to you aswell. From your quote you agree that the Watchtower did convey that 6th millennium was to end in the mid seventies. The Watchtower also conveyed that the millennial reign of Christ would "have" to follow the sixth millenium. Before Christ's millennial reign, the end of this system of things must occur. I'll quote from the Watchtower book called THINGS IN WHICH IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD TO LIE, pg 360: "This trouble will result in destruction to that world empire of false religion, "Babylon the Great", and to the imperfect political governments of this earth". The Watchtower magazine of May, 01, 1968 on pg 272 states : "The immediate future is certain to be filled with climatic events, for this old system is nearing its complete end. Within a few years at most the final parts of Bible prophecy relative to these "last days" will undergo fulfillment, resulting in the liberation of surviving mankind into Christ's glorious 1,000 year reign. What difficult days, but, at the same time, what grand days are just ahead!" So we see that only the survivors of this great war will go into Christ's 1,000 year reign. Clearly, the Watchtower states that the end of this system of things must occur after the end of the sixth millenium and before the seventh millenium started. Since the sixth millenium ended in the mid-70s, therefore we are well into the seventh millenium. MC> Teachings? What teachings? Facts? What facts? MC> He have EVERY Watchtower ever printed and almost all the MC> books IN HIS HOME. You see I also have about 15 years worth of Watchtower publications on the shelf. I don't know if you lived thru 1975, but I did. I think that the Watchtower should be commended for the things that are Biblical, such their stand against the taking of life. I also feel that the Watchtower should be held accountable when it has made predictions, especially when said predictions have failed. Having a failed prediction has biblical consequences. Surely, if the Watchtower was GOD's prophet, as it had made claim to be, then the Watchtower should either not have made any predictions or the said predictions should have happened as predicted. The lesson of 1914 was not learned. I'll now quote from the Watchtower book called MAN'S SALVATION OUT OF WORLD DISTRESS AT HAND!, see page 136: "Furthermore, the remnant of spiritual Israel had for decades, yes, since the year 1876, been looking forward to the ending of the Times of the Gentiles in the autumn of 1914. They were expressing God's Messianic kingdom to be fully established in the heavens by then and also for the remnant of spiritual Israel to be glorified with Jesus Christ in the heavenly kingdom at that time. All understanding of the Holy scriptures was slanted in that direction or adjusted to that idea. And when the year 1941 ended amid the flames of World War I and the remnant of spiritual Israel found themselves still here on earth, then they were inclined to think that they would be glorified in the year 1918, three and a half years after the end of the Gentile Times." NOTE: the book from which this quote was taken was printed in 1975. The fact is stated clearly by the Watchtower that these spiritual Israelites "SLANTED" their understanding of the Holy Scriptures or they "ADJUSTED" the Holy Scriptures to that idea. You and I both know that the title Spiritual Israelites is just another name for followers of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. Is that any way for GOD's only channel of communication and GOD's prophet to behave ? What about the honesty about which you spoke. This is clear evidence that the Watchtower SLANTED and ADJUSTED the Holy Scriptures to their own ideas. If they did it in the past, how are you to know that they have stopped doing such things? Since you also did not get my message discussing the proven archealogical fact that the temple in Jerusalem was "NOT" destroyed by the Babylonians in 607 BCE. It is archealogical fact that it was destroyed in 587 BCE. The Watchtower adds 2520 years to 607 BCE to get their 1914 CE date. Since the temple was destroyed in 587 BCE, then the 2520 years should have been added to 587 BCE resulting in 1934 CE. This is provable fact, not conjecture. The Watchtower continues to claim that the temple was destroyed in 607 BCE. Copyright (c) 1991 by Vince Banial, Toronto Ontario Canada. This material cannot be incorporated into any book without the empress and written permission of Vince Banial. This file may be freely uploaded to any BBS, as long as it remains unchanged.