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“A Good Word for the Witnesses”

THE preaching activity of Jehovah’s witnesses is growing very rapidly. This has required a large expansion of facilities at their international headquarters in Brooklyn, New York.

The expansion is arousing much comment in the community, even prompting a sermon at the Plymouth Church (Congregational), located just two blocks away. More than a century ago, the church’s first minister, Henry Ward Beecher, lived on property that is now part of the Watchtower Society’s headquarters complex.

The sermon was delivered by Dr. Harry H. Kruener and was entitled “A Good Word for the Witnesses.” At the outset he declared: “I have to say that they are wrong, wrong in so many of the beliefs I count essential to true religion.”

However, he then commented: “But I can still secretly admire them and this is my theme of the morning.” He said:

I admire the Witnesses for talking about their religion. . . . We [in his church] indulge in a conspiracy of silence. Religion is the one thing we never talk about. . . .

“I know I myself seldom mention I am a minister because it tends to put an awful damper on the conversation. . . . The other day I saw a bulletin board outside a church which caught my eye. it read: ‘If you were on trial for being a Christian would they have enough evidence to convict you?’ . . .

“Most of us have seen to it that there would be mighty little they could pin on us. The Witnesses give evidence, verbal evidence every day of their faith. They speak out.”

What does the Bible say that true Christians should do? The apostle Paul stated: “With the heart one exercises faith for righteousness, but with the mouth one makes public declaration for salvation.” (Rom. 10:10) And Jesus Christ foretold of our day: “This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.” (Matt. 24:14) If you belong to a church, are the members of your church doing this?

What about Jehovah’s witnesses? Last year, 1,336,112 of them were actively preaching in 203 lands, devoting over 239 million hours to this work free of charge. These are all Bible teachers who talk to others about God and his purposes. They conduct Bible studies with interested persons in their homes. Last year alone more than 120,000 new Bible teachers were baptized and joined their ranks.

Dr. Kruener went on to comment to another point, saying:

“I admire the Witnesses for the interracial quality of their fellowship. . . . They have found their ‘equality in the Lord,’ which is what many of our churches, over a hundred or more years, have not been able to do. They [Jehovah’s witnesses] are color-blind. They are brothers. . . .

“They have a fellowship, a brotherhood, we might well envy. They accept each other, black and white, rich and poor, as human beings.”

Is that important to true Christianity? Jesus said: “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves.” (John 13:35) And the apostle Peter said: “God is not partial, but in every nation the man that fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him.” (Acts 10:34, 35) What is your church, if you belong to one, producing in this regard?

In his sermon, the minister noted this additional point:

“I admire their discipline. They not only talk about their religion, not only support it, not only are amazingly brotherly; they train themselves, they keep themselves in trim, to be Witnesses. They study the Scriptures, . . . They even seem to me to jog to their meetings. By contrast, the Catholics step along trying to make early Mass, and the Protestants saunter, usually looking at the trees and the flowers in our patio as they pass. But the Witnesses, they march. I might say that they are the ‘happy joggers’ in the army of the Lord.”

The disciplined “joggers” of the first century​—who were they? They were those who had the true religion, the followers of Jesus. They were not the scribes, the Pharisees, or their followers. Are the members of your church being disciplined, trained, actively engaged in Bible study and service to God?

On a point of disagreement, Dr. Kruener claimed that the message of Jehovah’s witnesses is one of “a heartless God.” However, those who have studied the Bible with Jehovah’s witnesses know that they highlight the fact that “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) Read this for yourself in their widely distributed Bible-study aid The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life. See how it highlights the blessings of God’s kingdom, under which God will create a paradisaic new order on earth. In that new order God “will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be any more.”​—Rev. 21:4.

The minister also declared that Jehovah’s witnesses “get hung up on the end of the world, the apocalyptic sections of Scripture, which are barely ten percent of the total.” He said: “To them God is a bloody avenger on the day of Armageddon and this is a denial I believe of all that Jesus came to teach.”

But Jesus himself took the lead in teaching about the end of this wicked system of things! You can read this at Matthew chapter 24, Luke chapter 21 and Mark chapter 13. And ‘Armageddon,’ mentioned at Revelation 16:14-16, is described in many Bible passages, such as Revelation 19:11-21. Yes, the Bible clearly teaches that “the world is passing away and so is its desire, but he that does the will of God remains forever.”​—1 John 2:17.

Is such “apocalyptic” teaching unimportant because it is only “ten percent of the total”? Jesus did not think so. Neither did the Bible writers. Indeed, if the last 10 percent of a bridge was washed out, would you still drive on it if someone called this fact to your attention? The Bible shows that these are the “last days” of this wicked system, that it is nearing its finish. (2 Tim. 3:1-5) The greatest service anybody can now perform is to call this to your attention, because your eternal welfare is involved.​—Ezek. 3:18-21.

Jesus, likening men of religious systems to trees, declared: “Every good tree produces fine fruit, but every rotten tree produces worthless fruit.” He then warned: “Every tree not producing fine fruit gets cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matt. 7:16-19) Examine the religious ‘trees’ with which you associate. Are they producing the kind of fruit God requires?