Why Remain a Witness when Bad Things Happen?

[TrueTomHarley]

  On 7/31/2017 at 11:07 AM, TrueTomHarley said:

There comes a time when one must suck it up and move on - either stay or leave, but move on.

@b4ucuhear: Is that what I should have told my sister? My younger sister was sexually molested by an elder. She stayed despite that without making waves, until she started to see other things she found deeply disturbing and then she did "move on" as you say. Actually, she shouldn't have "moved on" because later on, most of the elders (the bad ones) were either removed or disfellowshipped - half of them were apostate (but that's not all they were up to). Of course nobody wanted to believe anything (even with concrete evidence) since they were regulars on the circuit assembly platform and on even on the district convention. It took about 10 years to sort itself out (should have been much quicker considering the evidence), but it did, (although it took other elders to step in and do what actually had to be done.) Still, 1 Timothy 5:24 will prove to be true if you wait, in one way or another. 

…….

TTH:  "This ‘superfine apostle’ in the 2 Corinthians 11:5 mold was a big honcho in the HVAC world and would freeze everyone out of the Kingdom Hall because he liked it cool - even locking the thermostat so nobody not under his control could touch it. One elderly sister declared she would no longer attend meetings – where was the love?

"It developed that this man planned to poison his wife so as to move in with another woman, and all the while maintain his position in the congregation. Joe Merlin sniffed him out in a heartbeat. ‘How can you guys be so naïve?’ he cried before one Body of Elders who could not believe what was right before them. But when the dust at last settled, one of them approached him: ‘You’re right, Joe - we are naïve.’ Sometimes Jehovah’s people are naïve. They are the ‘sons of the light’ whom the ‘sons of this system of things’ do end runs around."

From the chapter 'Dirty Rotten Lowlifes' in 'No Fake News But Plenty of Hogwash.'

……

@b4ucuhear I respect you for that. Knowing bad things can happen yet having the strength of faith and character to stay - as you seem - spiritually strong in the truth. Might I ask you to share with us what enables you to maintain your faith and dedication despite faith testing situations (whether you were personally in that congregation or not?)

……..

Why Remain a Witness when Bad Things Happen?

Here are things that have helped me. I’ll add some others, maybe.

First, the psalm that says if you love God’s law, there is no stumbling block. (Ps 119:165) Humans will let you down from time to time. God never does.

Second, Peter’s statement to Jesus when the latter said something outrageous. “Lord, where else shall we go?” (John 6:68) Exactly. Who else enjoys the basic spiritual truths and does the scripturally appointed work of Jehovah’s Witnesses? (Why would Jesus say what he did, knowing it could so easily be misconstrued? Can it be that he does so to separate the keepers from the bad fish?)

Third, recognition that the key is, not to try to sanitize the present, but to unsanitize the past. Meaning the congregation, Paul says that in any house there are vessels for uses both honorable and dishonorable, and one must keep away from the latter. (2 Timothy 2:20) Plenty of riff-raff back then, he is saying. The Hebrew scriptures even point to times and situations when God's people acted worse than the nations, so if they are instances today here or there, it should hardly be a shocker, even if it goes on for a few years. In OT times, it went on for decades.

Fourth, I like it that God mocks the wisdom of this world - wisdom which has given us the disaster we all must live in. From where is that wisdom dispensed but in the world’s system of higher education? Only Jehovah’s Witnesses eschew it, and despite that (or because of it) they have constructed a seamless system the envy of human governments that can’t reliably provide the most basic of services. We are the one religion of size that have not strayed from its ‘working class’ roots so as to suck up to the ‘better’ people. Acts 4:13 says the elites were astonished how the leaders of Christianity were ordinary and unlearned by their standards. That remains so today. Current GB members start out, not from a lofty perch above others, like in any other organization today, but from humble full-time service below that of most persons they later lead.

Fifth, a recognition that the crowd is always wrong. While some fear the prevalence of apostates will harm the true faith, I think, to the discerning one, it strengthens it. Hostility over Jehovah’s Witnesses is way out of proportion to any sins they have committed, and are often entirely bogus. Ann mentioned Muslims. They have tendency to produce murderous extremists and they have a sharia law that, taken seriously, does far more than shun transgressors, and savages Western notions of woman’s rights. Write an article about Muslims and you will receive many hostile comments. Write one about Jehovah's Witnesses and you will drown in hostile comments, though their numbers are far fewer and their transgressions far less serious. Don’t follow the crowd for evil ends, Exodus 23:2 says, or, as everyone’s mother said: if everyone was jumping off a cliff, would you jump too? If the crowd says the religion stinks, it must be good.

That’s for starters. 

[b4ucuhear]

5 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Here are things that have helped me.

Not bad. Thanks for caring enough about your brothers and sisters to share what has helped you. I might add something re: Psalm 119:165 later. I'm sure those who need it most will find this especially helpful. 

[b4ucuhear]

On 8/4/2017 at 9:50 AM, TrueTomHarley said:

the psalm that says if you love God’s law, there is no stumbling block. (Ps 119:165)

We sometimes make broad application of selected verses in God's Word as if there were no exceptions or as if they are true in every case. 

A legitimate example of this might be Heb. 6:18 "...it is impossible for God to lie." An example of another verse where we might not assume to make a broad application of is Proverbs. 16:7: "When Jehovah is pleased with a man's ways, he causes even his enemies to be at peace with him." Is that always the case? We might say it was true during Solomon's reign, but what about other faithful servants of Jehovah who obviously had enemies that were not at peace with them? (David, Jeremiah, Jesus, JW's today...) Could we reason conversely that if they/we had enemies, Jehovah is not pleased with them/us? Hardly. It's just that making a broad application to some passages raises obvious questions.

Another scripture to consider is that found at Psalm 119:165: "Abundant peace belongs to those who love your law; Nothing can make them stumble ("for them there is no stumbling block")." The conclusion often drawn from that is that "true" worshippers can't be stumbled. But the reality is that quite often true worshippers are stumbled. If fact, that is not only a fulfillment of Bible prophecy, but in line with the warning Jesus gives at Matthew 18:6: "But whoever stumbles one of these little ones who have faith in me, it would be better for him to have hung around his neck a millstone that is turned by a donkey and to be sunk in the open sea." So clearly both Jesus and Paul (Romans 14:21) indicate that our "brothers" could be stumbled by the choices we make (even if those choices may be "lawful" according to our conscience.) Is there a contradiction here? It might seem that way and has in fact to some (this isn't the first time this issue has been raised.) If you you look in the CD WT library at all the references (it will take a lot of time) you will see that generally these articles focus on one OR the other without considering how one relates or contributes to our understanding of the other - but not all. Either "nothing can make true worshippers stumble," OR "be very careful about stumbling or fellow worshippers by the way we act on our conscience."  Is it fair to assume that those who stumble are not "true worshippers" or "not of our sort" going out from us? Hardly, because Jesus clearly identified such as "little ones who have faith" - and yet could be stumbled. However, as mentioned earlier, not all articles present these verses as an "either - or" situation. Here are some comments from the WT that explain this seeming contradiction:

"True, were all Christians fully mature, there would be no danger of stumbling another: (Ps. 119:165). but since not all Christians are strong in faith and mature, we must exercise care."

"The person being stumbled to a fall might be a 'little one,' but that would not minimize the seriousness for the one causing the stumbling in this case. Why not? Because it involved "one of these little ons that believe." This would designate a believer in Jesus as the messianic Son of God. The belief of such "little ones" puts them on the way to everlasting life. So, if anyone willfully, purposely, inconsiderately caused such a 'little one' on the way to eternal life to take due offence and stumble out of the the living way into destruction, it would be tantamount to committing murder. It would show a lack of love for the one stumbled." 

So we can surmise that Psalm 119:165 basically refers to those who have a level of spiritual maturity, because they "love God's law" and "rove about in it," - (but that might not be true of all true worshippers). Likely these mature ones would have experience in applying God's law -  and eating "solid food" (as mature ones would do) and so not be stumbled by what might stumble newer ones. But those newer ones acquainted only with "milk" and with weak consciences, could in fact be stumbled and we have to be careful about that. 

Finally, depending of the severity of the circumstance, even mature ones have stumbled by what they may have seen/heard/experienced. Therefore, the admonition at 1 Corinthians 10:12 is important: "So let the one who thinks he is standing beware that he does not fall."

 

[TrueTomHarley]

2 hours ago, b4ucuhear said:

We sometimes make broad application of selected verses in God's Word as if there were no exceptions or as if they are true in every case. A legitimate example of this might be Heb. 6:18 "...it is impossible for God to lie." An example of another verse where we might not assume to make a broad application of is Proverbs. 16:7: "When Jehovah is pleased with a man's ways, he causes even his enemies to be at peace with him."

For about two decades, I was a really skilled janitor. I never cleaned for any kings.

More later

[TrueTomHarley]

@b4ucuhear: "Is that what I should have told my sister? My younger sister was sexually molested by an elder. She stayed despite that without making waves, until she started to see other things she found deeply disturbing and then she did "move on" as you say. Actually, she shouldn't have "moved on" because later on, most of the elders (the bad ones) were either removed or disfellowshipped - half of them were apostate (but that's not all they were up to).... Still, 1 Timothy 5:24 will prove to be true if you wait, in one way or another."

Though I didn't think of it at the time, the passage I quoted had to do with the "superfine apostles" Paul had to battle. Elsewhere I said he was like Diatrophes. These jerks existed in the first century. It shouldn't be unexpected that they may have cropped up from time to time in the present. 

I re-listened to An Important Reminder recently. I loved that talk. Why does God permit suffering? Easy to answer. Why does God permit MY suffering? Suddenly hard to answer. You might remember the speaker develops three scriptural scenarios. The third is Uriah in the new system reading of how the letter he carried was from David to Joab authorizing his (Uriah's) murder. Wouldn't THAT be a hard one to forgive? But it get's worse. He would learn how Jehovah exalted David in time, even the son born to him and drop dead gorgeous Bath-Sheba, Uriah's stolen wife. [the obvious lesson here is to marry an unattractive woman, such as @The Librarian] Who could blame him if he concluded that with Jehovah, a Jew could do anything, but a Hittite, a man of the nations, was but dirt in his eyes.

The 'important reminder' referred to time and again is that it's not about us. It never has been. It is about the vindication of Jehovah's purposes. Even Abraham and Jacob (the other two examples offered) were not exempt from the ordinary travails - up and downs and injustices and hardships of this system of things. In fact, their special assignment brought on some troubles in excess of the run-of-the-mill stuff their contemporaries faced.

It's actually from @The Librarian - fine woman - that I learned our personal salvation was recognized as the issue of secondary importance to the vindication of God's name from as far back as Brother Rutherford's time. This is a good point. MY personal salvation as the topic that is the buzz of the universe doesn't quite cut it. Sanctification of God's name does. Thus (and here is the 6th reason I remain with the truth, come what may) the Jehovah's Witness faith is not, at root, selfish. Other church branches are. 'Me and Jesus' is the focus of most of them.

[TrueTomHarley]

On 8/4/2017 at 3:19 PM, b4ucuhear said:

Thanks for caring enough about your brothers and sisters to share what has helped you.

I think I'll add as the seventh one how the truth has preserved my marriage, and the older I get the more I treasure a solid family - with its ups and downs - rather than a string of failed relationships. Feeding on the wisdom of this system of things, you are almost guaranteed the latter. This is due to basic flawed assumptions on the nature of men, the nature of woman, and the nature of marriage.

For example, there is the 'soul mate' fallacy. I'll acknowledge a soul mate sounds good, but is there really such a thing? The notion leads to disillusionment when you invariably find that your wife/husband is less of a soul mate than you initially thought. What course remains but to search for your true soul mate? There is little encouragement to work through issues, and when there is, there is almost no encouragement to stick with it. However, working with the Bible's definition of love will make you a better person over time. It is like exercising a muscle. In contrast, too much focus on a 'soul mate' does nothing but make you a shallow person, whose preferences must be catered to.

Let no one read into these remarks that my wife and I fight like cats and dogs. We do not. But there have been times.... Is it not that way with any marriage? The truth has preserved my marriage and thereby made me a better person. Following contemporary wisdom would have destroyed it long ago, most likely. A certain relative belongs to 'the American Dream Church.' - a 'me and Jesus' church. They have put their three kids though college and all have fine jobs. They had fine careers themselves and lived in a most comfortable house. But the marriage grew cold and while the last youngster was yet it school, it blew up and dissolved. Studies indicate that when a marriage dissolves after the kids have left home, it nonetheless affects their marriages for ill. Most likely it is because they say: "if my parents could not do it, what chance have we?"

Distressed that they cannot hold together a marriage to save their lives, 'science-rationalist' people take comfort in the cavemen of evolution and spin their minus into a plus: "Toward the end of the twentieth century, career types were disheartened to realize they couldn't hold a marriage together to save their lives. But they didn't want to be disheartened, they wanted to feel good about themselves. So it became essential to come up with a explanation and, above all things, that explanation had to totally absolve them from responsibly, blame or guilt....all antiquated notions unfit for modern humans. Again, the cavemen delivered!

"You see, those cavemen had to spread their seed if they wanted to win the survival game, so it was no good staying in one relationship. You had to move on! But you'd better not move on too quick. No, you have to hang around four years, to ensure that your toddlers don't get eaten by predators! After that, the woman can ensure it while you go in quest of the golden waist hip ratio. Again, the evolutionary psychologists, who are taken seriously and not laughed off the planet as they ought to be, assert that this behavior got locked into our genes, to be passed on to progeny.

"I don't much care for this notion, but recent discoveries seem to support it. Out in the wilds somewhere, anthropologists have recently unearthed fossils of Yabbadabba Man, a boring ancestor if ever there was one. Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble are thought to be members of this species. They had one or two kids apiece and just hung around afterwards plunked in front of the TV, until even their own wives got fed up with them and tossed them out on their ear, though alas, too late in life for them to start anew and spread their seed. As you might expect, that bunch died out.

"Then there was Slambang Man, another recent find. These Romeos were forever moving on in search of shapelier babes. They each had hundreds, maybe thousands of kids, but they left them all to predators so they could go out carousing, and every last one of them was eaten. This species, too, died out, though they are eternally reborn with each new generation."

It does nothing but get worse. The very nature of the sexes is being redefined today, as well as the interaction between them. California, I just read today, may soon include a X designation on forms that have, since the beginning of time, contented themselves with an M or and F when questioning sex. 

Today's young people, sold down the river by foolish thinking masquerading as wisdom, have virtually no chance of forming a lasting relationship. I am grateful to Jehovah's organization for not allowing this to happen within the Christian congregation.

 

 

[TrueTomHarley]

 

On 8/4/2017 at 3:19 PM, b4ucuhear said:

Thanks for caring enough about your brothers and sisters to share what has helped you.

I bought a car from a private person for a significant chunk of money. You always worry when you do this. How to you know that you are not simply buying someone else's headaches?

That concern was alleviated by examining the paperwork. The man had every maintenance receipt neatly and sequentially folded, all from the same dealership, and each spaced  5000 miles apart. Since he had scrupulously maintained the car, I bought it without blinking an eye.

It's amazing how many will maintain material things, even becoming obsessive over it, but will not maintain themselves. And when they do, they confine it to maintaining their physical selves and not their spiritual selves, which is more important. I usually duck out of those 'what is your favorite scripture' games because it changes depending on the context. But overall, Matthew 5:3 ranks right up there and I use it in service all the time:

"Happy are those conscious of their spiritual need, since the Kingdom of the heavens belongs to them."

All of us have a spiritual need. But we are not necessarily conscious of it. Failing to recognize and care for it, a person gets sicker and sicker, like one deprived of vitamins, without ever knowing why. This is the eighth reason I have remained with Jehovah's organization. It tirelessly provide maintenance for our being. It steers clear of the pitfalls that ensnare most churches - slobbering over the latest offerings of human wisdom, honing in on politics, preaching 'prosperity gospel' As I write, the televangelist Joel Olsteen is taking considerable heat for not opening his 16,000-seat mega-church - it once was a stadium - to persons displaced from the Houston flood. "Jesus promises us peace that passes understanding," he tweeted. "That's peace when it doesn't make sense."

Nothing makes sense during hard times for those who consume this world's rational or spiritual wisdom. I'm grateful to Jehovah's organization for ever keeping the focus on spiritual things that do make sense.

 

[TrueTomHarley]

 

On 8/4/2017 at 3:19 PM, b4ucuhear said:

Thanks for caring enough about your brothers and sisters to share what has helped you.

I'll stretch the following into a ninth reason, though it is arguably a subset of the post above. It's a reflection upon the August broadcast that focuses on Genesis 3:16

  “…your long will be your husband and he will dominate you.”  

From the broadcast: "When God said that Adam would dominate his wife, God was not indicating  his approval  of the subjugating of woman by man. He was simply foretelling the sad consequences  of sin on the first couple. So abuse of women is a direct outcome of the sinful nature of humans, not a part of God’s will . Right down to our day, rarely have women been afforded the dignity that God wants them to receive. However, Jehovah makes clear in his word the Bible that women and men have equal standing before him. In fact, he indicated that women would play a vital role in the outworking of his purpose." 
 

I am reminded of @SuziQ (or is it @SuziQ1513?) commenting with resignation and even some anger that this 'is a man's world.' It is - and men have historically been jerks. When women enter into positions of leadership and people ask the question: 'do they really think they can do as well as the men?' that is not the right question to ask. The right question is: "How can they do worse?"

Anger over mistreatment has caused women to cast aside traditional norms in search of new ones, and redefining roles has reached the point where a happy and lasting male-female relationship is all but impossible. The comment from the broadcast shows that Bethel is no part of the mistreatment of women.

However, it also shows that it is. One of the things I like very much about the Governing Body is that they do not package Bible lessons for the masses below. They package it for themselves first, and from there it cascades down to the masses. They are ever conscious that they can and do fall short and so they feed themselves a diet of spiritual food to remedy that as much as they feed others. They earnestly want to live up to Jehovah's high standards, the same as they want everyone else in the congregation to. Busy as they are, they read the Bible daily there, just like the Israelite kings were told to.

The leaders of most organizations start 'high.' They are long accustomed to privilege and money. In many cases, they have never known anything else. But the leaders of Jehovah's organization start "low," - lower than most of those they will later lead. They bring to the table a life of full-time service in the lowliest of venues, some having served in third world countries that few other leaders would deign to set foot in. They typify the 'through the dust' flavor that the word 'minister' is derived from. 

Their reliance on God's word set's them in very good position to lead the worldwide flock, though occasionally it blinds them. Or does it? For example, they routinely refer apostates as 'bitter.' They don't really know if they are or not by experience. They take their own counsel and don't hang out with them. Instead, they just read the Book of Jude's description and assume it must be so. And who's to say it's not so, at least in the main? The ones that you come across on the internet hardly seem baskets of joy.

[Alessandro Corona]

I left 3 days ago. Even though I still have faith in Jehovah and Christ, Jesus. But there are some doctrinal errors which are too great to ignore, and because of it I have been treated like a criminal by the brothers. 

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

Residents in one Houston, Texas neighborhood said they were swimming for their lives on Tuesday when a 4,500 pound crocodile was found wading around in their underwater neighborhood. Janice Wright, a forty-year resident of Houston, said this 21 foot crocodile is nearly missed her grandson as he was swimming away from the beast.

My grandson was helping us rescue a group of people outside their homes, when he said the large beast appeared in the water,” said Wright. “ThatÂ’s when he saw this giant crocodile eat a stranded puppy and then it lunged toward my grandson. All I heard was screaming and yelling! It almost killed my him!”

Scientists who receive the alligator after its capture say the animal is around 80 years old. They also say that he was looking to eat humans because he was too slow and old to catch animals. The crocodile was tranquilized and captured by Army personnel Tuesday afternoon and the animal is being held by local scientists for further evaluation.

[TrueTomHarley]

On 8/31/2017 at 4:50 PM, Alessandro Corona said:

I left 3 days ago. Even though I still have faith in Jehovah and Christ, Jesus.

Perhaps you should return. Are they represented anywhere else? Does anyone else even use Jehovah's name?

[b4ucuhear]

On 2017-08-31 at 4:50 PM, Alessandro Corona said:

I left 3 days ago. Even though I still have faith in Jehovah and Christ, Jesus. But there are some doctrinal errors which are too great to ignore, and because of it I have been treated like a criminal by the brothers. 

Without knowing more details, it's hard to know how to respond without hopscotching over many possibilities. I'm sorry to hear you feel that way and I would caution against any knee jerk reactions based on emotion. (Not saying that's actually the case here since info is sparse). Questions you might ask: Where else would I go? Am I prepared to do the things the other religions do? (Go to war? Believe in hell? Celebrate pagan holidays? Support political systems under Satans control? Be part of an organization that is divided politically, racially, ethnically? Would I deliberately hide Gods name in a Bible? Would I believe Jesus and Jehovah are co-equal as part of a Trinity? Would I keep what I believe to be life-saving truths to myself instead of sharing it with others? Would I be comfortable supporting a paid clergy to receive what Jesus gave for free? Would I be as spiritually educated elsewhere? ...) would I be willing to wait patiently until a clarification/adjustment is made either in my understanding or from the society? - it may take years. If I didn't agree with everything other religions taught either,  would I feel comfortable/qualified becoming my own religion - a religion of one?

The idea/reality of being treated as a criminal by the brothers may be an exaggeration or it may be true. Often it depends on how you present your views. You can be perceived either as  a person who simply  has unanswered questions  or as an apostate who may want to draw disciples after yourself, or something in between.