Roger

I'd like to meet:

I will use this venue to discuss my beliefs and I'm willing to correspond with anyone who is seriously desiring to improve their relationship with Jehovah God. I hope that you will look up Jehovah’s Witnesses in your area and seek them out because as I said we are living in the last days or the conclusion of this system of things and that is why it is so urgent for our survival that we bring our lives in complete harmony with Jehovah’s will and his purpose, developing the "mind of Christ" by putting on or developing a Christ-like personality. The only way to do this is by learning what his will is and doing it. If you have a problem finding Jehovah’s Witnesses in your area please go to http://www.watchtower.org and ask for help they will send someone to help you. At Revelation 18:4-5 we read concerning all false religion: “And I heard another voice say: ‘Get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues. For her sins have massed together clear up to heaven and God has called her acts of injustice to mind.’” Very soon Jehovah God will have all false religion destroyed by the “eighth king” of Bible prophecy. Who is this eighth king? This eighth king is none other than The United Nations. Why will the United Nations turn on false religion? Because Jehovah God will "put it into their hearts" to do so, at Revelation 17:15-18 we read: "And he says to me: “The waters that you saw, where the harlot is sitting, mean peoples and crowds and nations and tongues. And the ten horns that you saw, and the wild beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her devastated and naked, and will eat up her fleshy parts and will completely burn her with fire. For God put [it] into their hearts to carry out his thought, even to carry out [their] one thought by giving their kingdom to the wild beast, until the words of God will have been accomplished. And the woman whom you saw means the great city that has a kingdom over the kings of the earth." However, it isn’t enough to just get out of false religion you have to bring yourself under Jehovah God’s loving protection. I ask people all the time “How many religions are there in the world?” many people say that’s a difficult question to answer. I then tell them there are only two, true religion and false religion. That’s the way it has always been ever since Satan the Devil introduced false religion in the Garden of Eden by telling the original lie when he said to Eve as recorded for us at Genesis 3:4-5 where we read: “At this the serpent said to the woman: ‘You positively will not die. For God knows that in the very day of your eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like God, knowing good and bad.’” Well, we know what happened. Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad this was an act of disobedience. Because of this they died and according to Romans 5:12 where it says: “That is why, sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned.” The reason we die is because we have inherited sin from Adam. Death never entered the picture until he sinned. If he had not sinned Adam would still be alive today, but he is dead because he sinned and he passed this legacy on to his offspring. False religion teaches the same lie perpetrated by Satan they teach that man doesn’t die that his soul lives on in the spirit realm. They continue to perpetrate this falsehood saying that when you die your “immortal soul” goes to heaven, hell, purgatory or some other place that isn’t a Bible teaching the Bible at Ecclesiastes 9:5 & 10 makes it very clear as to what happens to man when he dies, it reads: “For the living are conscious they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they any more have wages, for the remembrance of them has been forgotten…. All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol, the place to which you are going.” All false religions teach this lie in one form or another that man has an immortal soul. Yet the Bible shows clearly that he dies and is not conscious of anything so if he isn’t conscious of anything how could he be tormented in a false religious hellfire or achieve a blissful life in heaven? False religion dishonors God with its false teachings of the Trinity doctrine, hellfire, and immortality of the soul. Many religions worship God with images and icons that is clearly a violation of sacred teachings. At Deuteronomy 4:21-24 Moses said: “And Jehovah got incensed at me on YOUR account, so that he swore that I should not cross the Jordan or go into the good land that Jehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance. For I am dying in this land. I am not crossing the Jordan, but YOU are crossing, and YOU must take possession of this good land. Watch out for yourselves that YOU may not forget the covenant of Jehovah YOUR God that he concluded with YOU and that YOU do not make for yourselves a carved image, the form of anything about which Jehovah your God has commanded you. For Jehovah your God is a consuming fire, a God exacting exclusive devotion.” We worship Jehovah by faith and not by sight we don’t need a tangible representation of Jehovah he is very real to us. False religion will tell you that the trinity is a mystery. Jehovah God and Jesus Christ are not ambiguous they are very real. They are not some mysterious three-headed god that requires explanations by some paid clergyman to help us understand, because we are too feeble-minded to grasp this concept. The feeble-minded are the false religious clergy of Christendom and pagandom that teach such falsehoods about the loving God Jehovah. They have sought to remove God’s name Jehovah from the Bible so that men will not even know whom they should call to in prayer, and to a large degree they have been successful. In the original Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic text the name Jehovah appeared more than 7,000 times now you can’t find it in most Bibles. So, you might ask: Who’s interest is false religion serving? Is it serving Jehovah God’s interest or the interest of Satan the Devil? It is very clear that Satan is the god of this system of things and the god of all false religion. YOUR RELIGION REALLY MATTERS. ‘ALL RELIGIONS are good,’ many people say. ‘They are simply different roads leading to the same place.’ If this were true, your religion would not really matter, for it would mean that all religions are acceptable to God. But are they? When Jesus Christ walked the earth, there was a religious group known as the Pharisees. They had built up a system of worship and believed it had God’s approval. Yet, at the same time, the Pharisees were trying to kill Jesus! So Jesus told them: “You do the works of your father.” In answer they said: “We have one Father, God.”—John 8:41. Was God really their father? Did God accept their form of religion? Not at all! Even though the Pharisees had the Scriptures and thought they were following them, they had been misled by the Devil. And Jesus told them so, saying: “You are from your father the Devil, and you wish to do the desires of your father. That one was a manslayer when he began, and he did not stand fast in the truth, . . . he is a liar and the father of the lie.”—John 8:44. Clearly, the religion of the Pharisees was false. It served the interests of the Devil, not God. So rather than viewing their religion as good, Jesus condemned it. He said to those religious Pharisees: “You shut up the kingdom of the heavens before men; for you yourselves do not go in, neither do you permit those on their way in to go in.” (Matthew 23:13) Because of their false worship, Jesus called those Pharisees hypocrites and poisonous snakes. Because of their bad course, he said that they were on the way to destruction.—Matthew 23:25-33. So Jesus Christ did not teach that all religions are simply different roads leading to the same place of salvation. In his famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: “Go in through the narrow gate; because broad and spacious is the road leading off into destruction, and many are the ones going in through it; whereas narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life, and few are the ones finding it.” (Matthew 7:13, 14) Because they fail to worship God in the right way, most persons are on the road to destruction. Only a few are on the road leading to life. A look at the way God dealt with the nation of Israel makes it clear how important it is to worship God in the way that he approves. God warned the Israelites to keep away from the false religion of the nations round about them. (Deuteronomy 7:25) Those people sacrificed their children to their gods, and they engaged in unclean sex practices, including homosexuality. (Leviticus 18:20-30) God commanded the Israelites to avoid these practices. When they disobeyed and worshiped other gods, he punished them. (Joshua 24:20; Isaiah 63:10) So their religion really did matter. FALSE RELIGION TODAY? What about the hundreds of religions today? Probably you agree that many things done in the name of religion are not approved by God. During the recent world wars, which millions of persons now living survived, the religions on both sides encouraged their people to kill. “Kill Germans—do kill them,” said the bishop of London. And, on the other side, the archbishop of Cologne told Germans: “We command you in the name of God, to fight to the last drop of your blood for the honor and glory of the country.” So Catholics killed Catholics with the approval of their religious leaders, and Protestants did the same. Clergyman Harry Emerson Fosdick admitted: “Even in our churches we have put the battle flags . . . With one corner of our mouth we have praised the Prince of Peace and with the other we have glorified war.” How do you think God feels about a religion that claims to do his will but glorifies war? Because of the crimes committed in the name of God by the members of many different religions throughout history, millions of persons today have turned away from God and Christ. They blame God for the terrible religious wars, such as those between Catholics and Muslims called the Crusades, the wars between Muslims and Hindus, and the wars between Catholics and Protestants. They point to the murder of Jews in the name of Christ, and the cruel Catholic inquisitions. Yet, even though the religious leaders responsible for such horrible crimes claimed God as their Father, were they not just as much children of the Devil as were the Pharisees whom Jesus condemned? Since Satan is the god of this world, should we not expect that he also controls the religions practiced by people of the world?—2 Corinthians 4:4; Revelation 12:9. No doubt there are many things done in the name of religion today that you do not think are right. Often you may hear about people who have very immoral ways of life, but who are respectable members of churches. You may even know about religious leaders who have a very bad way of life, but who are still accepted as good religious leaders in their churches. Some religious leaders have said that homosexuality and having sex relations without being married are not wrong. But you may know that the Bible does not say that. In fact, God had his people of Israel punished with death because they practiced such things. For the same reason he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. (Jude 7) Soon he will do the same to all modern-day false religion. In the Bible, such religion is represented as a prostitute because of its immoral relations with the “kings of the earth.”—Revelation 17:1, 2, 16. WORSHIP THAT GOD APPROVES. Since God does not approve of all religions, we need to ask: ‘Am I worshiping God in the way that he approves?’ How can we know if we are? It is not any man, but God, who is the judge of what is true worship. So if our worship is to be acceptable to God, it must be firmly rooted in God’s Word of truth, the Bible. We should feel the same way as the Bible writer who said: “Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar.”—Romans 3:3, 4. The first-century Pharisees did not feel that way. They set up their own beliefs and traditions and followed these rather than God’s Word. With what result? Jesus told them: “You have made the word of God invalid because of your tradition. You hypocrites, Isaiah aptly prophesied about you, when he said, ‘This people honors me with their lips, yet their heart is far removed from me. It is in vain that they keep worshiping me, because they teach commands of men as doctrines.’” (Matthew 15:1-9; Isaiah 29:13) So if we want God’s approval, it is necessary that we make sure that what we believe is in agreement with the teachings of the Bible. It is not enough for us to say we believe in Christ and then do what we think is right. It is absolutely necessary that we find out what God’s will is on the matter. Jesus showed this in his Sermon on the Mount when he said: “Not everyone saying to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but the one doing the will of my Father who is in the heavens will.”—Matthew 7:21. We could even be doing what we believe to be “good deeds,” and be doing these in the name of Christ. Yet all of these would be of no value if we failed to do God’s will. We would be in the position of the ones Christ next mentions: “Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many powerful works in your name?’ And yet then I will confess to them: I never knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:22, 23) Yes, we can be doing things that we think are good—and for which other humans may thank us and even praise us—but if we fail to do what God says is right we will be regarded by Jesus Christ as “workers of lawlessness.” Since many religions today are not doing God’s will, we cannot simply assume that the teachings of the religious organization we are associated with are in agreement with God’s Word. The mere fact that the Bible is used by a religion does not of itself prove that all the things it teaches and practices are in the Bible. It is important that we ourselves examine whether they are or not. Persons in the city of Beroea were commended because, after the Christian apostle Paul preached to them, they checked the Scriptures to make sure that the things he was telling them were true. (Acts 17:10, 11) The religion that is approved by God must agree in every way with the Bible; it will not accept certain parts of the Bible and reject other parts.—2 Timothy 3:16. SINCERITY ALONE NOT ENOUGH. But someone may ask: ‘If a person is sincere in his beliefs, won’t God approve of him even if his religion is wrong?’ Well, Jesus said he would not approve of “workers of lawlessness” even though they believed they were doing what was right. (Matthew 7:22, 23) So sincerity alone would not be approved by God either. Once Jesus told his followers: “The hour is coming when everyone that kills you will imagine he has rendered a sacred service to God.” (John 16:2) Such killers of Christians might sincerely believe that they were thereby serving God, but clearly they were not. God does not approve of what they did. Before he became a Christian, the apostle Paul helped in the murder of Stephen. Later, he looked for ways to kill more Christians. (Acts 8:1; 9:1, 2) Paul explained: “To the point of excess I kept on persecuting the congregation of God and devastating it, and I was making greater progress in Judaism than many of my own age in my race, as I was far more zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” (Galatians 1:13, 14) Yes, Paul was sincere, but that did not make his religion right. At the time, Paul was a member of the Jewish religious system, which had rejected Jesus Christ, and so it, in turn, was rejected by God. (Acts 2:36, 40; Proverbs 14:12) So to gain God’s approval Paul needed to change his religion. He also wrote of others who had “a zeal for God”—who were sincere but were not approved by God because their religion was not based on accurate knowledge of God’s purposes.—Romans 10:2, 3. The truth will not allow for all the different kinds of religious doctrine in the world. For example, either humans have a soul that survives the death of the body or they do not. Either the earth will last forever or it will not. Either God will bring wickedness to an end or he will not. These and many other beliefs are either right or wrong. There cannot be two sets of truth when one does not agree with the other. One or the other is true, but not both. Sincerely believing something, and practicing that belief, will not make it right if it really is wrong. How should you feel if proof is given that what you believe is wrong? For example, say that you were in a car, traveling for the first time to a certain place. You have a road map, but you have not taken time to check it carefully. Someone has told you the road to take. You trust him, sincerely believing that the way he has directed you is correct. But suppose it is not. What if someone points out the error? What if he, by referring to your own map, shows that you are on the wrong road? Would pride or stubbornness prevent you from admitting that you are on the wrong road? Well, then, if you learn from an examination of your Bible that you are traveling a wrong religious road, be willing to change. Avoid the broad road to destruction; get on the narrow road to life! DOING GOD’S WILL IS NECESSARY. It is important to know the truths of the Bible. Yet this knowledge is worthless if you do not worship God in truth. (John 4:24) Practicing the truth, doing God’s will, is what counts. “Faith without works is dead,” the Bible says. (James 2:26) To please God, then, your religion must not only be in full agreement with the Bible but also be applied in every activity of life. Therefore, if you learn that you are doing what God says is wrong, will you be willing to change? There are great blessings in store for you if you do God’s will. Even now you will benefit. Practicing true religion will make you a better person—a better man, husband or father, a better woman, wife or mother, a better child. It will produce in you godly qualities that will cause you to stand out among others because you do what is right. But even more, it will mean that you will be in position to receive the blessings of everlasting life in happiness and perfect health on God’s paradise new earth. (2 Peter 3:13) There is no question about it—your religion really does matter! ARE YOU SERVING JEHOVAH WHOLE-SOULED WITHOUT THE “W” At 2 Peter 3:11 we read: “Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought YOU to be in holy acts of conduct and deeds of godly devotion, ...” What are holy acts of conduct? This is conduct true Christians should be engaged in, preaching the good news of Jehovah’s Kingdom, meeting attendance, personal Bible study, and prayer. These are all holy acts of conduct. Peter continues in verses 12-13 “... awaiting and keeping close in mind the presence of the day of Jehovah, through which [the] heavens being on fire will be dissolved and [the] elements being intensely hot will melt! But there are new heavens and a new earth that we are awaiting according to his promise, and in these righteousness is to dwell.” So, Peter begins by asking the question, “what sort of persons ought you to be in holy acts of conduct and deeds of godly devotion.” Then he says: “awaiting and keeping close in mind the presence of the day of Jehovah ...” How are you doing in these holy acts of conduct and deeds of godly devotion? Are you serving Jehovah weekly? Or are you serving him weakly? At Colossians 3:23 we read: “Whatever YOU are doing, work at it whole-souled as to Jehovah, and not to men ...” What is the definition of whole-souled service? Let’s look at the word whole in the dictionary. It says: intact, entire, complete, total, full, this would be good if this describes your service to Jehovah. However can we change the meaning of that word by removing one letter? Let’s say we remove the “W” from the word whole. What is the definition of whole without the “W?” Flaw, defect, perforation, cavity! Have we changed the meaning of the word? Yes we have! Does this describe the kind of service you give to Jehovah God? Do we serve Jehovah whole-soled? Or is there a hole in our service, is there something lacking, are there flaws in our service are there defects? Because that’s what we are giving to Jehovah when we serve him without the “W.’’ Let’s be honest about this, if we are not serving Jehovah to the best of our abilities, then ought we better take an honest assessment of ourselves and make the necessary changes so that we are pleasing to Jehovah. Because Jehovah will not accept anything less than our whole-souled service. Jehovah’s Day is fast approaching. Are you ready? Jesus said at Matthew 24:36-39, 42 where we read: “Concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father. For just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be. For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark; and they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.... Keep on the watch, therefore, because YOU do not know on what day YOUR Lord is coming.” Now there is nothing wrong with eating, drinking, marrying, and women being given in marriage. However, in Noah’s day they took no note. Isn’t that the way some people today think even some who are in the truth? Some become so complacent they almost sound like people in the world who ridicule us and say: “Where is this promised presence of his? Why, from the day our forefathers fell asleep [in death], all things are continuing exactly as from creation’s beginning.” (2 Peter 3:4) You would think these would know better when they say: “I don’t think the end is ever coming.” Or, when someone says: “We’ve been saying that we’re in the last days ever since I can remember.” Shame on them! Remember Peters words at 2 Peter 3:5-7 and these words also apply to anyone who is not very busy with the preaching activity today. Because they too are taking no note of the time and the season. Peter says: “For, according to their wish, this fact escapes their notice, that there were heavens from of old and an earth standing compactly out of water and in the midst of water by the word of God; and by those [means] the world of that time suffered destruction when it was deluged with water. But by the same word the heavens and the earth that are now are stored up for fire and are being reserved to the day of judgment and of destruction of the ungodly men.” Just because you are a baptized Jehovah’s Witness is not enough, you have to be taking note! You have to be very busy in holy acts of conduct and deeds of godly devotion if you are to survive. Peter wrote at 1 Peter 4:17-18 where we read: “For it is the appointed time for the judgment to start with the house of God. Now if it starts first with us, what will the end be of those who are not obedient to the good news of God? “And if the righteous [man] is being saved with difficulty, where will the ungodly [man] and the sinner make a showing?” I don’t know where some people get the idea that they can relax and go about life as if nothing has changed. The Bible’s warnings are there. The work of disciple-making is very urgent, so why do some see it and some don’t? They have become complacent, giving Jehovah perfunctory service. Serving Jehovah cold leftovers, (what time they have leftover at the end of the month). Serving him without the “W.”