Prelude

Everyone thinks about God. This happens throughout his life. This happens differently for everyone. Everyone seeks God and tries to find the "one and only" religion. The only question is that this "one and only" does not become the first one that comes across, which very often happens. And since the activity of some religious organizations in our country is very high, the probability of accepting their teachings as truth is directly proportional to their activity and the number of publications containing their ideas are distributed. Such are, for example, Jehovah's Witnesses.

For more than 10 years, I have been an active member of this religious organization. I now serve as an elder in one of the congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses. I have chosen to write this article to help my brothers and sisters in the faith realistically look at the teachings of our organization in the light of Bible truth. Objectively and impartially. Of course, it is much easier to pretend that everything is normal and we are on the right track, but then the same thing can happen to millions of good and hardworking people in our country, when they believed for 70 years in the absurd, albeit very attractive, idea of a communist paradise under the leadership of the Communist Party. I do not want to draw any analogies, but at the same time I do not want to lose sight of the obvious similarities with what is already history.

My feelings can be expressed in the words of the Apostle Paul, which he addressed to the representatives of the people of Israel in his letter to the Romans in verses 10-4: "Brethren! the desire of my heart and prayer to God for Israel for salvation.  For I testify to them that they have zeal for God, but not for reasoning. For, not understanding the righteousness of God, and striving to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to the righteousness of God, because the end of the law is Christ, to the righteousness of everyone who believes." These words of the Apostle very well express the essence of the religious life of the entire organization of Jehovah's Witnesses, since in its midst there are people who wholeheartedly strive to believe in God and trust in His Word, but who have built all their faith on human teachings that are spread by the so-called "faithful and discreet slave" in the person of a very small group of similar Jehovah's Witnesses, with the only difference: that they are with the management of the organization. These people were able to impose their human teachings on millions of fellow believers, "striving to set their own righteousness" rather than the righteousness of God. In fact, the entire structure of the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses closely resembles the structure of religious authority that the Pharisees created. More than that, Jehovah's Witnesses are the direct successors of their "work" because they have failed to heed the clear words of the Bible at Romans 10:1-4 and continue to live by creating many different laws to regulate people's religious lives, instead of accepting the freedom that Christ's atoning sacrifice gave "to the righteousness of every believer." They publish these laws mainly in their main written "Talmud," the Watchtower Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom.

I want to say more: over the many years of my stay in the organization, I have become convinced that the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses is not really a religious organization, but it is a kind of party operating under the guise of religion, which has its own Central Committee (called the Governing Body), an extensive structure of representative offices (Branches), a staff of inspectors of the Central Committee (traveling overseers), a system of monetary contributions (voluntary donations), and so on.

If we look at it from another point of view, then Jehovah's Witnesses are a non-governmental organization that can operate on the territory of a state, as on the territory of an enemy. Let me explain this with an example: the Kingdom Ministry School was recently held in Russia, the name of a two-day seminar for elders of Jehovah's Witnesses, at which, for example, specific instructions were given on how to act if you are summoned to the FSB. Instructions were given not to say anything, but to immediately report everything to the Administrative Center of the religious organization "Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia" in St. Petersburg, and then "wait for further instructions." This is very reminiscent of "actions behind enemy lines", something like the game "Stirlitz under the hood of Müller". It just amazed me, because I felt involved in some kind of conspiracy against a state that was just about to do something, but was already "bad". But all this is in direct contradiction with Romans 13:1-4: "Let every soul be subject to the superior authorities, for there is no authority except from God; but the existing authorities are established by God. Therefore he who resists authority resists God's decree. And those who resist will bring condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are feared not for good works, but for evil ones. Do you want not to be afraid of the authorities? Do good, and you will receive praise from her, for [the ruler] is God's servant, for your good. But if you do evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain: he is God's servant, the avenger of him who does evil." What should we be afraid of if we do not do any evil, and why turn the citizens of some country against their own state. Set up in advance, without thinking about the consequences, because these instructions should not be disclosed, in addition, we were even advised not to write them down, but to memorize them. Why such secrecy? For me personally, as for a law-abiding citizen, this is unacceptable. I also believe that my brothers and sisters have the right to know about this policy of the organization they are a part of.

How did it all begin?

Much has been written about the origins of Jehovah's Witnesses, and I am unlikely to discover anything new here. I would also like to emphasize that this article does not claim the status of a scientific study. Therefore, to the best of my ability, I want to briefly summarize the history of Jehovah's Witnesses in order to highlight what I consider to be the most important and remarkable.

First of all, it should be noted that the founder of this organization, Charles Taze Russell, founded a new direction in Christianity, relying not on independent research, but by adopting all the main teachings of the Second Coming movement, which was popular in his time, as well as various trends of Adventism. The first of these is the doctrine of the invisible presence of Christ. This is the cornerstone of the entire doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses. It turns out that C. T. Russell accepted from Adventist Nelson Barber that this event began in 1874. Any Witness will say that this, i.e., the "invisible presence of Christ," was taught to him from the very beginning of his time in the organization as the "Witness teaching" itself. But please note these words of Russell: "I have therefore paid the expense of Mr. Barbar to come to meet me in the summer of 1876, and from the Scriptures (if he can) have revealed to me that the prophecies marking the date of the year 1874 are the date of the beginning of the Lord's presence and the beginning of the harvest. He arrived, and all his evidence fully satisfied me" (The Watchtower, 1916, 171 pages). Here is the beginning! When Russell, after accepting Barbar's chronology, became convinced that Christ had come invisibly in 1874, he immediately began to preach "the truth," and eventually the Watchtower organization was formed (which later became the worldwide organization of Jehovah's Witnesses). Today, most of Jehovah's Witnesses have no idea about the prophecies associated with 1874 and everything related to it. They know the organization's teaching about 1914 as the date of the beginning of "the invisible presence of Christ in the Tsar's power." In fact, most Jehovah's Witnesses now believe that the explanation pointing to 1914 is also more or less unique to their organization, and that it was originally published by the Society's first president, Russell. However, let us note this: Barbar's followers believed that 1874 marked the end of 6,000 years of human history, and they expected the coming of Christ in that year. When this year passed, they were disappointed. One of the supporters of the Second Coming movement, B. W. Keith at this time, noticed that in one of the translations of the New Testament ("The Emphatic Diaglott"), the verses about Christ's return used the word "presence" instead of the word "coming." Keith gave Barbar the idea that Christ had indeed returned in 1874, but invisibly, and that he was now invisibly "present" carrying out the work of judgment (by the way, this idea lasted until 1995, but we will talk about that below).

It was a "genius" idea, because the "invisible presence" is very difficult to disprove or prove. Now you could say whatever you wanted and attribute it all to the return of Christ. This "teaching" had great "potential" and emotional charge, as it allowed to keep fellow believers in constant tension and submission. Perhaps this attracted the attention of the then young Russell. Later, the beginning of Christ's presence was postponed to 1914, but no longer in connection with the end of 6000 years of human history, but on the basis of the chronology from the 4th chapter of the Book of the Prophet Daniel, which speaks of 7 times, which were transformed first into 2520 days, and then into 2520 literal years. This theory is now also presented as the property of Jehovah's Witnesses, but in fact John Aquila Brown was the first to interpret the "seven times" of Daniel chapter 4 in such a way that the formula "year for day" resulted in 2520 years. Brown first published his interpretation in 1823, and his method reversed the "seven times" into 2,520 years in exactly the same way that it is done today in the literature of the Watch Tower Society. However, John Aquila Brown began counting 2,520 days from 604 B.C.E., and so he calculated them to end in 1917 C.E. He predicted that then "the full glory of the kingdom of Israel will find its perfection."

Therefore, it can be seen that neither the doctrine of the invisible presence of Christ, nor the interpretation of the prophecy in Daniel chapter 4 about the years 2520, by which Jehovah's Witnesses now come to the year 1914, is a consequence of God revealing it to them as his only truth of religion. These teachings are entirely borrowed from what Jehovah's Witnesses call "false" religions, such as Adventism. Therefore, there can be no question of any "channel" through which God now transmits an understanding of Bible truth in the person of the "faithful and discreet slave."