Our Personal Experience
For a number of years, the Jehovah’s Witnesses would infrequently come up our long driveway to visit my wife (while I was at work). She was very kind and accommodating, talking at their car and eventually having them into the house for extended discussions (typically one would remain in the car and two would come in). My wife is very well-founded in her Biblical Christian faith. She is just a warm and friendly person and saw this as an opportunity to listen and offer her own views on her faith, as so many others do when Jehovah’s Witness are at the door and we start wondering what to say.
I finally retired and recently was at home when they arrived, an older lady and younger one, again with a third staying in the car.
I was polite as I listened to them discuss their faith, sitting around our dining room table. After about 15-20 minutes, I began to challenge them in a way that was increasingly direct.
The Surprising Challenge
After making clear the differences between a Biblical Christian worldview and their false theology (see the “Jehovah’s Witnesses – Why What They Believe is Wrong”), something that they have heard many times, I began challenging the premise of their faith and their twisting of Scripture. At this point, the older lady asked the younger one to get the lady in the car to come in to better clarify their theology. Once we all settled down at the table, I again laid out some of the differences in our theological positions. We bantered back and forth for a while, something I’m sure was standard practice for the more knowledgeable JW believer. Finally, I made the following point that I think is both appropriate and outside their standard frame of reference…
Consider a more Direct Approach
“At death, if you are not a believing Jehovah’s Witness you remain asleep until you are annihilated. You do not believe in the pain of Hell. However, if one believes as I do, at death if you are not a born-again Biblical Christian, you will pass from eternity into a real and literal Hell, with no opportunity to escape. Therefore, when I see you offering your false teachings in my home and to my neighbors as you travel from house to house trying to earn a better place in your false heaven, I see your efforts directed solely and exclusively at sending people to Hell for eternity. So, from my perspective, it not only saddens me that you are lost but, more significantly, it angers me that you are pressing others toward the same eternal punishment.”
Summary Point
Obviously, this direct approach was outside their normal door-to-door experiences and I know, on the surface, it does not show Christian hospitality, much less, love. However, consider the deeper truth of my point. As Jehovah’s Witnesses (also true of LDS) spend their time spreading false teachings to those weak in the faith, their rhetoric is Hell-bound. To be clear, there is not a malicious act on their part. Instead, these evangelists are trying to earn a better spot in their version of heaven, and believe their efforts will allow others to enjoy the same experience. However, beyond the physical realm, there is an underlying intent in the supernatural where all these encounters represent a spiritual battle between good and evil.
The justification for challenging Jehovah’s Witness (or the Mormons), can be found in Scripture by way of the theological concept of righteous indignation, shown by Jesus while turning the tables of the money changers (for example). To me, directly teaching people how to go to Hell, rather than Heaven, supports a Biblical basis for anger and directness as much or more than commerce conducted in the outer temple court. Perhaps Christians have been too passive and fearful as we have watched this country depart from its roots. The next time you see the Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons roaming through your neighborhood prostituting their false teachings, consider they could be visiting your kids or parents as well. We all only get one chance, this life, to spend eternity in Heaven in the next.
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Jeff Hilles | BCWorldview.org
Medium: medium.com/@Jeff_hilles
