Jewish Lords' Witness

Communication with Non-Believers

Catching a Large Number of Fish

​Introduction

I have always found it difficult to engage in conversation with non-believers in the matters that really do have spiritual impact. I have never seen myself as an evangelist to the masses but more of a bible researcher and teacher to those who would listen with an open and attentive mind. In the current climate of Covid-19 lockdown and in the consequent expectation that we are now in the end times, I have also found myself less and less interested in the matters of the world than ever before. The only exception to this is in how they may demonstrate the playing out of God’s grand plan.

My wife made this same observation about me just the other day, after our discussing the latest TV news bulletin. She told me that she understood where my head was, given the enormity of God’s work that I have been privy to through my LW research work. She is also beginning to see the smallness of worldly matters in the grand scheme of things that cannot yet be seen.

It is in the context of this conversation with her that I decided to write this paper on communication with the unbelievers of this world. These testing times are likely to be forcing all of us into a path of belief or unbelief. I feel I have a duty of care to bring as many as I can, of those with whom I come into contact, to be closer to God. Perhaps it is the self-isolation of the present times that are, ironically, causing me to have this thought at this particular time? At least I have this web-site to communicate the Word of God to the outside world!

 

Scriptures Unyielding to Unbelievers

Probably the first thing to say is that a doctor’s first responsibility is to his own health not that of his patients. If the doctor is sick he will be healing no-one in his care. Likewise with spiritual healing. There is always the danger that the argumentation coming back from a fervent nonbeliever may have a completely counter-productive effect on the one trying to bring sight to the blind. Hence these words from Matthew:

16 Behold, I send you out as sheep in [the] midst of wolves. Therefore, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. (Matthew 10 GLT)

And these from Paul:

33 Do not be led astray; bad companionships ruin good habits. (1 Corinthians 15 GLT)

If Solomon can fall foul of his own household, then we all need to be on our guard against the unbelievers:

4 And it happened, at the time Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect with Jehovah his God, like the heart of his father David. (1 Kings 11 GLT)

So such teaching needs to be carried out so that the teacher does not fall foul of the evil one. The apostle John goes somewhat further in proposing that a Christian should have nothing to do with a nonbeliever:

9 Everyone transgressing and not abiding in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. The [one] abiding in the doctrine of Christ, this one has the Father and the Son.
10 If anyone comes to you and does not bear this doctrine, do not receive him into the house, and do not speak a greeting to him.
11 For the [one] speaking a greeting shares in his evil works. (2 John 1 GLT)

And more from Paul, paraphrasing the prophet Isaiah, in telling us to keep ourselves separate from the unbelievers:

17 Because of this, "come out from among them" "and be separated," says [the] Lord, "and do not touch [the] unclean thing," and I will receive you. [Isa. 52:11] (2 Corinthians 6 GLT)

11 Turn! Turn! Go out from there! Touch not the unclean! Go out of her midst, purify yourselves, bearers of the vessels of Jehovah. (Isaiah 52 GLT)

Paul considers that career non-believers are blinded by Satan and therefore will never be able to see the light. This is worrying in that it seems to be stating that evangelising to them is a total waste of time. I have to say that this has been the case oftentimes in my own experience even with non-believers that I would otherwise have considered to be personal friends or acquaintances. One other aspect from the following scripture is interesting to me; it suggests that the gospel may be hidden to the unbelievers. In the deep decoding research of the Lords’ Witnesses, we find that the true full meanings of the scriptures are hidden even from many of those believing, so this is not too surprising to us:

3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. (2 Corinthians 4 KJV)

More of the same from John’s gospel:

18 The [one] believing into Him is not condemned; but the one not believing has already been condemned, for he has not believed into the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness more than the Light, for their works were evil. (John 3 GLT)

David puts it this way: the onus is on the unbeliever to seek out God rather than the other way round. God wants us to seek Him out; He does not need to find us since He knows all about us already. This, again, is pretty much making evangelising a lost cause to those not already seeking the truth under their own volition:

1 {To the chief Musician, [A Psalm] of David.} The fool hath said in his heart, [There is] no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, [there is] none that doeth good.
2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, [and] seek God. (Psalms 14 KJV)

Needless to say, the Old Testament puts an even harsher stricture on believers towards unbelieving mankind:

13 Men, sons of worthlessness, have gone out of thy midst, and they force away the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known --
14 and thou hast enquired, and searched, and asked diligently, and lo, truth; the thing is established; this abomination hath been done in thy midst:
15 'Thou dost surely smite the inhabitants of that city by the mouth of the sword; devoting it, and all that {is} in it, even its cattle, by the mouth of the sword; (Deuteronomy 13 YLT)

12 And they entered into the covenant to seek Jehovah the God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul.
13 And everyone who did not seek after Jehovah the God of Israel was put to death, from the small to the great, from man and to woman. (2 Chronicles 15 GLT)

Also, those that would not listen to their priest were not to be given a second chance to reform their ways, if for no other reason than as a lesson to other members of the Israelite congregation:

12 And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the LORD thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel.
13 And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously. (Deuteronomy 17 KJV)

And here is a warning to those unbelievers that would tempt faithful ones away from God; I do not think their treatment would be any more lenient today in God’s eyes:

10 And you shall stone him with stones, and he shall die, for he has sought to drive you away from Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves.
11 And all Israel shall hear and fear, and shall not again do any such wicked thing as this among you. (Deuteronomy 13 GLT)

And check this out from Luke’s gospel; a very harsh verse by New Testament standards:

27 But these hostile [to] me, those not desiring me to reign over them, bring them here and execute [them] before me. (Luke 19 GLT)
 

Helping Our Brethren

Now James’ epistle provides a softening of what we have seen thus far but only in regards to turning back from his erring ways a fellow believer rather than an unbeliever:

19 Brethren, if any among you may go astray from the truth, and any one may turn him back,
20 let him know that he who did turn back a sinner from the straying of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins. (James 5 YLT)

Similarly, in Paul’s letter to the Hebrew congregation in which we are asked to support each other in our faith:

13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3 KJV)

But, even in preaching to one’s brethren, care must be taken to protect one’s own faith:

11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. (1 Corinthians 5 KJV)

Early on in John’s Book of Revelation, there is mention of the blessing on those hearing the Word and responding to it. Those ones could, arguably, be made up of both believers and non-believers either attending a congregational service or a personal bible lesson. This would, therefore, appear to bless the evangeliser: 

3 Blessed [is] the [one] reading, and those hearing the Words of this prophecy, and keeping the things having been written; for the time [is] near. (Revelation 1 GLT)
 

Our Constructive Behaviour Towards Unbelievers

Now here, in the gospel of Matthew, we have the first glimpse of evangelising to the unbelievers. Even this does not propose overt preaching to them so much as acting in a manner that instills in them the desire to become as the faithful ones. So it seems that deeds rather than words will win the day:

16 So let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works, and may glorify your Father in Heaven. (Matthew 5 GLT)

Jesus, of course, was the first preacher of the New Testament and lead the way to evangelism:

17 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent! For the kingdom of Heaven has drawn near. (Matthew 4 GLT)

And we have Christ’s own clear instructions to the apostles:

15 And He said to them, Going into all the world, preach the gospel to all the creation. (Mark 16 GLT)

19 Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: (Matthew 28 ASV)

Paul makes the inescapable point that, without the knowledge from Christians’  preaching to them, the unbelievers would not be given the opportunity to know of Christ’s message to the world:

14 How then may they call on [One] in whom they have not believed? And how may they believe [One] of whom they have not heard? And how may they hear without preaching? (Romans 10 GLT)

Moving on through the scriptures, we start to see more of the prospective requirement of preaching to the unconverted. The following section from Peter’s first letter carries two messages for us. Firstly, we should always be prepared to address those that question our faith with an appropriately worded response to try to evoke a positive spiritual reaction in our questioners. Whilst this, of itself, does not suggest that we should go out and actively campaign for Christ to the unbelievers, it certainly states that we should not be afraid to engage with them in support of our beliefs. However, in the final verse below, we see a specific reference to Christ Himself who went preaching in the prisons where He, no doubt, encountered a large number of unbelievers. This seems to me to be an example that we are expected to follow in whichever way each of us is capable:

15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and [be] ready always to [give] an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
16 Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.
17 For [it is] better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.
18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; (1 Peter 3 KJV)

Similarly in Paul’s letter to the congregation at Colossus:

26 the mystery having been hidden from the ages and from the generations, but now was revealed to His saints;
27 to whom God willed to make known what [are] the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations, who is Christ in you, the hope of glory; (Colossians 1 GLT)

5 Walk in wisdom toward the ones outside, redeeming the time.
6 Let your word [be] always with grace, having been seasoned with salt, to know how you ought to answer each one. (Colossians 4 GLT)

We then have the example of Paul himself who was largely responsible for initially spreading the Word of God to the gentiles:

47 For so the Lord has commanded us, "I have set You for a Light of nations, that You be for salvation to [the] end of the earth." [Isa. 49:6]
48 And hearing, the nations rejoiced and glorified the Word of the Lord. And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.
49 And the Word of the Lord was borne through all the country. (Acts 13 GLT)

Finally, we come to the point where Paul exhorts Timothy to evangelise to the non-believers, to his own personal endurance, to enable the Saints to judge their response to the Word. Interesting that this appears forcefully in a letter to Timothy rather than to a whole congregation. Perhaps this is telling us that we are not all made in the mould of evangelisers, a point with which I would have a strong agreement:

23 But refuse the foolish and uninstructed questionings, knowing that they generate quarrels.
24 But a slave of [the] Lord ought not to quarrel, but to be gentle towards all, apt to teach, forbearing,
25 in meekness teaching those who have opposed, if perhaps God may give them repentance for a full knowledge of [the] truth,
26 and they having regained senses out of the snare of the devil, being captured by him to [do] the will of that One. (2 Timothy 2 GLT)

1 I charge [thee] in the sight of God, and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom:
2 preach the word; be urgent in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but, having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts;
4 and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables.
5 But be thou sober in all things, suffer hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil thy ministry. (2 Timothy 4 ASV)

The above scripture also warns of a time when the non-believers will not be listening; perhaps the following section relates to that time.
 

Evangelising in the End-Times

In my paper: Belief 4 - The Four True Churches, the characteristic but differing activities of Christians are summarised by Paul in one sentence. The greater encoded meanings as they relate to the four True Christian Churches (TCCs) are shown in parentheses. This states that it not for us all to be evangelisers and, in our understanding, it is not the main thrust of all of the true churches to have had an evangelical thrust:

11 And he gave some as apostles[The first True Christian Church – TCC1], some as prophets[TCC2], some as evangelizers[TCC3], some as shepherds and teachers[TCC4](Ephesians 4 NWT)

As I stated upfront, as a member of TCC4 aka the Church of the Lords’ Witnesses, we consider ourselves to be shepherds and teachers. We provide deep understandings of the scriptures which we have attained through our knowledge of the True Bible Code (The 10th Generation Bible Code) and make freely available to anyone seeking God through our websites. Clearly TCC3, the now disgraced and false church of the Watchtower (http://www.truebiblecode.com/indexunw.html) have been the evangelising church with their renowned policy of knocking on everyone’s door to present the Word of God to the world.

It has just dawned on me that I have been compelled to write this paper at this time of the Covid-19 lockdown! The restrictions on places of worship have had at least two impacts, the first being the cessation of communal worship across all of today’s churches and religious assemblies. The second relates to this paper and that is the effective banning of the Watchtower’s evangelising on people’s doorsteps; this from the JWs own publishers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__RAqFEgXLc. Never were the signs of the end-times made more clear to me than from this as interpreted from Revelation:

 16 And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, and will make her desolated and naked. And they will eat her flesh, and will burn her down with fire. (Revelation 17 GLT)

So here we have the Beast (representing world governments) reducing/removing the abilities of all false churches and religions (the Harlot) to practice communal prayer and doorstep evangelising. The Beast is preventing the Harlot’s outwardly visible activities of her adherents (making her desolated and naked) and thereby causing disarray amongst her congregations (eating her flesh and burning her down with fire). What the Beast cannot do is remove true spiritual worship from true believers. So, the Harlot is a parody for mankind in that the Beast can destroy her body but not the spirit of the true worshippers within her ranks:

4 And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. (Luke 12 KJV)

The Church of the Lords’ Witnesses (TCC4) is presently effectively untouched by the policies of the Beast, given that we do not hold large congregational meetings or services and do not evangelise face-to-face as a matter of normal practice. We have always used the current trends of welcoming new members to the church through the understandings we have on our websites and, given our members’ large geographical spread, we hold our bible meetings via tools such as Skype. These modes of operation have, ironically, been encouraged by the policies of the Beast.

The Harlot, in some cases, is now adopting such technology to replace their normal modus operandi. Also, at the time of writing this paper, it looks like some easing of the lockdown may not be far off. These factors of themselves, however, do not remove the attack from the Beast as an historical fact. They represent the prospective aftermath of that attack.

In this context, and for some considerable time, I have believed that the internet was always going to play an important spiritual role in the end-times with this greater meaning shown by example in the scriptures:

18 And walking beside the sea of Galilee, Jesus saw two brothers, Simon being called Peter and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishers.
19 And He says to them, Come after Me, and I will make you fishers of men. (Matthew 4 GLT)

47 Again, the kingdom of Heaven is compared to a drag net thrown into the sea, and gathering together of every kind; (Matthew 13 GLT)

Today the internet is the modern-day drag-net, the fishermen are the web-site publishers and the sea is the world population of believers and non-believers seeking the truth. I do not believe that the use of the word 'net' in these scriptures was any accident of interpretation. Amen.
 

Synopsis

1. Scripture advises the evangeliser to ensure his own faith is not unduly challenged when interacting with non-believers. For some, of lesser faith or strength of character, this may even mean not engaging with non-believers at all.
   
2. Many non-believers are so mesmerised by Satan’s fleshly wiles that they will find it next to impossible to accept the Word of God, thereby making evangelising to them a fruitless task.
   
3. In Old Testament times, the unbelievers were summarily put to death without any apparent attempt to bring them closer to God.
   
4. God help any non-believer that attempts to turn a believer away from God.
   
5. We are exhorted to bring back any of our brethren whose faith in God is faltering. This, I think, before we concern ourselves with evangelising to the non-believers.
   
6. It was Jesus, Himself, who led the way by preaching to the unbelievers and requesting the apostles to follow His lead in this regard.
   
7. Evangelising needs to be conducted in a way that engenders the best of reactions in the non-believing recipient of the Word. Our conduct and manner of speaking should be both respectful and of good odour.
   
8. We are not all cut out or intended to be evangelisers.
   
9. The Covid-19 lockdown is preventing doorstep evangelising arguably as encoded and prophesied in the Book of Revelation.
   

​​Date of Publication: 11th June 2020