A positive thing about Lloyd (John Cedars): As a Christian I was treated better on his channel, JW Survey, than I was treated as a commenter on two Christian channels. I was a commenter on JW Survey for years. And I’d debate ideas with atheists on JW Survey up the ying yang. But never did any of Lloyd’s editors (Lloyd himself, John Redwood, or Covert Fade) silence me, insult me, or delete one of my comments.
After years of commenting on JW Survey I was invited by one of that channels commenters to check out beroeans.net. After checking it out I started commenting there. While commenting on beroeans.net if I didn’t agree with a point of view expressed in one of their articles then sometimes a couple of their commenters got nasty, and insulting. And sometimes on beroeans.net even when debating others in very civil debates editors on beroeans.net would tell us to move on, and not to discuss that topic anymore. That’s something that NEVER happened on Lloyd’s Survey channel. Finally the owner of beroeans.net sent me a private email demanding I change my tone or get bounced off his site. Well that was it for me there. Since my tone was fine, and it was his brown nose followers that were insulting me, I told the site’s owner it wasn’t my tone but my ideas that were obviously his objection. So I said I’m not coming back.
I also commented on christianforums.com for a while. That is until christianforums.com censored me and told me one of its editors must question me, to ascertain if I believe in the Trinity doctrine, before the site would allow me to comment further. If I didn’t believe in the Trinity doc they wouldn’t let me comment anymore. Again, that kind of crap was never done on Lloyd’s channel. So that was it for christianforums.com for me. I wasn’t about to say I believed or didn’t believe in anything to satisfy their administrators. That sounded like being in the backroom with three JW elders asking if you believe in the “faithful and discreet slave.” What’s the difference? I see none. Again, that kind of crap never happened on Lloyd’s channel.
At the end of this post I’ll direct you to another website to view evidence that drives home these points. Spend time looking at it. If so, the ideas in this post should be evident to you.
People who God does not save want to do things their own way. We all want that. But they want it to the exclusion of following God’s ways. And that’s why he doesn’t save them.
Oh, many of them might claim, “If I really knew there was a god I would follow him.” Think about that statement for one minute. Don’t you know if that was true God would make sure those people knew he exists? After all, he makes sure we know he exists. If God knew they would follow him he would see they knew that also. Because he is not partial. He is not favoring one personality over another. God only wants things done his way because he is God. And since God sees the future he knows what we will do.
Most people who do follow God do not get upset when ideas about God are shared or even debated with them. They talk about the ideas and might even discuss whether an idea is true or not. For them there is nothing to get excited about, because they view such discussions as sharing ideas.
Some people, who don’t want to follow God, get upset when ideas about God are shared. Why? Because they don’t want to hear them. Why not? Aren’t those just ideas to them also? No they are not. So why don’t they want to hear it unless it’s an idea they agree with? Because right away, even though you might just share an idea, they think: “Stop telling ME what to do.” Or they think, “You cannot tell me what to do, think, or believe.”
The fact is when we’re sharing ideas we are not telling anyone what to believe or do. So if they are saying that to us really they are thinking that thought about anyone that doesn’t believe what they do, while sharing ideas about God with them. That’s one of the reasons people killed Christ. It was because of his ideas about God that he shared with them.
Most people like this won’t admit you must think like them to share such thoughts. But that’s really what they want. The reason they want that is because their belief is that everyone has a right to believe whatever he wants about God, and do whatever he wants with that belief. But while that thought might sound good to you, scripturally it’s not true. It’s grounded in the United States Constitution, but it isn’t in the Bible. God grants a privilege but not a right to believe ideas that go against his authority. And most people who get mad when you just share biblical ideas with them know that. And that’s why they say you are trying to assert your will over theirs. Because they know biblically God asserts his will over all others, and they attach that thought to what you share. Even if you don’t bring it up it’s present in their mind.
At the end of this article I’ll send you to another website. The purpose I’m sending you there is to view some comments from commenters on this other website. I didn’t view all of those, just a half dozen or so. But most of the ones I read caused a thought to come to mind. I thought how Satan first came up with an idea not to serve God. And then once that idea spread among angels those that followed him might have sat around, like the commenters on this other site, telling God’s angels:
Stop telling us what to believe.
Stupid, your way is not the only way.
We don’t need to hear that.
I love our leader the Devil; or the Devil is the most loving, and we should all choose what we want.
Notice how that thought is expressed over and over again on this site I’ll send you to. However, their comments are directed towards me, not an angel. And I didn’t even need to tell them that they should follow God to receive such comments. I didn’t even share a scriptural thought with them. Instead, someone turned over an article I wrote to the host of the site. And he spent over an hour venting about the article I wrote. In most of his rant he misrepresented what I said and believe. Why did he do it? For the reasons I stated above.
In the article I listed him as an ex-Jehovah’s Witness who most likely does not accept Christ as God. I wrote that after viewing his videos. So that wound him up for a whole hour, even though he admitted that he isn’t a Christian in the video. For him someone saying that about him was not just an idea, whether true or not true. For him it was, “You cannot tell me what to believe!” And he states that in his video. To him, me telling you, I don’t believe this guy is a Christian, meant STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!!!!
Furthermore, the fellow in the video admitted he’s an antichrist. Yet because he referred to a rather large Christian website that I cited in my article, then he felt compelled to tell the owners of that site to keep doing what they are doing, teaching Christ is God. And why would he say that since he hates the God of the Bible, and he stated he believes the Bible is untrue? Because his thought is really you (other website) leave us alone, and I’ll leave you alone. Let us all believe what we want. Don’t tell me what I should believe. When the fact is neither I nor the fellow owning the Christian site would tell this guy to believe anything. We just share ideas, that’s all.
The fellow in the video misrepresented one of my articles, and it’s possible those commenters bought into his lies when misrepresenting it. But I don’t think accepting his lies is what caused their responses. I believe the ideas I write about in this article caused their responses. And notice how some praised the one in the video who is an admitted antichrist. That’s what really made me think of what it must have been like for Satan, and might still be like for Satan. (He’s the most loving fellow). Really? Check out his demeanor. I don’t see that as loving.
*Caution: The guy who is in the video admits he’s an antichrist. So if it bothers you to view an antichrist rant for an hour then just note the comments from his followers. I’ll post the article that set him off. And below that I post his video.
The message Christ gave at Matthew 24:36 thru Matthew 25:30 was to convey two ideas. And those two points were the only reason he told those stories. Christ was explaining that his disciples will not know the time of his return. He even said they will not expect it when it happens. That idea demolishes the false concept that Christ gave a sign in this monologue to show his followers when his return would be eminent, e.g. a sign of the last days. No such sign exists. *1 And more importantly, his second message was that a favorable consequence will come to disciples that remain faithful to him, contrasting that to the unfavorable consequence coming to unfaithful disciples. Two ideas: 1. You won’t know when I (Christ) will return, 2. and if you are not faithful you won’t receive the reward I promised you.
Christ merely used different vocations to illustrate those two points. The points of his stories were not tied to the vocation of the subjects in those stories. In his faithful and discreet slave story Christ merely used the vocation of elders in Christian congregations. The fact that he used men appointed by him that are feeding his sheep is irrelevant to the points he was making.
How do I know? For two reasons. First, because every person in those illustrations who receives a favorable reward is part of Christ’s anointed church. And Christ said he is their only teacher, men are not their teachers or leaders. Therefore Christians are not to follow men. And the second reason I’m sure of this is because Christ set that story right in the middle of other stories telling these same two messages.
When you read about the faithful slave who could become an evil slave, and what happens to him if he becomes evil, then it’s clear the message is the same. Also, note in that story the slave didn’t know when his master would return. He even thought the master was delaying. Which is the exact message in all those other stories. That story means nothing more than the two men in the field, the two women at the grinding mill, the home owner that was robbed, the 10 virgins, the 3 servants. All have the same themes. Look those scriptures up; or you can find those here: http://debatescripture.org/index.php/2020/01/22/why-you-are-not-a-real-christian-according-to-jehovahs-witnessess/
*1 Christ didn’t give a sign of any “last days.” But he did give a sign of his actual return. That sign will be seen in heaven (the sky).
There is a book entitled I Was a Watchtower Slave written by an ex-WT zone overseer back in the 40s or 50s. The guy that wrote it said he was working at Bethel in Germany when he was just 19 or 20 years old. He claims in Germany, while he was at Bethel, WT started taking over churches. If I remember correctly he said they did this around 1920 in Germany. He believed they tried it in Germany before the USA to see if it would be successful. This is how he claims they took control of churches:
According to this man’s claim they sent German Bethel members out to German churches subscribing to Watchtower publications. These Bethel reps then reported what was going on inside congregations using Watchtower publications. If those German congregations using the WT literature were not in step with WT teachings, then those Bethel members sent into those congregations would count them as apostate, and attempt to lead members out of those churches to follow them. He wrote when he was about 20 years old he went into a German congregation, told everyone there that he was from Watchtower, and that everyone with Watchtower must stand up and leave that church right then with him. He led a bunch out and declared those left as apostates, terminating that church’s relationship with the Watchtower organization.
Later this fellow came to the USA as a pioneer, zone overseer, and eventual Bethel worker. He said WT in the USA essentially did the same thing it did in Germany but used more kid gloves. What WT did in the USA is send its appointed company servants from Bethel into congregations, gave them authority over elders, and then removed elders from any assignments they had if they didn’t agree fully with WT policy . Things like turning in field service reports to WT headquarters. The author compared Americans then who were in churches using Watchtower publications to cowboys, meaning they were more independent in their thinking than compliant Germans associated with WT back then. So he said in America the men sent in to churches were older than those in Germany, and their tactics were not as harsh. He believed WT didn’t think the strong tactics used in Germany would have worked here in the USA. But he also said the tactics WT used in the USA were very effective, claiming all the elders that were stripped of their work assignments eventually left the org WT was building. Thereby leaving Watchtower with complete control in churches using its literature.
That’s how this author claimed WT took control of churches, in Germany and the USA…back in the 1920s and early 1930s. Prior to Watchtower taking over these churches they were independent organizations merely affiliated with the magazine company. Another interesting point this guy brought out was the spying done inside Bethel in Germany, and in the USA. He was invited to Bethel USA by Rutherford. But he said he didn’t want to work there. When he was there he said people working close to him were the type to turn you in for any supposed infraction or contrary belief. He said it was the same when he worked Bethel Germany.
