Hello everyone. This video is mainly for my friends, but for those who chance
upon it and don't know me, my name is Eric Wilson. I live in Canada in Hamilton
which is near Toronto. Now the reason for the video is to address an issue that's
very important in the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses. As a people we are
failing to obey a command of Jehovah God. That command is found at Psalm 146:3. It
says 'Do not put your trust in Princes nor in the son of man who cannot bring
salvation.' What am I talking about? Well to explain that I need to give you a
little background on myself. I was baptized in 1963 at the age of 14. In
1968 I went to Colombia with my family. My dad took early retirement, took my
sister out of high school without graduating and off we went to Colombia.
Why did he do that? Why did I go along? Well I went along mainly because I was
19; it was a great adventure; but there I learned to really value the truth, to
really start to study the Bible... I pioneered, I became an elder, but the
reason we went was because we believed the end was coming in 1975. Now why did
we believe that? Well if you go by what you heard at the district and or should
say regional convention last year, on Friday afternoon there was
a video, you would assume that it was because the brothers around the world
got a little carried away, it was our fault for getting carried away. That's
not true and it's not really nice to even suggest such a thing but that's
what was put forward. I was there I lived it. What actually happened was this. In
1967 at the book study we studied a new book. Life Everlasting and the Freedom of
Sons of God, and in this book we studied the following...
this is from page 29 paragraph 41 'According to this trustworthy Bible
chronology 6,000 years from man's creation will end in 1975, and the
seventh period of a thousand years of human history will begin in the fall of
1975' . So now if we move on to the next page, page 30 paragraph 43 it draws a
conclusion that set us all off. 'How appropriate it
would be for Jehovah God to make of this coming seventh period of a thousand years a Sabbath period of rest and relief release sorry a great jubilee
sabbath for the proclaiming of liberty throughout the earth to all its
inhabitants this would be most timely for mankind. It would also be most
fitting on God's part, for, remember mankind has yet ahead of it what the
last book of the Holy Bible speaks of as the reign of Jesus Christ over earth for
a thousand years, the millennial reign of Christ. And then skipping ahead 'It would
not be by mere chance or accident but would be according to the loving purpose
of Jehovah God for the reign of Jesus Christ the Lord of the Sabbath to run
parallel with the seventh millennium of man's existence.' Now you're an obedient
Jehovah's Witness at this time, you're believing that the faithful and discreet
slave is telling you something. The faithful and discreet slave by the way
at that time were all the anointed on earth, and we used to believe that they
would write in their findings as Jehovah gave them truth through the Holy
Spirit and that those letters would then be gathered together and the society
would see the direction the spirit's leading and publish articles or books,
so we felt this was Jehovah speaking through the faithful and discreet slave telling
us that the end was going to come in 1975. It made perfect sense and we
believed it and of course the society continued to promote 1975 if you don't
believe me pull out your Watchtower library you
know the cd-rom program. Type in 1975 and starting
in 1966 move forward through all the Watchtowers and other publications that
you find with that search, and see how often 1975 comes up and is
promoted as the date in which the Millennium will begin. It was also promoted at district conventions and circuit assemblies at
all of them. So anybody who says different didn't live through that
period. Mark Sanderson... well he was in diapers when I was in Colombia and
Anthony Morris the third was still serving in the Army in Vietnam but I
lived it... I know it and anyone who is my age has lived it too - and knows it now am
I complaining about that? No. Why? Why am I still serving all these years afterwards?
Why do I still believe in Jehovah God and Jesus Christ? Because my faith was
always in God and not in men, so when this went south I thought 'Oh, okay we
were stupid, we did something silly', but that's what men do I made many mistakes
my life and these silly mistakes and I know that the men at all levels of the
organization are no better or no worse than I am we're just humans we have our
imperfections, it didn't bother me because I know it was the result of
human imperfection, it wasn't Jehovah, and that's fine so what's the problem?
Something has changed. In 2013 I was removed. I mentioned... I don't know if I've mentioned that yet but I was removed as an elder now that's okay because I was
having doubts about a number of things and I was very conflicted so I was quite happy that I was removed, it kind of gave me an escape from that
responsibility and that there was a certain amount of cognitive dissonance
that was I was undergoing, so helped resolve that, that's fine but it was the
reason I was removed that's troubling. The reason was that I was asked a
question. Now this question never came up before but is coming up
all the time now. The question was 'Will you obey the Governing Body?' My answer
was 'Yes, I always have as an elder and the brothers around the table can attest
to that and I always will' but then I added 'but I will obey God as ruler rather than
men.' I added that because I knew which direction it was going and my past tells
me that these men make mistakes, so there's no way I can give them absolute
unconditional , unquestioning obedience. I have to look at everything they tell
me to do and evaluate it in the light of the Scriptures and if they are not
conflicting with the scriptures I can obey but if they do conflict I cannot
obey I have to obey God as ruler rather than men, Acts 5:29 it's right there in the Bible, okay, so why is that a problem? the Circuit Overseer said to me 'It's
evident that you are not fully committed to the governing body.' So unconditional
obedience or unquestioning obedience is now a requirement for elders and as such
I couldn't in good conscience continue to serve, so I didn't appeal the case. Is
that an isolated case? Is that one circuit overseer getting a little
carried away? I wish it were the case but that's not
the case. Allow me to illustrate there have been many cases, many incidents in
my life since then that I could point to but I'll just pick one as indicative of
all the rest. A friend of 50 years with whom we talked about everything and
anything, we had doubts or questions and Bible issues, we could freely talk
because we knew that it didn't mean that we had lost our faith in God. I wanted to
talk to him about the overlapping generations because to me it seemed like
a doctrine that had no scriptural basis. But before he'd even talk about it he
wanted me to affirm my belief in the Governing Body, and he sent me an email.
He said, this is just part of it, ' In short we believe this to be Jehovah's
organization. We are trying our very best stay close to it and the direction it is
giving us. We feel this is a matter of life and death. I can well imagine that a
moment will come when we will be staking our very lives upon the following of
direction that Jehovah gives through the organization, we will be willing to
do that.' Now he's probably thinking about the article that came out right after
they declared themselves the faithful and discreet slave in 2013... an
article came out in November of that year called 'Seven Shepherds Eight Dukes,
what they mean for us today', and it said 'At that time the life-saving direction
that we receive from Jehovah's organization may not appear practical
from a human standpoint. All of us must be ready to obey any instructions we may
receive whether these appear sound from a strategic or human standpoint or not.'
We have to make a life-and-death decision based on what the governing
body tells us; the same governing body that told me about 1975; the same
Governing Body that this year, this past year in February wrote in the February
page 26 paragraph 12 Watchtower 'The Governing Body is neither inspired nor
infallible. Therefore it can err in doctrinal matters or in organizational
direction'. So here's the question. I have to make a life-and-death decision based
on something that I believe is coming from God from people who tell me they
don't speak for God. They can make mistakes, because if you are speaking for
God you cannot make a mistake. When Moses spoke he spoke in God's name he said
''Jehovah has said' you must do this you must do that, he took them to the Red Sea
which was strategically unsound, but they followed because he had just performed
10 plagues. Obviously Jehovah was working through him so when he took them to the
Red Sea they knew that it would come true or maybe they didn',t they were
actually quite a faithless people, but nevertheless he performed, he struck the Sea with
the staff, it divided and they walked through. He spoke under inspiration.
If the Governing Body is claiming that they will be telling us something that
will be life or death for us, then they are claiming they're speaking under
inspiration; there's no other way, otherwise they're just saying this is
our best guess but it's a life or death situation, that doesn't make sense, and
yet all of us are buying into this. We're believing in the Governing Body as
virtually infallible and anyone who questions anything is called an apostate.
If you doubt something you're an apostate and you get thrown out of the
religion, you get you get shunned by everyone, even though your your goal is truth. So... let's put it this way... you're a Catholic and you go to a Jehovah's
Witness and you say 'Oh! We're the same, our Pope will tell us what to do when
when Jesus comes.' What would you say as a Jehovah's Witness to that Catholic? Well
you'd want to say, 'No, no because you're not God's organization.' 'Well why am I not
God's organization?' the Catholic will say. 'Because you're a false religion,
right, we're a true religion but you're a false religion and so he wouldn't work
through you but he will work through us because we teach the truth.' Okay well
that's a valid point; if we are the true religion, which I've always believed, then
Jehovah will work through us. Why don't we put that to the test? Or are we afraid
to do so. In 1968 when I was in Colombia we had The Truth that leads to Eternal
Life. Chapter 14 was How to Identify the True
Religion, and in it there were five points. The first point was: Believers
would love one another as Christ loved us; so love, but not just any kind of
love, the love of the Christ would permeate the congregation and it would
be visible to people outside. The true religion would adhere to God's Word,
the Bible. It wouldn't deviate, it wouldn't teach falsehoods, hellfire for example
would teach falsehood. They would sanctify God's name. Now that's more than
simply using it. Anybody can say 'Jehovah'. Sanctifying his name goes beyond
that. Proclaiming the good news is another facet; it would have to be a
preacher of the good news; and finally it would maintain political neutrality, it
would be separate from the world. These are so important that the Truth book
said... at the end of that chapter, 'The question at issue is not whether a
certain religious group appears to meet one or two of these requirements
nor whether some of its doctrines conform to the Bible. Far more than that
the true religion must measure up in all these respects and its teachings must be
in harmony, in full harmony with God's Word.' So it's not good enough to have two
of them or three of them or four of them. You have to meet all of them that's what it
said, and I agree, and every book we've published since the Truth book that
replaced it as our main teaching aid has had the same chapter with the same five
points... I think they've added a sixth now, but let's just stick with the
original five for now. So I'm proposing in a series of videos, to publish
research to see if we meet each and every one of these qualifications, but
remember even if we fail to meet one of them, we fail as the true religion and
therefore the claim that Jehovah is speaking through the Governing Body
falls flat, because it depends on us being Jehovah's organization.
Now if you're still watching I'm kind of amazed because we're so conditioned to
not listen that most people will have probably shut this down long ago, but if
you're still listening that means you love truth, and I welcome that but I know
there's a lot of things you're facing a lot of obstacles; call them elephants in
the room. They'll get in the way of our research. I know this because I've been
researching for the last eight years now. I've been through it I've been through
all these emotions. For example 'We're Jehovah's true organization so where
else would we go?' 'Jehovah has always had an organization so if we're not the true one what is? There isn't any other one
that seems to qualify. What about apostasy? Aren't we acting like apostates
by rejecting, by not being loyal to the organization, rejecting its teachings? Shouldn't we just wait for Jehovah to fix things; He'll fix things in his own
time.' These are all questions and thoughts that come up and they're valid,
and we need to deal with them so we'll deal with them first in subsequent
videos, and then we'll get down to our research. How does that sound? My name is
Eric Wilson. I'm going to put up some links at the end of this video so that
you can get to the next videos. There's several already done, and we'll
go from there. Thank you for watching.
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