August 9, 2024 • 47 mins
It is with great pleasure that we welcome back to the programme the UK evangelist Vince McCann—host of the Chenzo1969 YouTube channel—for Part One* of a relaxed and unstructured conversation on his long-time ministry speaking to Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons (and others) on the streets of UK towns and cities in the prayerful hope of reaching people for Christ. Drawing upon his extensive experience of such street ministry, Vince shares with us some practical advice that might help us in our own conversations with people caught up in New Religious Movements that claim the Bible as a foundational text. (Vince joined us back in 2014 to talk about the dangers of the Ouija Board.) (*I have decided, for reasons explained in the podcast, to publish this interview in two parts. Please check back in a couple of weeks or so for part two.) [For show notes please visit https://themindrenewed.com]
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Julian Charles here of theMIND Reneude dot com. Coming to
you as usual from the depths of the Lancashire countryside
here in the UK, and welcome to TMR number three
hundred and fourteen, which is a conversation or part of
a conversation with Vince McCann, an evangelist who has been
on the program a couple of times before. It's great
to speak to him again. Now I'm putting out today
(00:32):
just part of that conversation, maybe just over half, I'm
not sure, simply because I have well two reasons really. One,
I have run out of time to do the editing
because we're just about to go off on a short holiday,
short family holiday. But number two, because the editing is
such that it's taking a great deal of time to
get it done. Because we had a lot of technical
problems during this conversation. We kept losing connection between each other,
(00:56):
and you can imagine what that's like, then trying to
pick up the converse and then trying to edit it
to make it sound as if it's as natural and
listenable to as possible. Now I've I've left some of
the problems with the connection in the conversation, just to
add a very similitude, But yeah, I wanted it to
sound as easy to listen to as possible and not
(01:17):
distract him, because of course it's really difficult to listen
to something where you've got people cutting out and going hello, hellover,
didn't see there either, Oh yeah, I'm here, I'm here.
Oh what were you talking about? Oh yeah, that's right,
you were saying such and such. Oh yeah, let me
pick up that. It gets really boring after a while,
so I've had to do lots of stitching together. It's
taken quite a long time. So I've got to a
point where I've run out of time, and I thought
(01:38):
I really would like to put out the first part
of this conversation, so I'll say no more about what
the conversation is, because of course I introduce it in
the normal way. So here it is the first part
of my recent conversation with Vince McCann. Hello everybody, Julian
Charles here off theminds renewed dot Com coming to you
as usual from the depths of the Lancashire countryside in
the UK, and today I'm delighted to welcome back to
(02:00):
the program after a gap of several years, Vince McCann
who joined us in the past to talk about his
dramatic testimony of coming to faith in Jesus Christ, and
also he joined us a little later that for an
interview on the Wiji board one Halloween way Back. Not
on the merits of the Wigi border might add, but
the dangers thereof Vince's various online ministries can be found
(02:24):
at YouTube, the channel being Chesno. Nineteen sixty nine, which
is on quoting from this a Christian channel dealing with apologetics, evangelism,
examining other religious views and other matters of interest to
the Christian community. And also on Facebook where there are
a couple of groups there that he manages, one called
spirit Entity Harassment Support Group and the other called Sharing
(02:45):
Evangelistic Ideas to reach people for Christ on Facebook, and
of course all of those will be in the show
notes as usual. Vince, welcome back to the show. It's
great to be speaking to you again after all this time.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, it's been a long time, Julian, thanks for having
me today. Much appreciate it. Really look forward to today's
discussion very much. Indeed, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
It is a great delight. I very much. Look forward
to it as well, and I'm especially grateful to you
for joining us on your week off. You're supposed to
be on holiday, aren't you at the moment.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah, but really, in a way, this is almost like
having a holiday talking to you, because my house is
so crazy at the moment with children a wild.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
We're going to be in holiday mood, holiday mode talking
about these things. Yeah. Okay, So generally speaking, how are
things going? Is we haven't spoken for such a long
time as life. How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Not too bad? You have, Everything's plodding along as usual.
I'm still working with in the day job. I work
with homeless people. Been doing that job, no gosh for
twenty four years now, so I only ever thought i'd
be passing through and here I am, twenty four years
later to still doing that job. It's rewarding. It's a rewarding,
but it can be difficult to times.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Do you work in different towns and cities as well?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
No, just one town the moment, but I have worked
in different towns. They just keep me in the town
at the moment.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Right, Okay, So we're going to be chatting today about
your evangelism, your street evangelism among people who are involved
in various religions, particularly new religious movements, let's say, like
the Jehovah's Witnesses the Moments, although actually I suppose they're
not really new anymore either, they go back quite away. Now.
You seem to specialize in talking to Jehovah's Witnesses, so
(04:29):
I suspect that a lot of what we talk about
today will be centered in that. And the reason why
I've invited you really is because, frankly, I am really
impressed by the way that you do that. I have
been following your YouTube channel for several years now, and
I really do admire the way that you interact with
people on the street, and I think there's a lot
(04:49):
that we can all learn from your experience over the years,
including me. In fact, I admitted to something before we
started speaking on air that you corrected me on in
my thinking, So maybe that will come up. So let's
start off then with a little bit more about you,
because it'll be such a long time since many people
heard from you last. So you weren't brought up as
(05:11):
a Christian, were you? Can you tell us a bit
about your background and how you came to Christ.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Yeah, No, I wasn't. I wasn't brought up a Christian,
although my father did teach us to have a belief
in God. He was a Roman Catholic, but very nominal
indeed didn't really practice it, didn't go to church. But
we did have that foundation, and that really was a
strong foundation. And I think when I was younger, you
find it yourself as well, Julie. And I imagine is
(05:35):
that our schools were a lot more Christian, weren't. They
had their assemblies, whether it be hymns and prayers. So
I think all of that did lay a good, strong
base within my life towards God. But then obviously the
teenage years come along, yes, and we discovered we discovered girls,
(05:57):
we discovered alcohol and other things that we shouldn't be
getting involved in the you know, that could create problems
for us. But because of the spiritual dimension of my
life that was already there, I started to drift towards
being interested in paranormal things like ghosts and UFOs, Bigfoot,
the Lackerness Monster, all that kind of stuff. But I
(06:18):
noticed when I bought literature on those subjects, there would
be advertisements on books to do with the Ocles right,
very very very subtle, rarely the way the devil draws
you in. It's very incremental steps that he likes to
take people towards the slippery slope. The books that the
advertisements would be shown to me would be ones on
(06:41):
like very light occults, shall we say, like horoscopes and
astral projection, psychics, you know, things like that. So I
get interested in that kind of thing. But then when
I buy that literature, I would notice there would be
advertisements and those books for things that were even stronger, again,
like witchcraft. Some of it is quite dark. And I
ended up getting into quite dark occult literature early and
(07:05):
practicing spells in my room, setting up an altar.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, yeah, and you know I did see results. I
mean it did work. I mean these things do work,
but obviously it comes with the price, and some quite
horrible things started to happen to me eventually. Yeah. Yeah,
it wasn't good. No.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
And it's interesting, you say, how some of these things
in various publications that could look almost benign can actually
lead step by step in a darker direction. And I
guess you can sort of end up in a dark
place and wonder how you ever got there in the
first place, I suppose.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Indeed, so how did you then make that step towards
Christ from that? You obviously had this background, but that
wasn't sufficient, is it to evangelize you your own past?
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah? Well, I ended up, you know, carrying on with
practicing the accult stuff, and I got involved with somebody
I knew from about a year or two previous, and
we had a friendship, shall we say, a young lady,
and we ended up being sort of interested in this
subject together somewhat. But one thing led to another, and
(08:12):
it became a pattern to me that there was a
lot of spiritual problems with this person, shall we say,
And it just led me down a very dark path, indeed,
and both of us ended up in this situation that
we had no control over, and there was dark forces
that were unleashed which nearly destroyed me. And it was horrific,
you know, it really was horrific, very very dark time, indeed,
(08:36):
and I actually didn't think I would get out of
the situation at all. I sort of resigned myself to
the fact that I would end up dead the way
it was going. It was that bad. During this time
that my brother had become a Christian, and I didn't
really know early on that he'd become a Christian, but
him and a church that he was going to at
the time were praying for me. And my father, who
(08:56):
was a very weak Catholic really, shall we say, he
went to the local Anglican church and they were praying
for me as well because he didn't understand where it
was and I hadn't been home for a long time
as well, so he had this church praying for me
as Church of England church and this other church don't.
My brother was going to a Pentecostal church and it
was during that time I turn things changed and I
(09:18):
was able to get away from this person quite dramatically,
only by the grace of God, and I ended up
becoming a Christian. And I had a really powerful conversion
experience where I went to the church that my brother
was going to and I knew that I was a sinner.
I knew that I had offended God and I needed
to repent. So I repented of my sin and I
(09:40):
asked Christ into my life and I did it with
all my heart, and I can remember feeling the lights
just come on pow, and nobody told me to expect
an experience, and I know not everyone does have an experience,
but maybe I needed that to heal the wounds that
had happened to me all over the last few weeks
and months with this person. And it was a fantastic experience.
(10:00):
And yeah, I believe I was born again at that
point and life just changed totally really from that moment's on.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
And spiritually speaking, you've you've never looked back since that point.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Well, like a lot of us, we've had I've had
ups and downs and struggles and and I think, you know,
we all, we've all got this human nature which lets
us down so badly. And there's been times over the
years I've got to say where, you know, not been
living a great Christian life at times, but God always
calls me back, and you know, he's the good shepherd,
as Andy, Jesus is the good shepherd. We always hear
(10:33):
his voice, and we don't recognize the voice of a
stranger as it is in the Gospel of John. I
think it's chapter tene.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yes, indeed, we do have that experience of ending up
at the bottom of the barrel somehow and being picked
up that handcome down says, you know, I love your
son and come and try again. So yeah, it's true.
It is true. Okay, Well everything that you've said that
you'd think that you'd be involved in evangelism with respect to,
you know, people involved in the occult. But and maybe
in stent, I don't know, but you concentrate on these
(11:04):
new religious movements, like you know, Jeovah's Witnesses, Mormons. How
can you have a heart for outreach to them.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I'm not a hundred percent sure why that is really,
other than I do recognize the fact that as I
was deceived with the occults, although it's very different from
Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, who were the main two groups
that I tend to focus on. I do recognize the
day or deceived like I was, although the belief systems
are totally different, and my heart just goes out to them.
(11:31):
And I can remember as a young Christian, I just
met my first wife, so I was I was does
a factuist with hair. But at the time there was
a large group of us and we'd all become Christians
pretty early on. And whilst I was busy a courtship
with my wife, some of my friends were getting swept
along talking with Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and becoming very
(11:54):
confused indeed, and some of them actually left Christianity as
a results. They became so confused they never became Jehovah's
win So Mormons, they just become confused and didn't even
know what they believed. The damage that they'd done was
just horrendous. So later on and got married, and I
started to rethink of thinking, you know, it's such a
(12:15):
shame what happened to my friends. Maybe I should have
been able to help them a bit more. So I
started examining these religions a bit more to try to
understand them and reach out to them. So I started
to feel quite bad and for them, really the people themselves,
and then started to reach out to them.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
It's interesting you say that, as because I did have
extensive conversations with the Jovah's witnesses back in the nineteen nineties,
and you know, they had this sort of system where
they come back to you week after week for six weeks,
that sort of thing. I got to know some of
them very well, and I did have that, you know,
to be honest in that conversation, you have to allow
what they say to challenge you, at least, don't you. Yeah,
(12:50):
And so I allowed that to happen, particularly with regard
to the deity of Christ. And I did find that unsettling.
Just the very fact of opening myself up to thinking, well,
maybe I'm wrong about this and going back to the scripture.
It was uncomfortable. But I came out the other end, yeah,
pretty quickly. Actually was sticking to my guns in a way.
I was thinking, I can't make the scripture not say
(13:12):
what I know what it clearly does say in so
many places, you know. But it was unsettling.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
I went through a similar experience Julian. I think it's
something that anyone who does this kind of way, I
have to go through that kind of pain where I
can remember having them around in the early days to
Joba's fitnesses and think to myself, Gosh, these guys, right,
that's it, that's right, really questioning myself, you know. I
went in sort of thinking I was prepared. I bought
(13:40):
a couple of little books, Christian books on the subject,
but they ended up bringing a totally different subject and
they were a lot It's happened again going away looking
my wounds that made me go away and study more and.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Are you there, Vince, are you there? Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yeah, we had a bit of break up there again
incredibly Oh no, yeah yeah, what I was going to say,
Oh yeah, so this business about the deity of Christ becaurse.
One of the things they tend to bring up is
the word Trinity is not in the Bible, which it
isn't that word is not there, And also sort of
tried to say, well, it's not logical, and that's kind
of a strong point. But you know, the simple fact
(14:17):
is when I go to the Scripture, which I believe
is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit working through
the process of inscripturation through the ages. You know, here
we have the Scripture in front of us, and I
cannot help but conclude that the Father is God, and
the early Christians experience Jesus as being God for them,
you know, in their experience, and the same with the
Holy Spirit. And you can get that off the scripture,
(14:40):
and then you have to deal with that. And then
if we end up reaching the limits of our understanding
of how you know, tying the ends together, well so
be it. I think there's a point of humility. Eventually,
I'm very keen on logic, et cetera. But they seem
to have a strong point there, and they kind of do,
except that you know, when you butt up against him,
you're going to get problems. But you know, if you
(15:02):
allow that to get under your skin so much, you
can be tempted, I think to start to say, well,
maybe I can reinterpret the scripture this way to sort
of fit what I expect my mind can cope with.
And I think that's a bit of a deception right there.
I think we need an intellectual humility that to say,
you know, ultimately maybe it does make sense, but you know,
maybe it's a bit like the rat in the cage.
(15:25):
You try to teach a rat to do two plus
two equals four, and you'll never achieve it, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
I think that's the thing when you're talking to these
groups or people from other religions. I've often found over
the years that initially it can seem like a very
powerful argument that they have, but then when you start
to dig deeper, you start to think, oh, it doesn't
really hold up with the trinity thing. For example, they'll
often say the word Trinity is not in the Bible.
But what I often say to them is, well, the
(15:53):
word millennium is not in the Bible either, and the
word deocracy is not in the Bible, and even the
word Bible is not in the Bible. So yeah, you
can say that to them and they'll say, oh, yeah,
but the concept of the theocracy is there or the
millenniums there, and you can say, well, yeah, exactly. It's
the same with the Trinity. The word might not be there,
but the concept definitely is there. So it's just a
(16:16):
convenient word. I mean, they use extra biblical words to
make their points. They use words like they have an
organizational structure where they have pioneers, they have publishers, they
have kingdom hall. None of these words are in the Bible.
So it's the same with the Trinity. Exactly the same thing.
And another good thing to mention with the Trinity I've
(16:36):
found over the years is often with the witnesses, they
do think very logically, and interestingly, a lot of them
become atheists when they leave Jehovah's Witnesses and sort of
throw the whole baby out with the bath water and
just embrace an atheistic world. View often I haven't see
them as almost like theistic atheists if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Really, it makes total sense, you know, I can see
how that can happen.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Oh yeah, I mean it's so easy for them to become.
It's such a shame though. It breaks my heart to
see witnesses leave and then embrace atheism, and because the
watch Towers lied to them about their own religion and
also being indoctrinated towards being against historic Christianity as well
at the same time. So when they do leave they
see the Watchtowers wrong, then they hold on to the
(17:23):
idea that the rest of Christianity is also wrong because
that's what they've been taught. So that's why so many
become atheists. That's so sad. Well. A good thing to
mention with the Trinity I've found is there's a book
that they have which was very popular. It's not so
much now. I don't think they officially use it, but
I think you can still get it on their website
jw dot org, which is a brilliant website to go to.
(17:45):
You can really use that in so many ways, which
I'll try and come to later on mention a bit
more about it. There's a book there called Reasoning from
the Scriptures, and if you've got a hard copy of it,
it's a little brown book, and it's their apologetics book.
It says things like if somebody says this, then you
can say this. If somebody says that, I can say this,
And it's a very parafashion. But they learn that book
(18:08):
and they can seem very competent and very knowledgeable. Indeed
that a lot of people can be intimidated by them,
a lot of Christians, because they seem so intelligent and
so knowledgeable. But it's all just learned parafashion from books
like this. But in that book there's a section on
the eternity of God is eternal nature, and in there
it says, just paraphrasing, I've not put the book with me,
(18:29):
it says, you know, it's incredible to think that God
is a being without beginning and without end. He's eternal.
How can our human minds, our finite minds, fathom such
a thing. It's beyond our comprehension. So I normally use
that and say, bingo, apply that to the Trinity as well.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Absolutely, yeah, bingo, Thank you, Vince. You said exactly what
I was struggling to say exactly, there are the data
in the scripture and you have to contend with those,
and they drive you towards some kind of concept a
concept not there, but the data of the Bible drive
you towards some kind of struggle towards the concept of
the trinity. And it's a lifelong journey, isn't it trying
(19:09):
to make sense out of that in our finitude? You know? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:14):
So yeah, so we shouldn't be surprised that we can't
fully comprehend or understand or articulate. Oh, there's a trimochy
because we're talking about the nature of God and him
being aternal is something else we just can't understand. It's
just another aspect of his nature that we can't fully
comprehend as human beings.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yes, indeed, Okay, so let's move to actually talking about
the practicality of your engagement with these people, because you know,
this is where I think it's so helpful to have
a chat because the way that you go about things,
as I've said before, I find particularly inspirational. So how
do you how do you strike up these conversations? Typically
(19:52):
they take place on the on the street, don't they
rather than them coming to you to your door. In
the classical two people turn up at the door and say, hey,
the world's going to end tomorrow. Yeah, that's those sort
of classic things. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, you don't seem to get that so much with
the witnesses now. They they don't seem to be on
the doors as much as they used to be. But
we do see them a lot in our town centers
with their carts, and I found that to be a
fantastic opportunity, in fact, much better really than having them
come to your door, because I found in the past
when they come to the door, they tend to talk
(20:25):
for a while, but then if you say something which
unsettles them too much, they just excuse themselves and leave.
And there's not really much you can do other than
throw yourself down at their feet and hold onto their
ankles and scream don't go. Once they've decided to go,
they've gone and they're away. So but with the carts,
it's a lot harder for them to excuse themselves. You know,
(20:48):
in one position, they're there for the day, and or
rather they are there for their shift. They often tell
me to shift they do. In fact, I mean I've
been in the middle of conversation and they've they've looked
at the watch and said, oh, well, my shift is
over now the others are coming.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
So okay.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
It's an odd way to do about angelism, isn't it.
There meant to be there to talk to people.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yes, yeah, Yeah, And you say they don't talk so
much about the whole nineteen fourteen business. I was I
misspoken as being facetious. But you know, they didn't say
the world's going to end tomorrow, but they did. I
think they did say something like the world was going
to end within the generation of people of you who
were alive in nineteen fourteen. Yeah, do they not talk
much about that now?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
They've sort of starting to phase it out now, really.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
For obvious reasons.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Yeah. And now they say it an overlapping generation. They
say that the people that saw the event of nineteen fourteen,
most of them are dead now, obviously, but they say
that people who are contemporaries with that generation have now
taken up the bat on and they are now part
of that nineteen fourteen generation, even though they're much younger, right,
so they can keep on overlapping it and overlapping it.
(21:56):
It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Well, it's getting a bit embarrassed. So that's presumably that's
why they don't talk about it so much, and.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Nobody don't talk about it much at all now. But
what I've found, though, Julian, although I have spoken to
them about this issue with regards to dates, if it
comes up, I tend to try to steer away from that,
because what I found in your initial approach to these
guys is that if you start to bring up the
false predictions that they've had, and obviously they have had many.
(22:24):
Nineteen fourteen, I mean originally when that was spoken of,
it was the day for the end of the world,
and then they had nineteen fourteen as the invisible return
of Christ, and then they had eighteen seventy four prior
to that as the invisible Return of Christ. They had
nineteen twenty five was another big one where they said Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob and the Old Testament, where these would
(22:46):
be resurrected on that date in nineteen twenty five. Of
course it didn't happen, but Joseph Rutherford, the second president
of the organization, he built a house for them called
Beth Surim, which is called House of the Princes. It's
in San Diego. It's still there today, but it's not
the property of the Watchtower, Bible and Society anymore. It
was sold. But the house was built for those Old
(23:08):
Testament people, and of course they didn't come. So the
second President, Judge Ruther for Joseph Rutherford, ended up living
there and living there very well as well, I might add,
during the American Depression when people were really struggling, and
he was living the life of Riley, you know. False
prophecies nineteen seventy five was another big one. I tend
(23:29):
not to bring these up, although I have, but I
find that it just puts them into defensive mode straight away,
and we're trying not to do that. We're trying to
win them over and start a conversation gently. I mean,
it might come up, and if it comes up near
the end of the conversation, maybe that would be better.
But I certainly wouldn't try and open with such a
thing unless you really felt like the Lord was leading
(23:50):
you that way. But I very rarely do so, to
be honest.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah, that's a very good point, actually, And that's yet
another thing where I've failed, and I've turned to argue
with them about that, and you're right, as I said,
there was another thing as well, this business about them
insisting on calling God Jehovah, and I've got into arguments
with them about that, and to be honest, you're right,
you in conversation will actually use Jehovah to presumably to
(24:14):
get on side with them. And there's no reason why
one shouldn't. It's just that I've kind of picked a
bit of an argument on that one, and I shouldn't
do it. It's not a wise thing to do.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Really. It's very easy to get sidetracked by these guys,
though I've noticed over the years they really do try
and jump around all over the place that they'll talk
about Jehovah. They'll talk about things which they'll made your
on mine as like a lot of these groups, when
really it's far better to focus and try and draw
them back onto a more important subject like the deity
of Christ, like a personal relationship with Jesus. Worshiping Jesus,
(24:47):
the bodily resurrection of Jesus as well, is something that
I like to talk about to them because they deny that.
I think that's quite a big one because Romans Romans
chapter ten, Versus nine to ten says that if we
confess with our mouth Jesus's Lord, and we believe that
God raised him up from the dead, and we will
be saved. Now if we don't believe Jesus was really
(25:08):
raised from the dead literally physically, then by implication that
means we can't be saved.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Well, So I do have questions about that along the
lines you've just said. I do think that is a
dangerous area, even for some Christians, you know, in the
church that they don't like the idea of a bodily resurrection.
I do wonder if they're treading on dangerous territory there.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
I think that's what he really yeah, because I think
the scripture is clear about Jesus being physically literally raised
in his own bobies.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Does seem clear to me. And I do think that
Nty Rights nailed that down with his big book on
the Resurrection of the Son of God, that that is
what the early Christians were teaching.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
But that's one of the subjects I tend to bring up,
but initially to approach them. I find the principle to
Timothy chapter two, Versus twenty four to twenty six is
very good, and I try to apply this. It says
this is reading from the New American Standard version, but
it says pretty much the same in their Bible, the
New World Translation and the Lord's bond servant must not
(26:09):
be qualal someome, but be kind to all, able to
teach patients when wrong, with gentleness, correcting those who are
in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading
to the knowledge of the truth, and that they may
come to their senses and escape from the snare of
the devil, having been captive by him, to do his will.
So it says not to be qual some and to
(26:31):
be kind, to be gentle, and to hope that God
will grant these people repentance and that they will escape
from the spiritual deception that the devil has got them under.
So I find a good way to initially approach them.
I've got to say that I've done this work for
a long, long long time now, since the early nineteen nineties.
I still find hopefully this will encourage some people, you know,
(26:53):
just to be honest, I still find I approached them
feeling quite anxious. Still even there I read up on
this subject. I'm constantly memorizing scriptures and trying to be
prepared as possibly can. When I approach them, I initially
feel quite apprehensive and anxious because you're going into the unknown,
and I think it's in our nature to be a
(27:15):
bit wary of the unknown. You don't know who these people.
Are you going to talk to his individuals? Are they
going to be aggressive? Are they going to be argumentative?
Some of them? Some of them are. I mean I've
met something like that. Most most are okay, and we'll
be happy to talk to and to be quite quite kind.
So going into that unknown realm can be quite scary,
I find. But the thing that helps me is to
(27:38):
just approach them with kindness and just ask them about themselves.
Get the conversation going, ask them how long they've been witnesses,
for what the religion means to them, and they will
be so happy to talk about that subject. And I've
found after talking, you get used to talking to that person,
You get an idea of who you're dealing with, what
(27:59):
you're dealing with, and you can quietly pray as well.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Yes, I was going to ask you you pray quietly
as you're having that conversation. Yeah, I must have.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Sometimes I forget too as as they're talking, because I'm
thinking of what I'm going to say. But I do
pray beforehand before we go in, and I will pray
if they're talking for quite a while, I will pray
if I can remember during the conversation, but also as well,
when they're talking, they might say something which you can
pick up on. You know, they might say something like,
for example, you know, we don't believe that the Holy
(28:30):
Spirits is a person, which they don't in their doctrine,
and you could think, oh, well, I've got a few
scriptures memorized on that subject, so maybe we could pick
up on that. When they finished, you could sew that
was very interesting. Can I just ask you why you
don't think the Holy Spirits is a person? And let
them speak and then you can pick up and run
with that conversation. But I always try to have a
(28:50):
little bit of something, an idea of what I would
like to talk about. And there's been a few things
that have been tried and tested over the years which
I found workable.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Really, Yes, it's interesting that you know what you've just
said there you allow them, And listening to your YouTube
channel as well, I've noticed you do this, you give
them space to develop their points, which if you were
having a debate, you know you think, wow, now that's
a poor strategy. You know you should get in there
right away and try to undercut what they've said. But
actually no, you back off and allow them to, as
(29:21):
it were, build the strongest case they can before you
then give your view. And that seems to show great
respect for these people.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Yeah, but the idea is you want to try and
keep them engaged to you for as long as you
possibly can. I had an incident a few months ago
where I spoke amazingly spoke to I think it was
seven or nine Jehovah's witnesses all at once on the
streets and we spoke for nearly an hour and a half.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
It was an absolutely amazing conversation. The only reason there
was so many of them is some of them were
leaving for the shift that had ended, but they hung
around whilst the others were coming and we had this conversation.
So it was absolutely fantastic. But the thing is hold on.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
You against you, against how many the Evins.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I think it was either seven or nine in the
end that were there, Just do it with me by
myself and it was a little bit intimidating because they
were all fire and stuff at me, But it was
good because they had a chance to talk. And I
think it's so important to allow the other person to talk, because,
like when you're talking to anybody, if you're in conversation
with someone and someone's just talking at you and at
(30:26):
you constantly and not giving you a chance to speak,
some Christians think that might be a good debating technique,
but it's really not, because the other person becomes fed
up and just shut down and just wants to get away.
And it's not impressive. I mean, they're not impressed by that.
They just want to get away from you. And especially
if people are rude. So many Christians can be rude
(30:47):
or arrogance to these people or insult done in some way.
And again, like anybody that they're just people like everybody else.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Well, I think they learned to nobody.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Likes to be insulted. They'll just shut down.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah. Absolutely, Well, from having spoken to them so many
years ago, quite a lot they told me that, you know,
they'd learned to expect that from most people. Not today,
thank you and shut the door in their face and
not treat them like fellow human beings, which is appalling, really,
So to accord them respect in the way that you do,
I think is absolutely the right thing to do. And
(31:19):
you say about openness, this is another thing I noticed
about you. You won't pretend not to know about them,
you will actually so, oh yeah, I've got some of
your books, you know, And I'm interested in all kinds
of religions. And I think that's really important as well,
because otherwise, you know, wouldn't they be suspicious of you?
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Is in it?
Speaker 2 (31:33):
In just a minute? How can we knows this and
knows that? And he didn't tell us to start with?
What's he trying to do here?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Yeah, I'm glad you raised that, because it's good to
be honest with them, because if you do start to
quote their literature, then the God will go up a
little bit. Yeah, if you're just honest and say I've
acquired some literature over the years. Yeah, I normally always
say as I have acquired literature on other religions, Islam, Mormonism,
just the Delphianism. Groups like this, just so they know
(32:00):
they're not being singled out. An even better approach that
you can use recently is back to their website that
I mentioned earlier, at JW dot org. A lot of
the literature, even the quite old literature, is on their website.
So an even better approaches to say I was on
JW dot org and they'll be pleased sometimes though they're
(32:23):
even surprised by that. But then you can just say, well,
on the cart that they've got in the high streets.
It has plastered all over at JW dot org. So
it's a big promotional campaign that they've got it everywhere.
So just say to them, you know, I've been on
the website. If they're surprised to say, well, you know,
it's everywhere. So I do have a look at the
website and then I saw this thing that it was
(32:45):
quite interesting. You might can I just ask you some
questions about that? And it's a good approach because they
know then that you've got the information direct from their website,
which is available to anybody, so they're more willing to
talk about that.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
That's a good point, a good.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
A good thing to discuss with them. In fact, I've
been finding lately from the website, see the witnesses are
quite prepared with certain things like the Trinity, for example,
or They love to talk about paradise Earth. You can
live forever on paradise air. That's one of the big things.
So they love to talk about those subjects. But I've
found is there a book.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Called that in one of their publications.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah, yeah, there's a book called But they love to
talk on the subject or the name Jehovah. But I
found that the satin subjects you can raise, which they
really are so unprepared for. And you can take a
direction from the website, and I would encourage the listeners
to look this one up. This is a very effective
subject to bring up, I found, and it's to do
(33:41):
with the mediatorship of Christ. Now, they believe that they've
got a two tier system where they believe one group
go to heaven and one group will populate the earth,
the group to populate the Earth, or the Great Crowd,
which is the majority of Jehovah's witnesses today. The other group,
forty four thousand will go to heaven.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
All right, So that's the one hundred and forty four thousand
from the Book of Revelation, isn't it. They interpret it
that way, Yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
They interpret it as elite special annoying to Jehovah's witnesses
were obviously historically from a Christian perspective, they are just
Jewish evangelists basically that will be bused Jordan the tribulation.
I mean, there's probably different Christians that might have different
views on that. But they say that one hundred and
forty four thousand Jehovah's witnesses go to heaven. They are
(34:30):
the only ones who are in the New Covenant. They
are the only ones who were born again. They are
the only ones who Jesus is their mediator of as well.
The great Crowded is the majority of Jehovah's witnesses who
will be the guide you just speak to at the cart.
They are not born again, they are not going to heaven,
they are not in the New Covenants, and they do
(34:52):
not have amazing I know, it's really tragic.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
So they will admit to you. They will you ask them,
are you born you don't yes, you say you born again,
and they will say, oh no, that's one hundred and
forty four thousand, Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah, they're not born again. They don't have the spirit
of Christ in them, which and you can ask in
Roman's aids. But the gods. That you can say, if
anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, they do
not belong to Christ. John three three. A good thing
to say to them is well John three to three says,
which is really good. In their translation, it says, unless
anyone is born again, they cannot see the Kingdom of God.
(35:27):
And you can ask from you anyone, and you've got
to be born again. And they might say, oh, well,
that's just for the heavenly Kingdom, but you can say, well, no, look,
it just says here kingdom. It's talking with the Kingdom
of God, whether you believe it's earthly or heavenly. Anyone
that is part of that kingdom needs to be born again,
and it's for anyone. They will deny being born again,
(35:48):
they will deny being in a New Covenant, and.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
They mean they're not covered by the blood of Christ.
Then doesn't I know?
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Well, I asked Jehovah's witness a few months ago on
the streets, well, if you're not in the New Covenant,
what covenants are you in? And he said to me,
I'm in the no Here Covenants. And I says what
I thought, And I think, I mean, I've not heard
any other Jehovah's witnesses say that. I mean, you will
get individuals that will just panic and say certain things,
(36:17):
different things, but I mean Hebrews nine fifteen says that
Christ is the mediator of a new covenant. So we've
got to be in our covenant if Christ is to
be our media. So now this is one of the
good things that you can bring up with them. You
can ask them if Christ is their mediator. And paradoxically,
most Jehovah's witnesses that you will meet will say, yes,
(36:39):
He is my mediator. But officially their religion to watch
our Bible and tract society teachers that Christ is not
the mediator for the great crowd. The majority of Jehovah's witnesses,
and I've had witnesses argue until they've been blue in
the face, saying no, we believe that Jesus is our mediator.
(37:00):
What you've got to do is show them from their literature.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah, do you have that to hand, because I do.
I think you showed it on your YouTube channel. So
this is from Worldwide Security under the Prince of Peace,
one of their publications.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
That's right, Yeah, well I read it off. This is
from Yeah, have you got a hand I have.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
So this is from page ten. Yeah, I think you
said it's page ten of the physical copy, maybe page
eleven of the digital copy something like that.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
I'm glad that yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Okay, So this is the quote. Jesus Christ is not
the mediator between Jehovah God and all mankind. He is
the mediator between his heavenly father, Jehovah God and the
nation of spiritual Israel, which is limited to only the
one hundred and forty four thousand members. So it is
a limited mediation. Whereas we know that one Timothy doesn't
(37:49):
say that, does it. That's it exactly one Timothy two
we have for there is one God, one mediator also
between God and men himself, man Christ, Jesus, who gave
himself a ransom for not one hundred forty one thousand
for all, a ransom for all. So how do they
deal with that? Because that goes quite contrary to their theology,
(38:09):
doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Yeah, most Jehovah's witnesses have no idea what to do
with this, you know, I found. And the good thing
is you can drive home that scripture that you've just
quoted there on Timothy to Verses five to six and
Hebrews nine fifteen is good as well. Jesus is the
mediation of a new covenants to show that, Look, no,
Jesus is the mediator for all people. It's not limited
(38:31):
one hundred and forty four thousand. And the way they
get rounded is to just argue, no, we believe he's
our mediator. So what you've got to do is just
show them from their own literature, like that quote that
you mentioned there from world Wide Security under the Prince
of Peace, page ten in the physical book page eleven
on JW dot org. You know, if you pulled out
(38:51):
that book, it's quite an old book. Say you had
it in your rooksack and you pulled it outdated, immediately
become suspicious. Why have you got that? Yes, of course
Christians go out like that with all photocopies and old
books and everything. But the witnesses just want to get
rid of you, and they when they come across that,
because they just for you. You as an opoder, Yes,
who's prepared, who's ready to oppose them? But if you say, oh,
(39:14):
I read this on JW dot org, then they will
be willing to talk about it. But a lot of
them have probably only just seen that for the first time. Now,
that is quite an old book. So what you can
do is, I've not got to quote the hand but
there's a reference here, which is it's called Insights on
the Scriptures. They're quite comprehensive to volume books, but they're
online on jw dot org and if you remember to
(39:37):
look under the word mediator, you'll find that it'll say
something similar to what you've quoted there from the previous book.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Yeah, okay, So this is not an issue where they
could say because they have a doctrine of new light
or something, don't they work teachings change over time, and
they say, oh, well this is progressive revelation. We understand
more now, thank God's you know, Jehovah's theocratic organization has
picked up more messages from Jehovah or something like that.
So this is not something where they would say, oh, well,
we've got new light on this is it you're suggesting it.
(40:07):
That's still what they believe.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah, nothing has changed, although I think somehow through the
grapevine of individual rank and file Jehovah's witnesses, it's sort
of seeped through that the average witness believes that Jesus
is their mediator, but that is not official Jehovah's witness
doctrine at all. So that's why a lot of them
are quite surprised when you show them these quotes and
(40:30):
then just press home the fact that the Bible actually
does say that Jesus is the media, so everyone yes,
and that we need to have him as our mediator.
And in fact, it goes even further than that. There's
other quotations. Have not got them to hand, but they
even say that you've got to be in right relationship
with the one hundred and forty four thousand and Jehovah's witnesses,
(40:50):
so they have really mediations between them and Christ, which
is one hundred and forty four thousand. They act as
kind of mediators for the great crowd, although most Jehovahs
witnesses will never ever accept that or admit that.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Yes, yes, And there was something I wanted to say
in connection with that. It just reminded me. I read
the work of a theologian called Anthony Haakima a long
time ago. He was talking there's a book called the
four Major Culture. I think it was. I wouldn't called
it that the four major new religions or whatever. But yeah,
one of the points he made in that was that
there's always hope because those religions do have Jesus Christ
(41:29):
as part of the system. There was always the hope
that the truth about Christ gets through and that there
might be people saved within these organizations, sort of notwithstanding
what the group itself actually teaches. So I think it's
very important to remember that, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
That's a very good point indeed, Yeah, because I mean,
some of these people can be convert to these groups
that have previously been in our Christian churches and they've
had a born again experience, maybe they've just become to
see in their minds and they have just become misled,
and that God could be using you to draw these
(42:06):
people back even which is something to think about. So
some people do get born again whilst they're in these groups,
and yet the very fact that they've got Jesus at least,
although it might be a different Jesus doc trying to
lead than what we have, at least the scope to
talk about Jesus in connection with the Bible, which is
(42:29):
sometimes so much easier because I mean, especially with the
witnesses they've got a Bible that they're happy to open
and talk about, and the're happy to talk about Jesus,
the happy to talk about God. So there's a lot
of common ground there straight away.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Whereas absolutely, if you've got a.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Complete unbeliever, atheist, you've got to start convincing them that
God exists. You've got to convince them that the Bible
is of God and the reliability of the Bible. So
you've got a lot of friends to jump over before
you get anywhere.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Really, yes, yes, I don't know. They do have their
own translation in the New World Translation where there are
some tweets in there which maybe will come up in
a minute. But yeah, there's there was the hope. I
feel that people can still get enough truth out of
the Bible that they have that you know, maybe they will.
You know, I can imagine someone them thinking, well, you know,
there's the watchdown society says this, But I really do
(43:15):
feel Jesus is my mediator and I do really feel
he died with me, and I'll just keep quiet about it.
You know, you never know, do you.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah, So that that can really that can really be
a thing that starts that they're thinking process off maybe
that's why I think that that approach talking about the
mediated is a very good angle with which to come
to the witnesses worked early because they're totally unprepared and
totally shocked. What the phrase cognitive dissonance, I think it
is where you show them one thing and it doesn't
(43:43):
quite confuse or comply with what they think themselves. There's
a there's a short ticket really there in the programming
stepped up. I've seen it time and time again. And
as I say, a lot of these things I tried
and tested, and I found some things have worked over
the years, and some things really don't work so well.
So I surely stick with what works quite well.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Really, there is one I want to correct myself on
one thing, because I think I said that they officially
believe that they're not covered by Jesus sacrifice, And thinking
about that further, I think what I was told by
them many years ago was that they are covered to
this is the general rank and file of the members.
They are covered with respect to their inheritance of Adam Sin.
(44:27):
I think that was what they said to me. But
their own personal sin is a matter that they're working
out in their membership of the organization and their obedience
within that structure, so they're not fully covered, and I
think I think that's really dubious because I don't think
you can make a distinction really between Adam sin and
(44:48):
the way I see this is that Adam represents all
of us, he represents me, and so you know, Jesus
covers the lot everything. So yeah, I just wanted to
I think I misspoke about that and saying they're not covered.
I think they think they're sort of partially covered. But
being partially covered is I keep saying it's dodgy territory,
isn't it.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah, Yeah, I mean that's the reason why they're very
much a work based organization really, like a lot of
these groups and moments are the same. There's a real
emphasis on works. So it can breed a lot of
self righteousness really because they're basically they don't like to
admit it as such, but they are really partly working
to try and keep themselves saved or to attain salvation.
(45:30):
None of them have that assurance that they are really saved, really,
which is quite sad and it breeds a lot of insecurity. You.
I mean, some of them are lovely. I mean as people.
I found most of them are really nice to talk to,
and you've just got to go in there with an
attitude that you really are interested in them, that you
really want to show Christian love to them. I mean
that alone can really help. And last time I spoke
(45:53):
to the witnesses, we were talking about this earlier, obviously
you and I Julian off. The interview where I spoke
to the witness is last time about my testimony. And
I'd just like to encourage people if you don't feel
that you can go into all these dot trinal things
with the witnesses, and I know it's not for everybody,
but be prepared with a few things and then just
excuse yourself and just say, well, you've got to carry
(46:14):
on doing your shop. And most of them that have
precinct in town centers, you can talk about maybe being
born again John Free three. The important of that you
can share with them the scripture and won Timothy two
five to six, Jesus being the mediator. But then you
could use your testimony as well.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
Okay, so we shall leave it there. That is the
first part of my conversation with Vince McCann. I hope
I did my editing okay, and the edits themselves were
not too distracting and didn't detract from your enjoyment of
the conversation, so I do hope you did enjoy that.
So I shall put together the second part as soon
as I can after coming back off this short holiday.
(46:52):
Thanks very much for listening. Show notes as usual can
be found out to theMIND renewde dot com podcast. Music
by the brilliant Anthony Rajakov, attribution commercial share like four
point zero International. You have been listening to me, Julian
Charles and my guest Vince McCann, and I very much
look forward to speaking to you again in the near future.
Hello everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Julian Charles here of theMIND Reneude dot com. Coming to
you as usual from the depths of the Lancashire countryside
here in the UK, and welcome to TMR number three
hundred and fourteen, which is a conversation or part of
a conversation with Vince McCann, an evangelist who has been
on the program a couple of times before. It's great
to speak to him again. Now I'm putting out today
(00:32):
just part of that conversation, maybe just over half, I'm
not sure, simply because I have well two reasons really. One,
I have run out of time to do the editing
because we're just about to go off on a short holiday,
short family holiday. But number two, because the editing is
such that it's taking a great deal of time to
get it done. Because we had a lot of technical
problems during this conversation. We kept losing connection between each other,
(00:56):
and you can imagine what that's like, then trying to
pick up the converse and then trying to edit it
to make it sound as if it's as natural and
listenable to as possible. Now I've I've left some of
the problems with the connection in the conversation, just to
add a very similitude, But yeah, I wanted it to
sound as easy to listen to as possible and not
(01:17):
distract him, because of course it's really difficult to listen
to something where you've got people cutting out and going hello, hellover,
didn't see there either, Oh yeah, I'm here, I'm here.
Oh what were you talking about? Oh yeah, that's right,
you were saying such and such. Oh yeah, let me
pick up that. It gets really boring after a while,
so I've had to do lots of stitching together. It's
taken quite a long time. So I've got to a
point where I've run out of time, and I thought
(01:38):
I really would like to put out the first part
of this conversation, so I'll say no more about what
the conversation is, because of course I introduce it in
the normal way. So here it is the first part
of my recent conversation with Vince McCann. Hello everybody, Julian
Charles here off theminds renewed dot Com coming to you
as usual from the depths of the Lancashire countryside in
the UK, and today I'm delighted to welcome back to
(02:00):
the program after a gap of several years, Vince McCann
who joined us in the past to talk about his
dramatic testimony of coming to faith in Jesus Christ, and
also he joined us a little later that for an
interview on the Wiji board one Halloween way Back. Not
on the merits of the Wigi border might add, but
the dangers thereof Vince's various online ministries can be found
(02:24):
at YouTube, the channel being Chesno. Nineteen sixty nine, which
is on quoting from this a Christian channel dealing with apologetics, evangelism,
examining other religious views and other matters of interest to
the Christian community. And also on Facebook where there are
a couple of groups there that he manages, one called
spirit Entity Harassment Support Group and the other called Sharing
(02:45):
Evangelistic Ideas to reach people for Christ on Facebook, and
of course all of those will be in the show
notes as usual. Vince, welcome back to the show. It's
great to be speaking to you again after all this time.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, it's been a long time, Julian, thanks for having
me today. Much appreciate it. Really look forward to today's
discussion very much. Indeed, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
It is a great delight. I very much. Look forward
to it as well, and I'm especially grateful to you
for joining us on your week off. You're supposed to
be on holiday, aren't you at the moment.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah, but really, in a way, this is almost like
having a holiday talking to you, because my house is
so crazy at the moment with children a wild.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
We're going to be in holiday mood, holiday mode talking
about these things. Yeah. Okay, So generally speaking, how are
things going? Is we haven't spoken for such a long
time as life. How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Not too bad? You have, Everything's plodding along as usual.
I'm still working with in the day job. I work
with homeless people. Been doing that job, no gosh for
twenty four years now, so I only ever thought i'd
be passing through and here I am, twenty four years
later to still doing that job. It's rewarding. It's a rewarding,
but it can be difficult to times.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Do you work in different towns and cities as well?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
No, just one town the moment, but I have worked
in different towns. They just keep me in the town
at the moment.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Right, Okay, So we're going to be chatting today about
your evangelism, your street evangelism among people who are involved
in various religions, particularly new religious movements, let's say, like
the Jehovah's Witnesses the Moments, although actually I suppose they're
not really new anymore either, they go back quite away. Now.
You seem to specialize in talking to Jehovah's Witnesses, so
(04:29):
I suspect that a lot of what we talk about
today will be centered in that. And the reason why
I've invited you really is because, frankly, I am really
impressed by the way that you do that. I have
been following your YouTube channel for several years now, and
I really do admire the way that you interact with
people on the street, and I think there's a lot
(04:49):
that we can all learn from your experience over the years,
including me. In fact, I admitted to something before we
started speaking on air that you corrected me on in
my thinking, So maybe that will come up. So let's
start off then with a little bit more about you,
because it'll be such a long time since many people
heard from you last. So you weren't brought up as
(05:11):
a Christian, were you? Can you tell us a bit
about your background and how you came to Christ.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Yeah, No, I wasn't. I wasn't brought up a Christian,
although my father did teach us to have a belief
in God. He was a Roman Catholic, but very nominal
indeed didn't really practice it, didn't go to church. But
we did have that foundation, and that really was a
strong foundation. And I think when I was younger, you
find it yourself as well, Julie. And I imagine is
(05:35):
that our schools were a lot more Christian, weren't. They
had their assemblies, whether it be hymns and prayers. So
I think all of that did lay a good, strong
base within my life towards God. But then obviously the
teenage years come along, yes, and we discovered we discovered girls,
(05:57):
we discovered alcohol and other things that we shouldn't be
getting involved in the you know, that could create problems
for us. But because of the spiritual dimension of my
life that was already there, I started to drift towards
being interested in paranormal things like ghosts and UFOs, Bigfoot,
the Lackerness Monster, all that kind of stuff. But I
(06:18):
noticed when I bought literature on those subjects, there would
be advertisements on books to do with the Ocles right,
very very very subtle, rarely the way the devil draws
you in. It's very incremental steps that he likes to
take people towards the slippery slope. The books that the
advertisements would be shown to me would be ones on
(06:41):
like very light occults, shall we say, like horoscopes and
astral projection, psychics, you know, things like that. So I
get interested in that kind of thing. But then when
I buy that literature, I would notice there would be
advertisements and those books for things that were even stronger, again,
like witchcraft. Some of it is quite dark. And I
ended up getting into quite dark occult literature early and
(07:05):
practicing spells in my room, setting up an altar.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, yeah, and you know I did see results. I
mean it did work. I mean these things do work,
but obviously it comes with the price, and some quite
horrible things started to happen to me eventually. Yeah. Yeah,
it wasn't good. No.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
And it's interesting, you say, how some of these things
in various publications that could look almost benign can actually
lead step by step in a darker direction. And I
guess you can sort of end up in a dark
place and wonder how you ever got there in the
first place, I suppose.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Indeed, so how did you then make that step towards
Christ from that? You obviously had this background, but that
wasn't sufficient, is it to evangelize you your own past?
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah? Well, I ended up, you know, carrying on with
practicing the accult stuff, and I got involved with somebody
I knew from about a year or two previous, and
we had a friendship, shall we say, a young lady,
and we ended up being sort of interested in this
subject together somewhat. But one thing led to another, and
(08:12):
it became a pattern to me that there was a
lot of spiritual problems with this person, shall we say,
And it just led me down a very dark path, indeed,
and both of us ended up in this situation that
we had no control over, and there was dark forces
that were unleashed which nearly destroyed me. And it was horrific,
you know, it really was horrific, very very dark time, indeed,
(08:36):
and I actually didn't think I would get out of
the situation at all. I sort of resigned myself to
the fact that I would end up dead the way
it was going. It was that bad. During this time
that my brother had become a Christian, and I didn't
really know early on that he'd become a Christian, but
him and a church that he was going to at
the time were praying for me. And my father, who
(08:56):
was a very weak Catholic really, shall we say, he
went to the local Anglican church and they were praying
for me as well because he didn't understand where it
was and I hadn't been home for a long time
as well, so he had this church praying for me
as Church of England church and this other church don't.
My brother was going to a Pentecostal church and it
was during that time I turn things changed and I
(09:18):
was able to get away from this person quite dramatically,
only by the grace of God, and I ended up
becoming a Christian. And I had a really powerful conversion
experience where I went to the church that my brother
was going to and I knew that I was a sinner.
I knew that I had offended God and I needed
to repent. So I repented of my sin and I
(09:40):
asked Christ into my life and I did it with
all my heart, and I can remember feeling the lights
just come on pow, and nobody told me to expect
an experience, and I know not everyone does have an experience,
but maybe I needed that to heal the wounds that
had happened to me all over the last few weeks
and months with this person. And it was a fantastic experience.
(10:00):
And yeah, I believe I was born again at that
point and life just changed totally really from that moment's on.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
And spiritually speaking, you've you've never looked back since that point.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Well, like a lot of us, we've had I've had
ups and downs and struggles and and I think, you know,
we all, we've all got this human nature which lets
us down so badly. And there's been times over the
years I've got to say where, you know, not been
living a great Christian life at times, but God always
calls me back, and you know, he's the good shepherd,
as Andy, Jesus is the good shepherd. We always hear
(10:33):
his voice, and we don't recognize the voice of a
stranger as it is in the Gospel of John. I
think it's chapter tene.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yes, indeed, we do have that experience of ending up
at the bottom of the barrel somehow and being picked
up that handcome down says, you know, I love your
son and come and try again. So yeah, it's true.
It is true. Okay, Well everything that you've said that
you'd think that you'd be involved in evangelism with respect to,
you know, people involved in the occult. But and maybe
in stent, I don't know, but you concentrate on these
(11:04):
new religious movements, like you know, Jeovah's Witnesses, Mormons. How
can you have a heart for outreach to them.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I'm not a hundred percent sure why that is really,
other than I do recognize the fact that as I
was deceived with the occults, although it's very different from
Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, who were the main two groups
that I tend to focus on. I do recognize the
day or deceived like I was, although the belief systems
are totally different, and my heart just goes out to them.
(11:31):
And I can remember as a young Christian, I just
met my first wife, so I was I was does
a factuist with hair. But at the time there was
a large group of us and we'd all become Christians
pretty early on. And whilst I was busy a courtship
with my wife, some of my friends were getting swept
along talking with Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and becoming very
(11:54):
confused indeed, and some of them actually left Christianity as
a results. They became so confused they never became Jehovah's
win So Mormons, they just become confused and didn't even
know what they believed. The damage that they'd done was
just horrendous. So later on and got married, and I
started to rethink of thinking, you know, it's such a
(12:15):
shame what happened to my friends. Maybe I should have
been able to help them a bit more. So I
started examining these religions a bit more to try to
understand them and reach out to them. So I started
to feel quite bad and for them, really the people themselves,
and then started to reach out to them.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
It's interesting you say that, as because I did have
extensive conversations with the Jovah's witnesses back in the nineteen nineties,
and you know, they had this sort of system where
they come back to you week after week for six weeks,
that sort of thing. I got to know some of
them very well, and I did have that, you know,
to be honest in that conversation, you have to allow
what they say to challenge you, at least, don't you. Yeah,
(12:50):
And so I allowed that to happen, particularly with regard
to the deity of Christ. And I did find that unsettling.
Just the very fact of opening myself up to thinking, well,
maybe I'm wrong about this and going back to the scripture.
It was uncomfortable. But I came out the other end, yeah,
pretty quickly. Actually was sticking to my guns in a way.
I was thinking, I can't make the scripture not say
(13:12):
what I know what it clearly does say in so
many places, you know. But it was unsettling.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
I went through a similar experience Julian. I think it's
something that anyone who does this kind of way, I
have to go through that kind of pain where I
can remember having them around in the early days to
Joba's fitnesses and think to myself, Gosh, these guys, right,
that's it, that's right, really questioning myself, you know. I
went in sort of thinking I was prepared. I bought
(13:40):
a couple of little books, Christian books on the subject,
but they ended up bringing a totally different subject and
they were a lot It's happened again going away looking
my wounds that made me go away and study more and.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Are you there, Vince, are you there? Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yeah, we had a bit of break up there again
incredibly Oh no, yeah yeah, what I was going to say,
Oh yeah, so this business about the deity of Christ becaurse.
One of the things they tend to bring up is
the word Trinity is not in the Bible, which it
isn't that word is not there, And also sort of
tried to say, well, it's not logical, and that's kind
of a strong point. But you know, the simple fact
(14:17):
is when I go to the Scripture, which I believe
is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit working through
the process of inscripturation through the ages. You know, here
we have the Scripture in front of us, and I
cannot help but conclude that the Father is God, and
the early Christians experience Jesus as being God for them,
you know, in their experience, and the same with the
Holy Spirit. And you can get that off the scripture,
(14:40):
and then you have to deal with that. And then
if we end up reaching the limits of our understanding
of how you know, tying the ends together, well so
be it. I think there's a point of humility. Eventually,
I'm very keen on logic, et cetera. But they seem
to have a strong point there, and they kind of do,
except that you know, when you butt up against him,
you're going to get problems. But you know, if you
(15:02):
allow that to get under your skin so much, you
can be tempted, I think to start to say, well,
maybe I can reinterpret the scripture this way to sort
of fit what I expect my mind can cope with.
And I think that's a bit of a deception right there.
I think we need an intellectual humility that to say,
you know, ultimately maybe it does make sense, but you know,
maybe it's a bit like the rat in the cage.
(15:25):
You try to teach a rat to do two plus
two equals four, and you'll never achieve it, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
I think that's the thing when you're talking to these
groups or people from other religions. I've often found over
the years that initially it can seem like a very
powerful argument that they have, but then when you start
to dig deeper, you start to think, oh, it doesn't
really hold up with the trinity thing. For example, they'll
often say the word Trinity is not in the Bible.
But what I often say to them is, well, the
(15:53):
word millennium is not in the Bible either, and the
word deocracy is not in the Bible, and even the
word Bible is not in the Bible. So yeah, you
can say that to them and they'll say, oh, yeah,
but the concept of the theocracy is there or the
millenniums there, and you can say, well, yeah, exactly. It's
the same with the Trinity. The word might not be there,
but the concept definitely is there. So it's just a
(16:16):
convenient word. I mean, they use extra biblical words to
make their points. They use words like they have an
organizational structure where they have pioneers, they have publishers, they
have kingdom hall. None of these words are in the Bible.
So it's the same with the Trinity. Exactly the same thing.
And another good thing to mention with the Trinity I've
(16:36):
found over the years is often with the witnesses, they
do think very logically, and interestingly, a lot of them
become atheists when they leave Jehovah's Witnesses and sort of
throw the whole baby out with the bath water and
just embrace an atheistic world. View often I haven't see
them as almost like theistic atheists if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Really, it makes total sense, you know, I can see
how that can happen.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Oh yeah, I mean it's so easy for them to become.
It's such a shame though. It breaks my heart to
see witnesses leave and then embrace atheism, and because the
watch Towers lied to them about their own religion and
also being indoctrinated towards being against historic Christianity as well
at the same time. So when they do leave they
see the Watchtowers wrong, then they hold on to the
(17:23):
idea that the rest of Christianity is also wrong because
that's what they've been taught. So that's why so many
become atheists. That's so sad. Well. A good thing to
mention with the Trinity I've found is there's a book
that they have which was very popular. It's not so
much now. I don't think they officially use it, but
I think you can still get it on their website
jw dot org, which is a brilliant website to go to.
(17:45):
You can really use that in so many ways, which
I'll try and come to later on mention a bit
more about it. There's a book there called Reasoning from
the Scriptures, and if you've got a hard copy of it,
it's a little brown book, and it's their apologetics book.
It says things like if somebody says this, then you
can say this. If somebody says that, I can say this,
And it's a very parafashion. But they learn that book
(18:08):
and they can seem very competent and very knowledgeable. Indeed
that a lot of people can be intimidated by them,
a lot of Christians, because they seem so intelligent and
so knowledgeable. But it's all just learned parafashion from books
like this. But in that book there's a section on
the eternity of God is eternal nature, and in there
it says, just paraphrasing, I've not put the book with me,
(18:29):
it says, you know, it's incredible to think that God
is a being without beginning and without end. He's eternal.
How can our human minds, our finite minds, fathom such
a thing. It's beyond our comprehension. So I normally use
that and say, bingo, apply that to the Trinity as well.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Absolutely, yeah, bingo, Thank you, Vince. You said exactly what
I was struggling to say exactly, there are the data
in the scripture and you have to contend with those,
and they drive you towards some kind of concept a
concept not there, but the data of the Bible drive
you towards some kind of struggle towards the concept of
the trinity. And it's a lifelong journey, isn't it trying
(19:09):
to make sense out of that in our finitude? You know? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:14):
So yeah, so we shouldn't be surprised that we can't
fully comprehend or understand or articulate. Oh, there's a trimochy
because we're talking about the nature of God and him
being aternal is something else we just can't understand. It's
just another aspect of his nature that we can't fully
comprehend as human beings.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yes, indeed, Okay, so let's move to actually talking about
the practicality of your engagement with these people, because you know,
this is where I think it's so helpful to have
a chat because the way that you go about things,
as I've said before, I find particularly inspirational. So how
do you how do you strike up these conversations? Typically
(19:52):
they take place on the on the street, don't they
rather than them coming to you to your door. In
the classical two people turn up at the door and say, hey,
the world's going to end tomorrow. Yeah, that's those sort
of classic things. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, you don't seem to get that so much with
the witnesses now. They they don't seem to be on
the doors as much as they used to be. But
we do see them a lot in our town centers
with their carts, and I found that to be a
fantastic opportunity, in fact, much better really than having them
come to your door, because I found in the past
when they come to the door, they tend to talk
(20:25):
for a while, but then if you say something which
unsettles them too much, they just excuse themselves and leave.
And there's not really much you can do other than
throw yourself down at their feet and hold onto their
ankles and scream don't go. Once they've decided to go,
they've gone and they're away. So but with the carts,
it's a lot harder for them to excuse themselves. You know,
(20:48):
in one position, they're there for the day, and or
rather they are there for their shift. They often tell
me to shift they do. In fact, I mean I've
been in the middle of conversation and they've they've looked
at the watch and said, oh, well, my shift is
over now the others are coming.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
So okay.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
It's an odd way to do about angelism, isn't it.
There meant to be there to talk to people.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yes, yeah, Yeah, And you say they don't talk so
much about the whole nineteen fourteen business. I was I
misspoken as being facetious. But you know, they didn't say
the world's going to end tomorrow, but they did. I
think they did say something like the world was going
to end within the generation of people of you who
were alive in nineteen fourteen. Yeah, do they not talk
much about that now?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
They've sort of starting to phase it out now, really.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
For obvious reasons.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Yeah. And now they say it an overlapping generation. They
say that the people that saw the event of nineteen fourteen,
most of them are dead now, obviously, but they say
that people who are contemporaries with that generation have now
taken up the bat on and they are now part
of that nineteen fourteen generation, even though they're much younger, right,
so they can keep on overlapping it and overlapping it.
(21:56):
It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Well, it's getting a bit embarrassed. So that's presumably that's
why they don't talk about it so much, and.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Nobody don't talk about it much at all now. But
what I've found, though, Julian, although I have spoken to
them about this issue with regards to dates, if it
comes up, I tend to try to steer away from that,
because what I found in your initial approach to these
guys is that if you start to bring up the
false predictions that they've had, and obviously they have had many.
(22:24):
Nineteen fourteen, I mean originally when that was spoken of,
it was the day for the end of the world,
and then they had nineteen fourteen as the invisible return
of Christ, and then they had eighteen seventy four prior
to that as the invisible Return of Christ. They had
nineteen twenty five was another big one where they said Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob and the Old Testament, where these would
(22:46):
be resurrected on that date in nineteen twenty five. Of
course it didn't happen, but Joseph Rutherford, the second president
of the organization, he built a house for them called
Beth Surim, which is called House of the Princes. It's
in San Diego. It's still there today, but it's not
the property of the Watchtower, Bible and Society anymore. It
was sold. But the house was built for those Old
(23:08):
Testament people, and of course they didn't come. So the
second President, Judge Ruther for Joseph Rutherford, ended up living
there and living there very well as well, I might add,
during the American Depression when people were really struggling, and
he was living the life of Riley, you know. False
prophecies nineteen seventy five was another big one. I tend
(23:29):
not to bring these up, although I have, but I
find that it just puts them into defensive mode straight away,
and we're trying not to do that. We're trying to
win them over and start a conversation gently. I mean,
it might come up, and if it comes up near
the end of the conversation, maybe that would be better.
But I certainly wouldn't try and open with such a
thing unless you really felt like the Lord was leading
(23:50):
you that way. But I very rarely do so, to
be honest.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah, that's a very good point, actually, And that's yet
another thing where I've failed, and I've turned to argue
with them about that, and you're right, as I said,
there was another thing as well, this business about them
insisting on calling God Jehovah, and I've got into arguments
with them about that, and to be honest, you're right,
you in conversation will actually use Jehovah to presumably to
(24:14):
get on side with them. And there's no reason why
one shouldn't. It's just that I've kind of picked a
bit of an argument on that one, and I shouldn't
do it. It's not a wise thing to do.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Really. It's very easy to get sidetracked by these guys,
though I've noticed over the years they really do try
and jump around all over the place that they'll talk
about Jehovah. They'll talk about things which they'll made your
on mine as like a lot of these groups, when
really it's far better to focus and try and draw
them back onto a more important subject like the deity
of Christ, like a personal relationship with Jesus. Worshiping Jesus,
(24:47):
the bodily resurrection of Jesus as well, is something that
I like to talk about to them because they deny that.
I think that's quite a big one because Romans Romans
chapter ten, Versus nine to ten says that if we
confess with our mouth Jesus's Lord, and we believe that
God raised him up from the dead, and we will
be saved. Now if we don't believe Jesus was really
(25:08):
raised from the dead literally physically, then by implication that
means we can't be saved.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Well, So I do have questions about that along the
lines you've just said. I do think that is a
dangerous area, even for some Christians, you know, in the
church that they don't like the idea of a bodily resurrection.
I do wonder if they're treading on dangerous territory there.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
I think that's what he really yeah, because I think
the scripture is clear about Jesus being physically literally raised
in his own bobies.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Does seem clear to me. And I do think that
Nty Rights nailed that down with his big book on
the Resurrection of the Son of God, that that is
what the early Christians were teaching.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
But that's one of the subjects I tend to bring up,
but initially to approach them. I find the principle to
Timothy chapter two, Versus twenty four to twenty six is
very good, and I try to apply this. It says
this is reading from the New American Standard version, but
it says pretty much the same in their Bible, the
New World Translation and the Lord's bond servant must not
(26:09):
be qualal someome, but be kind to all, able to
teach patients when wrong, with gentleness, correcting those who are
in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading
to the knowledge of the truth, and that they may
come to their senses and escape from the snare of
the devil, having been captive by him, to do his will.
So it says not to be qual some and to
(26:31):
be kind, to be gentle, and to hope that God
will grant these people repentance and that they will escape
from the spiritual deception that the devil has got them under.
So I find a good way to initially approach them.
I've got to say that I've done this work for
a long, long long time now, since the early nineteen nineties.
I still find hopefully this will encourage some people, you know,
(26:53):
just to be honest, I still find I approached them
feeling quite anxious. Still even there I read up on
this subject. I'm constantly memorizing scriptures and trying to be
prepared as possibly can. When I approach them, I initially
feel quite apprehensive and anxious because you're going into the unknown,
and I think it's in our nature to be a
(27:15):
bit wary of the unknown. You don't know who these people.
Are you going to talk to his individuals? Are they
going to be aggressive? Are they going to be argumentative?
Some of them? Some of them are. I mean I've
met something like that. Most most are okay, and we'll
be happy to talk to and to be quite quite kind.
So going into that unknown realm can be quite scary,
I find. But the thing that helps me is to
(27:38):
just approach them with kindness and just ask them about themselves.
Get the conversation going, ask them how long they've been witnesses,
for what the religion means to them, and they will
be so happy to talk about that subject. And I've
found after talking, you get used to talking to that person,
You get an idea of who you're dealing with, what
(27:59):
you're dealing with, and you can quietly pray as well.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Yes, I was going to ask you you pray quietly
as you're having that conversation. Yeah, I must have.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Sometimes I forget too as as they're talking, because I'm
thinking of what I'm going to say. But I do
pray beforehand before we go in, and I will pray
if they're talking for quite a while, I will pray
if I can remember during the conversation, but also as well,
when they're talking, they might say something which you can
pick up on. You know, they might say something like,
for example, you know, we don't believe that the Holy
(28:30):
Spirits is a person, which they don't in their doctrine,
and you could think, oh, well, I've got a few
scriptures memorized on that subject, so maybe we could pick
up on that. When they finished, you could sew that
was very interesting. Can I just ask you why you
don't think the Holy Spirits is a person? And let
them speak and then you can pick up and run
with that conversation. But I always try to have a
(28:50):
little bit of something, an idea of what I would
like to talk about. And there's been a few things
that have been tried and tested over the years which
I found workable.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Really, Yes, it's interesting that you know what you've just
said there you allow them, And listening to your YouTube
channel as well, I've noticed you do this, you give
them space to develop their points, which if you were
having a debate, you know you think, wow, now that's
a poor strategy. You know you should get in there
right away and try to undercut what they've said. But
actually no, you back off and allow them to, as
(29:21):
it were, build the strongest case they can before you
then give your view. And that seems to show great
respect for these people.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Yeah, but the idea is you want to try and
keep them engaged to you for as long as you
possibly can. I had an incident a few months ago
where I spoke amazingly spoke to I think it was
seven or nine Jehovah's witnesses all at once on the
streets and we spoke for nearly an hour and a half.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
It was an absolutely amazing conversation. The only reason there
was so many of them is some of them were
leaving for the shift that had ended, but they hung
around whilst the others were coming and we had this conversation.
So it was absolutely fantastic. But the thing is hold on.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
You against you, against how many the Evins.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I think it was either seven or nine in the
end that were there, Just do it with me by
myself and it was a little bit intimidating because they
were all fire and stuff at me, But it was
good because they had a chance to talk. And I
think it's so important to allow the other person to talk, because,
like when you're talking to anybody, if you're in conversation
with someone and someone's just talking at you and at
(30:26):
you constantly and not giving you a chance to speak,
some Christians think that might be a good debating technique,
but it's really not, because the other person becomes fed
up and just shut down and just wants to get away.
And it's not impressive. I mean, they're not impressed by that.
They just want to get away from you. And especially
if people are rude. So many Christians can be rude
(30:47):
or arrogance to these people or insult done in some way.
And again, like anybody that they're just people like everybody else.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Well, I think they learned to nobody.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Likes to be insulted. They'll just shut down.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah. Absolutely, Well, from having spoken to them so many
years ago, quite a lot they told me that, you know,
they'd learned to expect that from most people. Not today,
thank you and shut the door in their face and
not treat them like fellow human beings, which is appalling, really,
So to accord them respect in the way that you do,
I think is absolutely the right thing to do. And
(31:19):
you say about openness, this is another thing I noticed
about you. You won't pretend not to know about them,
you will actually so, oh yeah, I've got some of
your books, you know, And I'm interested in all kinds
of religions. And I think that's really important as well,
because otherwise, you know, wouldn't they be suspicious of you?
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Is in it?
Speaker 2 (31:33):
In just a minute? How can we knows this and
knows that? And he didn't tell us to start with?
What's he trying to do here?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Yeah, I'm glad you raised that, because it's good to
be honest with them, because if you do start to
quote their literature, then the God will go up a
little bit. Yeah, if you're just honest and say I've
acquired some literature over the years. Yeah, I normally always
say as I have acquired literature on other religions, Islam, Mormonism,
just the Delphianism. Groups like this, just so they know
(32:00):
they're not being singled out. An even better approach that
you can use recently is back to their website that
I mentioned earlier, at JW dot org. A lot of
the literature, even the quite old literature, is on their website.
So an even better approaches to say I was on
JW dot org and they'll be pleased sometimes though they're
(32:23):
even surprised by that. But then you can just say, well,
on the cart that they've got in the high streets.
It has plastered all over at JW dot org. So
it's a big promotional campaign that they've got it everywhere.
So just say to them, you know, I've been on
the website. If they're surprised to say, well, you know,
it's everywhere. So I do have a look at the
website and then I saw this thing that it was
(32:45):
quite interesting. You might can I just ask you some
questions about that? And it's a good approach because they
know then that you've got the information direct from their website,
which is available to anybody, so they're more willing to
talk about that.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
That's a good point, a good.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
A good thing to discuss with them. In fact, I've
been finding lately from the website, see the witnesses are
quite prepared with certain things like the Trinity, for example,
or They love to talk about paradise Earth. You can
live forever on paradise air. That's one of the big things.
So they love to talk about those subjects. But I've
found is there a book.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Called that in one of their publications.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah, yeah, there's a book called But they love to
talk on the subject or the name Jehovah. But I
found that the satin subjects you can raise, which they
really are so unprepared for. And you can take a
direction from the website, and I would encourage the listeners
to look this one up. This is a very effective
subject to bring up, I found, and it's to do
(33:41):
with the mediatorship of Christ. Now, they believe that they've
got a two tier system where they believe one group
go to heaven and one group will populate the earth,
the group to populate the Earth, or the Great Crowd,
which is the majority of Jehovah's witnesses today. The other group,
forty four thousand will go to heaven.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
All right, So that's the one hundred and forty four thousand
from the Book of Revelation, isn't it. They interpret it
that way, Yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
They interpret it as elite special annoying to Jehovah's witnesses
were obviously historically from a Christian perspective, they are just
Jewish evangelists basically that will be bused Jordan the tribulation.
I mean, there's probably different Christians that might have different
views on that. But they say that one hundred and
forty four thousand Jehovah's witnesses go to heaven. They are
(34:30):
the only ones who are in the New Covenant. They
are the only ones who were born again. They are
the only ones who Jesus is their mediator of as well.
The great Crowded is the majority of Jehovah's witnesses who
will be the guide you just speak to at the cart.
They are not born again, they are not going to heaven,
they are not in the New Covenants, and they do
(34:52):
not have amazing I know, it's really tragic.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
So they will admit to you. They will you ask them,
are you born you don't yes, you say you born again,
and they will say, oh no, that's one hundred and
forty four thousand, Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah, they're not born again. They don't have the spirit
of Christ in them, which and you can ask in
Roman's aids. But the gods. That you can say, if
anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, they do
not belong to Christ. John three three. A good thing
to say to them is well John three to three says,
which is really good. In their translation, it says, unless
anyone is born again, they cannot see the Kingdom of God.
(35:27):
And you can ask from you anyone, and you've got
to be born again. And they might say, oh, well,
that's just for the heavenly Kingdom, but you can say, well, no, look,
it just says here kingdom. It's talking with the Kingdom
of God, whether you believe it's earthly or heavenly. Anyone
that is part of that kingdom needs to be born again,
and it's for anyone. They will deny being born again,
(35:48):
they will deny being in a New Covenant, and.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
They mean they're not covered by the blood of Christ.
Then doesn't I know?
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Well, I asked Jehovah's witness a few months ago on
the streets, well, if you're not in the New Covenant,
what covenants are you in? And he said to me,
I'm in the no Here Covenants. And I says what
I thought, And I think, I mean, I've not heard
any other Jehovah's witnesses say that. I mean, you will
get individuals that will just panic and say certain things,
(36:17):
different things, but I mean Hebrews nine fifteen says that
Christ is the mediator of a new covenant. So we've
got to be in our covenant if Christ is to
be our media. So now this is one of the
good things that you can bring up with them. You
can ask them if Christ is their mediator. And paradoxically,
most Jehovah's witnesses that you will meet will say, yes,
(36:39):
He is my mediator. But officially their religion to watch
our Bible and tract society teachers that Christ is not
the mediator for the great crowd. The majority of Jehovah's witnesses,
and I've had witnesses argue until they've been blue in
the face, saying no, we believe that Jesus is our mediator.
(37:00):
What you've got to do is show them from their literature.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah, do you have that to hand, because I do.
I think you showed it on your YouTube channel. So
this is from Worldwide Security under the Prince of Peace,
one of their publications.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
That's right, Yeah, well I read it off. This is
from Yeah, have you got a hand I have.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
So this is from page ten. Yeah, I think you
said it's page ten of the physical copy, maybe page
eleven of the digital copy something like that.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
I'm glad that yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Okay, So this is the quote. Jesus Christ is not
the mediator between Jehovah God and all mankind. He is
the mediator between his heavenly father, Jehovah God and the
nation of spiritual Israel, which is limited to only the
one hundred and forty four thousand members. So it is
a limited mediation. Whereas we know that one Timothy doesn't
(37:49):
say that, does it. That's it exactly one Timothy two
we have for there is one God, one mediator also
between God and men himself, man Christ, Jesus, who gave
himself a ransom for not one hundred forty one thousand
for all, a ransom for all. So how do they
deal with that? Because that goes quite contrary to their theology,
(38:09):
doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Yeah, most Jehovah's witnesses have no idea what to do
with this, you know, I found. And the good thing
is you can drive home that scripture that you've just
quoted there on Timothy to Verses five to six and
Hebrews nine fifteen is good as well. Jesus is the
mediation of a new covenants to show that, Look, no,
Jesus is the mediator for all people. It's not limited
(38:31):
one hundred and forty four thousand. And the way they
get rounded is to just argue, no, we believe he's
our mediator. So what you've got to do is just
show them from their own literature, like that quote that
you mentioned there from world Wide Security under the Prince
of Peace, page ten in the physical book page eleven
on JW dot org. You know, if you pulled out
(38:51):
that book, it's quite an old book. Say you had
it in your rooksack and you pulled it outdated, immediately
become suspicious. Why have you got that? Yes, of course
Christians go out like that with all photocopies and old
books and everything. But the witnesses just want to get
rid of you, and they when they come across that,
because they just for you. You as an opoder, Yes,
who's prepared, who's ready to oppose them? But if you say, oh,
(39:14):
I read this on JW dot org, then they will
be willing to talk about it. But a lot of
them have probably only just seen that for the first time. Now,
that is quite an old book. So what you can
do is, I've not got to quote the hand but
there's a reference here, which is it's called Insights on
the Scriptures. They're quite comprehensive to volume books, but they're
online on jw dot org and if you remember to
(39:37):
look under the word mediator, you'll find that it'll say
something similar to what you've quoted there from the previous book.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Yeah, okay, So this is not an issue where they
could say because they have a doctrine of new light
or something, don't they work teachings change over time, and
they say, oh, well this is progressive revelation. We understand
more now, thank God's you know, Jehovah's theocratic organization has
picked up more messages from Jehovah or something like that.
So this is not something where they would say, oh, well,
we've got new light on this is it you're suggesting it.
(40:07):
That's still what they believe.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah, nothing has changed, although I think somehow through the
grapevine of individual rank and file Jehovah's witnesses, it's sort
of seeped through that the average witness believes that Jesus
is their mediator, but that is not official Jehovah's witness
doctrine at all. So that's why a lot of them
are quite surprised when you show them these quotes and
(40:30):
then just press home the fact that the Bible actually
does say that Jesus is the media, so everyone yes,
and that we need to have him as our mediator.
And in fact, it goes even further than that. There's
other quotations. Have not got them to hand, but they
even say that you've got to be in right relationship
with the one hundred and forty four thousand and Jehovah's witnesses,
(40:50):
so they have really mediations between them and Christ, which
is one hundred and forty four thousand. They act as
kind of mediators for the great crowd, although most Jehovahs
witnesses will never ever accept that or admit that.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Yes, yes, And there was something I wanted to say
in connection with that. It just reminded me. I read
the work of a theologian called Anthony Haakima a long
time ago. He was talking there's a book called the
four Major Culture. I think it was. I wouldn't called
it that the four major new religions or whatever. But yeah,
one of the points he made in that was that
there's always hope because those religions do have Jesus Christ
(41:29):
as part of the system. There was always the hope
that the truth about Christ gets through and that there
might be people saved within these organizations, sort of notwithstanding
what the group itself actually teaches. So I think it's
very important to remember that, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
That's a very good point indeed, Yeah, because I mean,
some of these people can be convert to these groups
that have previously been in our Christian churches and they've
had a born again experience, maybe they've just become to
see in their minds and they have just become misled,
and that God could be using you to draw these
(42:06):
people back even which is something to think about. So
some people do get born again whilst they're in these groups,
and yet the very fact that they've got Jesus at least,
although it might be a different Jesus doc trying to
lead than what we have, at least the scope to
talk about Jesus in connection with the Bible, which is
(42:29):
sometimes so much easier because I mean, especially with the
witnesses they've got a Bible that they're happy to open
and talk about, and the're happy to talk about Jesus,
the happy to talk about God. So there's a lot
of common ground there straight away.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Whereas absolutely, if you've got a.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Complete unbeliever, atheist, you've got to start convincing them that
God exists. You've got to convince them that the Bible
is of God and the reliability of the Bible. So
you've got a lot of friends to jump over before
you get anywhere.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Really, yes, yes, I don't know. They do have their
own translation in the New World Translation where there are
some tweets in there which maybe will come up in
a minute. But yeah, there's there was the hope. I
feel that people can still get enough truth out of
the Bible that they have that you know, maybe they will.
You know, I can imagine someone them thinking, well, you know,
there's the watchdown society says this, But I really do
(43:15):
feel Jesus is my mediator and I do really feel
he died with me, and I'll just keep quiet about it.
You know, you never know, do you.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah, So that that can really that can really be
a thing that starts that they're thinking process off maybe
that's why I think that that approach talking about the
mediated is a very good angle with which to come
to the witnesses worked early because they're totally unprepared and
totally shocked. What the phrase cognitive dissonance, I think it
is where you show them one thing and it doesn't
(43:43):
quite confuse or comply with what they think themselves. There's
a there's a short ticket really there in the programming
stepped up. I've seen it time and time again. And
as I say, a lot of these things I tried
and tested, and I found some things have worked over
the years, and some things really don't work so well.
So I surely stick with what works quite well.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Really, there is one I want to correct myself on
one thing, because I think I said that they officially
believe that they're not covered by Jesus sacrifice, And thinking
about that further, I think what I was told by
them many years ago was that they are covered to
this is the general rank and file of the members.
They are covered with respect to their inheritance of Adam Sin.
(44:27):
I think that was what they said to me. But
their own personal sin is a matter that they're working
out in their membership of the organization and their obedience
within that structure, so they're not fully covered, and I
think I think that's really dubious because I don't think
you can make a distinction really between Adam sin and
(44:48):
the way I see this is that Adam represents all
of us, he represents me, and so you know, Jesus
covers the lot everything. So yeah, I just wanted to
I think I misspoke about that and saying they're not covered.
I think they think they're sort of partially covered. But
being partially covered is I keep saying it's dodgy territory,
isn't it.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah, Yeah, I mean that's the reason why they're very
much a work based organization really, like a lot of
these groups and moments are the same. There's a real
emphasis on works. So it can breed a lot of
self righteousness really because they're basically they don't like to
admit it as such, but they are really partly working
to try and keep themselves saved or to attain salvation.
(45:30):
None of them have that assurance that they are really saved, really,
which is quite sad and it breeds a lot of insecurity. You.
I mean, some of them are lovely. I mean as people.
I found most of them are really nice to talk to,
and you've just got to go in there with an
attitude that you really are interested in them, that you
really want to show Christian love to them. I mean
that alone can really help. And last time I spoke
(45:53):
to the witnesses, we were talking about this earlier, obviously
you and I Julian off. The interview where I spoke
to the witness is last time about my testimony. And
I'd just like to encourage people if you don't feel
that you can go into all these dot trinal things
with the witnesses, and I know it's not for everybody,
but be prepared with a few things and then just
excuse yourself and just say, well, you've got to carry
(46:14):
on doing your shop. And most of them that have
precinct in town centers, you can talk about maybe being
born again John Free three. The important of that you
can share with them the scripture and won Timothy two
five to six, Jesus being the mediator. But then you
could use your testimony as well.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
Okay, so we shall leave it there. That is the
first part of my conversation with Vince McCann. I hope
I did my editing okay, and the edits themselves were
not too distracting and didn't detract from your enjoyment of
the conversation, so I do hope you did enjoy that.
So I shall put together the second part as soon
as I can after coming back off this short holiday.
(46:52):
Thanks very much for listening. Show notes as usual can
be found out to theMIND renewde dot com podcast. Music
by the brilliant Anthony Rajakov, attribution commercial share like four
point zero International. You have been listening to me, Julian
Charles and my guest Vince McCann, and I very much
look forward to speaking to you again in the near future.
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