Their Search for True Religion Rewarded
EACH year many thousands of sincere searchers for the true religion are rewarded by what they find. Among such are the following:
✔ A young couple in Massachusetts had become greatly distressed by what they heard their Methodist preacher say. He openly approved of such practices as premarital sex and homosexuality. He also expounded a modern philosophy that belittled the Bible. So they stopped going to his church. But they still felt the need to worship God. What were they to do?
A Witness friend of theirs spoke to them about Jehovah God and his righteous principles as contained in his Word, the Bible. Before long they were regularly attending the congregation meetings of Jehovah’s witnesses and telling their friends and relatives about how they found the true religion. Soon five of their relatives were also studying the Bible with the Christian witnesses of Jehovah. This couple is so happy to be associated with people whose doctrines and practices they have found to square up with the Bible.
✔ Then there was a devout Catholic who lived in Maryland. Her priest once told her that the reason her young brother had been suddenly killed was because her father had not been going to church for twenty years. This caused her father to repent and again attend church. But when, after nine months, the father suddenly died, and the priest said that this showed that God knew what he was doing for both ‘died in God’s grace,’ she became confused.
“A Witness called on me,” she tells, “and gave me real comfort from the Bible. But I wanted to show her that the Catholic Church was right and she was wrong, and so many times I called the priest on the telephone to ask about what I had been taught in the Catholic Church. Each time the result was that I felt that for years I had been deceived. As I continued to study with the Witnesses I learned the meaning of John 8:32: ‘You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ For the first time I was truly happy. Soon I made my dedication to Jehovah and was baptized.”
✔ Another sincere searcher for true Christianity was a Baptist living in Detroit, Michigan, who tells: “By the time I was twenty years old I was a pianist for church choirs and I was disillusioned when I saw that those who committed immoral acts never lost their positions. I felt that if God was going to accept these people I didn’t want him or his Bible. Still I played for whatever church paid me well. After some twenty years I began to think seriously about the wonders of creation. Noting my desire to understand the Bible, my sister persuaded me to study with the Witnesses. What I began to learn was just the opposite of what I had been taught as a child. There was the opportunity to live forever on earth in Paradise! The wicked would not burn forever. Jehovah was not condoning wickedness. He has appointed a time to clean up the earth!
“Now I could no longer play for churches. Although my church salary had helped to give my children a comfortable living, I quickly gave this up and took a job in a restaurant until a more favorable opportunity presented itself. I progressed to the point of dedication and symbolized it by baptism.”
✔ And then there was a devout Roman Catholic living in an Illinois monastery. While there he was given books to read about the lives of “saints.” But, instead of inspiring him to become a saint, these books discouraged him and so he quit the monastery. Not long thereafter he got married. Then one day at his church the senior priest distributed a questionnaire that itemized proposed changes and asked the parishioners to check what changes they favored. He and his wife checked off a few and then added at the bottom of the list, “Bible study courses.” Shortly thereafter they approached their senior priest and asked him personally about organizing a Bible study class at their church, but he replied: “I don’t think there are enough people in the parish interested to form a group.” So they tried studying the Bible by themselves.
After they started studying the Bible with Jehovah’s witnesses they asked to have their names removed from the church roll. Then one day when a young priest chanced to meet them and asked them why they were no longer coming to church, they told him about their Bible study with the Witnesses. He asked if he could attend and was told he could. At the beginning he said he believed in the Bible, but it soon became apparent that he did not. During the study he took exception to the point about Christians needing to keep separate from the world, and expressed disbelief in the existence of a personal Devil. In regard to the resurrection of Lazarus, the priest insisted that Lazarus had not actually died. All such remarks by the priest only caused the couple to be more convinced that they had found the true religion among Jehovah’s witnesses. Soon they were attending all the meetings of the Witnesses.
✔ A Catholic living in Portland, Oregon, had a somewhat similar experience: “My search for the truth began when I began to see so many controversies within the Church, such as regarding birth control. I heard of changes taking place, but for a long time I would not believe it as I did not see them in my own church. But when I attended other parish services I saw, to my surprise, many changes. It bothered me so much that I lost my faith in the Church. Among those that shattered my security in it were those regarding the liturgy, prayer and ceremonies. The day before Easter of 1969 I quit the Catholic Church. A few months later I attended the ‘Peace on Earth’ International Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses with my family.
“I was asked if I would like to study the Bible and I agreed. At first I was slow to progress and accept the truth. But progress came as I prepared for the congregational meetings as well as for my own Bible study. The Witness I was studying with always had the answers or was able to find them. One day after studying the chapter ‘Popular Customs That Displease God,’ in the Bible study aid The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life, I threw away all my rosaries and images. That was the turning point in my accepting the truth of the Bible. I sent in my resignation to the Catholic Church and was baptized as a Witness.”
If you have not as yet attended a meeting of Jehovah’s witnesses at one of their Kingdom Halls, why not do so this week? You, too, may well be as favorably impressed with what you see and hear. And if you want to understand the Bible, why not ask one of Jehovah’s witnesses to study the Bible with you as hundreds of thousands of others have done? If it is understanding of God’s Word for which you pray, along with a way of life that is in harmony with that Word, you will find the answer to your prayer.