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PERSONAL FROM
MenDidNot
TeachMe
What 1Preach
L etters regularly ask, "Were you
ever a 'Jehovah's Witness'? Members of that
organization have told me you once were."
Although 1 have stated positively and definitely
in
The Plain Trurh
that I never bclonged to the
group known as J ehovah's Witnesses, it seems that
sorne continue spreading the claim that I once
belonged to them.
Let me once again make the truth plain.
1 have never been a member of the Jehovah's
Witnesses. I have never in any manncr, shape or form,
had any remote connection with them. 1 have never had
any fellowship with them.
1 have never attended any meeting of the Jehovah's
Witnesses. 1 have ncver had any kind of fellowship with
any of their leaders or members.
1 did not learn any of God's truth from the Jehovah's
Witnesses.
1
have, of course, read sorne of their
writings and their books, and 1 have been glad to find
that they have certain truths, as most all groups havc
(though often mixed with errors), but God had already
revealed these truths to me long beforc l read of them
in their literaturc. 1 learned nothing that 1 believe and
teach from this organization.
1 lcarned God's truth directly from God- through
his Word- the Holy Bible. I say unto you, as the
apostle PauJ said:
"But I make known to you, brethren , that the gospel
which was preached by me ís not according toman. For
1 neither received it from man, nor was 1 taught it, but
May 1985
it carne through the revelation of Jesus Christ. ... But
when it pleascd God, who ... called me through His
grace, to revcal His Son in me, that l might preach
Him" to the world, " 1 did not immediately confer
with flesh and blood"- neither wcnt I to any group
but 1 went directly to t he Word of God, and on my
knees asked God through his Spirit to open my
understanding- to correct me, reprove and rebuke,
and instruct in his truth and his
righteousness- " ... then after three years
I
went" to
sorne of the humble of God's pcople in the Willamette
Valley of Oregon, and preached to them beginning in
1931. (Pieasecompare with Galatians 1:11-18,
Revised Authorizcd Version.)
My ambition and zeal was not persecuting God's
true Church, as was Paul's, but climbing the ladder of
business success and making money. God struck me
down tbree times successively, by taking out from
under my feet the businesses 1 had started, wiping me
out, financially. Then God brought meto the study of
his Word by causi ng meto try to refute the eterna!
validity and good of God's spiritual law, which he had
revealed to my wife, and which
I
at first bitterly
opposed.
During that six-months' study of more than 14
hours per day, 1 read very little literature favorable to
the law, but 1 rcad everything 1 could find which
opposed it- but mostly 1 studied- just the Bible!
After six-months' intensive study 1was forced, in
honesty befare God, to swallow the most bitter pill of
my life.
It
litcrally "killed" me- and 1
died- surrendcred wholly to God, gave my life
henceforth to him to use "if he could."
1 had been brought up from birth in the Friends
Church (Quakers), though 1 had never been converted
or begotten as a child of God, and at age 18 1 strayed
almost wholly away from all church interest or
attendance, and devoted my whole energies to
business. 1 had passed age 30 when God forced me
into this study of his Word, and total surrender to him
and his rule ovcr my life.
From then on, J studied thc Bible on my knees.
Time after time it corrected me. Repeatedly 1 had
to suffer reproof, and acknowledge 1 had been
wrong in my beliefs and desires. God chastened
and corrected me repeatedly, not only tbrough
revealing his truth in this
(Continued on page 43)