Bethesda Shalom

Part 3 Jehovah’s Witnesses, like all true Christians of every denomination, are monotheistic in their expression of belief. They, like us, believe in one eternal God.  The point of divergence comes however when they maintain that the singular being of God is without a plurality of persons.  The doctrine of the Trinity affirms that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society deny this truth and aggressively attacks this position in its written literature. In this teaching, we take to task the literature of the Watch Tower and counter its heretical claims with Biblical truth.  For Jehovah’s Witnesses, the name of God which it maintains is Jehovah is everything.  But is His name Jehovah?  Does history bear this out? How should the divine name of God (Tetragrammaton) be transliterated?  What if, from the Watch Tower’s own Bible, one could prove that Jesus is Jehovah?  We endeavour to answer all these questions, proving conclusivel

Proverbs 21:22 There are many names given to us in the Holy Scriptures to describe the enemy of our souls. Before ever Satan was revealed as a dragon, he was first revealed as a serpent.  That’s why in Revelation 12:9 we read, “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him”.  Note the title given to him by John, “that old serpent”.  How old?  As old as sin itself!!  I don’t know how long the enemy planned and schemed the ruinous, murderous downfall of mankind, but within minutes, he had executed his plan to perfection!!  How did he do it?  As a dragon?  That would have been too obvious!!  So he came into the garden as a serpent.   Hear the Word of God your hearts and take note!! 

Part 2 As one traces the history of the beginnings of Jehovah’s Witnesses, two names are indispensable to the formation and development of this cult: Charles Taze Russell and his successor, Joseph Franklin Rutherford.  In the 1830s, a Baptist minister from New York by the name of William Miller began sharing his new-found belief, that Jesus Christ was going to return around the year 1843.  This belief began to gain momentum across denominations, and by 1840 it had become a nationwide campaign. This was the birth of what became known as Adventism and it was from this influence that the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society would emerge. In this teaching, we examine the history of the Watch Tower cult from its beginnings until the present day. We review some of its teachings that have changed during this period and critique its peculiar version of the Bible, the New World Translation.  Download PDF notes: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/bethesdashalom/2_History_of_Jehovahs_Witnesses.pdf

The Sanctuary Conference 2024@Cloverley Hall

The Sanctuary Conference 2024@Cloverley Hall

The Sanctuary Conference 2024@Cloverley Hall

The Sanctuary Conference 2024@Cloverley Hall

The Sanctuary Conference 2024@Cloverley Hall

The Sanctuary Conference 2024@Cloverley Hall

The Sanctuary Conference 2024@Cloverley Hall

The Sanctuary Conference 2024@Cloverley Hall

1 Peter 3:3-8 The word “joy” appears in some sixty verses in the New Testament of the KJB, and that’s not including the 40 additional occurrences of the same root derivatives “joyful”, “joyfully”, “joyfulness” “joying”, “joyous” and “rejoice”. This simple three-letter word “joy” is like buried treasure, everyone’s searching to find it but they're looking in all the wrong places!  The world you see deals in what is called “fool’s gold”.  To the naked eye, it bears some resemblance to the real thing, but when you run it through a few simple tests, it’s shown to be a fraud!  Happiness is just like this; a superficial counterfeit for joy.  You say, what’s the difference? Happiness is, the agreeable feeling of pleasure that one experiences when circumstances work in one's favour!! When circumstances are not working in one’s favour? Then you have the opposite of happiness, sorrow!! Christ has a better way for His people, which is the way of JOY!! 

Part 1 As of 2023, there are approximately 8.8 million Jehovah’s Witnesses globally, spread across 239 countries.  Between September 2022 and August 2023, 1.8 billion hours were spent in the field of service publishing the news of Jehovah’s Kingdom with an average of 7.3 million Bible studies being conducted each month.  If you compare this with the average amount of hours spent in outreach by Evangelicals, it is shameful on the part of us who profess to have the truth.  Concerning missionary zeal, one cannot fault Jehovah’s Witnesses for their witnessing endeavours  – it’s in their DNA.  What do they have to show for all of this effort?  Last year saw just short of 270,000 people baptised into the dedication of Jehovah’s service.  That’s just over a quarter of a million people, won over to a cult!   In this introductory teaching, we peel back the veneer of the exterior to uncover what Jehovah's Witnesses believe and teach.  Download PDF notes: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/bethesdashalom/1._Introduction

2 Chronicles 34:14-21 I lament the deplorable days of biblical ignorance that pervades so much of the professing Church today Ministers in God’s pulpit without a Word from God because they don’t know the Word of God themselves — blind leaders of the blind!  Can I suggest to you, that it’s not through lack of education that men’s knowledge of the Bible is so meagre in this hour, literacy rates in the Western World are better than they’ve ever been in the history of the English-speaking world? Nor is it through want of material, the tramp on the street has better access to the Word of God today than most of history has ever had.  We’ve translations coming out of our nostrils, Bible Apps galore...NO the problem facing the Christian is not one of lack of opportunity, but one of desire and appetite. He delights in the things he enjoys doing most. Don’t get me wrong, he’ll give a precursory glance over a verse or two just before hopping into bed, but dig into the Bible? No thank you, I’ll leave that to Pastor!  The

The 19th Century has been rightly identified as the cults' spawning ground. Many of the major cults with us today were born at the later end of the 19th century, which saw a literal explosion of false prophets and teachers carried through to the last century. Joseph Smith, Charles T. Russell, and Ellen G. White are just a handful of such false teachers and prophets to rise out of the 19th Century – The cults that they forged and founded; namely Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Seventh Day Adventists have influenced millions for the cause of Satan!! Jesus warned His disciples when asked about the sign of His coming and the end of the world, saying ”…many false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many” (Mat. 24:11). In this teaching, we look at the definition of what constitutes a cult. We look at the warnings given in the Bible of the rise of such groups who would secretly bring in damnable heresies. We look too at the emotional and psychological strongholds that cults have on their victims. Download note

Matthew 21:28-32 In commenting upon James 1:22-25, Albert Barnes noted the following which we must take to heart: “It is implied here, that by merely hearing the word but not doing it, they would deceive their own souls. The nature of this deception was this, that they would imagine that that was all which was required, whereas the main thing was that they should be obedient. If a man supposes that by a mere punctual attendance on preaching, or a respectful attention to it, he has done all that is required of him, he is laboring under a most gross self-deception. And yet there are multitudes who seem to imagine that they have done all that is demanded of them when they have heard attentively the word preached. Of its influence on their lives, and its claims to obedience, they are utterly regardless”.  May the Lord move your heart to action through the hearing of this sermon so as not to be a hearer only, but a doer of His Word.

Dr. David Donovan brings an update on the precious work of New Foundations, a medical mission to the Niger Delta. Following the update, David brings a word from Scripture to the hearts of God’s people.

Proverbs 14:14 Adam Clarke in his famous commentary, asks the question: “Who is the backslider?”, he then answers it in three points: 1. The man who once walked in the ways of religion, but has withdrawn from them. 2. The man who once fought manfully against the world, the devil, and the flesh; but has retreated from the battle, or joined the enemy. 3. The man who once belonged to the congregation of the saints, but is now removed from them, and is set down in the synagogue of Satan”  This sermon is a warning against drifting and an exhortation to recover again the ground lost in our Christian walk.

Mark 15:21-47 If I was to say to you the words, “Carmen Christi”, there’s probably very few of you if any, who would understand what I’m on about.  “Carmen Christi” is Latin, which being interpreted means “Hymn to Christ”.  Now while you most likely are unfamiliar with the language, you ought be very familiar with the content. You may better know this hymn as Philippians 2:5-11. It is believed by scholars and historians that this passage in Paul’s letter to the Philippians pre-existed Paul’s letter itself in that it was an old Christian hymn rich in theological beauty!  One author wrote: “The Church which sang this hymn proclaimed for the first time the three 'epochs' in the existence of Christ: he is hailed and confessed first as pre-existent, then as incarnate and humiliated and finally as triumphant”.  Now, whatever its historical background, one cannot cast their eyes upon this text of Scripture without being deeply impacted.  It’s theological depth is almost unrivalled, it’s Christological content is sca

Matthew 27:24-26  First before the Jewish courts and then before the Roman courts — they lied point blank and accused Him to His face. Twice accused falsely?  Nay thrice!! Before Herod also, “...the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused him” (Lk.23:10). What would you have done? What would have I? Surely we would have been quick and ready to plead our case and prove our innocence, but not the lowly Galilean.  In the presence of His enemies, HE HELD HIS PEACE! This is so alien to us and yet, to this end we have been called to suffer and to follow His example.