One day I collected my son Ben from his drama rehearsal. As we walked back to the car we passed the local Jehovah's Witnesses so-called 'Kingdom Hall'. I asked Ben, "Do you think there is something strange about that building?" Quickly he answered, "It has no windows."
Ben is right. There is not a single pane of glass to be seen except on the inner doors. It is difficult to ignore the thought that if the Jehovah's Witnesses banish the physical light of God's universe, then this is a sign that they also banish the spiritual light of God. It is a picture of their spiritual impoverishment. One also wants to ask what they have to hide. What are they so embarrassed about that they have to do it away from the eyes of others? I am reminded of the following speech of Jesus,
"This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." (John chapter 3 verses 19 to 21)
After all the stained glass windows of St Helens in London were destroyed by an IRA bomb some years ago, the church replaced them with plain glass, to bring more light into the place, and make it a better building in which to teach the Bible. What a contrast that is to the attitude of the builders of Kingdom Hall.
This simple matter of not having windows is a good indication that the Jehovah's Witnesses are a cult and do not teach truth. They cannot possibly understand what the Apostle Paul says in his letter to the young Ephesian church, "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light" (Chapter 5 verse 8).
So what do we do to bring the Jehovah's Witnesses this 'light of the world'? We can all tell stories of our meetings with them on our doorsteps and the seemingly useless arguments we have over theology. They seem to be so dead to reason and revelation. I started doing some research and read pages on the internet written by people who have left the JW's. What I learned was very interesting and I pass on this information in the hope that somebody might be given the heart to take on a much-needed work to help these poor people.
The really good thing about the JW's is that they get their people to read the Bible all the time. They may use a poor translation and their explanations may be wrong on various key issues, but the insistence on reading God's word regularly means that many members soon realise that the JW's teaching is wrong. It would seem a simple thing to do at that point, just to walk away, but it is not. The JW's dominate the lives of their recruits to such an extent that leaving the organisation becomes extremely difficult. It means leaving friends and family and becoming a social refugee. For a child or wife, it means losing one's financial support as they are literally thrown out on the street. They become homeless. It is no surprise then that very few have the courage to leave.
For Christians, the best we can do when the JW's knock on our doors is simply tell the two people (there are always two of them) that if they would like to leave the cult, they can come back alone later on and they will be looked after. And that's the catch isn't it. We need to have rooms available and homes they can go to, people who will give them a new family and a new start. In this way it would be much easier for them to leave. It would also be a demonstration to them of the true light of Jesus shown in action. Instead of rejecting them we would be drawing them near and telling them that they matter to Jesus Christ too.
Does this move you to want to help? Do you have a spare room, and the love to see these people given a new start free of chains? Why don't you pray about it and find out if Jesus wants you to do this work?