105 Years in the Watchtower Service – Program 4

By: Lorrie MacGregor, Joan Cetnar, Jean Eason, Helen Ortega; ©1986

For Christians the cross is an important symbol of what God has done for us in providing salvation. But the cross means something very different to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Why do they hate it?

How Do Jehovah’s Witnesses View the Cross?

Introduction

Tonight on The John Ankerberg Show, you will meet four women who have spent a combined total of 110 years serving as Jehovah’s Witnesses. After years of service, they began to ask questions that the Watchtower Society could not or would not answer. Their search for the truth continued in spite of their being tragically cut off from their families and friends. Tonight, we’ll find out what questions they asked, why those questions were so important, and what they discovered.

John’s guests are Lorri MacGregor from Canada; Jean Eason from Kentucky; Joan Cetnar from Pennsylvania; and Helen Ortega from Georgia. Please join us.

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Ankerberg: Welcome. Tonight I’d like to introduce you to four women that have been Jehovah’s Witnesses almost all of their lives. They have over 100 years of working service to the Watchtower organization among them. These gals are typical, I think, of many Jehovah’s Witnesses that I’ve met, in that they are very sincere. They absolutely believe that they are following Jehovah God and serving Him. They have a love for the truth, but these ladies have encountered questions along the way that almost shattered their lives.

Tonight we want you to listen to some of those questions. And gals we’re going to come right to you. Helen, start us off tonight. As a sincere Jehovah’s Witness, along the way you came upon some material that really started you thinking. Can you tell us what that was?

Ortega: Yes. We know that Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that there are two classes: the earthly class and the heavenly class. And they say that of the earthly class is Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the prophets of old. The Society teaches that they will return here to earth in perfection and live forever on earth. And yet in Matthew 8:11 it says, “Many will come and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of the heavens.” And the Society also teaches the kingdom of the heavens is in heaven. So, if they’re in heaven, how are they going to be on earth at the same time?

Ankerberg: That’s right. Now, that might not sound real big to a lot of other people out there, but to you who actually believed that the Watchtower organization was the truth, that was mind-blowing, wasn’t it?

Ortega: That’s right.

Ankerberg: Okay. Lorri?

MacGregor: Well, as a Jehovah’s Witness we were taught to hate the cross. We were told it was a pagan symbol of sex worship; that Christ never died on a cross, He died on a stake. And as I began to doubt other things the organization had proved to be wrong about, I began to look into the back of the Kingdom Interlinear translation and see what they had to say about the cross. Now, they quoted a source. Justus Lipsius wrote a book called De Cruse Liber Primus, and in that they claim that Christ died on a stake. That was the proof that was in there. And they even published a picture out of there and said, “This is how Christ died.” As I began to really look at the picture and I looked a little closer, I found out that it wasn’t a stake at all. The guy was sitting on a crossbeam. And if Jehovah’s Witnesses would take a good look at the picture the Society uses, they’ll find out it’s not a stake. It’s a cross.

Ankerberg: All you have to do is open up their Interlinear that they have, the New World Translation. Just open to the back and you’ll find the picture that disproves the very thing they teach.

MacGregor: Right. And then they keep referring to what Christ died on as a beam. Now, I’m no construction worker, but I’m smart enough to know that a beam doesn’t hang up there without a post under it. And so I began to realize, sure He hung on a beam. It was the crossbeam. Later on we were able to go and look at this ancient manuscript and take pictures of it in a library where we lived, and I found out that it actually said in that publication, and I’m quoting from page 46, “In the Lord’s cross there were four pieces of wood – the upright beam, the crossbar, the piece of wood placed below [like for His feet], and the title or inscription placed above.”

Ankerberg: So you found out that the Jehovah’s Witnesses in their translation had this way of quoting things and didn’t give you the next line.

MacGregor: Well, they even went farther. They told a deliberate lie. I’ll read right out of here. “The evidence is therefore completely lacking that Jesus Christ was crucified on two pieces of timber placed at a right angle.”

Ankerberg: And the very guy they quoted, if they had gone to the next sentence, said the exact opposite.

MacGregor: If they’d gone to the next picture they would have found out that Christ did die on a cross.

Ankerberg: And as a sincere Jehovah’s Witness that was a mind-blower for you.

MacGregor: Well, and I also began to take a closer look at the Scriptures. After all, Jesus showed them in John 20:25, He showed them the prints of the nails, plural, in His hands, plural. He didn’t have one nail through two hands as Jehovah’s Witnesses thought. I found out that Scriptures like Matthew 27:38 that said Jesus had one thief on His right, “hand” is implied in the Greek; one on His left, “hand” is implied. His arms must have been outstretched because if they were together over His head, we’ve got two thieves up in the air. So I began to realize that I had “been had.” And let me tell you, if Jehovah’s Witnesses would start checking out their references, what a can of worms you could open.

Ankerberg: That’s right. Joan?

Cetnar: Blood transfusions, as I related, was quite an eye-opener for us. We were taught that to have a blood transfusion is to eat blood. What I didn’t know is that they were lying to the people about what the penalty for eating blood in the Old Testament was.

Ankerberg: Let’s stop right here. Jehovah’s Witnesses have a special doctrine – don’t have blood transfusions – and it comes from their interpretation which they say comes from the Old Testament: “Don’t eat blood.” [Gen. 9; Lev. 17] Okay. Go on.

Cetnar: In the Old Testament it says, “If you eat blood, you will be cut off.” [Lev. 17:14-15] They have rendered that and said that means execution. We went back and checked and “cutting off” does not mean execution. It means you’re outlawed, you’re disfellowshipped for a day. You’re unclean and you have to…

Ankerberg: Where could people check that out if they wanted to check it out themselves?

Cetnar: In Leviticus 17 it says that if they were to eat a beast that was slain of itself or blood that they would wash their clothing and they would be unclean till evening and then they can come back.

Ankerberg: So it wasn’t the fact of being murdered or cut off in the sense of being completely annihilated.

Cetnar: That’s right. And so taking a blood transfusion today is not a capital crime. And what’s even more interesting is that they said on page 41 of their booklet Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Question of Blood, that blood transfusion is essentially an organ transplant, because at that time they believed to have an organ transplant was to be a cannibal; you were actually eating that transplant. Then in 1980 in the Watchtower, March 15^th to be exact, they said, “It’s no longer cannibalism now to take an organ transplant.” So, Mr. Jehovah’s Witness, if you really check your two things and put them together, it’s alright to have a blood transfusion.

Ankerberg: And that’s a mind-blower because, again, you believed this was God speaking through the organization. And God doesn’t change His mind and make mistakes like that.

Cetnar: That was coming from God. That’s right. If you were to violate that, you would be violating God’s law. No Jehovah’s Witness who loves God would do that.

Ankerberg: Especially when the Bible says, “If what the guy says in the name of God doesn’t come true, don’t follow him. Don’t fear him.” Deuteronomy 18.

Cetnar: That’s right.

Ankerberg: Jeanie?

Eason: Well, since the Watchtower does not claim to be infallible, you would think that it would not take them 52 years to straighten out a false doctrine, right?

Ankerberg: Right.

Eason: So I checked it out and they taught that Christ would return invisibly in 1874, the ransomed sacrifice covered everyone and also that there would be two heavenly classes in heaven which included the other sheep. Do you know they taught that same thing for 52 years? Now Witnesses today say, “Well, it may be truth in everything. They may err in some things.” But would it take 52 years to be discovered?

Cetnar: How can we depend on what they believe right now is the truth? If you could be giving your life for what you think is the truth right now, and it could change tomorrow!

Ankerberg: Because there are so many times they’ve changed. And there’s so much proof that they’ve changed their mind in the past. What they’re teaching right now, which really affects Jehovah’s Witnesses and their lives could be changed again tomorrow.

Cetnar: That’s right. If you’re willing today to be obedient to the organization and cut off your own family, what might you be asked to do next?

Ankerberg: You’re thinking of Jim Jones.

Cetnar: I didn’t say it, you did.

Ankerberg: That’s right. It just came to my mind. Let me ask you, Helen. I want you to go back. How did you get into the Jehovah’s Witnesses?

Ortega: Well, I got into the Jehovah’s Witnesses very innocently because my grandmother started studying with them and wanted me to study with them with her. So to keep her company I decided it couldn’t hurt to know the Bible, or learn the Bible, because I had gone to churches at that time and they didn’t have Bible studies then like they do today. So I started studying with my grandmother.

Ankerberg: Okay. What happened?

Ortega: My grandmother died and I went on with the study. And after studying for three years I decided that this was the truth. I was baptized in June of 1950 as a Jehovah’s Witness. I was very, very zealous, went to the doors, studied every piece of material they had ever written. I made it my duty to get any of the old literature I could, which you could at that time.

Ankerberg: So your grandmother was actually working with Jehovah’s Witness material.

Ortega: That’s right.

Ankerberg: And under her tutelage you started to learn these things. When she died you just kept on going and you had the Watchtower and Awake magazines to help you out, to tell you what to believe, and you finally accepted it.

Ortega: That’s right.

Ankerberg: Okay, so you’re now a Jehovah’s Witness. What happened?

Ortega: Well, I decided if I was a Jehovah’s Witness I was going to be a good one. I loved to have Bible studies. I enjoyed teaching. I gradually worked up my teaching until as I said before I had 13 Bible studies a week. And I had two daughters and they both had asthma. And the one daughter had it very, very badly, my younger daughter, but I didn’t let it stop me. I didn’t let it stop me going to meetings.

Ankerberg: So you started those Bible studies and you did that, you had a family, and you went to all the other meetings besides, plus you went door-to-door.

Ortega: That’s right. Oh yes!

Ankerberg: That was just part of your lifestyle, right?

Ortega: That was it. I mean I was going to make it, John. If works did it, I would make it. So then my youngest daughter got very, very bad with her asthma. The doctor said to go to Arizona. So for three months I went to Arizona and we just went around from city to city, town to town, trying to find a place for her to breathe. And I couldn’t bring my literature with me. The only thing I could bring with me was my Bible, and so I started studying my Bible and my Bible alone, which the Watchtower Society says if you do that, as Joan said, you will go right back to that Christian doctrine that they had all along.

And that’s exactly what I did. I started asking questions, writing to the Society and asking questions, and they would refer me to a Watchtower and Awake. I’d write them back and say, “I already referred to that, but that couldn’t be right because of so and so.” And I just kept questioning and questioning and questioning. But for 20 years I did do the work as a Jehovah’s Witness even though I didn’t believe it. I had a lot of questions but I didn’t know where to go, what to do. And at the doors, when I’d go to the doors, I can honestly say in 20 years there wasn’t one Christian that said, “It is also written…” when I said, “You know the Bible says, ‘It is written…’” If one would just say, “It is also written…”

Ankerberg: Okay. And you actually, along the way you came into a relationship that made you declare something that was really stupendous among the Jehovah’s Witnesses. What was that?

Ortega: That was after eight years I declared that I was one of the 144,000. And to declare this, you know where you have communion usually once a month at your churches, they have communion once a year and they call it Memorial Celebration. I partook of the emblems of the bread and the wine, and if you partake of it that means that you feel that you have the heavenly hope. But in congregation after congregation no one partakes, no one. They deny Jesus to the mass of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Ankerberg: To let people know how special this was, the “heavenly hope” meant that you felt somehow subjectively inside that you were special. You were chosen by Christ to go to heaven with Him. There’s only 144,000 people that could get that honor to go to heaven. All the rest of the earth, if they got anyplace, the best they could do was paradise on earth. And if you didn’t come into Jehovah’s Witnesses Watchtower Society you were annihilated, period, when the end of the world came.

Ortega: That’s right.

Ankerberg: So now nobody that you knew was saying that they were part of the 144,000 and here you make that announcement. How did people treat you?

Ortega: Actually, they treated me a little bit in awe, or my husband particularly. “Who does she think she is? What have you got that…”

Ankerberg: I remember your daughter, Debbie,…

Ortega: It was hard on her.

Ankerberg: One time I asked her, “What was it that you felt when Momma said that?” She said, “I hated God.” I said, “Why?” She said, “Because that meant Momma was going to go to heaven and the rest of us were going to be on earth for all eternity. We would be separated from Momma, and I love my mother.”

Ortega: That’s right. And it does mean that. It did mean that. It meant that you were willing, and it was not an easy decision. It isn’t a normal thing to be willing to give up your children and your parents and everyone that you know. You think you have to give them up.

Ankerberg: But that’s how zealous you were.

Ortega: Yes, brother, I sure was.

Ankerberg: But then all of a sudden something happened that just really changed your life. What happened?

Ortega: Well, I wrote a letter with these questions that I always had and I wrote this letter to the girl that studied with me and got me to be a Witness in the first place with this list of questions that I had. Some of them I gave to you tonight and I had others, too. I asked her to please answer those questions.

Ankerberg: Because you wanted to know.

Ortega: Because I wanted to know. And she gave the letter to a servant who gave it to headquarters and they had a special meeting. And the long and short of it was I was disfellowshipped in June of 1970 for being an apostate. That meant that my family couldn’t speak to me anymore. My daughter Debbie had my first grandson and I was not allowed in her house for months. And when they would go, Joe and my youngest daughter would go to see my oldest daughter, they dropped me off at another girl’s house who was also disfellowshipped and they would go on and visit my daughter and the grandson.

Ankerberg: Okay, I also happen to know, we haven’t got time to tell this whole story, that when that went up to headquarters, because of your sincere questioning you were turned in. A letter that formed the committee that was supposed to investigate you came to one of the elders who happened to be your son-in-law, your daughter’s husband. And it absolutely “blew him away” and then it blew your daughter away because here he had to go on the orders of headquarters. He was told, “Get rid of her!”

Ortega: That’s right.

Ankerberg: That’s the power of the organization, that it split your family right down the middle.

Ortega: That’s right.

Ankerberg: And now there’s a line drawn that you are disfellowshipped. What did it mean to be disfellowshipped?

Ortega: Well, to be disfellowshipped means that you cannot associate with either your family or friends. And when you have been in an organization for 20 years and they will not let you associate with anyone except those that are in the organization and you’re kicked out overnight, you have no friends. You are alone.

Ankerberg: On top of that when you’re by yourself and alone and your friends won’t even come to see you, what happened to your daughter?

Ortega: My daughter, Becky, it wasn’t even a year afterwards, my daughter Becky was the one living with us and she would bring high school kids to me because I wanted to talk about Jesus so much. And she’d say, “Momma, you can talk about Jesus to these girls now. I brought them for you.” She was my right hand. But she had asthma very badly, and March the 17^th, on her 17^th birthday, she died of asthma. She was not disfellowshipped. Neither was my husband. But we could not have a funeral. We got no cards. Not a card, not a flower. And when you are in deep grief, I cannot explain to you what it does to your heart.

Ankerberg: So because you were disfellowshipped for sincere questions, even though she was still in good-standing as a Jehovah’s Witness and your husband and the rest of your friends, you couldn’t even have a funeral for her.

Ortega: That’s right. And if it hadn’t been for some ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses that were also disfellowshipped, and the high school kids, and my neighbors whom I did not even know, who were Christians, I had the funeral. But if it hadn’t been for them I would have had none for her.

Ankerberg: In other words, nobody came to help you with your grief.

Ortega: No. And I went through seven years after that of not knowing where to go, what to do, and I felt deserted by God and man.

Ankerberg: Alright, we’ve got to stop right there now. Here’s the thing I want people to recognize. There are many Jehovah’s Witnesses, according to the figures that I just read in Raymond Franz’s book on the Jehovah’s Witness, there are probably 800,000 people that went into the Watchtower Society that left. Not all of them became Christians.

In that particular mood, when you’ve been cut off for solid questioning, and then tragedy hits your family and nobody of your friends for 20 years comes around to help you, the “loving organization” – they claim to be the most loving organization on the earth – at that point when you needed them the most, you’re out, and really totally out. What do many people do that do not become Christians, do not go on, they’re just out and the rug has been ripped out from underneath them. What happens to them?

Ortega: Well, they do what I did, which was just not know what to do, or else they become agnostic or else they go into another cult. I’ve known many that have gone into, like Jeanie was saying, investigating Mormonism, investigating Seventh-day Adventism and so forth. They go back into some other organization like that.

Ankerberg: Or some commit suicide?

Ortega: Oh, yes. Several that I know committed suicide.

Ankerberg: And you can see why it would be very easy. You’re depressed and you’re disillusioned.

Ortega: I almost did. I wanted to commit suicide. I had even done a tape to my daughter, Debbie, to tell her I did not want to live any longer, because I felt lost and yet I couldn’t give Jesus up. I couldn’t give Father up. I couldn’t give the Holy Spirit up. It was a terrible, terrible time. It really was.

Ankerberg: So what happened then? In other words, you’re going through this tragedy, you say how many years?

Ortega: Well, I went through it seven years.

Ankerberg: Seven years. What happened then?

Ortega: I finally, you know, God wants a broken vessel, and I finally broke completely. I just said, “Jesus, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what you’re doing to me.” And I got a peace from Him and I started listening to television, to Christian programs on television, and I started realizing that there are good Christians out there and they aren’t from Babylon, and the great mother of the harlots. They didn’t look half bad. So I just investigated a little bit. I figured well, I’m lost anyway. Why don’t I go into a church, you know, return?

Ankerberg: You thought the walls were going to cave in on you when you walked in the door?

Ortega: That’s right. Oh, absolutely, and I sat…

Ankerberg: Because the Jehovah’s Witnesses teach what?

Ortega: Oh, if you go into a church, you go to “Babylon the Great.” You go to the devil, literally.

Cetnar: You become possessed.

Ortega: Yes, absolutely.

Ankerberg: All Christian religions, all organized religions?

Ortega: All of them. Don’t ever feel left out, because you’re not. All of them.

Ankerberg: Only Jehovah’s Witnesses are the right way. And so now you dared to go into another church and what happened?

Ortega: Everybody treated me very kindly and when they realized where I was, they showed me love. They showed me kindness and they gradually built me up again where the Lord could use me. And then I had a burning desire to help others that went through situations like I went through.

Ankerberg: What about your daughter and your son-in-law that were Witnesses and your husband? Did they ever become Christians?

Ortega: All of them became Christians. It took months. My daughter was so angry with God after Becky died. She just absolutely wouldn’t talk Bible. She wouldn’t talk about Jesus. She wouldn’t talk about any of it. We prayed. I mean prayed and interceded for her for three years, and they are now born again Christians.

Ankerberg: And one of the things she found out was that the old stuff that Momma says she’s going to heaven, you found out that the New Testament teaches and Jesus teaches…

Ortega: Everyone goes to heaven.

Ankerberg: Everybody can go to heaven.

Ortega: Everybody has Jesus that wants Him. He is for everyone.

Ankerberg: What would you say to people that are Jehovah’s Witnesses that are just like you were? They’re desperate. What would you say to them tonight?

Ortega: I would tell them that although the Watchtower says you still have to come to the organization for salvation, that Acts 4:12 says go to Jesus for salvation, in His name alone you are saved.

Ankerberg: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” [Acts 4:12]

Ortega: That’s it. And certainly not any organization by which you’re saved.

Ankerberg: It is by Jesus we must be saved.

Ortega: Absolutely. And Paul preached Jesus. He did not preach to go to an organization. He said, “I preached Christ and Him [the Watchtower says ‘impaled’] Him crucified.” [1 Cor. 2:2] And that was the good news that he preached about Christ Jesus.

Ankerberg: They want to know: Is it enough? Your circumstances, maybe nobody can dream that they’ve got those kinds of circumstances, but going through them, if you hadn’t had Jesus?

Ortega: Oh, I would have committed suicide. There’s no doubt about it. I would have. But Jesus wouldn’t let me.

Ankerberg: So wherever they’re at, come to Jesus and He’ll take you those next steps no matter how hard they are.

Ortega: No matter what you have to go through. Go through it.

Ankerberg: And you know what you’re saying when you say, “Whatever you have to go through…”

Ortega: Oh, yes. I’ve been there.

Ankerberg: Thanks for joining us. Please tune in to our next program where we’re going to discuss some of the things that they believed and taught as Jehovah’s Witnesses, and how they have come to different thinking concerning what’s in the Bible. Please join us for our next program.

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