After a few tries at answering, like referencing Deuteronomy 4, I finally said, “You’re right, man cannot add to the Bible. I cannot go and write my own book and call it scripture, I cannot add. But if God spoke to a prophet on this continent and commanded him to write it down and then preserve it from generation to generation and then brought those records forth to give to us, it is scripture. It is God who has added to the Bible, and not man. God can add; nowhere in that scripture does it say that God cannot add. God can do anything he sets his mind to. So, if The Book of Mormon is true, then God gave it to us and Revelations 22 does not apply.”
I believe I was inspired by the spirit. It just hit me that it was God and not man that gave us The Book of Mormon. Dave then asked how the record was preserved and I went on in depth about how it was, and how it was brought forth. But it was the spirit, not me. We left with a prayer after setting up an appointment for two days later.
When we returned to see Dave we walked into the perfect setup. We were planning on showing him the video Our Heavenly Father’s Plan, but he told us that some friends of his were going to drop by. A few minutes later they knocked on the door, and when Dave answered it I heard the voices of a man and a woman. I knew right then that we were in trouble. They come around the corner into the living room carrying their Bibles as if they were desktop binder day planners. That confirmed it: JWs.
This pair did impress me, however. They were very friendly, cordial and professional, unlike most other JWs I had met. They actually took time to chat and get to know us. Maybe they could afford the luxury of doing so because the ambush had been set so perfectly. They said at the start that a bash would not get anywhere, so they proposed that we each take a half hour and present a message and then let Dave decide. We graciously, and wisely, let them go first. Actually, we let them go first because we did not have a clue as to what we were going to say. As they gave their presentation I was praying for the spirit to guide us in what to say. I also took notes.
They started with the creation and then talked about the fall of Adam. They mentioned the war in heaven and posed the question of whether God had the right to rule mankind. They said that God had created man in order to glorify himself. They then talked about the kingdom spoken of in Daniel before turning to the Lord’s Prayer and saying that we should pray for his kingdom and also to sanctify God’s name. Next they turned to Psalms to point out what God’s name is. Then they turned to Revelations 14 to talk about their belief on the 144,000. They asked what the 144,000 will do and said that they would be kings ruling over the earth. At this point they mentioned the Atonement of Christ. Their presentation was just one scripture after another. There was no spirit or feeling as they spoke, we were just . . . there. They were cold.
As we were praying and listening, we finally figured out what to do. My companion suggested that I go first and give my Four Rs presentation. I started off by saying I was praying that the spirit would be with me, that I would give the most important message I could. I began with the prophets of old and talked about how God always dealt with a prophet. I talked about the Jewish apostasy before Christ came, how the Pharisees had added to the Law of Moses. Christ taught his gospel and organized his church with a distinct organization. Then he took our sins upon him in the Garden of Gethsemane, was crucified and then rose in the resurrection. I wanted to get to the Atonement quickly in contrast to their presentation.
In Matthew 28, before his ascension into heaven, Christ said “Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” The apostles went forth to preach and were persecuted. Paul prophesied of a great apostasy: “For that day shall not come except there be a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition.” Peter prophesied of a “restitution of all things.” The apostles were killed off and the saints began to search for answers and to slowly fall away.
I then talked about Constantine and how he united his empire by declaring Christianity the state religion. I mentioned the Nicene Creed when church leaders and scholars met to decide the nature of God. Then came the crusades and the return of those who went to the Holy Land brought the beginnings of the Renaissance, which brought the printing press, upward mobility and global exploration. The printing press allowed Martin Luther to study the Bible and come up with his 95 points of Reformation. Then King Henry VIII wanted a divorce, but the Pope said no, so the King broke away and the Church of England came to be. But persecution abounded with the Spanish Inquisition and other responses by Rome to the Protestant Reformation.
The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in search of religious freedom and yet were just as intolerant of other faiths. The thirteen colonies were founded, but religious intolerance still dominated. If you lived in one colony you had to be of a certain faith and of another faith if you lived in a different colony. Then Roger Williams founded Rhode Island on the basis of religious freedom. Soon followed the American Revolution and Independence from Britain, and then the Constitution and the Bill of Rights which grants the privilege of worshiping how, who, where and what we may. Intolerance slowly fades away. Then I told the story of Joseph Smith and the Restoration. The Lord needed to prepare the earth for the Restoration. Such a restoration would not have succeeded in the day of Constantine or in any other day before the Constitution. Then I bore my testimony.
My companion talked about the three greatest truths known to mankind, essentially paraphrasing Bruce R. McConkie (my comp is the only person I know who read Mormon Doctrine from cover to cover). 1. That God the Father has a body of flesh and bone. 2. That Jesus Christ is the savior of all mankind and that it is by obedience we are saved. 3. That God still inspires man through revelation and the Holy Ghost. Then he bore his testimony. The spirit was so strong that I was shaking. I looked at Dave and he seemed to be overcome by the spirit. I hoped and prayed that he felt the difference in feeling from the JW presentation to ours.
We then had a prayer and left. On our way out, my companion advised Dave to stay close to the spirit. We can guess what the JWs said after we left. To top it off, we got caught in the rain on the way home. My bike was out of commission and we were walking.
Not long after this I had an interview with my mission president and I told him about this experience with Dave and the JWs. He said it was a waste of time because they no doubt tore down everything we said after we left. He might have been right, but I still think it was worthwhile. I think, however, that we should have had an agreement for the four of us to leave together and really give Dave some time to think about our presentations. Maybe the result would have been the same, but we also might have had a fighting chance, and I think it is always worth it to take a shot. You can’t hit a home run if you don’t take a swing at the ball.
We saw Dave only once after that, and it was clear that the JWs had won the battle. I think that was likely to happen anyway. We were interested, of course, in presenting our beliefs and not in tearing down the JWs beliefs. It seems unlikely that the JWs exercised much if any restraint in tearing down our beliefs. If Dave was more impressed by their logic than by the spirit which accompanied our teaching, there was little that could be done in any case. We actually ran into the same pair of JWs on a few other occasions and they remained friendly and cordial
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