Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Ravi and the Witnesses

Greetings all,

I was reading my Spring 2006 issue of Just Thinking from RZIM and there was a section that I thought resembled BWW greatly. This account starts on page 14, or about 2/3 of the way down the page if you are reading the online article.

Ravi had his first exposure to western religion with Jehovah’s Witnesses when he was a child. He said, “So the Smiths came to our home once a week, and for the next year and a half they sat in our living room and taught us for an hour or two at a time. They would eventually bring Ravi and his siblings to assemblies and show movies. One of these movies featured tens of thousands of people attending a Jehovah’s Witnesses rally at Yankee Stadium in New York City. He says that they were awed by the size of the group.

Ravi continues on, “Yet, in retrospect, it shows how easily the human mind and heart can be manipulated…seeing that movie, with all those highly successful-looking people gathered in a magnificent stadium, my siblings’ hearts must have raced as my heart did.

Ravi was highly impressed, motivated, and excited. Until, “we continued to study with the Smiths until the day Mr. Smith came to the chapter on heaven in the book of Revlation. He stopped there and told us that, according to Jehovah’s Witness’ teaching, only 144,000 people were going to make it to paradise.”

Ravi, being concerned that there were probably more than 144,000 people at Yankee Stadium, asked Mr. Smith about this: “Sir, how many people are there in your organization…Do you have more than 144,000? Oh, Yes” replied Mr. Smith.

Ravi’s next statement is great, “I thought of the Smiths’ constant praying, of all their efforts to reach more and more people—and yet even they had no way of knowing where they were going after death. Ravi makes an interesting statement next, “Mr. Smith, before you came, I didn’t know where I was going after I died…but now, after all this study, I still don’t know where I’m going after I die.

After this, the Smith’s stepped out of the picture and their superior came in, but this only led to frustration and Ravi deciding that this whole “Christianity” stuff was useless.

The amazing thing is how similar this is to a close encounter of the Quixtar / BWW kind. In fact, it is spooky how similar it is once you are in the realm of hindsight! Permit me to break it down:

The Smiths came faithfully to serve. If you are in (were in, or are considering) Quixtar, you will be ‘served’ by an upline. They will come over to teach you, help you, etc. This is required by Quixtar. But be warned if they start promoting tapes, seminars, etc. You do not have to attend these and if you do not, the upline is still supposed to come help you. If they don’t, call Quixtar! More to the point, just because someone “serves”, it does not mean they are serving in a Godly, or even ethical way. Examine the situation. Not everyone is going to be serving in a bad way, and not everyone is going to be serving in a good way. Just be cautious, particularly if people are edifying all this “serving” since true and pure servitude comes from the heart.

Be cautious of large gatherings. If they are saying to attend such and such conference because it will help your business succeed, find out the full details. If there are going to be vendors, product demonstrations, a few presentations or even tailored agenda, it should be fine, but if it is a big rally where people gather for long speeches of motivation, they are trying to get you excited. There is something magical about these settings that cause someone to be drawn in based on emotion, not thought process. If they are relying on your emotion to get you in, beware.

Only a few will make it, it rarely depends on you. I know this flies in the face of the BWW teaching, but it is reality. I worked the 9 core steps as much as many other people did, but there is a bazaar combination of unknown things that will elevate certain people up fast. I know people who were very high in the business and did the core steps faithfully. All it awarded them was a few dollars and a 40+ hour work week with no benefits. Just like the JW’s who have to work all their life by a rigid set of man-made rules, the IBO’s trot along paying homage to the Diamonds, doing as they are told, and only a very small number make it. That number in 2004 was 0.0176%. There were a total of 65 people that made the mark out of 370,000 in those statistics.

If you give your sponsor a run for his money, you better believe that they will be back with their sponsor. This was best exemplified as a Reliv distributor was trying to recruit me. Since I know a little bit about MLM, I was asking all the serious questions. I was first referred to his upline, and eventually to his up-upline. The final answers to my questions were deception. [If you would like to see a copy of that report, email me and I will get it out to you.]

If you finally go through all this and realize that these crazy Bible-thumping religious radical BWW Diamonds have turned you off from Christianity, I want you to know that they are FLAT OUT WRONG in many of their points. If Christianity is a turnoff to you because you were involved in Quixtar, please give me an audience to point out their errors to you in private. For a start, read the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for considering.

Xanadustc

3 Comments:

Blogger Danny Haszard said...

Up close and personal Jehovah's Witnesses can be wolves in sheep's clothing.

Think about this-When the devil comes knocking on your door he may not have the 'dark goth look'.They could be smartly dressed and wielding the Christian Bible.

I have Jehovah's Witnesses family in the usa who practice the Watchtower JW enforced ritual shunning that i have not seen or heard from in 15 years.

The central CORE dogma of the Watchtower is Jesus second coming (invisibly) in 1914 and is a lie.Jehovah's Witnesses are a spin-off of the man made Millerite movement of 1840.

A destructive cult of false teachings, that frequently result in spiritual and psychological abuse, as well as needless deaths (bogus blood transfusion ban).

Yes,you can 'check out anytime you want but you can never leave',because they can and will hold your family hostage.

The world has the Internet now,and there are tens of thousands of pages up from disgruntled ex-Jehovah's Witnesses like myself who have been abused by the Watchtower cult.

Jehovah's Witnesses are often a mouth that prays a hand that kills.The Watchtower is a truly Orwellian world.
----
Danny Haszard former Jehovah's Witness X 33 years and 3rd generation www.dannyhaszard.com

Tue Apr 18, 06:27:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger xanadustc said...

I feel your pain!

BWW is kind of like the JW's. I have an Elder in my church who has JW's in his family as well. Being that I run some work with this site, I have been invited to a few ex-JW conferences, though they did not fit in my schedule.

Do you have any Quixtar/BWW experience? I am interested in your perpective of similarity if you have some, if not, I think I have made my point.

Thanks for the comment.

X

Tue Apr 18, 08:20:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Unknown said...

Guys,
I can appreciate both of your viewpoints, as I am both currently an ex-JW and an IBO of Quixtar (although stepping away now)
Just recently I realized as Danny did, that Jesus is the one that asked us to follow him, work for him to make disciples of him, teaching them, baptizing them ..it is God's will...and that is where we will find true happiness and freedom. Quixtar is truly a "god" to it's IBOs..it's almost as if the leaders copied the JW format for creating unity for a purpose... but for $$ and pleasure.. missing the point entirely of Jesus commission.

Now, in regards to the meetings, conventions, so called "secret meetings" of both organizations - think about it from this perspective... in any organization, there is always a hierarchy.. not everyone attends all meetings. More assistance, business guidance, preaching guidance is given to those who are "producers". (by the way, even the scriptures talk about one that is given more responsiblity.. more will be expected of them... Jesus and his Apostles vs. Jesus and his Disciples in general..Jesus had special meetings with his Apostles didn't he).

For me, I had to step back and decide who I was going to give my allegiance, my energy, my heart and my talents to... God ? Or $ and leisure ? (Matt 6:24) and Quixtar is not going to give me everlasting life on this earth as God will if I serve him (John 17:3)

Anyway, i could say more - including the misunderstandings of scripture and motive of Jehovah's Witnesses that is stated in your blogs. But.. someone that is really wanting to follow Christ and obey God, will ask for an adjustment in thinking and heart... I had to.

Now, I'm going back to the group that really does genuinely put God first.. and unitely preaches straight from the Bible.. with conventions and meetings that share in-depth scriptural talks....with no mixed political or commercial agendas. JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES.

I wish you well.

Tiffany Jones

Wed Jul 18, 01:07:00 PM GMT-5  

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