{"id":20313,"date":"2020-02-05T09:33:23","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T16:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.4jehovah.org\/?p=20313"},"modified":"2020-03-28T12:05:57","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T19:05:57","slug":"joe-ex-testigos-de-jehova","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.4jehovah.org\/es\/joe-ex-testigos-de-jehova\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe H – ex-testigos de Jehov\u00e1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"joeh\"<\/b>Joe B. Hewitt – Cuando su mente fue bloqueada por el legalismo de la Watchtower, abandon\u00f3 la organizaci\u00f3n para encontrar la verdadera libertad en Cristo.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"bullets\"<\/strong><\/b> Visit<\/strong> Joe’s Website: www.joebhewitt.net<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Habiendo sido criado como un testigo de Jehov\u00e1 desde la tierna edad de 8 a\u00f1os, Joe experimentaba acoso por parte de sus compa\u00f1eros que consideraban sus creencias como anti-estadounidenses. \u201c\u00bfPor qu\u00e9 no pod\u00eda yo ser un estadounidense patri\u00f3tico y leal, y ser al mismo tiempo fiel a Dios? No era justo,\u201d pensaba \u00e9l. \u201cMi mente estaba bloqueada por las fr\u00edas murallas de piedra de la Watchtower, pero ahora soy libre. Conozco a cientos de testigos de Jehov\u00e1 que ahora son cristianos. Son los cristianos m\u00e1s gozosos que conozco. Alguien que ha sido bloqueado, realmente aprecia la libertad\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

When I was eight-years-old my Mother was in the midst of a crisis. Her marriage of 21 years was coming apart. She needed a word from God, the \u201cBread of Life.\u201d Rather she got \u201csawdust,\u201d something that filled but did not nourish. A woman visitor had walked down the sandy road of our Arkansas Ozark home in the woods and convinced Mom that Jehovah’s Witnesses believed the same as her father. He had been a follower of Charles Taze Russell and his Watchtower Society.<\/p>\n

After Dad deserted us, Mom\u2019s brother, Al Gordon, who claimed to be among the exclusive 144,000 going to heaven, moved us to Wichita, Kansas. There we became firmly involved with the JW congregation that met in a second story meeting hall in the seedy side of downtown.<\/p>\n

At the age of 9 I carried a card that proclaimed me to be \u00aban ordained minister of the Gospel, ordanined by Jehovah Himself.\u00bb My mother married Ray Alexander, a life-long Jehovah\u2019s Witness who was held in high regard at the Kingdom Hall. Our home was dominated by anxiety. Measure up. Be faithful to the end. Study your Watchtower lesson. Do your book study. Don\u2019t be close friends with anyone \u201cworldly.\u201d<\/em> (Anyone who was not a Jehovah\u2019s Witness was worldly.) Get your field service time in. <\/em>(At least 10 hours a month knocking on doors.) Turn in your weekly field service report. Be ready for Armageddon; it will happen any day.<\/em><\/p>\n

Armageddon was on our minds and voices continually. Mom and Ray never encouraged me in my school work but drove me in the Witness Work.<\/em> They placed no value on education. They attended five meetings a week for the Watchtower, but never attended one meeting or conference at my school.<\/p>\n

World War II was raging. I stood on downtown street corners hawking the Watchtower<\/em> and Awake <\/em>magazines. People sneered, and said such things as, \u201cJap.. . Nazi. . . If you don\u2019t like this country, why don\u2019t you leave?\u201d All this confused me. I loved my country. The Watchtower doctrine would not allow me to salute the flag, but I still felt great patriotism in my heart.<\/p>\n

I was 15 when a crisis of faith caused a dramatic change in my life. At a neighborhood convenience store a group of six boys stopped me in the gravel driveway. One carried a dirty little flag stapled to a little stick.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re gonna salute this flag.\u201d They surrounded me and all shouted for me to salute the flag, and damned me because Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses refused to serve in the armed forces.<\/p>\n

I did my usual canned speech: \u201cI am a Jehovah\u2019s Witness. We respect the flag and what it stands for, but we cannot salute it because that would be bowing down to a graven image. . .\u00bb<\/p>\n

That made no impression on the gang of boys. They beat me down into the gravel and stomped on me. When I regained consciousness, I hurt all over, and my mouth was full of blood and gravel.<\/p>\n

I limped home broken in heart as well as body, angry at God. Why couldn\u2019t I be a loyal, patriotic American, and loyal to God at the same time? It wasn\u2019t fair.<\/em><\/p>\n

Determined to strengthen my faith as a Jehovah\u2019s Witness, I began to study the Bible. I looked up our proof text for refusing military service: \u201cMy kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight.\u201d<\/em> There it was in black and white, Biblical proof of why we refused military service. Then I read it in context for the very first time. \u201c. . .then would my servants fight that I not be taken.\u201d<\/em> Jesus was talking about being arrested, and why his servants did not fight to keep him from being taken. It had nothing to do with military service.<\/p>\n

Then I looked up what John the Baptist said about the subject, then Peter, then Paul. None of them agrees with the Watchtower doctrine. I had been lied to by the Watchtower Society and I had been telling lies for them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Rescuing<\/a>
Rescuing Slaves of the Watchtower<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I continued to look up Watchtower proof texts and one by one saw that they were taken out of context and misapplied. That ended my tenure as a Jehovah\u2019s Witness. It took six more years before I realized that God loved me and gave his Son Jesus to die in my place on a cross. I trusted in him and received the gift of his grace. I finally understood that I couldn\u2019t earn salvation, it was an undeserved gift.<\/p>\n

On instruction from the Watchtower elders, my mother declared me as dead and had no contact with me until shortly before she died. Then she got special permission allowing me to visit her because she was near death.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

My mind was locked up<\/strong> in the cold stone walls of the Watchtower. I now am free. I know hundreds of other Ex-Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses who are now Christians. They are the most joyful Christians I know. One who has been locked up really appreciates freedom.<\/p>\n

I urge any Jehovah\u2019s Witness, or any Ex-JW who is still confused by Watchtower doctrine to read the Bible in context with an open mind. That is the route to Christian liberty.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"bullets\"<\/strong><\/strong><\/b><\/b>\u00a0 Click HERE to Learn More About My Book Rescuing Slaves of the Watchtower<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"bullets\"<\/strong><\/strong><\/b><\/b>\u00a0 Visit My Website <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"bullets\"<\/strong><\/strong><\/b><\/b>\u00a0 See My You-Tube Videos<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

—Joe B. Hewitt<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joe B. Hewitt – Cuando su mente fue bloqueada por el legalismo de la Watchtower, abandon\u00f3 la organizaci\u00f3n para encontrar la verdadera libertad en Cristo. Visit Joe’s Website: www.joebhewitt.net Habiendo sido criado como un testigo de Jehov\u00e1 desde la tierna edad de 8 a\u00f1os, Joe experimentaba acoso por parte de sus compa\u00f1eros que consideraban sus…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,774],"tags":[295,288],"class_list":["post-20313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ex-testigos-de-jehova","category-mas-historias","tag-guerra-politica-sp","tag-interpretacion-escrituras","wpcat-57-id","wpcat-774-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.4jehovah.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.4jehovah.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.4jehovah.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.4jehovah.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.4jehovah.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20313"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.4jehovah.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20318,"href":"https:\/\/www.4jehovah.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20313\/revisions\/20318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.4jehovah.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.4jehovah.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.4jehovah.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}