Why They Left Their Church

TODAY thousands are leaving their respective churches. Many are doing this because they have found that true Christianity is not taught nor practiced in their church. From England and the United States come two experiences that illustrate this:

“For over seventy years I was an active supporter of the Salvation Army in their fight to aid the poor and needy. Many times I joined the preaching and singing on the promenade at Brighton, England, with my tambourine and banner. Though many of the doctrines of the Salvation Army puzzled me, I read my Bible and continued to pray for God’s help.

“About five years ago I had a stroke, which confined me to my home for about a year. It was toward the end of this confinement that I received a letter from the Salvation Army. I had not seen nor heard from them since my stroke. To my surprise, when I opened their letter, I found enclosed a reminder of the accumulated threepence-a-week membership fee, an envelope for ‘self-denial week’ and an envelope for the ‘harvest festival.’ Here after so many years of regular attendance and support I realized that they were more interested in my money than my welfare.

“Soon after this I met one of Jehovah’s witnesses outside my house. Her warm smile and happy outlook for the future moved me to accept her offer to study the Bible with me in my home without cost. I must say that I have learned more about the Bible in just a short time than I did in my more than seventy years in the Salvation Army. So on October 25, 1968, at 82 years of age, I was baptized in Brighton in symbol of my dedication to serve the true God, Jehovah. Now I know what held me in the Salvation Army. It was fear, fear of their false doctrine of eternal torment. How often the Salvation Army captains reminded us that failure to attend the Congress Hall could mean fiery torment after death!

“What a joy to know the Bible truth on such matters! (Eccl. 9:5) Yes, and what a wonderful future God has in store for those who love him and faithfully serve him.”

A California man writes: “In 1964 we joined the True Baptist Church in Paramount, California. The preacher seemed more interested in how much money we put in the collection plate than in teaching us the Bible. A friend and I repeatedly asked him to start a Bible study class, but he kept putting us off. Every Sunday after he preached a sermon, we found ourselves wondering what his sermon was supposed to mean.

“When my wife got sick and had to go to the hospital, the minister told me that I could visit her but that I was to do my duty to the church first. He told me that as the church mechanic, I had to repair the bus and the assistant pastor’s truck. I had to do this right away. Although I did not know too much about God’s truth, I could easily see that he was not setting a good example nor was he teaching God’s Word. I told my wife that I was going to quit the church.

“So on Sunday morning I went to the church early and told the minister that I could not honestly come to church any longer as I did not agree with his teachings and his conduct. I told him that I certainly did not need him to tell me when I could visit my wife in the hospital. I declared that I was resigning from his church. He tried to talk me out of this. When he saw that I would not change my mind, he offered to read from the Bible, saying that I would go to hellfire if I did not come back to his church.

“When I heard this, I said, ‘I have heard you say from your own pulpit that the Devil quotes scriptures to his own advantage.’ At this he accepted my resignation.

“During all this time Jehovah’s witnesses were teaching my wife the Bible. Later when we moved to Romoland, sixty miles away, the Witnesses lovingly made arrangements to continue helping my wife study the Bible and invited me to do so also. I accepted their offer, and what I learned was amazing! I could not help but be impressed by the Witnesses’ sincerity in wanting only to teach the Bible and their going through so much trouble to help us learn it. Now my wife and I are Jehovah’s witnesses too.”