Todays text is Matthew 18:17 ...speak to the congregation. So I'm giving everyone I can a copy of after the meeting. I put the elders copy in the snail mail.
My Dear Friends,
I am writing to tell you how much I love & appreciate your sincerity as worshippers of God and love for my family. I keep you in my prayers because so many of you look like you are toiling & loaded down, though worship to Jehovah is to be refreshing (Matt. 11:28-30). Please stop and think why despite doing one's best it seems It is never good enough. I love Jehovah & his Son with all my heart, mind, soul, & strength. This love for God, his Son, and the truth is what moves me to make the hardest decision of my life. Along with other evidence the following scriptures describe my reasons for no longer putting my trust in the Governing Body or the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society. I only put my trust in Jehovah & his Son.
I hope with all my heart that I am wrong and if I am I will repent. I do not want to receive the judgment of the wicked but I can only worship God in Spirit & Truth. So I say goodbye and I will always cherish my time with you. Please be of comfort to Richard & the kids.
Always your friend,
Malachi 3:18 “And YOU people will again certainly see [the distinction] between a righteous one and a wicked one, between one serving God and one who has not served him.”
2 Timothy 3:5,6 , 5 having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power; and from these turn away. 6 For from these arise those men who slyly work their way into households and lead as their captives weak women loaded down with sins, led by various desires, 7 always learning and yet never able to come to an accurate knowledge of truth.
James 1:27 “27 The form of worship that is clean and undefiled from the standpoint of our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their tribulation, and to keep oneself without spot from the world.”
Matthew 7:15-23 15 “Be on the watch for the false prophets that come to YOU in sheep’s covering, but inside they are ravenous wolves. 16 By their fruits YOU will recognize them. Never do people gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, do they? 17 Likewise every good tree produces fine fruit, but every rotten tree produces worthless fruit; 18 a good tree cannot bear worthless fruit, neither can a rotten tree produce fine fruit. 19 Every tree not producing fine fruit gets cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Really, then, by their fruits YOU will recognize those [men]. 21 “Not everyone saying to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but the one doing the will of my Father who is in the heavens will. 22 Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many powerful works in your name?’ 23 And yet then I will confess to them: I never knew YOU! Get away from me, YOU workers of lawlessness.
Matthew 23: 23-27 23 “Woe to YOU, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because YOU give the tenth of the mint and the dill and the cumin, but YOU have disregarded the weightier matters of the Law, namely, justice and mercy and faithfulness. These things it was binding to do, yet not to disregard the other things. 24 Blind guides, who strain out the gnat but gulp down the camel!
25 “Woe to YOU, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because YOU cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of plunder and immoderateness. 26 Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the dish, that the outside of it also may become clean.
27 “Woe to YOU, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because YOU resemble whitewashed graves, which outwardly indeed appear beautiful but inside are full of dead men’s bones and of every sort of uncleanness. 28 In that way YOU also, outwardly indeed, appear righteous to men, but inside YOU are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Rev 18:4,5 “ 4 And I heard another voice out of heaven say: “Get out of her, my people, if YOU do not want to share with her in her sins, and if YOU do not want to receive part of her plagues. 5 For her sins have massed together clear up to heaven, and God has called her acts of injustice to mind.”