THE SAME YESTERDAY, AND TODAY, AND FOREVER
by Norman H. Crowhurst

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” That was true when he said it, although his listeners doubtless understood the words no better than most do today when they read them. The only way anyone can know what those words mean, is to experience that meaning. So let me start to tell my story of learning God’s way.

My earliest recollections concern a Sunday School I attended in pre-World-War England, in a town with a population of about 100,000. The group called themselves the Strict and Particular Baptists. In the Sunday School we listened to Bible stories which, aided by the models in the sandbox, seemed quite real. With what we learned from the Bible, we also learned that only those baptised into our church would go to heaven.

The total attendance at this little church was about 100, which meant the other 99,900 people in that town were destined for “the other place.” None of the kids I played with, for blocks around, would get to heaven. Do you see my problem? Then my parents told me not to try to convert my playmates. That could cause trouble, because we lived in a democracy. Rather difficult for a little boy of six to understand!

When I was seven we moved to London. My parents started going to a group called the Bible Students. These people also believed complete water immersion for baptism, but they did not believe everyone else is going to burn forever.

At the time, they believed, and emphasized, what Paul said in Romans 14:5, “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” They quoted Acts 17:10, 11 often, on the basis of which they called themselves Berean Bible Students. This appealed to me.

But in those days I heard a phrase that I have since heard in many quite different settings: “in the truth.” One person would ask another, “How long have you been in the truth?” Although I was yet to hear others use this phrase, about quite different ‘truths’, something about its usage purturbed me, even then.

One thing I liked in those days was their constant reference to 1 Thess. 5:21. They insisted that everyone must take that proof for himself. In 1928 I was baptised. What baptism meant to others around me I do not know, but Paul’s explanation in Gal. 3:27 said it to me. I remember wondering what difference that would make in my life.

After a while, looking back, I could distinguish two differences in my life that started at my baptism. First, I could discern the difference between what the scriptures actually say, and what was man-made interpretation, often quoted as “the scriptures clearly teach that . . .” (fill in your own heresy). However, I did not tell others about this discernment, because such questioning would not have been popular. I kept it to myself.

For example, one teaching was that the earth was created in six days each of seven thousand years duration. The Bible account can be verified scientifically, at least as to its correctness of sequence. But any fixation of a time duration to the days of Gen. 1 (or 2:4. where 6 days of chapter 1, become only 1 day) did not make sense, when God did not make the ‘clock’ till the fourth day! So I suffered their insistence on a 42,000 year creative cycle, rather than start an argument (2 Tim. 2:14).

This sort of assent went for many things. So why did I stay with them? Because I found that with this group one was free to discuss meanings, so long as one did not challenge such firmly held dogmas, that had been set forth by Charles Russell, the Watchtower Society’s first president.

About that time, they were increasing their door to door activity and three years later; in 1931, the second president, Judge Rutherford, changed the name of the group to Jehovah’s Witnesses. I was a little unhappy with his use of Isa. 43:1 0, 12 as ‘proof’ for use of this name. Shouldn’t we have left? Where else could we study the Bible freely? We tried several churches, and they were frightened of us.

On one such occasion, a lady I met at her door asked why we could not come to her church for Bible study, instead of her coming to ours. We accepted this as an invitation. They were reading Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and looking up the texts cited in the footnotes.

As they came to the conclusion of the texts that Bunyan had cited for one paragraph, some more texts came into my mind that would substantiate what was being discussed. When I asked if I might read these extra texts, I was told where the door was, and we were ejected with an insistence I will never forget.

I could recount hundreds of such visits, some of which lasted a week or two, some in church halls, some around home firesides, with Catholics, and all varieties of protestants. Just when the atmosphere seemed as if the presence of God’s Spirit was going to lead us all into learning of Him, someone in the group would call the whole thing off.

So we had little choice, it seemed, but to stay with Jehovah’s Witnesses. At least they did not throw us out — yet!

The other change of my life that started at my baptism can best be told by one of many, many experiences. A family had invited me back to study the Bible with them. And those Bible studies were that — no Watchtower textbooks for me! Just the Bible.

On this particular occasion, they had invited a young man in. They told me nothing about him. He himself quickly announced that he was an agnostic, that hundreds of very well-versed Christians had tried to prove to him that there is a God, but all had failed. He had heard every argument ever invented, but none had convinced him. However, his mind was open, he said, so I was welcome to try, if I thought I could do what hundreds of the best Christian brains had failed to do.

The gauntlet was down. I felt like I imagine little David felt, sallying out to meet Goliath! Spiritually, wasn’t it even the same challenge. “Who is God?” I remember involuntarily offering up a silent prayer: a prayer that had no human words, but could best be translated as “Help!”

My mouth opened and I started talking. I heard myself talking about the design of the latest 4-engine aircraft, going into details that must have still been classified and, anyway, I did not know half the strange words I was saying. I concluded by saying that when we see that airplane fly, we know it is the work of an intelligent designer. You know the rest. It was not original. Paul used it at Romans 1:20.

The young man told me he had heard that argument before, but never had he heard such a ‘way out’ example used. He commented that not one person in a million would know what I was talking about and asked why I picked it. His attitude suggested that he thought my argument was all prepared and polished, from being used many times before.

I told him that I was one of those millions who did not know anything about aircraft design and that I had never used that example in argument before. He said, “And you are not an aircraft designer?” I repeated that the information I had been reciting was completely unknown to me, like so much gibberish.

Then he told me that he was an aircraft designer, recently graduated from college, and that every fact I had used was as current as it could be, just what he was using in his work. It had taken him more than four years to learn the facts I had recited in 15 minutes without any foreknowledge, all neatly put together.

We both sat silent for a few minutes. Then he said that the argument did not convince him — never would have. But how could I recite facts I did not know, so accurately? That must be supernatural! He could find no explanation for that. Unless I could write a book about such experiences but what good would they do? Each was given for the purpose in hand at that moment. This obstinate agnostic had his proof, even if it was not what either he or I expected for proof. We have a living God who can convert a Saul of Tarsus into an apostle Paul!

How long did I continue with the Jehovah’s Witnesses? Almost 40 years, including the time when they were known as Berean Bible Students. But in all that time I never accepted their authoritarian ways. They gradually introduced a doctrine that says the Holy Spirit now guides only through their organization. We can only follow the Spirit by obeying organization instructions!

I never believed that. But the doctrine first crept in so insidiously that we were still free not to accept it, until we had ‘proved’ it for ourselves. What I had proved was that God still sends forth his Spirit as he did in earlier times, when one of His people needs that help.

Only when the organization called us to renounce that belief did we cease association with Jehovah’s Witnesses. We could not deny the Holy Spirit. But there is much more to this long story. And the trials through which we went before we understood more fully just how God works covered a long period of time. So let us meet again (Acts 17:32) if you want to hear more of our story about the living God, who changes not.

Norman Crowhurst had never heard of the Church of Christ or the Restoration Movement until 1966, when two young men called at his home. They told the Crowhursts they believed the Bible only, which is the position they themselves had held, having been baptized in 1928. For over 30 years, mostly in his native England, he had been a leader among Jehovah’s Witnesses, whom he left after coming to this country. But his association with the Church of Christ was short-lived, a story he will proceed to tell.