Last week, we were shocked and saddened to learn of a Jehovah’s Witness mother who committed suicide after killing her husband and two adult children in Detroit, Michigan on February 16, 2018:

Woman Who Killed Self, Entire Family Was Shunned by Jehovah’s Witnesses for Sending Kids to College

https://www.christianpost.com/news/woman-who-killed-self-entire-family-shunned-by-jehovahs-witnesses-for-sending-kids-to-college-218658/

Joyce Taylor was a personal friend of the Jehovah’s Witness mother (Laura Stuart) who murdered herself and her family last week in order to “save” them from Armageddon. Before Laura killed her family, she wrote: “I had to kill them, it was the only way to save them.” Joyce Taylor, who grew up with Laura, understands the Watchtower cultic mindset and Jehovah’s Witness shunning policy that drove Laura to murder her family and she told how just a week before Laura murdered herself and her family, she had visited Joyce and was telling her how concerned she was that “Armageddon” (the battle to end the world) was coming soon.

Joyce, who had left the Watchtower many years before, shared how strong this fear of Armageddon can be in causing a Jehovah’s Witness to wish for the death of their non-JW relatives because the Watchtower teaches that if you die “before” Armageddon, you will get a chance to be “resurrected” and have another opportunity to “accept the Truth” (that is, the Watchtower religion) before you will be annihilated, but if you die “during” Armageddon, there will be no second chance. She believes that this lie along with the Watchtower shunning policy is what drove Laura to murder herself and her family last week and she went back to Laura’s Kingdom Hall and tried to tell them so. View the video in which another ExJW couple talks about how the JW shunning policy affects lives:

View Ex-JW Critical Thinker’s Interview with Joyce Taylor below:

This is not the only JW murder/suicide where the Jehovah’s Witness said that they were killing in order to “save” their family. Soon after I started my ministry in the late 1990’s, I read in a 1999 news article about a Jehovah’s Witness father (Mark Barton) who decided to murder his wife and 2 kids and then kill himself over unrelenting fears. He wrote:

“I have been dying since October. I wake up at night so afraid, so terrified… It has taken its toll. I have come to hate this life and this system of things. I have come to have no hope. I killed the children to exchange them for five minutes of pain for a lifetime of pain… I know Jehovah will take care of all of them in the next life…”



This story broke my heart because this man believed lies that left him hopeless. He believed the Watchtower doctrine that if a person dies before Armageddon, he will stand a chance of being saved. But that is a lie! The Bible teaches that there is no second chance after you die (Hebrews 9:27). And Jehovah God doesn’t decide who will be saved based on when they die, whether before Armageddon or during it. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that. In fact, it says quite the opposite:

John 3:16: “For God so LOVED the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that WHOEVER believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

“Whoever” puts their trust in Jesus for salvation, can be confident that they will be saved. You don’t need to fear God’s wrath at Armageddon! The Bible says that if you put faith in Jesus and His words, you will NOT come into judgement and you will pass “out of death into life” immediately upon faith in Jesus Christ:

John 5:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but HAS passed out of death into life.”

1 John 4:18: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses LIVE IN FEAR of Armageddon, and that proves they don’t have the LOVE of God.

These murder/suicides could have been prevented if these people could have seen the hope they can have in Christ. It’s not up to us to “prove faithful” for salvation. Jesus paid the full price for our salvation and he offers it freely as a gift (Ephesians 2:8-9). If we come to Jesus and ask Him to forgive us of our sins and ask Him to exchange our unworthiness for His righteousness, He promises to give us the gift of eternal life (John 10:28). We can “know” we are saved (1 John 5:11-12). You don’t have to live in fear!

LEARN MORE AT:

I’M AFRAID OF BEING DESTROYED AT ARMAGEDDON. —What If Jehovah’s Witnesses Are Right After All?

http://www.4jehovah.org/what-if-jehovahs-witnesses-are-right-about-armageddon/

What Do You Think? Is The Watchtower Blood Guilty for the Recent Murder Suicide Case in Michigan?

https://www.4witness.org/what-do-you-think-is-the-watchtower-blood-guilty-for-the-recent-murder-suicide-case-in-michigan/