The Jehovah Witness and His Friend

AUGUST 1972

With a new VW I no longer needed to hitchhike. Instead, I was able to pick up hitchhikers and on my drive from Milwaukee to Jacksonville, I did just that. On the freeway somewhere between those two cities I picked up 2 guys hitchhiking.

I don't remember how we got on the topic of Christ, in those days I just found ways to bring Christ into the conversation. I looked for any opportunity and the opportunities came. Most people I talked to didn't have a problem with it either. Sometimes people would argue and in those cases I let them say their say and let it go; but most of the times they would listen and oftentimes they would make decisions for Christ. Preaching the Gospel was rarely offensive to others.

I do remember one time I was on the beach in Ft. Lauderdale at the same time a lot of Jesus People were witnessing. I was talking to one guy about Christ when his friend came by and said, "If I see one more Jesus Freak, I am going to hit him." The guy I was talking to corrected him, "This guy's different, he makes sense." But his friend got the upper hand and they left.

Back to my drive back to FL from WI. I picked up these 2 guys and somehow we got to talking about Christ. Both were into drugs, one was brought up Christian and the other brought up Jehovah Witness.

Now understand, Jehovah Witnesses believe that only 1,000 people will go to heaven, because at one time the religion was less than 1,000, but once the church grew bigger than 1,000 the doctrine changed. They still teach that only 1,000 will go to heaven, but the rest they say, will live on the earth that will be changed into a paradise.

During our conversation, the guy who was brought up Christian rededicated his life to Christ which annoyed his JW friend and seemed to spark new dedication to JW. While we continued our dialogue the rededicated Christian and I got excited about heaven. His Jehovah Witness friend said, "I'm not going to heaven!" We both knew that he meant he was going to live on the earth forever, but we both chimed in, "I'm going to heaven!"