(8) Questions with Remarkable Answers Answers by Pastor Russell from What Pastor Russell Said

Listen to audio: 

● Question 1 (1914). If I am in harmony with Present Truth, as presented by Brother
Russell, but live consistent in a church for years, what would I gain by coming out into the I.B.S. Association?

A. Shall I say they would gain a fortune, that it would be the making of your business or
entrance into society? What shall I tell him? I think he would gain a good conscience. Why, are there no good Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans or Catholics? Yes, verily, I believe there is nobody in this world stands on a broader foundation than the I.B.S.A. No other class of people who recognize all that are saints of God regardless of denominational lines more thoroughly than we.

Why should anybody leave the nominal church and join the I.B.S.A.? In the first
place, you cannot join the I.B.S.A. in the same way you join anything else. … They won’t need to receive you in. You become a Bible student just as soon as you become free …
Now you say, why could I not just as well stay where I am? It is not for me to decide for
you. If you think you hear the voice of God telling you to stay where you are, then by all means follow God’s voice; but to some of us the matter is this way. … I no longer believe that creed and can no longer stay in and be honest with myself, with God or with my fellowmen.

… If all would do that they would all come together and there would be nothing but Christians. Then what would they be? I.B.S.A.’s. (page 348).

● Question 2, on Chronology (1910). … Another thing while at it … To what extent
should the Pilgrims and other brothers preach “Brother Russell”?

I say, not at all. You have plenty, dear friends, to preach and the Apostle says, “We preach
Christ.” Brother Russell is very glad if the Lord has used him as a finger-board to point the right road for your eyes, that you can see wonderful things in the Word of God, but it is not Brother Russell, but it is the Lord that has used him. … So my advice is that you do not search the Scriptures to find anything about Brother Russell, but that you search to find things about the “glorious One” whom we all reverence. … You remember that John the Revelator had seen this and that, and other things, and he said he fell at the feet of the angel who showed me these things, saying, “See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God” (page 77).

● Question 3 (1914). Pastor Russell … I may be privileged to have some part in it also.
Can you use, and are you willing to accept, the enclosed check to assist in the work? If so, I will be pleased to have you use it in whatever way may be deemed advisable to you.

A. The check is for $2,700.00, and the question is will I accept it or not? I answer in
the affirmative.

I might say, my dear brethren … although no money is ever solicited, all the money that is
used is donated, and as a rule, those who give to the work are not very wealthy people. But very many people having had their own souls blessed feel as though they wanted to do something to give the blessing to others (page 349).

● Question 4 (1914 July 2, Columbus, Ohio). Do you think the saints will all be sealed
by October, 1914, whether … here or not?

We will not go into all the proofs. That would take us all afternoon, and you have it in print, you have read it for yourselves and you know whether you believe it or whether you do not believe it and you were not urged to believe it. I simply set before you what I found there, what seemed to be, to me, the most reasonable answer to this matter, and you believed as much of it or as little of it as appealed to your heart.

… there are seven times marked out for the Gentiles; and their times began … we believe, the year 606 BC, and the seven times of the Gentiles is just as long 2,520 years, and measure down, we believe, to the end of the year 1914 and the beginning of the year 1915. What should we expect then? … I presume that the Gentiles will be served with a notice to quit. And just what that will mean to the Gentiles I am not wise enough to know. (pages 79-89).

● Question 5 (1909). How much time space should we understand from the beginning
of the eleventh hour to its close?

A. I should like to know definitely myself. (page 75).