Focus on Charles Taze Russell

We are presenting below the sermon of Charles Taze Russell entitled “The True Church.” This sermon proves that Russell did not believe in sectarianism, and, while not condoing denominationalism, he believed that there could be Christians in all of the denominations that profess to be Christian. As one can see by reading this, Russell certainly did not believe in an organization such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses have today, which they style “Jehovah’s organization.” This sermon may be found on page 120 in the book, Pastor Russell’s Sermons. Please note that the owner of this website does not necessarily agree with all the details of Russell’s conclusions.

We are providing links below to Google searches of Russell’s works for the phrase “true church.”

CLICK HERE to search ctrussell.us.

CLICK HERE to search agsconsulting.com

Please note that the search results may include statements by others than Russell. One should take care to notice who the author is lest words of another author should be attributed to Russell.

Often many make the claim that Russell was the founder of the JWs, and confuse the JWs organization stance as the only true church with Russell. Russell did not believe an earthly “Jehovah’s organization,” as Rutherford and the JWs speak of. In truth Charles Taze Russell was not the founder of the JWs, nor did he believe in such an authoritative organization as the JWs. Russell believed that one can be saved by grace by faith in the blood of Jesus, regardless of denominational affiliation. Russell stated: “the Lord in Heaven records as members of His true Church all the saintly — whether Roman Catholics, Anglican Catholics, Greek Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc. — and none others…. Do we not see that a part of our mistake was in calling the outward organization the Church of Christ, instead of remembering that the Lord alone writes the names of the Church, that He alone reads the hearts, that He alone is the Judge, and that He alone has the right to blot out the names of those who become reprobates? … We must see that the Church is a comparatively small company of saintly footstep followers of Jesus, irrespective of sectarian lines.” And Russell stated: “all who are worshiping any church organization should be warned. See thou do it not.’ These are thy fellow servants. ‘Worship God.’ `Rev. 22:9`.” He further stated: “so far as the true Church is concerned, the only authority in it is the Lord, the Head of the Church, and his Word, and the words of those whom he specially chose to be his mouth-pieces, the apostles.” And, “we believe that in every nation and denomination there are some true saints of God, members therefore of the true Church of God.”

We are presenting the following from Pastor Russell’s Sermons because of the anti-sectarian statements that Russell made in this sermon, which show that he did not believe in an authoritarian sectarian organization as the “Jehovah’s Witnesses”. To help with searches, the names of Bible books have been expanded; we have also supplied the holy name at appropriate places. This sermon can be found in the book Pastor Russell’s Sermons, beginning on page 459.

“Upon this rock will I build My Church; and the gates of Hell [Hades, the grave] shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.” — Matthew 16:l8,19.