The doctrines that are touched upon in the Annual are treated delicately, open-endedly, or only in part. Apparently the editors have taken great care not to offend any denomination. But in doing so they water down the Bible’s forceful message and offend the Author of the Bible, Jehovah God.​—Isa. 29:13, 14.

Trinity Teaching

One of the central teachings of the churches that is included in the popular Annual has to do with the relationship of God, Jesus Christ and the holy spirit.

In God’s Word, the Bible, it is simply and clearly stated that Jesus Christ is God’s Son. Never did Jesus claim to be God. He always showed that God is his Father. And the Bible teaches that the holy spirit is God’s active force.

When Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan, God said from heaven: “This is my Son, the beloved, whom I have approved.” (Matt. 3:17) Jesus said: “I seek, not my own will, but the will of him that sent me.” (John 5:30) He also said: “The Father is greater than I am.” (John 14:28) The apostle Paul stated: “The head of the Christ is God.” (1 Cor. 11:3) The apostle Peter said to Jesus: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matt. 16:16) And Acts 2:1-4 shows that God’s spirit is not a person, but a force, because people were “filled with holy spirit.” If it were a person, as Trinitarians claim, could it be ‘poured out’? Could others be “filled” with it? No, you cannot ‘pour out’ or be “filled” with another person.

However, the Annual says, in reference to Peter’s words at Matthew 16:16: “As we use those words today, we tend to read into them the familiar trinitarian formula of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that developed later.” Yet, the Annual admits: “Actually, this may be sound theologically; but in that day, among the Christians, the title ‘Son’ referred not to the second person of the Trinity, but to the Jewish Messiah.”

This admits that the men whom Jesus taught had nothing to do with any Trinity teaching. That teaching was “developed later” by those who fell away from the Christian faith. But the Annual prefers to set aside the plain Biblical teaching that Jesus is not God, and that the holy spirit is a force, not a person. It accepts the false doctrine of the Trinity.

Satan the Devil

The Bible also clearly teaches that wickedness originated with a mighty spirit creature who rebelled against God. He is called Satan and Devil. (Rev. 12:9) Jesus believed in the existence of Satan. When tempted by Satan, he replied: “Go away, Satan! For it is written, ‘It is Jehovah your God you must worship.’”​—Matt. 4:10.

However, the Sunday-school Annual states: “In New Testament times Satan was thought of as head of a host of demons who helped him in his evil work.” But rather than believe what Jesus and those first-century Christians personally believed and taught, and what God’s own Word the Bible says, the Annual comments: “It is difficult to think of Jesus being tempted by such a figure in actual form. . . . In attempting to describe a spiritual experience one often must use concrete symbols.”

Hence, Satan is reduced to a mere figure of speech, someone that did not really exist. But who should know best whether he exists or not? Does not God know? Did not Jesus also know? And does not God’s own inspired Word tell us better than today’s critics who want to water down the Bible?

Making You Part of a Doomed World

The International Sunday School Lessons Annual for 1970 also says: “God reconciles the world to himself, not just the church or the individual believer. . . . we believe that there is one God and that all the world is his. . . . Jesus never wavered from his conviction that this is essentially a good world. He never taught that men should withdraw from it.”

But what if it is not God’s purpose to convert this wicked world, but to destroy it instead? If this is so, then those who attend Sunday school are not being taught the truth. They are being asked to become part of a world that is doomed to destruction by God himself.

Who rules this world of mankind that is not doing God’s will? Is it Jehovah God? No, it is ruled by Satan the Devil. Remember, the apostle John declared: “The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” (1 John 5:19) Jesus called the Devil “the ruler of the world.”​—John 14:30.

The Bible clearly says that God’s kingdom, his heavenly government, “will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it itself will stand to times indefinite.” (Dan. 2:44) If the kingdoms of this world were God’s, why would he destroy them and replace them with his heavenly kingdom for which Jesus taught Christians to pray?​—Matt. 6:9, 10.

Jesus said of himself and his followers: “They are no part of the world, just as I am no part of the world.” (John 17:16) So he did not love the wicked world. He set the example for his followers by not getting involved in its affairs. Why, at one time when some people wanted to make him a political ruler, “Jesus, knowing they were about to come and seize him to make him king, withdrew again into the mountain all alone.”​—John 6:15.

Hence, the attempts of churches and their Sunday-school courses to involve people in the affairs of this doomed world are really apostasy in God’s sight.

Do you want your children to learn to be part of a world that God will destroy soon? Or do you want your family to learn about God’s purpose to establish a new order, a Paradise here on earth where God-fearing persons will live forever in peace and happiness, where sickness, sorrow and even death will be things of the past? As the Bible says: “God himself will be with them. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be any more. The former things have passed away.”​—Rev. 21:3, 4.

Can the Truth Be Found?

This article has reviewed only three of many Sunday-school teachings that are outright contradictions of God’s Word. Other important Bible teachings are also left in confusion. That is why if you ask those who go to Sunday school to answer questions such as those raised earlier in this article, you will usually find they cannot answer or cannot back up their answers from the Bible.

HAVE you learned in Sunday school about God’s marvelous purpose to make the earth a Paradise? It is not likely, for one of the most glaring proofs of failure is the fact that Sunday-school courses devote very little time to Bible prophecy.

Yet, the Bible contains a great deal about prophecy, about what the future holds. These prophecies were written for the guidance of God’s people. Amos 3:7 says: “For the Lord Jehovah will not do a thing unless he has revealed his confidential matter to his servants the prophets.”

If the leaders in the church systems were God’s true servants, would their Sunday-school textbooks have so little to say about what the future holds and about how God will solve the horrible conditions of today?

If your Sunday school follows the International Sunday School Lesson series, note how the Annual waters down the subject of Bible prophecy in a veiled reference to the work of Jehovah’s witnesses who do study and teach Bible prophecy. It says:

“The second coming of Christ is an important theme in the New Testament. . . . Who among us has not seen the slogan, ‘Millions now living will never die’? These people make such statements because they believe that Christ will come back soon, that time will draw to an end, and that the final judgment will occur in the near future . . . While not denying an ultimate return at the end of time, this writing stresses the truth that in the Holy Spirit, whom God will send into men’s hearts, Jesus himself will once again indwell in the lives of his followers. This too is a coming again.”​—Page 101.

Bible a Book of Prophecy

From such Sunday-school teaching, how would you know whether we are living in the “last days” or not? (2 Tim. 3:1) Jesus himself, and many Bible writers, gave enough details to mark clearly the generation that would see the end of this wicked system. These details fill many chapters in the Bible. See, for instance, the following Bible chapters: Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, 2 Timothy 3, Revelation 6.

Bible prophecies such as these were recorded under the inspiration of God’s holy spirit. The Creator had this information put into his Word so that Christians would be aware that they were nearing the time of “great tribulation such as has not occurred since the world’s beginning until now, no, nor will occur again.” (Matt. 24:21) If we are nearing such a time, then surely you will want to know about it. Why? Because the life or death of every person on earth hangs in the balance.

However, today’s Sunday schools do not make known such Bible knowledge.