Cultish: The World Mission Society Church of God
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Watch the newest episode of Cultish (a production of Apologia Studios). We are joined by Pastor Mike Winger and we discuss the World Mission Society Church of God. Who are they? What do they believe? Find out here! Tell someone!
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- 00:00
- Alright, welcome back ladies and gentlemen to cultish entering the king of the cults. My name is
- 00:05
- Jeremiah Roberts I'm one of the co -hosts here as always. I've got Andrew the super sleuth of the show with us in studio
- 00:12
- How are you doing, man? I'm doing well, man. This is a very exciting day. Yes So we have we're gonna be talking about a cult that since we started cultish.
- 00:21
- We've got numerous messages to cover it and We always think whenever we're talking about specific cult it'll happen right whenever Precisely when it's supposed to happen.
- 00:32
- And so we're gonna be talking today about the World Mission Society Church of God And so we're gonna introduce our guests in just a moment, but we also have someone else with us in studio today
- 00:42
- We have Josh agent. Tell them tell everyone just a little bit about yourself Hey, so I'm a member at apologia and I've known
- 00:50
- Andrew and Jerry for probably about a year and a half now I was actually one of the people who was bugging
- 00:56
- Jerry about doing this one in person in his small group yes, I was one of them and So my wife and I moved to town about a year and a half ago said
- 01:06
- I could study at Phoenix Seminary So hey to all of you fellow seminary students out there
- 01:12
- Yeah, and so and specifically you've had a lot of that not you've done a lot of theological studies, but specifically both
- 01:20
- Andrew has but also you have had some extensive interactions with people from the
- 01:25
- World Mission Society Church of God and You can you detest to that? Usually they've it's a pretty fiery conversation.
- 01:32
- They're pretty intense, right? Oh, it can definitely get fiery Yeah. Yeah. Was that the case with you with you
- 01:37
- Andrew? Oh, yeah, it was it was pretty intense. Okay. Yeah I'm just saying that because when we Posted our social media both just a little while ago, but also a couple weeks ago.
- 01:45
- This is right almost Yeah, it was when we first initially posted about we had a lot of people most of people commenting
- 01:51
- We're talking about some sort of interaction that they had including here the audio of these two college girls who interviewed in this news clip here
- 01:59
- So all that being said we have a guest with us today He is a
- 02:04
- Mike winger. He is he's got a YouTube channel Bible thinker. He's got a lot of great content Definitely check out the
- 02:10
- YouTube channel Mike. How are you doing today, man? I'm doing good. It's really good.
- 02:15
- I'm pardon me I'm doing good. It's good to see see you guys Digitally, I guess and it's good to be with you.
- 02:21
- Even though we originally we're gonna do this in person This is a lot more convenient for me. Thanks to the coronavirus.
- 02:27
- Yes Yeah, this is this is we've changed from all these in -person meetings to everyone's on almost everyone's doing zoom for almost everything
- 02:35
- So praise God for technology. Yes, it is pretty cool to see where things are at So yeah, man, just tell them just real quickly just a little bit about yourself your
- 02:43
- YouTube channel and you Because I know that when I started looking into myself
- 02:48
- About what is out there when it comes to the World Missing Society Church of God cult there
- 02:54
- There isn't really a lot of content at least a Christian a good Christian apologetic content And that's where I came about your videos
- 03:01
- But just tell everyone how did you get into apologetics or I don't how did you get into your
- 03:06
- YouTube channel? Then tell them about what made you pay attention to the World Missing Society Church of God and start doing that on your
- 03:14
- YouTube channel Yeah, well, I mean the basic idea of my YouTube channel is learning to think biblically about everything and I cover topics of theology
- 03:22
- Apologetics and I usually like to go a layer deeper than what you can usually find at least that's my goal
- 03:27
- That's my agenda study a little bit more in detail and then bring that detail out in the studies and so I do verse -by -verse teaching and I do topical stuff as well, including things like cult groups and Atheism and you know different stuff historical issues about Christianity all that kind of stuff
- 03:44
- My main concern for my channel is trying to actually be biblical about things a lot of guys who do
- 03:50
- Apologetics stuff they in all honesty They just get a little disconnected from sort of that verse -by -verse mentality of understanding the text in context
- 04:00
- Everything's more about I mean I have I'm having a battle and I'm gonna approach this scripture with looking for tools for that battle
- 04:07
- But I but I want to make sure to have that that holistic approach of Understanding all of what the Bible is actually saying about things and the
- 04:14
- Lord's really blessed it I do these long videos where I teach all kinds of stuff in detail and and I now have a hundred thirty eight thousand subscribers.
- 04:22
- I think right now and it's just blowing my mind I mean, I'm just a pastor in Southern California who just I can't believe the reach that it has
- 04:30
- And so I just want to be faithful with it try to do as much as I can for the kingdom, you know Praise God man. Yeah, like I've listened to quite a bit of your content and I love it because you care about the person's soul that you're talking to you know,
- 04:40
- Like you just said with the holistic approach that you you would take you take when actually addressing these issues So I appreciate you and I appreciate you ministry pastor
- 04:48
- Mike for sure. Thank you. Thank you, man. I'm humbled by it I don't deserve to have the voice that I've got right now, but I hope
- 04:54
- I can use it Well, and the Lord would bless it. Yeah, man. Yeah, man, definitely So just tell us real quickly
- 05:00
- So you you've mentioned that you did a lot of the different apologetic content and definitely check out his
- 05:05
- YouTube channel at Bible thinker But when it comes to the world missing Society Church of God, what how did you initially?
- 05:13
- Find out about them because you said you haven't had personal interactions with them But explain what was the context that led you up to even making those videos to begin with that when people go into onto your
- 05:22
- YouTube Channel that now I've gotten tons of views on the world missing Society Church of God. Yeah Well, um, let me let me just tell you how it happened to me
- 05:30
- I actually had a student who came up to me after it after an encounter With the world mission Society Church of God with some of their preachers and they came up to them and said hey
- 05:37
- Have you heard of mother God? Have you heard of God the mother and then they brought him through this quickly just this drive -by shooting of verses out of context and then they
- 05:48
- Totally tripped him up and he came to me and he was like, I don't you know, he was just tripping out he wasn't believing what they said, but he was like scared that they were right and What tripped me out was how bad their?
- 06:01
- their Bible Verses were for proving their points but also how effective it seemed to be now
- 06:07
- I had another student come to the same thing and the same scenario like a Year later, and and he's very worried and concerned and I'm thinking
- 06:15
- What what is going on with this group? So I decided to look into it and as I look into it I find that that they will talk about who what they believe and who they are and all that But what
- 06:22
- I find is that there's like almost no resources online dealing with this group I mean if you type in Mormonism, you know, you've got tons of great resources online
- 06:30
- Jehovah's Witnesses tons of great resources But World Mission Society Church of God, it was like this vacuum where there was very little especially especially, you know
- 06:39
- Well year and a half two years ago. There was just very little out there and they're growing in 2010
- 06:44
- They claimed that they had 1900 churches 1900 churches But currently they claim they have over 8 ,000
- 06:50
- Wow And they say they've got 2 .7 million registered members and they've got a foothold in the US they're on colleges near you and they they go under the names like seven thunders or a
- 06:59
- Sez a says and they pretend they're just like a community service program to try to disguise what they're really doing and there's there's
- 07:08
- There's just like these Real strong movement on campuses. They're in LA.
- 07:13
- They have a location here in LA. They probably have one near you guys I'm not sure I didn't look into that But they're very aggressive and this seemed to me like the perfect time to target a cult group
- 07:23
- While they're young while they're still relatively small and there's very little resources out there We could have a huge impact if we just get this content out and get it out as quickly as possible
- 07:32
- So I made my first video. I'll tell you real quick my first video it Did really well it within a very short period of time a few days it had and this my channel was smaller back then but It had 10 ,000 views and people were leaving the church within days of me making this video
- 07:46
- Wow, and one lady she was asked by her fellow Church of God members
- 07:51
- They call it the Church of God that they asked her. Why did why did you leave? What happened and they and she sent them my video and in response they filed this
- 08:01
- Complaints against YouTube and have my video taken down And so it was only out for a few days and then the video was taken down and I couldn't
- 08:08
- I couldn't fight it Just the dynamics and the politics of YouTube. So I made three more videos this time this time
- 08:14
- I made videos they couldn't take down because they didn't use any of their footage or any of their content and The first one I made has got over 100 ,000 views and the other ones have good views as well
- 08:22
- And a lot of people have left the group. Thank God through this. So feed feedback has been really great Yeah, it's interesting too
- 08:28
- When I was doing that research myself and I was kind of looking up some of their sermons and anything that was theirs
- 08:34
- They had in caps all over. This is ours. This is our property like do not use
- 08:39
- Yeah, I was I was thinking in conjunction to the thing you said in your original video I was like, I wonder how much influence
- 08:44
- Mike had on this They were already like that they sue everybody Oh, everybody knows it
- 08:50
- It's and I had been warned when I first started covering them that they would come after me And so I just try to be very careful now because I don't
- 08:57
- I don't want that content to be taken down you know, one of the things I really loved about your video when you put it out is
- 09:04
- The awesome pictures that you put on there Mike like the squirrel that made me laugh Yeah, that was my tongue -in -cheek
- 09:12
- I couldn't play footage from their video I couldn't put up screenshots from their website. I don't want to take any chances So I just put up like a picture of a squirrel or my cat.
- 09:20
- Yeah, and That's my dorky sense of humor. Yeah, and if people are wondering like well, what's that?
- 09:25
- Well, like what's that all about? Like what is that? I'm like, well go check out the videos that there's a soft plug right there subtle for your
- 09:31
- Bible thinker But it's really cool, man I definitely agree with you as far as you know a cult in its infancy because a lot of times if you look at specifically
- 09:40
- A lot of the major cults that we're dealing with today started around the 1800s when you look at Christian science
- 09:47
- Mormonism even and even in the most even the last century you had Scientology come come to rise up and Besides from like Walter Martin there.
- 09:56
- There really were not any real definitive Christian apologetics for how to answer these people and they would you know
- 10:03
- You think about what's going on right now in the world to get you as prior to you know California in that around the
- 10:08
- LA area and Things especially both are crazy in California, but really all over the world right now
- 10:14
- But this specifically it's the times like these of uncertainty is when cults will just jump in to recruit like crazy
- 10:22
- And that's something you also have to do But you know, one of the things you mentioned about not having resources is that or just working?
- 10:29
- We're just you're having to collect the materials yourself. So one of Walter Martin's messages we played at one of our earlier series
- 10:37
- It was like interim episode Walter Martin the baptism of boldness if you guys haven't checked that episode listen to it
- 10:42
- But one of the things that Walter Martin says is he said, you know, I literally for my first book I look
- 10:47
- I went to do a bibliography my bibliography didn't didn't exist He goes I had to go into a whole room like all these cultic headquarters and literally collect the materials for myself
- 10:57
- And so he had to go and like find everything and pull it out So with and that's something similar to you did so just real quickly, but you did a lot of research into this
- 11:06
- I saw a post that you did where you had just a couple of different books. There were somewhat original resources
- 11:12
- So some ways you some ways you kind of emulated one of my heroes of the faith of Walter Martin with what he did
- 11:17
- I love that but talk about just some of the books and Resources that was in that post and we'll post this on our social media when these episodes come out
- 11:25
- About what you don't kind of delve into not only for this episode, but your original videos. Tell us about those resources you pulled into Well, we'll talk more about this a little bit later when we talk about information control
- 11:36
- But but the group does not let anybody outside the group have their books and they work really hard to make sure you can't get
- 11:42
- Them even if they do go on sale online, they will buy them up to keep you from getting them So what
- 11:47
- I do have though through through people who've left the group mostly who've just given me their books I've got six of their books right here
- 11:54
- And I'm not supposed to have these like I've been cursed by members of the group just for owning these books like literally they send me curses and these books
- 12:05
- Include I mean, they're they're tough to read. It's difficult stuff It's confusing but it's all of the same vein you start to realize how the people in the group are thinking because they're being trained with these books they call them the truth books and This one in particular.
- 12:17
- They call the green book. This one's written actually by on song home the founder of the group itself this stuff is
- 12:26
- It's remarkable, I mean you can see that the original owner of the book that she had all her notes they study these things
- 12:33
- Religiously, I mean, this is all they do all day long Well, what I had to do was try to figure out what this group really taught
- 12:39
- I mean, I know they had accusations that they were sex traffickers and stuff like that You have to figure out what's really true about them versus what's what's just you know
- 12:48
- Leading in the news and and so that was part of the homework was to make sure that when I talk about the
- 12:53
- Church Of God, I speak about it in a way that the members go. Yeah, that's right. That is what we believe That is that is what we think.
- 12:59
- Otherwise, all my efforts are in vain. I'm training people to just build a straw man so yeah, I've worked at trying to get these books and these resources and I want to get more and my
- 13:10
- I'm gonna get my address a little bit later If anybody has books you want to send I'll share my address for you guys to send it to me P o box because we really want to keep collecting these
- 13:17
- I'm in contact with a few other people who are also working to Create resources about this group.
- 13:22
- So, okay, would it be fair to say like as Christians? We would say the Bible is our objective standard, right?
- 13:28
- It's the Word of God would it be fair to say for? People that are part of wimps cog just real quickly like some of these books that you have
- 13:34
- This would be some type of standard that they would derive them on song Hong. It's almost essentially scripture to them.
- 13:40
- Yes Yeah It essentially is scripture then the truth books the specific ones called the truth books are essentially scripture then they have sermon books
- 13:47
- That are like a step down from that, but they're still carry the authority of the current prophet of the church
- 13:52
- And so yeah, that's it's it's not like a pastoral commentary or something like that. It's way beyond that.
- 13:58
- Yeah, right So yeah, so what are we curious to hear about? So a lot of people have had these encounters eat like I said you both of you guys have had you
- 14:05
- Josh and you Andrew you've had encounters with them and Lots of our listening audience have also had encounters with them as well, too
- 14:12
- And so a lot of us a lot of times we were dealing with a new cult We we like to kind of do a little bit of origins.
- 14:19
- Okay, where did this all start at right? so these people there's an origin story to these people who go to the targets and Walmart's and shopping malls and have these encounters talking about God the mother so I one one thing
- 14:30
- I want to do so Mike we're gonna have you kind of given it sort of like an overview of this the Little bit of the history behind this group and how they started but one thing you'll see too
- 14:39
- We're kind of this is the first time we're delving into this cult and while some of you may be new be new to understanding
- 14:45
- This cult is that there are definitive traits that you will always see the always definitive characteristics, right?
- 14:52
- So you'll have typically you'll have someone who's somewhat of an authoritarian figure They could be charismatic and but when you talk about Theologically it all they always have some sort of authority where they put themselves above the
- 15:05
- Bible because they had some sort of private Revelation where essentially there's lost and hidden knowledge
- 15:11
- Well, let's just say the truth was there around the first century, but then it got lost at Nicaea, right
- 15:17
- So and again, you can like it's almost like a fill -in -the -blanks cookie cutters Like you could just swap and replace it back and forth
- 15:23
- You'll see it with Mormonism let you see the same claims made with Christian science. You'll see these characteristics
- 15:28
- So my I already know that as you explain this there's things that you will hear that will line up for example with Mormonism Things that line up with Scientology those sort of characteristics.
- 15:40
- So I just want the listening audience to be where we're wary of that as You kind of listen to the origin story, but a lot of people kind of want to know about that So tell us where where did this all start at?
- 15:52
- So I know it was based it was based in Korea and there was some influence on Seventh -day
- 15:57
- Adventism kind of had some sort of undue influence on the beginning of the group So take us back as far as you can to the very beginning
- 16:05
- Let's know how how this craziness all started. All right. Well in the beginning In the beginning there was a man named on song
- 16:13
- Hong and on song Hong He was born in 1918 and he is the central figure of this group
- 16:19
- He's the fountainhead of all of it. Although the group has changed a lot since he was alive.
- 16:24
- He was a Buddhist He was born in 1918. So he's born to non -christian parents. He was a
- 16:29
- Buddhist but in 1946 he was attending the SDA Church Seventh -day Adventist.
- 16:34
- He was actually baptized by them So he's baptized into the Seventh -day Adventist Church, which implies that his theology was originally
- 16:40
- Seventh -day Adventist theology Later, it totally changes in 1958.
- 16:45
- He gets married April 5th 1958 he marries someone and here's something the members of the Church of God won't know his wife's name was hoeing one soon and She stayed his wife.
- 16:55
- They never got divorced She passed away in 2008 on his tombstone are the names of his wife and his three children
- 17:01
- So that this is important because we realize that that they've been taught different things about on song home than the actual history
- 17:07
- Now in 1962, so just remember that he was married in 1962. He was kicked out of the
- 17:13
- SDA Church He was actually excommunicated from the church That's really important to remember the date 1962
- 17:19
- This is important for later on and he founded the Witnesses of Jesus Church of God in 1964 that was the name of the church.
- 17:26
- The church has changed names a lot of times Over the years and so the current iteration of it is the
- 17:33
- World Mission Society Church of God But when he first started his group, it was Witnesses of Jesus Church of God in 1964 at some point he took a mistress and her name was
- 17:41
- Zengil jaw Zengil jaw still alive today. That is the mother god character, but she wasn't mother god yet She was just his mistress apparently and he taught here's some of the distinctives
- 17:51
- He taught after he had been kicked out of the SDA Church He taught that Sunday worship is pagan and you have to worship on Saturday Well, that was actually part of the
- 17:59
- SDA stuff that he learned, right? Right. Yeah, he also taught crosses are pagan and Christmas is pagan Easter is pagan and basically
- 18:06
- Every Christian in the world except for his group is pagan That's a really significant part like Colts, you know generally do this they say we're the only ones that have the true gospel
- 18:16
- It's just our little tiny group He also taught other things that didn't trace back to the
- 18:21
- SDA He taught that we were originally angels in heaven who sinned some of us intentionally some of us unintentionally but we all sinned and we came down to earth and That's we just don't have a memory of our pre -existence
- 18:34
- He also said he taught the Trinity, but in reality he taught modalism. So he would call it the
- 18:39
- Trinity He'd use the word Trinity, but then he would describe modalism but that is the father becomes the son who becomes the
- 18:45
- Holy Spirit or one person one being and He seemed to think he was
- 18:50
- Elijah now, this is a little unclear as you read his original writings He strongly implies he's Elijah and that he is the second the last coming of Elijah before the second coming of Christ He really strongly implies this
- 19:03
- It's in his writings, especially especially in the green book But but it's it's especially the original version of the green book, which we'll talk about later and on his tombstone
- 19:12
- Even to this day it actually says on song poem Elijah So they even had written on his tombstone that he was
- 19:20
- Elijah. This is not however Consistent with the current theology of the church at least not the way they want it to be
- 19:25
- He taught that Jesus was coming back right away But that this coming it would start with a secret coming and Jesus was gonna was gonna minister 37 years on earth in a secret fashion where you know, people wouldn't see him
- 19:37
- They wouldn't really know about him only like the sort of select Gnostic informed few who would be aware of Jesus and his secret coming then the end was gonna come
- 19:46
- He also taught that he had restored Passover and that you can't be saved Unless you observe Passover on the 14th day of the first month according to the sacred calendar
- 19:54
- And he would calculate when he thought that should be and they would do it at twilight in the evening That's an important thing for them because if you don't do that, you're not saved
- 20:03
- So it's a once -a -year special Passover ceremony that they do He also taught and this is not as widely known that the end of the world was gonna happen in 1988
- 20:12
- That him and the believers with him would not die, but they would be transformed at that time We'll talk more about that a little bit later because that's problematic for the group
- 20:21
- However, here's what happened with on song Hong and here's where everything shifted and the whole group What was one group split up into like three groups actually two that we'll talk about He died in 1985 unexpectedly on February 24th.
- 20:33
- He had a heart attack He then he had a stroke and then he died the next day February 25th And this was a total shocker that he didn't have health problems that they didn't expect this to happen ahead of time what happened in the wake of his death is there was this fighting for control of the cult and It split into two groups and we do want to know about these two groups to understand the modern group today
- 20:53
- One group is the NCP COG that stands for New Covenant Passover Church of God That's where his wife and his three kids all went to be part of that group and they claim to this day even on their websites
- 21:05
- They claim that they are the original You know how the original teachings of on song Hong and they publish it and they make it all available for free online
- 21:11
- But it's mostly in Korean then the other group split off called the World Mission Society Church of God That's the group that's been growing.
- 21:19
- That's the group that's evangelizing on campuses This is a group that we're very concerned about today and this is led by a man named
- 21:25
- Joo Cheol Kim who is their current prophet and and Then you have Zeng Gil Ja, which was his mistress in real life
- 21:33
- Now they're claiming that she is God the mother and that you have to believe in her and worship her in order to be saved
- 21:40
- So let me give you a really brief overview if I can of the new group that we're concerned about today the
- 21:45
- World Mission Society Church of God They now teach that on song Hong is the second coming of Christ not just Elijah.
- 21:53
- He's Jesus come back Now they will say he's also Elijah That's but I think that's a relic like a vestige of the fact that they're taking his teachings and evolving them into something
- 22:03
- That he wasn't originally teaching. So now he's actually Christ He's second coming
- 22:09
- Christ. They also teach he's the Father and the Holy Spirit because they have the whole modalism thing going on They teach that he restored
- 22:14
- Passover, which is required for salvation They add on to that that you have to tithe you have to go to church a lot You have to have the seven feasts and you have to preach a lot
- 22:22
- You have to do a whole bunch of those things in order to be saved You have to like for instance, you have to be in the building of the of the physical church
- 22:29
- They call the Zion the local church You have to be in that building on on the Sabbath or else you could just be killed by going outside It's pretty extreme stuff
- 22:39
- Okay, I just something let me ask you something that this kind of caught my attention So yeah, we've had episodes two on one is the
- 22:47
- UPCI or a lot of times are known as one is to apostolic Pentecostals And so they they're modalistic to in their views of the
- 22:54
- Trinity and they reject that so there's actually a really famous debate online it if you look it up as Walter Martin and Calvin Kaiser Calvin Beisner debating two guys from the
- 23:06
- UPCI and so they're debating the doctrine of the Trinity versus one a modalism and Them is that they're making the same theological
- 23:13
- Assumptions that the father is the son and these we basically that they will go into a like God The father will go into a closet put on a mask become the son and then become the
- 23:22
- Holy Spirit so forth and so on What is it similar but would make which is makes it unique though is that they have a modalistic view
- 23:31
- But they're tying it into a their modern leader So it's not so with someone who's one is apostolic they're looking in past and they're reinterpreting
- 23:41
- The incarnation like who Jesus was what was his nature? He wasn't really fully God or fully man
- 23:47
- He's the father who became the son They're sort of dealing with in the past via the testimony of the
- 23:52
- Gospels and the testimony of Scripture But it was here and you can you can elaborate on this mic It seems to be they're making those modalistic assumptions, but they're doing it with their
- 24:04
- Current leader least at that time or currently is that make sense what I'm saying? Is that yeah
- 24:09
- Is that what they're is that what they're doing? Yeah I mean, I guess the way that I I categorize it in my head is I think of it as to just unrelated heresies that have
- 24:17
- Been combined. Yeah, one heresy is the modalism The other heresy is that this guy on song home is actually
- 24:23
- Jesus's secret second coming And so the the modalism causes them to say that he's they even call him father on song home, you know
- 24:31
- And they'll pray to him and pray in his name and baptizing his name And and it gets really muddy because they also say
- 24:38
- I mean, it's very confusing They'll say that um, you know, there's the age of the Father. That's the Old Testament the age of the
- 24:43
- Son This is their theology not mine. That is that is the New Testament time period and then there's the age of the
- 24:49
- Holy Spirit Which we know we're looking at Pentecost, right? But they say this age of the
- 24:54
- Holy Spirit is when on song home comes Yet he's he's Jesus's second coming yet.
- 25:00
- He's the Holy Spirit yet. They call him father So it's just that it's all fuzzy and confused, right? Right Josh.
- 25:06
- Did you have a question? Yeah, I did if I remember correctly listening to some of your videos
- 25:12
- Mike it seemed like there was kind of a delineation made between Christ and Jesus in in the
- 25:19
- World Mission Society Church of God, is that correct? yeah, well the only real difference between Jesus and And and and Christ is that I think that they say that Jesus is his name in his second coming
- 25:33
- But on song home is his name. I'm sorry in his first coming, but on song home is his name in his second coming
- 25:38
- So they're they're both Christ and they're the same Christ But there's two different names here and on song home is seen as the the name of the
- 25:46
- Holy Spirit Because it's the age of the Holy Spirit. I know this sounds muddled, but it is muddled
- 25:52
- It's a it's a theology that developed sort of haphazardly Time and so yeah,
- 25:57
- Jesus is the name of the Son on song homes the name of the Holy Spirit Which is the second coming Christ, right?
- 26:03
- So so good luck with that Yeah I mean I think this is this is one of the things that that kind of interests me specifically talking about the theology of Jesus, right?
- 26:15
- At this point what do they Do you know with a verse? Like in Colossians 2 9 and if you want to talk about this later, let's just talk about it later
- 26:25
- Which says that in him in Christ Jesus, which is specifically said in Colossians 2 6 the fullness of deity dwells
- 26:35
- Bodily, so what do they do with that when Jesus wasn't on earth and then now he inherit like he inhabits a body again
- 26:45
- Yeah, I Asked about that I tried to press a former member we had who've been a member for years and years and years and I asked him like what about the body of Jesus like Jesus comes back in a new body a different body as Christ on song home in their theology
- 26:58
- What happened to Jesus's original body and then they and now here's where you have to understand the power of ad hoc improvisational theology
- 27:07
- It's I just make something up on the spot to rescue my bad theology. It doesn't arise from the scripture
- 27:13
- It doesn't arise from good theology It's just made up. So the the ad hoc quick reaction is oh, well
- 27:19
- God's omnipresent. So maybe he's got two bodies. Yeah Yeah, and what you see and what you'll see too is a lot of times this is definitive cults to when they're when they're trained and taught how to argue their points whether it be
- 27:32
- Mormonism Jehovah's Witnesses or World Missing Society Church of God members is that you're not taught to do
- 27:38
- Chapter by chapter verse by verse and exegete out from the biblical text to understand
- 27:44
- What does the Bible actually say about this? So when I went to high school Mike, it was I it was hello it here in Arizona I live and the school is 98 %
- 27:52
- Mormon So all of my friends they go across the street to their seminary training and they would have what are called scripture mastery cards
- 27:59
- And all they were is probably about I would think they had maybe 20 to 25 of these cards, but they're all just Met passages they're supposed to memorize all
- 28:10
- Separate from each other and all sort of an isolation from the original context of the passage to prove a doctrinal point
- 28:16
- So that's one thing that you'll observe as well too in that We'll definitely jump into some of the ways about how to deal with that in part two
- 28:24
- But yeah, we will and I just want to say the point you're making is so valuable. Yes, they've they've they've been taught
- 28:32
- To mishandle the text of scripture and in many cases people that are involved in cults That's the only way they know how to read the
- 28:37
- Bible They don't know even know how to look at a verse and then back up and examine the context and that simple little you know
- 28:45
- Trick of reading the whole chapter, you know the whole book Just rescues people from many of the grips of these cults.
- 28:53
- Yeah, and just one thing too. We're gonna we're in part two We're kind of we're going over the history and some of the psychological different aspects
- 29:00
- Well theologically that would define the world missus society as a cult Then we're going to go to go into some of the
- 29:06
- Stephen Hassan's bite model, which is he's the author combative cult mind control He's a well -known cult expert.
- 29:11
- We'll talk about that as well, too But a lot of times I'll just comment real quickly and then you can kind of go back into the history
- 29:17
- Mike is that when you're hearing sometimes the complex theology people sometimes Christians will get overwhelmed about okay
- 29:25
- Well, how do I learn all about their theology? but the reality is a lot of times you don't need to get so You don't so much to be you need to become an expert on the world
- 29:33
- Missus Society Church of God as you are. You need to become an expert on your own Bible Yeah, and Walter Martin would say this too and one of his quotes meant in fact on your videos
- 29:42
- Mike you I saw in your background yet kingdom of the cults in your library and I was like, yes But um, one of these are
- 29:49
- Walter Martin said is that I mean said I urge you not to become an expert on all the cults become an expert become familiar with who the person of Jesus Christ is and you'll never be deceived by anyone is the people who are
- 30:01
- Unfamiliar are the ones who get sucked into the cults So become familiar with the basic fundamental foundations of who
- 30:07
- God is who Jesus is. How are you saved? What a scriptures come about him and then we start hearing something like this this muddled theology
- 30:15
- This is this is the one the first time is I've really heard you explain this to me Mike But I know it's muffled and I know it's bad not because in any way
- 30:22
- I'm not an expert on this at all That's why I'm having you on but the bait my theology of who
- 30:28
- Jesus is I already have a foundation of that. So it's almost in your you're did I'm familiar with the original now
- 30:34
- I'm sort of running a counterfeit bill through my hands and now it sticks out like a sore thumb
- 30:39
- So I'll make that point and you can know let you jump back into it Mike unless there's anything you want to say in regards
- 30:46
- No, I I just think yeah, amen to that, you know You don't think you have to know all the stuff that I'm about to share in order to have a conversation with these people
- 30:52
- It the knowledge does help it increases our ability to communicate It also helps us understand where they're coming from, which is really great for reaching out to them but okay where I was at in my kind of review of the my brief overview of the current teachings of the
- 31:06
- Church of God is Let's see Zengil jaw, so mother God there is a
- 31:12
- God the mother now This was not something that on song home taught. He did not teach it. He didn't think it he actually taught against it we'll get into that a little bit later and It's now taught a
- 31:22
- Jew chill Kim in his book. God. God the father and God the mother which I do have here that particular book
- 31:28
- He says this on page 185 without mother. There is no eternal life without mother
- 31:34
- There is no truth those who do not believe in mother can't receive the promise of eternal life and the kingdom of heaven
- 31:41
- And let me add more weight to this on one of their hymns that they sing They have like official church hymns and songs and in their new song book.
- 31:49
- It's him number 145 It's called he has saved me But when you read the text, it's not what you think it is, right?
- 31:55
- It's the the text of the song says this even by the name of Jehovah by the name of Jesus Oh, I could not be saved
- 32:03
- Then it goes on to say this on song home. He has saved me a new Jerusalem mother of love
- 32:09
- She has saved me Wow. So this stuff is pretty pretty trippy Now what they had to do is they've actually had we'll talk more about this later if you if we have time
- 32:16
- Yeah, they had to actually change on song homes teachings So the World Mission Society Church of God has to very carefully control which of his teachings they see they take books
- 32:26
- They edit them they change them in order to support their mother God theology that he didn't have Originally that wasn't he wasn't interested in the mother of God thing
- 32:34
- He just was focused on the supposed sudden return of Christ that he was talking about Now there's actually a handwritten explanation of how on song home from him on song homes own handwriting
- 32:45
- That's on website. I'll say I'll give you guys a link for and you can maybe share it in your your notes But it's in Korean, but I have had it translated
- 32:52
- I got a translator to translate this for me and he translated in the name of the Holy Father the Holy Son Jesus Christ and the
- 32:59
- Holy Spirit, excuse me He baptized in that name They baptized in the name of on song home now and you have to be baptized in his name yet on song home
- 33:07
- Baptized in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. So this is a pretty significant difference. Yeah So there there's like a brief overview of it.
- 33:15
- Mm -hmm. Yeah, it's funny. You mentioned that as far as you know, they've been baptized in the name of on song
- 33:21
- Hong and this is part of the Behavior control as far as you know thought indoctrination you you and we'll get into that effect
- 33:27
- I'm jumping ahead here, but just jump back It's kind of interesting though and you mentioned that almost in that him you almost see we're kind of jumping into Almost almost in that him a characteristic occult has where they sort of say one thing
- 33:40
- But isn't till later on till they introduce you to the deeper doctrines. So it's just kind of interesting that they said it was a
- 33:46
- What was the title of that him you said he has saved me He has saved me But then it ends up a couple verses or stanzas into it where it sort of mentions that it's really
- 33:55
- God the mother who's or she Saved me. Mm -hmm. So it's very very telling part and parcel.
- 34:00
- So well, so just that's a basic foundation So we're looking at the theology. I'll let you jump in here
- 34:06
- Andrew. We're talking about It says this is that it would the world missing Society Church of God would fall under the counter would fall under a cult
- 34:15
- Just because if you look at the terms as far as it being counterfeit Christianity, it borrows from Christian terminology
- 34:20
- It pays lip service to the basic Fundamental Orthodox Christianity, but if it denies its fundamental tenants
- 34:27
- So it's when you say and this is a really there's an example of any cultist you you mentioned God Jesus Salvation you say any of those words?
- 34:35
- There's a language barrier and that's one thing as a Walter Martin always talked about scaling that language barrier
- 34:41
- And what we'll definitely jump into that more as we go on Andrew. What'd you want to say here? Yeah, Pastor Mike I was wondering if you could talk about this real quick because we you briefly had discussed a god the mother and like there's a
- 34:51
- There's a developing of this idea, right? Like this isn't the first time That this was heard about like on wrote a book himself, right refuting the idea of Mother God in 1980 but this is one of the books that is actually taken out of circulation and Winscog doesn't want their their finder set that will their members to actually read this book, correct?
- 35:10
- Like there was a scandal Earlier in the church where there was a woman Claiming that she found a note in a on song
- 35:19
- Hong's like Like bag talking about God the mother but he actually refuted the idea, right?
- 35:24
- Just like he never claimed to be Christ instead on his gravestone. It says the the prophet Elijah Can you can you talk about that?
- 35:31
- Yeah This is so huge and so I will give you guys a link that you can share with people where you can read an
- 35:36
- English translation of On song Hong's book. It's called the New Jerusalem and the bride Interpretation on women's veil.
- 35:44
- That's the English title from the from the Korean It was published in 1980 a few years later the
- 35:50
- World Mission Society Church of God They collected the books and will not let anybody read them But remember they split into two groups the
- 35:57
- NCP group the smaller group that isn't really viral at all They publish it on their website and you can read it for free.
- 36:03
- Let me read to you some sections from this book This is what on song Hong himself actually taught about the idea of God the mother and I'll just preface it with this
- 36:10
- There was a woman named um suing Um suing is the one you talked about she started proclaiming she was
- 36:16
- God the mother and She says that she got this teaching from some secret teachings of on song home So he confronts it in 1980 with the following.
- 36:23
- This is from the preface of the book He says and I quote this booklet was published to prevent troublemakers who misinterpret and behave fanatically explain the errors in the books that um suing published and testify of the
- 36:35
- Unchanging truth of the Church of our God No, so on song Hong their their central character
- 36:42
- He thinks that this is an unchanging truth, of course World Mission Society Church of God has withheld this they've changed it in chapter 7
- 36:49
- He says this This is a chapter called the Jerusalem in heaven in our mother Um suing has then become the mother of Christ as well as the bride wife of Christ How extremely scandalous is this with this type of misguided delusion?
- 37:05
- She's become a false prophet and has attempted to gain power Please think of what will become of her sin and the sin of those who follow after her now on in chapter 8 on The chapter called
- 37:16
- New Jerusalem is real and material. It's literally saying New Jerusalem is not a female deity
- 37:23
- He says this the New Jerusalem, which is written of in Revelation 21 1 through 4 the tabernacle of God abides with human beings
- 37:30
- However, this tabernacle is a spiritual building not a person And that's key to the
- 37:36
- Church of God. Now. They believe that she is the New Jerusalem She is mother God and that's their proof text is Revelation 21 in chapter 11.
- 37:43
- He says the following However, um suing is stating that the new heaven and new earth is here now and the
- 37:49
- New Jerusalem is living now on this earth Nobody except someone who is not in their right state of mind can believe and follow after this.
- 37:57
- Please think of this carefully Now here's here's a clincher for us because is Jen Gilja she was actually alive when he wrote this in 1980 and he says nobody
- 38:08
- But should who is in their right mind can believe that New Jerusalem is living now on the earth Nobody can believe that but yet she was alive on the earth at the time one last quote from this book chapter 17
- 38:19
- He's it's it's about a curse And so it says um suing claims that she is the only bride the new heavens and the
- 38:26
- New Jerusalem Through this she becomes a queen and receives tithes that should be given to Melchizedek. That's part of his theology
- 38:32
- She raises herself up as if she is greater than God. How arrogant and insolent and act is this?
- 38:38
- How long will God be patient with her again? It's out of print It was collected by the group and they will not let their members see it
- 38:44
- However, the rival group New Covenant Passover They realized that on song home never taught this and they're trying to be faithful to his teachings as wrong as they were and they
- 38:52
- Publish it freely online Okay, yeah, it's really good and again this is that the thing you're saying is very good and very affordable especially for people at getting a good overview and they can also check out the
- 39:04
- You also talked more about a lot about a lot of these things to on your videos to on your YouTube channel over a
- 39:09
- Bible thinker But um, you know Some of the things you're saying to are falling in conjunction because like I said, we already talked about it
- 39:15
- How it fall as a theological cult it didn't it? Like I said it denying the fundamental tenets of basic Christianity and having it but coming out across as a counterfeit
- 39:24
- But there's also definitive cultic characteristics. Here's one. For example, you said you you have someone who had started on a
- 39:32
- Authoritative private revelation, but then he passed away and then there's always this changing in progression
- 39:39
- There's things that are supposed to be eternal and unchanging law But now all of a sudden that goes and changes or they want a lot of times
- 39:47
- They'll do that They'll make those changes or say they'll try and whitewash their history or just to make these people and almost really flawless and presentable
- 39:54
- And I always find that amusing especially in contrast if you look at the Bible, especially the Old Testament You had people like Moses or people like Abraham just doing the dumbest stuff
- 40:04
- You know, you look at that. What was the story about and he says, oh tell tell Pharaoh that she's my stead They ran this she's my sister and complete chickens out you have
- 40:12
- Moses who gets an angry at God He like breaks the staff up against when the waters coming out and then he's not able to go to the promised land
- 40:19
- And so you just have these people who are flawed and those things are out in the open I always find that contract in contrast when they try and make these cult leaders.
- 40:26
- He's wonderful and holy and flawless people but So then I want to talk just real quickly about Then this is something that a lot of there's a lot of content video content.
- 40:36
- They'll talk about these categories Other videos what you call them secular non -christian views of The world mission society
- 40:43
- Church of God and calling it a cult and they'll talk about these characteristics But I don't think unless you really have a true embrace a true
- 40:50
- Christian world You you can't even give an accounting for why these things would be wrong But with that being said
- 40:56
- Mike, I'm so Steve Hassan. He wrote a couple of excellent books He wrote a book called freedom of mind and he also wrote a book called combating cult mind control and so he had a unique story for anyone who don't know who he is he got indoctrinated into the moonies in college and It was just a quick retreat and He ended up getting became a moony for two years got out of the cult and then he really almost became a completely different person
- 41:22
- By their indoctrination. So but he gave kind of like a fight model which explains Very loosely a lot of the characteristics of cults
- 41:29
- And so I'll just kind of label what they are and then my you can you've kind of addressed this before Already with some of the things about them, but bite stands for four different characteristics a behavior control
- 41:41
- Information control you mentioned that a little bit in regards to the books Emotional control and thought control.
- 41:47
- So just in your time researching it and also from the time as you've talked with ex -members and things like that Give us some examples of how you think the world missus
- 41:57
- Society Church of God would fall into the bite model category with any of those four characteristics
- 42:03
- Yeah, and I do have new information on this stuff because I since I've last made videos on these issues on these issues on this
- 42:09
- Group, I have spoken with more former members. Oh, wow, some of this stuff like behavioral control
- 42:14
- You don't get that in the writings the writings aren't going to tell you How do we treat people when they don't obey us like it doesn't say that and so you have to talk to people to find this stuff out, so Here are some areas where they have behavioral control for one.
- 42:26
- It's time The amount of time that you have to be spending at Zion they call it the
- 42:31
- Zion their look whatever their local church gathering is Is pretty extensive so on Saturday the
- 42:36
- Sabbath you you must gather or you're you're going to hell if you don't attend Okay, this is a big deal and you are there from say 10 a .m.
- 42:43
- To 9 p .m Perhaps if you're not a leader, but if you're one who has blessings or responsibilities, you might be there from like 730 a .m
- 42:50
- Till midnight. I mean, that's and this is a big deal that you stay in the physical building during this time
- 42:56
- If you give one former member told a story how they were chopping onions and the smell was making them cry so she so her and her friend left the building and stood right outside the front door and The one who the deaconess who was chopping the onions
- 43:08
- She went to the edge of the door and pleaded with them come inside come inside. You're in danger come inside Wow, right?
- 43:14
- that's that's a Not a good environment to be in real fear on Sundays. You think Sundays must be a day off No Sunday, you're there from like 9 a .m.
- 43:21
- To 9 p .m. As well all day you have third day service That's you have Tuesdays at the Zion.
- 43:27
- You're supposed to be there every Tuesday as well You're preaching three to four days a week One of the that's where you go out and you're you meet at the church and you go out and you preach and you get your
- 43:36
- Training you're supposed to study every day the different texts and the truth books and the and the preaching Skills that you're supposed to develop like what verses to use that kind of thing
- 43:45
- One evening a week is the Elohist Academy at Zion where you're getting that kind of training Basically every day of the week you're you're supposed to go to the church after work go preach and then go back to church
- 43:56
- That's the regular week You're supposed to study every day for a couple hours one or two hours and during feast weeks because they they say they observe the seven
- 44:03
- Feasts, but they don't do anything biblical on those days for the most part. They just Go to the church and but they have to be there on during those feast days feast weeks at 5 a .m
- 44:12
- And at 8 p .m. Those are two appointed times. They have to show up at their at their Zion There's there's more though, that's just time there's arranged marriages in the church
- 44:22
- I know this sounds weird, but there really are ranging marriages a lot in the church It's like a really highly reported phenomenon and there's there you're not like, you know
- 44:30
- You can't force someone to get married like not actually right but you can give them social Consequences if they turn down your arranged marriage and that's a really bad thing when you spend every day every waking moment
- 44:41
- You're not, you know at work Pretty much in in this group. I'm part of this group and at this Zion location the worst and let me give you a quote from A former member she said the worst position to be in in the
- 44:51
- Church of God is when nobody rebukes you and they just leave You alone This is devastating to a member
- 44:56
- They've wrapped their whole life around the group and they're put in a place where they spend like 14 hours Sitting alone at the
- 45:03
- Zion because nobody will talk to them Wow, because they're giving them potentially this type of discipline For money money manipulation, you're supposed to tithe 10 %
- 45:12
- As a starting point on everything and this is on income and gifts. So here's a quote from a former member
- 45:18
- She said if my parents bought me a car I would be expected to find out the value they paid for that car and to give 10 % of that to the church
- 45:25
- Now this tithing is enforced if you miss two weeks in a row They will know because every other week you have to tithe at least every other week.
- 45:33
- Otherwise You you are no longer in good standing spiritually You have to tithe for three months in order to join classes that will allow you to learn how to preach
- 45:41
- You have to tithe for a year in order to meet God the mother if you want to go to Korea and meet the 76 77 year old woman
- 45:48
- Zengil Shah, although they never use her name. Most members don't hear her name You have to tithe in most of the fellowships.
- 45:55
- You have to tithe for six months in order to get the green book That's right. Six months of tithing just to buy the green book. So that's
- 46:01
- Part of the control, but there's more let me Give you a lot, but there's more there's it's it's widely reported that the church group encourages abortions
- 46:11
- Abortions and they and here's a quote from a church member who she says this is what we say to each other They say we are living in the last days
- 46:17
- You should be focused on the gospel work not on a child That it's actually selfish of you to bring a child because they think the end is incoming imminently, you know
- 46:25
- They've predicted it multiple times over the years. They think it's coming at any point There's actually a woman right now who's suing the church
- 46:30
- Michelle Rodriguez She's currently suing the church for coercing her to get an abortion and that lawsuit is is in court right now as or so I've been told
- 46:38
- So that's just the behavioral control. That's just the B of your bite model. It's going on there. It's pretty extreme
- 46:44
- Yeah, and then you mentioned to you Obviously information controllers you said before just with them not allowing their members to or buying up the books
- 46:51
- For example, they go for sale. Let's do like a good almost like you like I said, you're in, California You know, they do the gun buyback programs, right?
- 46:59
- And so trying to you know take whenever the counteract the violence going on That's the example when you have like how liberal governors will deal with just how they view their policy
- 47:07
- But then they're trying to do that with their own materials trying to get that back not having people be able to see where it's
- 47:13
- You know, you should have Like with Christians you should have your apologetic material out there like critique it like let us know let's let's do it
- 47:20
- It's such a contrast to yeah as far as it goes Andrew. What did you want to say real quickly? Yeah, I was gonna say it makes sense to with um, how rigid their
- 47:29
- Curriculum is right how much they have to do things over and over again It makes sense that they push abortion right because children will take up your time.
- 47:37
- Yeah. Yeah, you know They don't want their members to not be focused mainly on them and that and that's what worries me too
- 47:44
- Like it's do you have peace with God like Jesus gives us freedom right to be free of such a rigid
- 47:51
- Requirement because he's God himself who fulfilled all of these things for us So if like you're in the woods
- 47:56
- God right now and you're listening to this like there there's freedom you can be free from this test test your prophet to what the scriptures say, you know, and there there there's so much better out there for you and God loves you so much more than that and that's just one thing
- 48:13
- I Would like to like to say that there's peace with God. Yeah Definitely Josh, did you have any thoughts so far just in regards just like that behavior control or information control that he was talking about It's like a couple anything on your mind as far as it goes.
- 48:26
- Oh, I mean, I've got some some thoughts As far as questions that we can probably address later as we dive into things a bit more theologically um, but what one of the things that seems interesting to me is
- 48:40
- You know I was talking to Andrew a bit briefly before this and they've had previous
- 48:48
- End -times prophecies before correct. Mm -hmm. Yeah, they have. Yeah in 1988 1998 2012
- 48:55
- Those are the ones that I'm familiar with. I mean and maybe this is just I mean
- 49:02
- This could be a conclusion. That's not necessarily correct, but I mean could it be that that's part of the reason why they're so heavy on evangelism in a sense because If they can't propagate their religion amongst their children because they're not having any
- 49:19
- They must have new members in order to actually grow their church from people who are already a lot makes sense to me
- 49:28
- I mean to me it's it's in a sense like certain. Yeah Well, yeah, they're so serious about growing their church through preaching they call it
- 49:37
- That this this was a shocker to me. They actually tell people not to evangelize The elderly or handicapped people
- 49:45
- That these people are not they can't be saved that they sinned deliberately in their pre -existence and therefore they're cursed that's why they're like that and and homosexuals to not to evangelize them and They they just they just cut them off like they're just they're just not to be
- 50:01
- In fact, if you try to invite a handicapped person to a service the other members are gonna be like no don't do that Don't we don't do that?
- 50:08
- Because now if you think about it as imagine if you just had a cold heartless leader Who only looks at you at the value you present to the organization of bringing more people in?
- 50:18
- Well, you're a handicapped person. Like what are you gonna do? How you gonna help us? They can't even require be able to do all the preaching that we want you to do and attend all the services
- 50:25
- Right. I mean to me that screams the incident where Jesus runs into the man born blind and the disciples ask him
- 50:33
- Who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind and Jesus says neither.
- 50:38
- I mean that condemns their thinking right there Yeah now on the on the information control stuff there is something more
- 50:46
- I'd like to share with you guys if we have time for That here. Yeah All right, so a few things that you want to know
- 50:53
- Um, they say that the Internet is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and that if you go online and you click
- 50:59
- An anti -church website or you you search world mission society church I got online you will be eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil now
- 51:06
- I don't I don't want you to miss out on these psychological Baggage that that brings right that even
- 51:12
- Researching on your own church your cult group that you're part of that even just researching it is like a life
- 51:18
- Eternal life destroying sin. Mm -hmm. That's pretty significant Yeah, you also can't buy their books as I've said the books that I've got
- 51:24
- I got through means and ways But you can't really buy them online Even members have to earn the right to buy the books
- 51:30
- But some of the books they can't buy at all some stuff that on song home wrote they can't get but I want to add this
- 51:36
- They also edit the book. So this book the green book It's got 35 chapters The original book by on song home has 38 chapters and you can read it and I'll give you guys the link you can put it
- 51:46
- In your video description or whatever This actually has the 38 chapter version in English and Korean on their website on the new covenant
- 51:54
- Passover the split -off group In those chapters, it's not that hard to figure out why they remove them two of them in particular
- 51:59
- The first chapter was called the was was about the end of the world in 1988. Let me just read to you
- 52:05
- This is a quote from page 14 of the original on song home green book chapter 1 the original chapter 1
- 52:12
- He says since the Israel nation came into independence in 1948 It makes 1988 40 years after will the world really come to an end at that time?
- 52:23
- And then he goes on and says it will surely come to an end at that time Now the other chapter one of the other chapters they deleted is chapter 36 called
- 52:31
- Elijah will be sent Now this is really significant because on song home was like obsessed with this prophecy about Elijah coming
- 52:37
- But at the World Mission Society Church of God, they will not talk about Elijah You go to the website you search Elijah you look for Elijah on their material.
- 52:44
- You can't find it They deleted the chapter about Elijah, but here's what on song home actually wrote page 220
- 52:50
- He said therefore as John the Baptist was sent by Elijah's calling to prepare the way for the first coming of Jesus He sent
- 52:57
- Elijah to prepare the way of Jesus's return who would guide starving and struggling people to the fountain of life by the truth
- 53:03
- He goes on to talk about how we'll know it's Elijah because he'll bring the Passover. He'll restore Passover Which is what on song home did here?
- 53:09
- He's implying that he's Elijah, right? But then on page 223, he says this Remember he said in 1988 the end of the end of the world.
- 53:18
- Well on page 223 He says because the first actual Elijah had ascended when he was alive
- 53:23
- Second Kings 211 the last Elijah's mission is to transform and ascend while he is alive
- 53:29
- The last Elijah's mission is to transform and ascend along with the live 144 ,000
- 53:35
- Saints so you can see why they had to delete this. Yeah, because it's a prophecy about him and his followers
- 53:42
- Ascending in 1988. Mm -hmm. And so they just delete those things. There's other places where they make changes
- 53:48
- I won't get into all the details for the sake of time But they change things like the tense where on song home is writing about Jesus will come and they'll change the tense.
- 53:56
- So it says Jesus has come. Mm -hmm, and they do that as well That's in on page 124 of their version of the book.
- 54:03
- So you might ask though Well, which one's original maybe maybe the World Mission Society has the real one and the
- 54:09
- New Covenant Passover Church They have the fake versions. Mm -hmm, but but here's the trippy thing The World Mission Society is like the most litigious cult
- 54:17
- I've ever seen They sue everybody for everything and the New Covenant Passover. They're just putting these books out for free online for everybody
- 54:26
- The World Mission Society has a copyright to some later version of the book if they own the books
- 54:31
- Can't they just sue the New Covenant Passover and have them take the books down? I mean they certainly would like to but they they can't because they are just the real books as they originally were.
- 54:40
- Hmm No, that's huge man. That's that's really good. And again, this is just another example of what you see and really this is a
- 54:47
- Really one of the ways to really deal with the cults in many ways is one to almost use
- 54:53
- Their own history and materials against them like Walter Martin gives the gives the illustration about when after David Hit Goliath with his
- 55:03
- Slingshot and his how many how many smooth stones did he have five five? Okay. Yeah, you said
- 55:08
- I asked the same area guy But yeah, but one things he said he did one of the things that David did is he took
- 55:15
- Goliath's own sword yeah, and Chopped off his head. So in the in the same sense and then get this metaphorically.
- 55:23
- We're not implying violence in a way here So just just I want to any like members they get all worked up about that But it's like you're using their own materials
- 55:32
- Against them and you're a sense in a very metaphorical sense you're allowing them to fall on their own sword because they're all that that doesn't hold up to their they're claiming the
- 55:43
- Authority of Ansel Hong, for example again when you start delving to the theology their current assumptions contradict the previous
- 55:51
- The original materials to which they're appealing authority to and you see that too Is a lot of times when we'd go out to the
- 55:58
- Mormon Temple we would have photocopies of a lot of their original documents of Writings of Joseph Smith or a
- 56:05
- Brigham Young and then they would say like there's a book We actually have this book called Where does it say that because literally you would quote something from Joseph Smith or Brigham Young and they would say where does it say?
- 56:15
- That where does it say that I have a book called where to say that what a how convenient so yeah Yeah And and that's and the reason you had to bring that book to the
- 56:23
- Mormons is the same reason I'm bringing this content to this Video and this podcast is because I'm not just doing this for Christians who are curious about another cold
- 56:31
- I want the members of the group to be influenced and if we're gonna influence them We should meet them where they're at and show them even in their own writings even in their own literature
- 56:40
- How they've been deceived they're they're they're the victims of a horrible deceit
- 56:45
- And I want them to realize that and using their own stuff meets them where they're at, right? And I want to I want to point out to you if anyone's listening and you've still hung in there and you're part of The World Mission Society Church of God when we bring up a false prophecy
- 56:57
- There's a reason why and you may have never heard of this passage of Scripture. There's two tests of a prophet in Scripture There's Deuteronomy 13 and then
- 57:04
- Deuteronomy 18 in Deuteronomy 18 verse 20 through 22 says as it says but the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak or Who speaks the name of other gods that same prophet shall die and it says and if you say in your heart
- 57:17
- How many we know the the word that the Lord is not spoken when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord if the word
- 57:23
- Does not come to pass or come true. That is a word that the Lord has not spoken The prophet has spoken it presumptuously.
- 57:30
- You need not be afraid of him That may be the first time you've ever heard that passage in your life Mm -hmm. So look at your own source material like Pastor Mike said like we're saying here
- 57:39
- Has your has your prophet spoken presumptuously? Do you not have peace with God? Is there a reason for that? To test him to Scripture You can have peace with God today by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ the eternal
- 57:50
- God who died on the on the cross for your sins Yes, absolutely. One last thing Josh one last thought and then we'll wrap things up here.
- 57:57
- What was the thing goes on your mind? well, what I what I noticed is that you know when you're talking about the the inconsistency and the changes that occur you know from the original to what's out now and how many members don't realize this or Some may may realize it as they stumble across this information
- 58:17
- What's interesting to me is that shows? The amazing continuity in Scripture a man that is found in no other religion every other religion, especially when they start trying to add to the
- 58:31
- Bible by in their corpus of Scripture there's always contradiction problems not so with the
- 58:39
- Bible that speaks to the supernatural nature of Scripture and the human origin of everything else.
- 58:48
- Amen. Very good Let me throw this out there real quick. I forgot to say it earlier If you're a former member, you're listening to this and you and you have got these resources in the books and materials
- 58:58
- Please send them to me at PO box 39 Bellflower, California 90707 and I will be or you can contact me through my website
- 59:07
- Bible thinker org. I'll pay for the shipping. That's fine I want to collect these resources so we can continue to produce content to help people out who have been where you've been
- 59:17
- Awesome awesome Okay So we've gone a little bit and this is sort of a good introduction to the World Mission Society Church of God I believe in the next segment we are going to continue our conversation with Mike winger we're gonna be kind of talking about some of the kind of the nitty kind of like the nuts and bolts and the nitty -gritty when it comes to the theology and the presumptions that someone has if you're at it if you're going to one of those essential business places like Target or Walmart or those as and you're
- 59:43
- Going there and you run into Them if they're doing if they're still in evangelism right now given current circumstances, but they're whatever they're doing
- 59:52
- You're gonna run into them. Like what are they? What are what are the things that they bring up? What are their presumptions? How do we actually answer them?
- 59:58
- How and this is almost an example to when you're talking to a cultist There's things you have to take into account about what the mindset of someone is who is into a cult like that What's their mindset?
- 01:00:09
- How do you approach them? What's the way for them to lower down their defenses? These are the things you got to take into consideration
- 01:00:15
- When you're talking to a cultist, we're gonna kind of jump into that in the next episode So thank you guys so much for listening
- 01:00:21
- And if you want to check out Mike Winger's material definitely check out Bible thinker on his YouTube channel He has a lot of great material.
- 01:00:27
- It covers a broad variety of topics Also, make sure that you check out our new after show called cultish the aftermath
- 01:00:34
- We'll do an aftermath on this episode talking about God the mother and check that out If you go to apology of studios join all access cultist the aftermath is one of the many
- 01:00:45
- Additional programs that there's a lot of other great theological training and content on apology all acts as well
- 01:00:51
- Definitely check out the cultist the aftermath Also, this program cannot continue without your support So as we mentioned at the beginning of the episode if you want to be part of the cultist crew allow this program to continue
- 01:01:01
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- 01:01:07
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- 01:01:15
- So all that being said, thank you all for listening And thank you so much for supporting us and listening in We will talk to you next time in part two where we enter into The kingdom of the cults talking about the