July 1, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Cecil Andrews on “Four Marks of a Cult”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnson. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

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This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you a happy Wednesday on this very first day of July 2015, and before I introduce our special guest here on Iron Sharpens Iron, I want to make an announcement that I hope you all mark your calendars for.

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We just got word moments before the show that Dr. Al Mohler, who is the president of Southern Seminary, also known as the

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, he has agreed to be a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron on Monday the 31st of August, so mark your calendars for that.

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He will be discussing his soon -to -be -released book, which is titled,

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We Cannot Be Silent, Speaking Truth to a Culture Redefining Sex, Marriage, and the

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Very Meaning of Right and Wrong. That's Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Seminary, on Iron Sharpens Iron, Monday the 31st of August, and we hope that you not only mark that on your calendars and spread the word about it, but we hope that you listen in and email us your questions, and you can also email your questions for our guest today.

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My email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N, and today our guest,

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I am honored and privileged for the very first time ever on Iron Sharpens Iron, direct from Northern Ireland.

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We are interviewing today Cecil Andrews, who is the current director of TakeHeed, which is a ministry in Northern Ireland, and their website is takeheed .info,

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and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Cecil Andrews.

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Well Chris, I can assure you it's a privilege and an honor for me to be speaking with you also. And this is one of those very rare circumstances where we have someone who started as an

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Iron Sharpens Iron listener and became a guest, and we're so delighted that once in a blue moon there are guests out there, or should

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I say listeners out there, who are qualified to speak on certain issues and who run ministries and so forth, and we are so glad that you were an

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Iron Sharpens Iron listener, Cecil, and that you discovered the program and that we made contact to do this interview.

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Well Facebook is a great vehicle for introducing people to each other, and when

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I saw a notification recently that Phil Johnson was going to be on, I was especially keen to listen to that program and to make one or two little contributions to it.

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Yes, and we were delighted to receive those contributions via questions that you emailed to us, and we look forward to this interview and many more,

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God willing, in the future. Well first of all, where specifically are you in Northern Ireland?

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I live in a market town called Ballina Hinch, which is about 13 miles south of the capital

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Belfast. It would be en route to a famous beauty spot known as the

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Mountains of Mourne. There's a song actually, well the language says, where the mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea, and they do beautifully sweep down to the sea.

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And is that near where my friend Pastor John Greer is the pastor of the

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Free Presbyterian Church? No, John is in Ballina, and I didn't know that you knew him, but I had the privilege of speaking when he was a pastor in Pennsylvania in Malvern, and you mentioned

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Cumberland. I think he took me there, and we had a delightful meal, I think, in an Amish restaurant.

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Well I'm not familiar with that restaurant, I don't believe, but Cumberland County is bigger than the specific area where I live in Carlisle, and of course

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I'm a fairly new resident of Carlisle, so I haven't been to a lot of places yet. But yeah,

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John Greer is a powerful, powerful preacher, and a humble man, and a brother, and please send him my regards.

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I will. And we're going to be discussing today the four marks of a cult, and the way this show usually goes, either we're going to run out of time, and only get to two marks of a cult, and have you back to continue, or who knows, we might come up with many more marks for a cult than four.

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But first of all, if you could define a cult, I know the word, its origins, just means devotion, and in fact

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I have a friend, Dr. Kenneth Samples, Kenneth R. Samples, who years ago co -authored a book called

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The Cult of the Virgin, which dealt with Marian apparitions, and sought to refute them as being from God, and being authentically the mother of God, to refute that, that is.

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And some people, some Roman Catholics were offended by the title of that book, The Cult of the

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Virgin, how dare you say that? Well in fact, that is a Catholic, that is an actual Roman Catholic phrase that the

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Vatican actually calls devotion to Mary, The Cult of the Virgin. But if you could continue with the definition of a cult, please, at least your definition.

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Yeah, just by the way, I'm familiar with that book, and I have it on my shelf, and I have used quotes from it. But to move on, women, as you say, a cult is a system of religious worship.

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So from a Biblical Christian point of view, I look for four features that mark out pseudo -Christian groups as falling into the cult category.

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The four features are these. A cult will have an earthly head or founder.

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Secondly, they will have an authority which is in addition to or in place of the

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Bible. Thirdly, they will have a wrong view of the person and work of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And fourthly, they will have a wrong view of salvation.

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And these four points are very much like links in a chain. You get some founder who comes along and says,

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I've had some extra revelation, and this revelation becomes an authority in addition to or in place of the

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Bible. And usually this extra revelation leads to a wrong view of the person and work of Christ, and that in turn then leads to a wrong view of salvation.

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So they are interlinked with each other. And let me repeat our email address for our listeners, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And what are some of the primary things that are universal about a cult in regard to the belief about Jesus Christ, for instance?

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Well, if you take, for instance, the 19th century in America, and I'm not getting at my

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American brothers, by the way, but it was really a melting pot for new ideas and new religious groupings, and most of them became, in our view, cults.

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For instance, you would have had Christian Science with Mary Baker Eddy. You'd have had the

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Seventh -day Adventists with Ellen White. You'd have had the Jehovah's Witnesses with Charles Russell.

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You'd have had the Mormons with Joseph Smith. And these emerged in that century, and each of them had a different take on the person of Christ.

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If you take Christian Science, they believed that Jesus was a human being, but that the

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Christ is a kind of divine principle, that Jesus was like an extra master who understood things perfectly, and this is what we have to aspire to.

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Ellen G. White, well, they would be orthodox in some respects about Christ, but unfortunately, they go very wrong on his work on the cross, and I could develop that maybe later.

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The Jehovah's Witnesses, of course, they teach that Christ was created and that he was initially the

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Archangel Michael. They then say that when he came to earth, he kind of left that previous existence, and he was born a man, a perfect man, but only a man.

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And then when he died, that existence went out of existence, and that he was raised up to become a mighty spirit creature, recreated.

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In fact, he wasn't bodily resurrected. And of course, the Mormon Jesus, he is quite a sort of Star Trek character.

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They believe that their Heavenly Father is a man called Elohim, who was a man who lived on a planet similar to earth.

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He obeyed all the rules and regulations. He died. He rose again. He was exalted and became a god, and he lives with his heavenly wives on a star near Kolob, and there they procreate spirit children who eventually come to earth as you and me.

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And they teach that the first spirit child born was Jesus. Lucifer would have been a spirit brother, and you and I would also have been spirit brothers.

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So their Jesus is very different. And of course, they say that the

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Jesus who was born, and they say he was born in Jerusalem and not in Bethlehem, they would say that he, in fact, received his earthly body through their

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Heavenly Father Elohim coming to earth and having a literal relationship with a virgin called

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Mary. And after he had had this encounter, she was no longer a virgin, and she then gave birth to this child

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Jesus. So these groups, they use terminology that you and I would be familiar with, but they have a different dictionary when it comes to defining the terminology.

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Yes. In fact, a friend of mine who's actually going to be a guest on my program,

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Deborah Antignanos, who is a former Jehovah's Witness, she just emailed me a dialogue that she was having with Glenn Beck, the very well -known conservative political pundit, radio and television host, and writer.

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And he was being insistent that he believed that Jesus Christ is the only

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Savior for mankind and that without his shed blood, all would be lost. And he would say certain things that a naive

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Christian might think, wow, this guy's a born -again believer. In fact, I have had many evangelical

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Christians approach me who are convinced he is a born -again believer, but a lot of it is probably because he is using a different dictionary for his vocabulary, and I am hoping,

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I don't know if it will ever happen, but I'm hoping to have Glenn Beck as a guest on this program to actually challenge him on these specific issues.

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The problem is that they do talk about Christ being the

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Savior and so on, and the shed blood, but they believe that what happened at Calvary, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, only guarantees that everybody will be able to be resurrected one day.

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That is their sort of general salvation. But when it comes to personal salvation, in other words, being saved from the consequences of your sin, the work of Calvary is not sufficient.

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You have to go through a whole ritual of obedience to laws and ordinances, baptism, faith, repentance, having hands laid on you, obeying the word of wisdom where you avoid certain drinks and so on.

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And so it's a partnership between you and God as to whether or not you actually escape going to a lost eternity.

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Now, are you primarily using the term cult in regards to organizations and groups that claim they are

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Christian, or are you using that term to define any religion that has false beliefs and a false hope for salvation, and even a wrong understanding of what that means?

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Yes, a cult can apply to these pseudo -Christian groups that I've mentioned, but it could also apply to non -Christian groups, some of whom have a place for Christ in their understanding.

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I think, for instance, of Islam, I would class it as a cult because they say, well, we respect

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Jesus as a prophet, but the problem is they deny the very planks upon which your salvation and mine is grounded, and that is they deny the deity of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and they deny the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the

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Christ that they're respecting as a prophet is a false Christ and a false prophet when compared to the truth of the scriptures.

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And then you have a group that's a cult within a cult. You have the Nation of Islam, a black supremacist organization that even the

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Muslims would consider a cult, because they violate some of the clear tenets of Islam, such as Shirk, because they believe that God is a black man, and obviously one of the main crucial points of Islam is that God cannot have any partners, he cannot take on flesh, etc.

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Yes, that's the unpardonable sin, if you like, that Islam is concerned.

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Right. We do have a listener in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Ted, who is obviously a frequent listener of Iron Sharpens Iron.

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He says, we're seeing increasingly frequent reports of cult -like behavior in professed evangelical

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Christian congregations, most often of pastors who are very controlling and megalomaniacal.

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I don't know why that screwed me up, because I know the word very well. And many of these reports are a standard fare on what are called survivor blogs, and critics of these blogs claim they simply give vent to people who never really were

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Christians and who hate the Church. And his questions to follow that up are, does he have, do you,

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Cecil, have any general comment on the premise he has laid out above?

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And number two, how do we strike a balance between not being hypercritical of the

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Church on the one hand, and realistically assessing toxic practices within the

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Church on the other? So, one thing that you could summarize that by saying, is there a difference between a cult and a

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Church that acts like a cult? Well, certainly over my years as an apologist, it used to be that most of the problems were without professing

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Christendom, but over the last 20 years, there have been major problems within professing

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Christendom. In fact, I got an email from a sister in Christ, not too far removed from where you are just today, and she was saying that the church that she had been attending, the pastor wanted to be called the shepherd, not the pastor, and she had asked a few questions, and she was severely rebuked for challenging the views of the shepherd, so I emailed her back and said, there's only one great shepherd that we don't question, and that is the

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Lord Jesus Christ, but any other shepherds are fair game for questioning.

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And over the years, I've seen various fellowships, particularly in the 80s, you got independent, charismatic -type fellowships springing up, and it was called the shepherding movement, and these people were wanting to totally control the lives of those who attended, they would tell them who they could go out with, who they could marry, what job they could have, and that's wrong, that is not the job.

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The minister of any fellowship, he is to feed the flock from the word of God, and allow the

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Holy Spirit to make the application in the lives of individual believers, and obviously he's defenced the flock to protect them from error, and he's there on hand to guide them, but he's not there to dominate and rule, and certainly

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I think there are groups that have cult -like tendencies in this age. Would you not use or apply the term cult to them and just call them cult -like, or would you consider them...

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You would need to know a lot about them, to what their actual statement of faith would be, and so on, to see whether or not they are falling into line with my definition, but if you have this earthly head or founder who thinks that he has some extra authority, extra biblical authority, well then they're certainly getting into the territory of where they could be classed as a cult.

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We do have a listener who happens to be a mutual friend in Charlotte, North Carolina, Robert Zins, of a

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Christian witness to Roman Catholicism, and he asks, the

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English sine qua non comes from the Latin meaning without which not.

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In terms of the revelation of Jesus Christ, what would you say is the indispensable thing or things that Christians believe and all cults do not believe?

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So this is directing more toward the Word of God and the teachings of the

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Scriptures and the doctrines and practices and so on, rather than the person and work of Jesus Christ specifically and uniquely.

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So perhaps if you could comment on Rob Zins' question.

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Well I can always rely on Rob to ask something quite complicated. I think this is payback time for me because it's been my headache over here on quite a few occasions involved in debates that I organized with Roman Catholic priests and so on.

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But I'm trying to think, the only way I can answer this, and it's probably not the way he wants, but I have to go to the person and work of Christ.

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I think what is indispensable for true believers to recognize is that the sinless life of Christ is our righteousness.

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That's what God revealed to me the night that I was converted. Not only does the death of Christ have a great impact on our salvation, but the life of Christ also.

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So Christ lived for his people, and he also died the substitutionary death for his people.

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In other words, Christ did all the work for salvation. And what you find with those groups that are wrong, the cults, they will maybe have a place for Christ.

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They'll maybe say he made you savable, but this is what you have to do.

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And the Mormons are a prime example, as I gave earlier on. So the true religion is that on the cross,

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Christ saved his people. He did not make all people savable.

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He saved his people, and those people will be engathered through the preaching of the gospel, and as the

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Holy Spirit applies the truth and regenerates dead sinners. And I'm assuming that you would also add that one of the key doctrines, the cardinal doctrines that is true of all genuinely saved

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Bible -believing Christians is that the sole inerrant and infallible authority over the church is the

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God -breathed words of scripture. Very much so, because you mentioned

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Roman Catholicism earlier on, and of course, living in Northern Ireland, on the island of Ireland, there is a very high percentage of Roman Catholic people.

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And of course, they will say, oh yes, the Bible is the word of God. But they're not giving the whole facts on the matter, because the

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Catholic catechism states that the Bible and sacred tradition make up a single deposit of the word of God.

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So the Bible alone is not your authority. They bring in this oral tradition.

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But even those two things are not the ultimate authority. The ultimate authority is the magisterium, and that of course is the

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Pope and the bishops in communion with him. So hovering over the Bible and tradition, you have the magisterium, and they tell you what the

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Bible means, and they also tell you what constitutes sacred tradition. So certainly, the

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Bible alone is not their authority. And of course, we do have the claim of some of the

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Roman Catholic apologists that it is our view of sola scriptura that has led to the rise of the cults, the

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Second Great Awakening in the 19th century is blamed by the

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Roman Catholic Church because of the freedom from Rome that people had, all sorts of aberrations were developed, and sola scriptura is blamed for this, as I believe

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Scott Hahn may have coined the phrase that sola scriptura is a blueprint for anarchy.

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But the irony is that the majority, if not all of the cults, do not even believe in sola scriptura or Scripture alone as a sole authority, even if they claim that.

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Because there's always either a person that is the sole definer of what

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Scripture means, or an organization or a group, like for instance, you have the

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Jehovah's Witnesses, have the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, and there's an organization above the

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Scriptures. You have the Mormons who not only have the Bible that they use, but they have the

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Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price and the Doctrine and Covenants, and they don't even believe that the

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Bible is truly trustworthy. So all of these groups that may even claim that the

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Bible is their guide, even the old school Armstrongites and the

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Worldwide Church of God before their change, and I'm not really sure where they are at theologically today, but when

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Armstrong led it, he was claiming that the Bible was his sole source of authority, but you obviously know that he was the arbiter of what is right and wrong and true and false and so on.

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But if you could comment on that. Well, certainly where Armstrong Armstrongism is concerned, certainly in the last 15 or years, they drifted away from a lot of what he taught, and they came around to what many regard as an

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Orthodox Christian point of view. My problem with them is that they have never disowned or owned up to the fact that Herbert W.

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Armstrong was a false prophet and a false teacher, and until they are man enough, if you like, to own up to that, well then,

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I would still have to regard them with great suspicions. And you were perfectly right when you mentioned that these groups that have other authorities, the

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Mormons, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price, Seventh -day Adventists I mentioned at the start, and I mean, they are the same because they regarded

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Ellen White, the founder, as a prophetess, and that her teachings were to be on the same level as Scripture.

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In fact, a dear brother in Christ, a former Carmelite priest called Bart Brewer, who's now in glory, after Bart was converted, he actually for a time went into Seventh -day

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Adventism, became a pastor, and he was preaching only the Scriptures, and he was getting hauled over the carpet because he also wasn't bringing in the writings of Mrs.

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White, and eventually he had to leave. He wrote a book called Pilgrimage from Rome, which is an excellent book.

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One thought that he shared in the book, he says, the more I thought about it, the more convinced

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I was that it would be unethical to remain a minister in a church whose doctrines I could not accept.

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I would not submit to another Pope or modern prophetess. So he was kind of likening his position that he was going to have to obey

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Mrs. White's teachings in the same way he used to have to pay homage to the

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Pope when he was a priest. And we're going to be going to a break right now.

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If you have any questions, just send them on in to chrisanzen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. This is a live broadcast, so send them in now so we could have

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Cecil answer them to the best of his ability in the half hour that we have left of the broadcast.

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chrisarnzen at gmail .com. That's chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

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It's about God and His glory and the gospel is about man. Welcome back. This is Chris Orns.

29:28

And if you've just tuned into Iron Sharpens Iron, our guest today is Cecil Andrews who is the

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Director of Take Heed Ministries. Their website is takeheed .info.

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That's T -A -K -E -H -E -E -D .info. We are discussing the four marks of a cult.

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And can you, for those of our listeners who may have just tuned us in, can you refresh our memories about an abbreviated summary of what those four marks are?

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Yes, Chris. The four marks of the cult, they will have an earthly head or founder as point number one.

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Secondly, they will have an authority which is in addition to or in place of the Bible.

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Thirdly, they will have a wrong view of the person and work of Christ. And fourthly, they will have a wrong view of salvation.

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Yes, and as we already mentioned, you were saying that they believe something must be added to the finished work of Christ on Calvary's cross, that that is not really a completed and final act.

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When Christ said it is finished, he really didn't mean it, according to their understanding of salvation, correct?

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Yes, well, they believe that he finished his part of the work. Then there is this bit that they have to contribute as well.

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Before we take any more listener questions, because we do have a couple, could you please briefly give us your testimony of how you came to saving faith in Christ?

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Gladly, Chris. I was one of the genuine baby boomer generation, and I was privileged to be born into a

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Christian home. So my parents saw to it that I was brought to church. And in my teenage years,

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I attended what were called pre -communion classes for about six weeks. And at the end of that time,

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I was asked a series of questions, and I obviously gave the right answers because that was construed to be a credible profession of faith.

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And as a result of that, I was able to take part in the Lord's Supper when it was held. However, when

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I became about 20, I was much more interested in sport. I played field hockey and cricket, and so they dominated my weekends.

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And I ended up that I wasn't going to church. And that was the way until the age of 38 in 1984.

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And then in the providence of God, when I was on holiday in Canada, I bought a couple of books with interesting

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Christian titles, and they began to stir up a few things that I'd heard in my earlier years.

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And the result was when I came back to Northern Ireland, I was beginning to get a new perspective on myself, namely that I was seeing myself as God saw me rather than how my peers and friends saw me.

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And looking at it from the divine perspective, I didn't like what I was saying. And of course,

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I now know that I was coming under conviction of sin. And so I decided that I would go to a church, and I sought out a well -known preacher in Belfast.

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And on the 19th of August 1984, I attended his evening service. And I can't remember what he said, but I know that that night, definitely

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God showed to me, as I said earlier, not only the substitutionary death of Christ for my sins, but the substitutionary life of Christ as my righteousness.

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And that was a tremendous revelation. I knew that I'd been born again in the Spirit of God. It was as if God had dropped a robe of righteousness over me to cover all my sin.

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And I knew that I was accepted because of what Christ had done at Calvary for me.

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Amen. Amen. And sometime we perhaps will have that whole story just as one focus for an hour on the program.

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We do have another listener in Fort Myers, Florida, Mike, who asks, he says,

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Hello Cecil, based on your studies, how would you classify the Church of Christ?

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And before I allow you to answer that, I don't know if I'll have a different spin on this than you, but when it comes to the

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Church of Christ, it's almost like saying, do you believe that the Baptists are sound and biblically faithful or the

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Presbyterians? Because there are many different kinds of Baptists and Presbyterians.

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You have Baptists like the American Baptists and the Presbyterian Church USA, many of whom were probably celebrating the

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Supreme Court decision here in the United States about same -sex marriage. You have

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Baptists and Presbyterians on the 180 -degree opposite end of the spectrum who are

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God -honoring and biblically faithful people who include some of the giants of the faith, like Charles Haddon Spurgeon and Benjamin Warfield and so on.

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So in my opinion, with the Church of Christ, you really have to take each individual person, minister, and church into consideration, because they do vary widely, especially in the 21st century, and I have many friends who are in the

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Church of Christ that I would call my brothers. But perhaps you could comment now on your opinion on that, Cecil.

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Yeah, well, over Northern Ireland, we probably have about 80 -odd religious groupings, but you probably have that in one city, never mind the whole of America, of various shades of belief.

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Well, I think with anything, you have to go by kind of the official documentation, and not by the variation.

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I mean, there could well be variations in different congregations and so on, but as far as my understanding is, where the

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Church of Christ or Campbellite, as they would be viewed or known, they definitely feel that there is a role for salvation, or a role for baptism in salvation.

35:43

In other words, it's not just a testimony to the fact that you have been saved, it's an integral part of the process.

35:52

And that's where I would have the difficulty, because that's veering towards the

35:57

Galatian error, if I could put it that way. And so, it's a question of where does an individual stand in relation to baptism?

36:07

Because, I mean, if a Baptist left the Baptist and went to join a Church of Christ, they would probably insist on re -baptism, because when the person was baptized as a

36:19

Baptist, they were only testifying to their faith, whereas the Church of Christ feels it has to be an integral part of the process, and so I would have great difficulties with that,

36:31

Chris. Yes, and of course, many of them, if not most of them, would say that there is no official position in regard to a unifying belief that they all with certainty adhere to, because they're not a quote -unquote denomination with a headquarters or with an earthly leader.

36:50

And one example of someone that does not believe in the necessity of baptism for regeneration or salvation is

36:59

Max Lucado, who has a less strict view of baptism than I do as a

37:09

Baptist. He does not even require a believer's baptism by immersion for Church membership, let alone for salvation.

37:16

So there you do have someone who is in the spectrum, and I'm not even certain 100 % that he would identify himself as a

37:23

Church of Christ minister anymore, but he certainly was for decades and began his writing ministry in that relation.

37:31

We do have an anonymous listener who asks, judging on the last statement that you made, where would you put people like great leaders of the faith and heroes of the faith like Augustine and Martin Luther, who believed that baptism was essential for salvation, when the majority of evangelical

37:53

Protestants and especially Calvinists would view those men as heroes of the faith? Well, I think the old saying goes, the best of men are only men at their best.

38:05

I've never been a great one for going into historical figures and so on, certainly not back as far as Augustine.

38:13

When it comes to Luther, he was being brought out of the darkness of Roman Catholicism, and certainly on the core essential of justification by faith alone, there would seem to be genuine light where the man is concerned, but he didn't ditch all of the things.

38:36

And unfortunately, even at the time of the Reformation, when it came to the doctrinal creed and so on, it's a pity that some of the groupings held on to things which are confusing today in relation to perhaps baptism.

38:55

I mean, there are Reformed churches who have a view in baptism that they will administer it to children, but they make it very clear and very plain that this is not regeneration and so on, and so that's good and so on.

39:09

But as someone who holds to Baptistic convictions, I find it confusing in some respects.

39:18

But Luther held to some very loose doctrinal views, and also, of course, he had some views on the

39:28

Jewish people, which I am most uncomfortable with, and which perhaps served to fuel the views of others in relation to the

39:39

Jewish people. So he was coming out of great darkness, but whether he was fully in the light in all respects, well,

39:50

I wouldn't like to comment. Now, I don't believe that you mentioned it in your summary of four marks of a cult, but is authoritarian control over one's life a specific mark that is essential for a cult?

40:15

Or do you think that that is something that many cults or even most cults demonstrate, but it is not really always in existence there?

40:26

You might have a cult that is very liberal in many aspects, but is non -Trinitarian and would have some of the clear marks of a cult, the denial of the deity of Christ, a denial of punishment in hell, a belief in universal salvation.

40:51

Some of the cults are less restrictive than others, but if you could comment on that in your opinion.

40:57

Yeah, I think I was trying to narrow the features down to doctrinal aspects, but of course then there are aspects in practice which nearly flow from the views that they hold.

41:10

As you said, the Mormons originally believed that they and they alone were the only true creed in church.

41:18

The Jehovah's Witnesses likewise would have held to the exclusiveness of their grouping, and the result is that they kept a very tight hold on their members.

41:29

The Moonies likewise would have been very much devoted to making sure the members didn't step out of line, and where Jehovah's Witnesses are concerned, you know, if anybody steps out of line, well, they will be thrown out of the organization, they will be shunned, and so on.

41:45

And so, yes, many of these cults do exercise tight control on their members.

41:52

Again, Jehovah's Witnesses, they're told if you're witnessing to people, and they offer you literature, don't take it, and so they keep a tight hold on their followers,

42:03

Chris. We do have another anonymous listener who wants to know if you would ever vote for a political candidate of any kind who was a member of a cult in the

42:19

United States here. We've had most famously Mitt Romney, who was a

42:25

Mormon, who ran for president, and may be running right now for president.

42:32

What are your thoughts on that, because there are many conservative evangelical Christians who believe that since the political realm is completely separate from who you would welcome into leadership or membership of your own church, since those things are two different categories, that they see no problem with voting for a political candidate that was in a cult, and obviously that would depend on what the cult was, because there are some cults that are so sinister, obviously you wouldn't want to have anybody not only be your president, but babysit your children.

43:08

But if you could, comment on that. Yeah, well, I think when it comes to voting in elections, at the end of the day, you really have to vote on what the political standpoint of the person involved holds to.

43:24

As you say, Mitt Romney was a classic example, and the fact that he was a

43:29

Mormon, if I had been an American and was given the choice, I don't think his

43:36

Mormonism would have been a reason for me not to vote for him, because I believe in the separation of church and state.

43:45

Obviously, if he was clearly in his campaign stating that he was going to try and introduce particular

43:52

Mormon viewpoints into his political agenda, well then that would cause me to rethink, and I certainly wouldn't go down that line.

44:04

But at the end of the day, the class of politicians that we're being asked to vote for today, well, a lot of them don't have any religion, or if they have religion, it's not biblical religion, and so it's a question of trying to vote for the one that will make life as close as possible to the type of life that a

44:26

Christian would want to live. I mean, at First Timothy 2, we are to pray for the leaders and those in authority over us, so that we may be able to lead peaceable lives.

44:39

It's not that you're necessarily praying for their salvation, although that would be wonderful and so on, but it's so that we will have in power people who will have some sort of veering towards a righteous way of living, and make it easier for Christians to live in such a regime.

44:57

We're going to be going to our final break. If you have a question, you've got to email it now, because we're running out of time.

45:04

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45:10

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45:16

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45:31

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47:09

That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

47:18

This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in on Iron Sharpens Iron, our guest has been today

47:24

Cecil Andrews, who is the current director of Take Heed Ministries. Their website is takeheed .info.

47:32

And he is calling us from Northern Ireland, and we have been discussing the

47:38

Four Marks of Occult. Our email address, if you have any questions, I would urge you to email them quickly because we're running out of time, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

47:50

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Just want to remind you that tomorrow our guest is

47:58

Jennifer Holfacker, who is a former occultic medium who used to proclaim and tell people that she was contacting the dead, which we would call the sin of necromancy.

48:13

And she is going to be our guest tomorrow and talk about her deliverance from that demonic way of life and activity and how the

48:24

Lord Jesus Christ saved her by his precious blood. On Friday, we have

48:30

Dr. Peter Lilback, who is the president of Westminster Theological Seminary in the

48:36

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area, and he, appropriate for the 4th of July weekend, he is going to be discussing

48:44

George Washington's strange... I'm sorry, I was almost going to say George Washington's strange fire, which was the title.

48:54

Strange fire was John MacArthur's conference against the charismatic movement. Peter Lilback's book is

49:00

George Washington's sacred fire, and he is going to be discussing that just in time for Independence Day weekend, so we hope you listen.

49:10

We do have another anonymous listener who wants to know

49:16

Cecil. He is a member of a church that would be categorized as a

49:23

King James only church. And he recognizes that there are wonderful men of God, such as Dr.

49:32

Joel Beakey and Pastor John Greer and others who will only use the

49:38

King James Bible, but is there a time when a line is crossed, when it becomes a cult or a cultic mindset or behavior, when the salvation of souls is questioned or even outright denied because they do not use the

49:56

King James Bible, or they did not come to faith in Christ through the reading or preaching of the

50:02

King James Bible specifically? So if you could answer that as best you can. Yeah, you mentioned

50:09

John Greer, and of course in Northern Ireland we have the Free Presbyterian Church, which is the denomination that John belongs to.

50:16

And their practice would be that they only use the King James version in their services and so on, and they would be concerned about some of the modern translations because of the texts that are used in translation.

50:33

But I don't think they would in any shape or form deny that someone who was not listening to preaching of the

50:41

King James Version, that in which they were saved, they would not say, oh you haven't been saved because it wasn't the authorized version.

50:52

However, I think we have to then distinguish between that type of approach and what would be known as the

50:57

Ruckmanites, where Peter Ruckman and his followers, they would insist that the

51:03

King James Version itself is inspired, and then I think you're getting into very choppy waters because these versions, they're only translations, only the original autographs, if you like, were inspired, and translations are just simply translations.

51:23

So I respect churches that say, I mean I've spoken quite often in such churches where they say we only use the authorized version, and in all my writings

51:34

I use quotations normally from the authorized version because it has been in times past very much the universal version that people use and that many are comfortable with.

51:47

But I certainly have other versions that I look to and can find help when

51:54

I'm looking at particular passages, but it's the insistence that unless you have been converted under the preaching of the authorized version, you're not truly saved.

52:05

Well, that would definitely be a no -no for me. Yes, and I have actually spoken to both of those men that we mentioned who are friends of mine and who are modern -day heroes as far as I'm concerned,

52:18

Joel Beakey and John Greer, both phenomenal preachers of the Gospel and both very humble and godly and Christ -like men, and they have both told me that they very much oppose the cultic mindset of those who believe that salvation is impossible without using an

52:39

Old English version of the Bible called the King James Version, which didn't even exist until 1600 years after the birth of Christ.

52:51

So it makes absolutely no sense that that would be required for salvation. In fact, it's quite insane if you ask me, and there is an individual who is a very public figure,

53:01

I don't mind mentioning Steve Anderson in Arizona, who I believe is somewhat of a cult figure, cult leader, a very tiny cult that he has there, but he believes that salvation is impossible even if you've only been evangelized through a modern translation and it hasn't been through the

53:19

King James Bible, which is absolutely insane. But could you let our listeners know,

53:27

Cecil, about any material specifically that you have either written or recorded that you make available through Taycheed Ministries that our listeners should get a hold of?

53:38

Yes, well, if you go to our ministry website, on the home page, there are two items listed.

53:46

One is an index of assorted articles, and then the other is an index of previous newsletters, and if you click on those, it'll take you to a whole menu of articles that have been written over the last,

54:01

I suppose, nearly 20 years or so, and they are listed under alphabetical categories, so that if you're looking for Mormonism, you can scroll down and see the

54:12

M, and there they'll be the articles listed. So there's lots of articles on the website.

54:18

There's also current articles, things that I've just posted in recent weeks and so on, when you get to the home page, so they are available to view.

54:28

Also, at the top of the home page, there is a menu in red, and one of the items on the menu is

54:36

YouTube, and if you click on that, it will take you to our ministry YouTube site, and there's probably in excess of 150 videos or audios that are available to view on a whole range of topics, including,

54:52

Chris, debates that Rob Zins would have taken a part in in times past. You can watch him on those, and it covers, there are audio talks that I've given on the various cults,

55:04

Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. So there's a whole raft of information there, as well as other items, evolution and creation, and the emerging church.

55:15

All these things are covered on the website. I did also have two little books published a few years ago called

55:22

Try the Spirits, Volume 1, and Try the Spirits, Volume 2, and I think some copies are available via Amazon, both in America and the

55:33

United Kingdom, so you might want to click on there if you wanted to see them.

55:40

The first volume dealt with, was C .S. Lewis truly our greatest Christian writer?

55:46

He, of course, grew up in Northern Ireland, and then we have Philip Yancey turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.

55:53

Philip Yancey had some very weak views on things gay, and then thirdly, alpha, attend or avoid.

56:01

There's a thing called the alpha course that's been going around the world for years, and well, you'll see whether I recommend that you attend or avoid, and you'll not be surprised which one

56:13

I recommend. Yeah, the alpha course, to my knowledge, for those of our listeners who are unfamiliar with that, that's a training course that is usually adopted by mainstream denominations, many of whom, but not exclusively, which are liberal, but they're basic Bible teachings that are offered for congregants that are especially in mainline congregations, correct?

56:42

That's right. Yes, in fact, that was... It's a ten -week course. They usually use videos or presentations by the main man called

56:50

Nicky Gumbel. People often ask me what's wrong with the alpha course, and I say, well, the

56:56

Roman Catholic Church approves of it. Do I need to say any more? And they actually had a leadership conference in London in May of this year.

57:08

One of the main guests was Father Raniero Cantalamessa, who is the papal preacher.

57:15

In other words, he preaches to the Pope. He's no average priest. Another guest was

57:20

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who's the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales. And a third guest was

57:27

Joyce Meyer. By the way, I wanted to let our listeners know, just because of the issue of Roman Catholicism coming up,

57:36

I do have on Thursday the 23rd of July, I actually have a

57:44

Roman Catholic guest, Robert St. Genes. And it's not because I am ecumenical with Rome, but I wanted to have right out of a conservative

57:54

Catholic's mouth his opinions on the current

57:59

Pope Francis, which is the most liberal Pope that has ever claimed that title or office.

58:06

And it should be interesting to hear what Robert has to say, because the conservative Catholic organizations like EWTN and Catholic Answers are completely silent about him, even though they claim to be on the conservative or traditional end of Catholicism.

58:24

And again, I repeat, I'm not having that interview because I have become an ecumenist in regard to Rome at all, and my guest knows that.

58:32

I've known Robert for many years. So if you could, in 45 seconds, close our program today with what you most want burned upon the hearts and minds of our listeners,

58:46

Cecil, and actually 30 seconds, if you could do that. Well, I think the important thing for God's people is to know the scriptures, because when the policeman is trying to find out what the counterfeit currency looks like, he doesn't study it, he studies the genuine article.

59:05

And that's what we must do, study the scriptures, and then when the error comes along, we will readily and easily recognize it.

59:14

Well, thank you so much, Cecil Andrews. We look forward to having you back on the program. Cecil Andrews of TakeHeed Ministries.

59:21

His website is takeheed .info. That's takeheed .info. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater

59:32

Savior than you are a sinner. We hope that you tune in tomorrow to Iron Sharpens Iron.