August 23, 2016 Show with Bodie Hodge on “World Religions & Cults: Counterfeits of Christianity” PLUS Heather David Nelson on “Unashamed: Healing Our Brokenness & Finding Freedom From Shame”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, 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.

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. Now here's our host.

Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 23rd day of August 2016 and we've got two guests on today for the very first time.

The first hour we're going to be talking about world religions and cults and counterfeits of Christianity with Bodie Hodge who is a speaker writer researcher for Answers in Genesis, the ministry founded by Ken Ham and then in our second hour we're going to be visited by Heather Davis Nelson who is a writer, counselor, retreat speaker, a pastor's wife and she's the author of Unashamed Healing Our Brokenness and Finding Freedom from Shame.

But first for the first hour as I said it's my honor and privilege to welcome for the very first time on Iron Sharpens Iron, Bodie Hodge. Hey it's great to be on the show. Well Bodie if you could I very typically will ask my guests to give a summary of how they came to faith in Christ, what kind of upbringing they had and what were the circumstances that God used to draw him to himself.

Well I'll tell you what you know I grew up in a church.

And my mom would take me to Sunday school and things like that and I really enjoyed that. And I was about nine years old when I made a professional career and you know I was pretty excited about it. And when you're growing up you're kind of young you understand the basics but from.

There you can only grow. I was excited so. Great. Well eventually you wound up meeting Ken Ham and began working with his ministry. Answers in Genesis, how did that come about? Well a number of years.

Later I ended up teaching at a university. I taught at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and while I was there I started teaching at a church. I started teaching junior high kids. What happened.

I showed up at a youth group one time and I'd kind of help out a little bit here and there and one day they said hey go in there and you know you can teach these kids. So you know I went in there. I made it through a lesson.

I came out and they said you're the permanent teacher now. Oh great. So you know I came out. So I actually went in. I said hey kids you want to go through a book of the Bible what do you want to do. And they said hey we got questions on evolution millions of years big bang dinosaurs.

And I thought oh boy you know I you know what. I struggle with some of that myself and so I went and I ended up getting Ken Ham and he'd put out a book called The Great Dinosaur Mystery Solved. And when I read that I was so excited because he kept and you know I really liked that.

I remember seeing a Peter Ham link and a little bit about Ken. And years later you know I was running my own ministry and teaching with youth groups and things like that up in Peoria Illinois and I used Answers in Genesis website.

One day I hopped on said jobs and I said well I wonder what kind of jobs they have in theological perspective. And you know out of science background and I applied went through a pretty rigorous interview process and I ended up getting hired and a little did I know that that Abraham looking Abraham Lincoln.

Character's oldest daughter would become my wife later on. Wow I just found that out for the first time right now. I didn't know that. Yeah I married Ken's oldest daughter so well. Praise God. Well definitely.

Send my greetings to Ken. I've had him on this program before. I look forward to having him back on the program. And he has always been a modern-day hero of mine. And it's I also happen to be a young earth creationist so they seem to be fewer and farther in between to come by these days.

Yeah it seems like that sometimes doesn't it. Yeah. And so it's always. I always have an open door for him and anybody on his team here at Iron Sharpens Iron. Well obviously there had been a point in your ministry where the focus of your interest shifted at least temporarily from the creation issue to world religions and cults which are many of which are counterfeits of Christianity.

And you have written this two-volume work which is actually going to be added by a third volume. I understand in October. God willing. That's correct. We're actually putting the finishing.

Touches on the final chapter on the third volume but just so that listeners can kind of understand we put out a three-volume set of and what we wanted to do is we wanted to break religions down into four major sections and this is what a lot of philosophers and people have done.

And the first is what we call counterfeits of Christianity and that appears in our first volume that is any type of religion or cult very similar to Christianity. False messiah or they want to add a book to the bible like you know the quran.

Second category think of hinduism taoism jainism new age even would fit in that. The third breakdown would be the moralistic religions and that would include mythological religion confucianism buddhism even some of the old mythologies like some sort of moral code sometimes they have some gods sometimes they they don't have some gods.

And then the final fourth category are the secular religions you might think of atheism agnosticism secular humanism you know even things like post-modernism or hedonism and that's going to be in the final volume that great.

And uh just so.

I can announce the publisher's website uh for new leaf publishing group it's nlpg that's nl for new leaf pg for publishing group .com and you could look up bodi haj b-o-d-i-e haj or world religions and you'll be able to find those those three volumes there.

And uh well uh wouldn't you say that in your research of all the world's religions that christianity is very unique in that salvation is a free gift from god it does not involve any type of merit on our behalf although i'm sure you would agree that those who are rescued delivered redeemed and saved by the grace of god do produce good works as fruit as evidence.

But uh would you say that the christianity is the only faith known to man where man is totally on the receiving end of this free gift from god.

Absolutely. In fact you know looking at a lot of the counterfeits in particular you know they may mimic christianity in a lot of ways but usually one of the things they do is they make it a works-based type of salvation.

But you know with the bible it's a free gift. We are saved by faith through grace. You know it is a gift it's a free gift and it's not by works that we're saved. And you know what you're absolutely right we do.

We want to follow up from us where people want to work for things. They think that they can get to god by themselves. Or they can get to this next level of uh nirvana or what have you to front. What they need to do is get back to god in his word and let god be the ultimate authority on the subject.

Let me uh announce our email address if.

Anybody listening would like to join us on the air with a question of your own for bodie hodge. Our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com. C h r i s a r n z e n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside of the usa.

If it makes you feel more comfortable to remain anonymous we will honor your request. I understand that there may be even some people listening who are members of religions we are identifying as cults or something today and they really don't want to make themselves public in asking a question.

I understand that and uh so feel free to remain anonymous if that is your choice but. Chris arnzen at gmail .com. Chris arnzen at gmail .com. Now it's interesting how people will often want to believe that they are in some way meriting their eternal reward whatever that may be according to their own system of theology or ideology.

But they're usually comparing themselves to people who are worse than they are. They're not comparing themselves to the martyrs. They're not comparing themselves to the disciples in the scripture. And most of all they're not comparing themselves to jesus christ who is pure righteous and holy.

And that's really what they need to be doing to realize that they are utterly bankrupt in their ability to in any way contribute to this precious work of salvation that christ finished completely on the cross.

Yeah that's exactly right. You know we need to be comparing ourselves to the absolute perfect example. You know if i were to compare to myself to my brothers or my sisters well i'm always better. And you know i think a lot of people have that mentality.

And i say you know i'm pretty good you know. And and what the hell. You know what all of us have sinned. We've all fallen short. Uh christ the perfect example. He was without sin. He is the perfect example.

And that's what we need to compare ourselves to. And you know i think a lot of the jews in the first century really struggled with christ teaching on that. Because he's you know he's pointing out hey here's what the law says.

So much more than what they actually had anticipated. You know. Uh you know when it comes to situations like adultery you know you're not supposed to commit adultery. Well jesus goes for us. You've already committed adultery.

And that's what the vice revealed. Bags. Not one of us uh deserves the only way that we could stand before god. And and that's what happened. What happens is christ's righteousness. His perfection is then transferred and be blameless only through the.

Blood of jesus christ. Now when you were compiling the list of specifically the cults the ones that are counterfeit christian religions were there any where you weren't certain you should include them.

Like for instance i know that the late walter martin uh had some issues or questions about whether to include the seventh day adventists at one time. And there are certain groups that give apologists a reason for pause.

They don't want to be overly critical over certain groups that may have a lot in common with biblically orthodox christianity uh. And like for instance there there are disagreements amongst christian apologists on groups like the seventh day adventists and and other uh groups like that.

Uh did you reach any point of wondering who to include and you know or whether to leave certain groups out. Well you know what we really had to think.

About that too you know i understand uh you know walter martin you know his hesitancy on certain certain issues too. And we had to deal with that as well. And uh one of the things that we decided to step back some great denominations that came out of the reformation you know and of course you know how ever ever since the reformation churches have split and you've got this group and that group and they vary on different things.

You know there are some groups that started off as phenomenal denominations that now you almost step back and question well where are they at right now. Because you know they've deviated so much from the bible and so they're going in the wrong direction.

And what we did was then we turned around and we compared that to a group like seventh day. You know if you look at seventh day adventist you know it starts off with a prophetess ellen white just a number of different issues sabbath rest and things like that and so um you know now here's what how ellen white being a prophetess they started to go back more to the bible and see what it teaches.

And you know what we want to encourage that. So one of the things we were stuck with was well you got sda's who are moving in the right direction and we want to encourage it. And then you also have people who are in mainline churches as well that should always be the authority.

So yeah we had to deal about it. You know within our overview uh here of the counterfeits of christianity that would be a volume about. Do you do a whole chapter on this or do you explain.

The issues. And so we opted to yeah and i think that the seventh day adventists are really a very broad spectrum of of views. They are not really a monolith i don't think. I have met seventh day who are very orthodox in their their explanation of their gospel which would be in harmony with mine and they would say that obedience to the sabbath is not something that merits their salvation and so on.

But then they would even say that there are groups within the seventh day adventist movement known as the reform movement that are really trying to be more in line with with lng white as a prophetess and uh more in strict adherence to things that she that she taught.

So there there is. Obviously it's not an easy it's not an easy pigeonhole. Not an easy group to pigeonhole. Um we do have a listener all the way in kinross scotland murray who says it would be easy to dismiss cults generally as inward looking closed and ultra separatist.

But what actually is the typical cult mindset toward evangelizing and how evangelical are they. Over here in the uk the mormons have always been fairly active. But it would be easy to form the opinion of others that they only concentrate on fishing in the boat rather than fishing from the boat.

In terms of evangelizing does it vary from cult.

To cult well i think certain degrees it does. Uh you know mormons and jehovah's witnesses are probably two of the more prolific uh groups that really uh try to reach out they'll knock on doors and uh you know really get out there.

Um now there are others you know that are not as in your face i guess uh you know so i i think it would depend on the specific one. Now uh you know one of the things that we uh you know in this this book here is one of the things we're trying to point out is that there's gods and not gods and so all other religions one way or another have utilized man's ideas to then be taken away from god in his word.

When it comes to cultic groups like mormons jehovah's witnesses or what have you uh usually it's a single leader or a group of leaders that then take you away from god in his word. They want to add something and so what happens is either more pronounced or less pronounced depending on their leader and what they say.

In fact when you look at a religion like islam islam in many instances the world's largest cult of christianity uh in the quran repeatedly it states that the bible is true. Mohammed said that the bible was true.

In fact i think he really thought that what he was dictating you know to be the quran was right along with what the but uh then dictates the quran. You've got the hadith and so forth. That starts to take people away from god in his word trying to get people to accept mormons you know they go uh a group like islam which is they're not as in your uh you see groups like deus um and yet they're not groups.

You got some from a cult leader upon that and murray.

Follows up with the second question. Uh when people manage to leave cults they often quite understandably link up with individuals or groups who have themselves been in a cult and in many cases are personally known to them.

But many of these helpers aren't saved and can be as negative about evangelical christianity generally as they are about the cult. Should we even acknowledge these helpers and seek to interact with them.

Well you know that you know i always want to encourage people to the bible is the authority not necessarily some of the people or the groups that that's what we find a lot of times. People who get sucked into a cult uh they don't have the bible is the absolute authority.

They need to be taught those types of things and sometimes it takes base. But when they get when they leave a particular cult sometimes they'll latch on to all sorts of stuff because they're being blown by every wind of doctrine because they have not understood that the bible is the absolute authority.

And that's what we should be using to dictate theology to dictate our understanding of who god is and who christ is. So what we need to do is we really do need to get in there and help these.

Well thank you murray and kinross. Scotland. We have jeff in clinton township michigan. Is there an effective apologetic where witnessing to an unbeliever who claims that it's unrealistic for a christian to call another religion a cult.

Let me reread that because i'm not sure i'm understanding it. Is there an effective apologetic when witnessing to an unbeliever who claims that it's unrealistic for a christian to call another religion a cult.

I see i i guess what he is saying is basically uh that how dare how dare we as christians look at anyone else and be a judge over them or that kind of a thing and very much like liberals would would often say.

And it's interesting that everybody who says that as an accusation is judging themselves. They're making a judgment. Yeah but if you could respond to just well the bible the bible commands that we're.

Supposed to make a righteous judgment. I know there are people who who rip that passage out of context. Judge not lest you be judged. You know the context of that is actually being an improper judge. So you don't want to improperly judge us like that.

So you know we are to do a righteous judgment. And what happens uh really is deviating from god in his word. And you can see that it deviates from god in his word which by definition has deviated. So you can compare those things.

And i don't think there's anything wrong with saying that. And i don't think it's being judgmental. I think what it is that deviates from mainstream christianity. It deviates from what god in his word say.

So what you really need to do is be careful of it. I i hope people understand too. When you're witnessing to somebody we need to display that love for him. We're not out here just to demolish an argument or point out hey you're a cultist.

We're not saying this you know to name call. We're saying that as an educational point because we love you guys. We want to see you guys repent from this and come back to god in his word. So i think we need to make sure we're doing it with the right.

And jeff also has a follow-up question. And this is a very common question. Uh well where jeff is isolating it to one aspect. I most often hear this question in regard to the religion as a whole. Uh jeff's question is what about roman catholicism practice of male mariolatry.

Isn't this cultic. And of course the very typical question i get is do you believe roman catholicism.

Is a cult. Oh boy i've heard that a number of times. And you know what i i mean i totally understand where they're getting at. Uh with that. You know when you're worshiping mary like that you're placing your faith in mary to be jesus christ is the only one that can save you.

So i mean that really does hit those borderlines of being being cultic in that. Now here's the thing about roman catholicism. I think a lot of people don't quite understand. There are so many different variations from.

You know i've met some uh roman catholics. I knew a guy years ago. Uh you know in fact i love the guy. He was brilliant. Um he would argue the bible was the absolute truth and that you've got to believe in the triune god.

And i'm just sitting there going. You know what. I've not met protestants that argue that. Good you know any present now even with that's not necessarily the roman catholic position. A lot of roman catholics do hold to that.

But they don't necessarily. So we do need to. You know there's a lot of good stuff in there. The problem is there's a lot of bad stuff sprinkled into it as well. And what we want to encourage anyone out there is god.

Is that absolute authority. I cannot reiterate that enough. And you know what that goes. Right back to the you know with luther and zwingli and calvin and these guys saying hey yeah. And the uh reformers.

Also uh had as their battle cry that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in christ alone by the scriptures alone to the glory of god alone. And the roman catholic church dogmatically in the council of trent condemned those battle cries in one way or another because of their belief that that the works of men definitely merit uh salvation and grace and the even the works of the saints and mary merit uh so they that they merit the salvation of sinners uh and add to their own merit.

So that's where it would get even more complicated. But i i believe i agree with you that there are many catholics who either in ignorance of what their dogmatic statements teach or in rebellion to what their dogmatics statements teach are true believers and are born again brethren uh.

But i think that it really uh it makes the issue a lot more complicated when they have dogma condemning those of us who are protestants that still stands to this day. Well here's one thing i want to.

Encourage people to do you know when they're chatting with somebody who says hey i'm catholic or i'm i'm i'm uh you know roman catholic or whatever it might be. Talk to them. Find out what they believe.

Find out why they believe certain things. And you know what believe it or not. I think a lot of people are more than happy to chat with what they believe and why and that'll open up a much better discussion.

And so you know keep that in mind when you're not sure. You know just because or even if they say that ask them exactly what they believe. Not everybody out there would you say that uh the three things that are most important.

Or maybe you would even have more.

Things. But uh the three things that you would look for when a religion is claiming to be christian to what to be able to determine whether or not uh it is biblically sound and genuine in regards to its christianity is to look at what they believe about the person and work of the trinity.

Or the persons and work of the trinity uh the their view of the redemption that christ provided on calvary and their view of the scriptures whether or not they are the sole infallible inerrant authority over the believer would you say.

Those are the three areas that would be a litmus test over whether a professed christianity is genuine.

Well i would suggest those are definitely among the top three. And you know if you see red flags on any of those three you know one of the things you typically is a deviation of the nature of christ the triune god.

And see that's significant. You know i've chatted with muslims i've chatted but uh mormonism they actually believe in a multitude of gods. They believe that you know god was a man who became a god. The the universe is actually eternal.

And and you know jesus was a man who became a god and you can become a god as well. So they're actually polytheistic they believe in a multitude of god. Now you look at joe but this is not god. You know they try to have jesus or the archangel.

I remember some joe's witnesses stopped by one time and i'm like hey bode would you like that. Would you like to talk theology. And i'm like sure i would. You know. Come on let's talk. And uh you know they came in and we started chatting and i said well let's talk about that christ is created.

Where i disagree christ is the creator. And uh you know i pointed out. I said hey is god is jehovah. God is he infinite. And they agreed you god by extension. That means that because the nature of god is christ uh was the one who took the punishment on our behalf.

And i was like any created being would not be equal to god to be able to take that punishment to make salvation possible. I said the only way jesus could take the infinite punishment from the infinite father is that jesus and his son.

I said any created being any created angel is not equal to god. And i remember the the wheel started start to deviate on the nature of christ. What we need to do is we need to bring him back to that. That's one of the major ones.

Redemption. Uh you know a fact is when it comes to the view of the bible the price they say well the understand the bible or studies in the scripture by charles tase russell is used to interpret the. But this is a problem we typically see of just about every cult.

You use previous revelation to judge later revelation. We need to use the bible to judge later revelation backwards. They're trying to say well now our new revelation issues to judge the bible. Now they got it backwards.

See when you go back to the new testament or arguing for for new scripture the apostolic writings. And whatnot. They said here let me prove that jesus is the christ from the old testament not from what they're writing.

They said let's go back to the old testament use it to prove here let's. What would happen was they're using the old testament to defend the new. Now we don't see that among the cults. They do it backwards.

How convenient is that. But uh that's the key. And one of the things we need to point out when we encounter somebody who tries to say there's this new revelation you know whether it's the book of mormon or whatever it might be.

You say hold it. We need to judge it. They're going to want to turn that around. You say no. No no. You got to use previous the bible than that revelation. And so that's one of the keys looking at the scripture.

I think that's an excellent uh litmus test there. And we have to go.

To a break right now if you'd like to join us on the air with your own question for bode hodge regarding cults and world religions our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com. Chris arnzen at gmail .com.

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This is chris zarnes and if you just tuned us in our guest for the first hour today on iron sharpens. Iron is bodie hodge speaker writer and researcher for answers in genesis. Today we are discussing for the first hour his three-volume book it's already available in two volumes and there's a third one on the way world religions and cults.

And if you'd like to join us our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. We do have some listeners still waiting to have their questions asked and answered but before i return to the interview i just have a announcement.

I hope that as many of you as possible join me at the g3 conference january 19th through the 21st 2017 in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the protestant reformation. This is going to be held in atlanta georgia and speakers include such notables as paul washer stephen j lawson d .a carson vody baucom james r white of alpha omega ministries tim challis conrad and bayway who is one of the most powerful preachers i've ever heard in my life from zambia africa phil johnson who's the executive director of john macarthur's ministry grace to you and rosaria butterfield who we just had on yesterday a former leftist lesbian who was saved by the blood of christ and totally transformed and is now married to a pastor and a prolific writer and speaker a real dear sister in christ todd friel from richard tv and wretched radio who i know is very familiar with my guest's father-in-law ken hamm uh and john crotts and others most of whom have been guests on iron sharpens iron.

For more details go to g3 conference .com. That's g the number three conference .com. Hope to see you there. Uh we have a listener in lindenhurst long island cj who asked bodi haj. Why is it that denominations that have become liberal are not classified typically by apologists as being cults.

Very often these liberal denominations deny such pillars of the truth as the deity of christ the trinity the virgin birth salvation by grace alone through faith alone the exclusivity of christ and his work.

Uh the inerrancy of the scripture the bodily resurrection of christ and i could go on and on. Why is it that these are not typically under the heading of cults like the rest of the cults. Very good question.

I think no. It's a great question. In fact we were pondering that ourselves.

When we were doing the first volume uh when we did the overview uh you know called counterfeits of christianity a specific chapter in the first volume one of the things we do is we point out that a lot of these guys have become so liberal that some of them have denied uh the very nature of jesus christ you know which would make them cultic now.

And you know what. We we tend to see that a lot of times we see it among specific denominations. Uh sometimes it's among groups within a denomination. And then denominations disagree. You know what. They're moving in a cultic and uh you know we we don't shy away more in a biblical direction now.

You know what that is the case you know when it comes to some of these extremely liberal denominations you know i've seen you know and i'm not gonna i don't want to point names here but i've been on two different sets where one of them actually said you do not need to believe now that right there autumn uh you know scripture but you almost need to take what i found as many pastors many uh people within particular denominations.

Sometimes they don't know what and yet they're still good and solid and standing on the authority of the bible. But i'll tell you why i i've seen these things uh become more liberal and people start out.

Why not throw the gospel of john out. You know that's what we're starting to see. I think that problem is going to be yes and uh obviously even in the.

Most liberal of the denominations you still have some bible-believing christians who are pastors and uh perhaps seminary professors and members who are holding firm to the truth. I know united methodist pastors that are are truly born again.

Bible-believing christians who are are very uncomfortable with the direction their own denomination is taking and they feel that it's their duty to remain there and be some kind of a light to bring the denomination back to the the biblical faith of john wesley and so on.

And then you have the same thing going on with the pc usa the most liberal of the presbyterian groups and the congregationalists and so on. It's very hard these days to find an evangelical amongst the united church of christ folks.

But they still are there. Here here and there. Um but uh. Very good question. Cj. Um we have a first-time listener in edmonton alberta canada travis who asks what is the distinction between a cult and.

A religion you know. That is a great question. In fact i'm thrilled that sometimes it's kind of nebulous now. Uh one of the things that we tried to point out we actually talk about this. There's cults and there's also philosophical systems.

Well here's the thing you know a cult a world religion. They're also philosophical systems. A cult is also religious. It is a world religion. When you actually kind of look at it now a lot of times when you define a cult a cult deviates from a world religion in that it mimics or it counters.