You Might Be In A Cult If...[Colossians 2:6-10]

I would invite you to open your Bibles to Colossians chapter 2 this evening, chapter 2.

I've been pondering, you know, last week's conference was on discernment and it really got me thinking more about, even more about cults and whatnot, so I thought we might talk about that a little bit this evening.

Have you ever wondered who joins cults? What sort of person does that? Well, I did.

But we tend to think that they must be weak people or maybe they grew up in it, but how about this one?

I found this one. A man named Tom pastored, I think it was for 27 years, at a church, a

Nazarene church. Eventually, without any details, I don't know, but eventually for what reason, but he and his wife divorced.

And needing a job, after he got remarried, he moved to, wait for it,

Utah. The article goes on to say, the Scots, that's his last name, never expected to live in Utah, but upon arrival, they were surprised by the genuine welcome given them.

Not long after pulling in the driveway, neighbors showed up bringing plates of cookies, meals, furniture,

I don't know how you bring plates of furniture, that would be confusing to me, but anyway, I think the idea is furniture.

Whatever they found, the Scott family needed. Tom's teenage son commented, these people cannot be for real.

But they were. They acted like Christians to him.

He was determined to find out more about them. These initial acts of kindness, and by the way, this man, as I read through the article, he had previously referred to the

Mormons as a cult. But these initial acts of kindness made Tom question all the negative things he had heard about members of the

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. They acted like Christians to him, and so he explored further.

They began attending the LDS church and eventually took lessons from LDS missionaries.

They had all their questions answered and felt completely at peace with their decision to join the

Mormon church. They had a peaceful, easy feeling. One of their sons even joined with them.

Tom says that before he never really knew the Mormons, making it easy for him to assume the false things he heard about them were true.

He and his wife now have a desire to share their love of the Mormon church and their newfound happiness with others.

To this end, Tom has written a book called It's True, an evangelical pastor's journey to truth in the

Mormon church. A pastor! How could that happen?

Well, it always comes back to doctrine. I'm going to read just from Ephesians 4 first and listen to this and consider this just in light of a man who was a pastor for so many years.

Ephesians 4, verses 13 and 14. Until we all attain to the unity of the faith.

That means, well, we'll explore that in just a second. And of the knowledge of the Son of God. To mature manhood.

Not talking about virility, but mature Christianity. To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Why? So that we may no longer be children. He's talking about spiritual children, infants, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine.

And listen, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

Sounds kind of funny, but how about those wicked Mormons bringing the cookies, bringing the food, bringing the furniture?

That's human cunning. They were being kind to them, yes, but ultimately what they really wanted was to ensnare them in a false system, in a deceitful scheme.

Tonight I want to challenge you to not be a Christian weakling. To be the proverbial

Christian who gets the sand kicked in your face. Unable to stand against the schemes of man and Satan.

I want you to be a doctrinal monster. A doctrinal Schwarzenegger, as it were. Colossians is filled with good doctrine.

Why? Because it stresses the supremacy and sufficiency of the

Lord Jesus Christ. He is all you need. Let's read our text in Colossians chapter 2, verses 6 to 10.

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the

Lord, so walk in him, rooted and build up in him, and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority.

Now this evening as we walk through this text quickly, and then I've got several points, by the way

I named this message, you might be a cultist if, so we're going to have several application points after this, but this evening

I want to draw your attention to three directives. Three directives drawn from our text so that you will be cult proof.

You are to shun all other attractions other than Christ.

There are false, empty delusions that will make shipwreck of your faith. But if you are truly

Christ, you cannot lose your salvation, but if you fall into one of these traps, it will certainly feel as though you have.

Let's look at these verses here, and first our first directive, follow

Christ faithfully. Follow Christ faithfully. Look at verse six, therefore, as you received

Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and build up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught abounding in thanksgiving.

As Paul frequently does, he moves from the indicative, meaning this is your state, this is true.

Look, he says, as you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, that's the indicative, in light of this truth, do something, do this.

And what does he want them to do? He wants them to live like they actually belong to Christ, like they're in Christ.

You say you're a Christian, in other words, now live like you're a

Christian. He ransomed your life from the pits and your life is no longer your own.

He paid the price and he owns you, then you need to live like he is Lord of your life.

It's pretty basic stuff, we know that, but some say they're

Christians and they really just want to go their own way. And if that's the case, then they either don't understand what has been accomplished on their behalf or they don't know or don't care.

And the latter would be the mark of unbelief if you say, well, I know that I'm supposed to obey, but I just don't care.

These words are applied to what is true of all those who walk or live in Christ.

If you are in Christ, this is how you should live. And then this is how you should walk. Listen, first of all, to be rooted or planted.

It's done to you, it's passive, it's a passive participle and it implies a once done activity with ongoing permanent results.

In fact, this reminds me so much, this idea of being rooted or planted, it's like Psalm 1 verse 3, which says of believers, he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.

In all that he does, he prospers. And the mental image this should give us is of a tree with a canal purposely dug that just leads water right to the tree.

So there's absolutely no opportunity for that tree not to do what it's supposed to do, which is bear fruit.

And it's that same sense in which we as Christians are planted and then we are to be fruitful.

The second participle here is to be build up, build up, and it gives us the picture of the perfect kind of, well it's not a suburban

I was going to say, really downtown kind of apartment building. What would be perfect? Well, if you're the landlord, the perfect thing would be to just be able to keep building new floors on.

And that's the picture, the mental picture we ought to have, which is here you are, you're established and now you're going to be built up.

You're going to continue to grow, you're going to continue to have more floors. I don't know what that means. It just means that you're going to grow in Christ.

You're going to be more mature in Christ. Third, established in the faith, you're going to be able to do more and more.

So you're going to be more knowledgeable and you're going to be able to apply that knowledge. Fourth participle, you're going to be thankful, abounding in thanksgiving.

That's a lot of thanksgiving if you're abounding in it. As we acknowledge our gratitude to our savior, we grow stronger in our love for him and our desire to serve him.

Isn't that true? And isn't it also true that the more thankful you are, the more sense of,

I'll just call it this way, ought that you have. I am thankful.

I'm thankful to Christ for saving me. And therefore I know that I ought to do this and do that.

It's not, I'm not earning anything. It's just a response.

It's a right response. It's a grateful response. You know, somebody does something nice for you.

My stepmom let me borrow her car while I was in California. So what did I do? Well, you know,

I drove a couple hundred miles and then I just tossed her the keys and sat down on the sofa. I filled it up with gasoline.

I got her a little CD that I knew she'd like. I left it in her car. I'm kind of cool like that. And I said, thank you.

It's the right thing to do. How much more if we think, if we're thinking rightly, if we understand the depth of our sin and we understand the cost that Jesus paid on the cross, and as we grow in Christ, as we're built up in Christ, we reflect more on that.

We become more and more grateful. It says abounding in thanksgiving. Then what do we do?

We just think, I can't believe that Jesus would do that for me. Even as we think about Paul, what did he say that he's the chief of all sinners?

What does that indicate to us? It wasn't that he was the worst sinner ever. It's just that as he lived and he recognized more and more of his sin, and he was able to say, oh, wretched man that I am, he did what?

He thought, I have a great savior. I'm a great sinner, meaning I sin a lot, not that I'm particularly good at it,

I'm great, but just that I sin a lot and yet all my sins are paid for.

That is gratitude. And it means that we're going to respond in some way. We're going to want to obey.

A forgiven heart is a thankful heart and one who wants to follow the savior who set him or her free.

You want to do that. You understand what your Lord did and you want to respond rightly.

So first, we want to follow Christ faithfully. Second directive, fight falsehood.

Look at verse 8, see to it that no one takes you captive. You know what that really gives us a picture of, literally being carried off the battlefield by the opposing enemy.

You know, that's one of the things that you don't want to do in war is just surrender. I mean, you've watched enough probably prisoner of war movies, you know what the story is.

That's not what you want to have happen to you. Paul goes on to say, by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world.

Now, notice first of all, back at the beginning of the verse there, see to it that no one.

Well, no one is someone. What is he saying? There are many out there who are trying to take you captive.

They may have ideas that even seem reasonable. Listen to Colossians 2, 4, just back a few verses.

I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. There are people out there making plausible arguments.

There are people out there with philosophy and empty deceit, human tradition, and they're all trying to deceive you, to take you captive.

Philosophy as defined by Freiberg is a love of wisdom, a pursuit of wisdom. And in a negative sense, he says in the

New Testament of a worldview opposed to that derived from divine revelation.

Do people try to convince you that the Bible is not true? Do people present to you evolution and just think that you're a dope if you don't believe it?

These are, what he would say, plausible arguments. Philosophy, empty deceit.

They sound good, they sound wise, but they're folly. And isn't it true that when you talk to them and you preach the gospel to them, what do they say?

That sounds really smart to me, Steve, please, I'd like to hear some more. Or do they say, that's stupid.

How can you believe that? You seem reasonable to me. You seem rational to me. You seem semi -intelligent to me.

How can you believe that? As if the gospel is something you just put on a spreadsheet and you add the pluses and the minuses and you go, you know what?

On balance, this whole forgiveness of sin thing, it's probably worth it. That's not the gospel.

That's not how we think about it. When you are born again, it's not like you just have a choice, it opens up a variety of choices for you.

You believe because God gave you faith. Of this philosophy,

Hendrickson says, it is deceptive. For while it promises big things to those who obey its ordinances, it cannot redeem its promises.

Thus, it is empty. Human tradition is the idea that the

Judaizers had picked up and they had invented and they kind of carried out this idea of human tradition.

Whenever I read it, of course, I think of Roman Catholicism and we'll get to that later. But every false religion is, in one way or another, it's invented, maybe reinvented.

Could I say reincarnated? Because they're the same lies over and over again. I think maybe

Scientology is the worst invented religion. Why would I say that about Scientology? That it's the worst invented religion.

And it's not just because Tom Cruise jumps up and down on a couch. Why would I say that? Okay, science is not religion.

Anybody know the origin of Scientology? L. Ron Hubbard set out to invent a religion, true.

And he also wanted it to be preposterous. He set out to invent something that nobody could possibly believe.

And then, all of a sudden, he puts out this book and people are believing in it. He's like, I got a few fish on the line.

I'm going to reel them in. And boy, did he. I took a flight from Phoenix to San Francisco.

I mentioned it just in passing in class this morning. This woman

I sat next to, she had her headphones on. She wasn't going to talk to me at all. And I just thought, well, okay,

I just had the opportunity to preach the gospel to this other woman on the plane. And I thought, well, that's enough.

I can't go camp at 1 ,000 or whatever. So, we taxi out onto the runway.

And the captain comes out and he says, Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, we're going to be on the tarmac for a while.

The Los Angeles Control Tower is down. Their computer systems are down. And so, we're going to be stuck on the tarmac for a while.

So, about an hour goes by. But during that hour, she took off her headphones. Oh, she saw that I was reading a magazine.

It was about games. Shh, don't tell anybody. And she says, Are you a gamer? And I started talking about board games and et cetera.

It just kind of went on for a while. And then we started talking about what we do. That's always a good line. What do you do? Well, she was a life coach.

I said, I kind of know something about that.

So, I said, Really? And I said, Well, what's that all about? And she said, I work for something.

Let me see if I can even remember what it was. It was called something she called evolving spirituality.

And I thought, Hmm, that sounds like what? Where are we talking about?

I mean, doesn't that sound really smart? Sounds so wise, right? Sounds so intellectual.

So, as we're talking, she's explaining. I get this. How about this?

She says, Well, you know, we kind of combine science and some religions too.

So, she says, We believe in the Big Bang. And we believe that it was caused by an intelligence that wants to learn and grow.

That's not really very plausible. I looked them up online when I got home.

And they're actually linked to a church called the Lamb of God Church. It's in Florida. And it claims to be on its website.

It says that it's an Episcopal Lutheran Church. How would you like to go to that church one

Sunday and just kind of go? Because they're not really Christian at all.

I mean, they don't even pretend to be really. But they're very accepting.

They're very loving. So, this woman says that what she's really trying to figure out.

She asked me, she goes, What makes you feel safe? That was a good question for me. I like that one.

So, you know, then it was the gospel. And it was about the surety of knowing. I even talked to her about the previous plane ride.

And about how the plane had been bumping up and down. I wasn't afraid and everything like that. And she was just like, you know, Well, I'm looking for safety inside of me.

And I said, Can I help you, Rhonda?

She said, Well, I'm really looking for a way to sort of.

She didn't use this exact phrasing. But it was like to kind of comfort her inner child.

She didn't say inner. She just referred to her child. You know, I'm trying to figure out what my child needs.

So that I can feel safe internally. And I said, Safety can't be found internally.

It's external. Like Mike said this morning. You know, what do we know comes from inside of us?

Deceit. We fool ourselves. Jeremiah says that. But she was all about those things.

And, you know, the gospel. It was just like, you know, it was like firing. You see these movies, you know. They fire all these bullets at this bulletproof thing.

And, you know, it was just. Everything was just bouncing off of her. But these people with all their intellect.

Henrickson writes. They create these false systems that have a tendency to take men away from Christ.

To weaken their trust in him as an all -sufficient savior. They are not in harmony with the fullness which believers have in them.

They're perfectly. This woman was perfectly willing to discuss these things with Christians. And to even have

Christians absorb her kind of philosophy. But it was utter foolishness.

And, you know, I just think. If you're a Christian, why would you even want to go to one of these things?

Or listen to this sort of thing? I can give you a gross illustration.

Well, maybe I just will. I haven't dogged Autumn yet. She's a lot of fun.

But my granddaughter. Not quite two years old. I got an email the other day that she had gotten into the trash.

And dug out some thrown away oatmeal. And was eating it. And now she's eating fuzzies from between her toes.

And I'm like. I think she's like the perfect preparation for a boy. You know.

She's doing all this gross stuff. And I'm like. Girls don't do that. But, I mean, they look at these people with all their intellect.

I mean, this woman was. She was very smart. They go after trash. And they just kind of hold them.

And just say, oh, it's so precious. Like Autumn with her oatmeal. They're nuts.

But we are to fight falsehood. To attack it, really. Third directive is to fully embrace

Christ. Why would we do that? I have two reasons. First, because he's holy God. Look at verse 8. They don't want to follow

Christ. Verse 8 finishes. And not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.

Henderson says, when the apostle thus describes Christ. He has in his mind the latter's deity.

Not just his divinity. He's referring to the son's complete equality of essence.

With the father and the holy spirit. His consubstantiality. Not his similarity.

In other words, it's not that he is like God. Or that he is God. It is that he is of the same essence as the father.

There's no difference. In other words, between Christ. And between the father.

Other than different roles. Jesus is not less. And he's not more than the holy spirit.

He is God. He is fully sufficient for all of our spiritual needs.

One man says, there is no need of. Or justification for looking elsewhere for help.

Salvation or spiritual perfection. You're not going to be able to evolve into some spiritual giant.

This is it. This is the best there is. Jesus. Second reason is because he is your head.

He is the head of all things. And you have been filled in him. Who is the head of all rule and authority.

Christ is the fountain that never fails. Why then would anyone commit the folly of.

Basically hewing out cisterns for themselves. Broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Why trust in your own works. In your own philosophies. If you have been buried with Christ in baptism.

All these things are just foolishness and rubbish and tripe. Now, let me just kind of quickly move into my.

My foolishness here. You might be a cultist. If these are really application points here.

If you're outside of Christ. If you're drawn by these false philosophies. You might be a cultist if.

And not all apply to. Every cult. Cults have various degrees of cultishness.

If I may say that. Number one. You might be a cultist. If. Your scriptures are all marked up.

But your Bible is pristine. Your scriptures are all marked up. But your Bible is pristine.

Well, how could that be? Because you have scriptures other than the Bible. You're relying on something else.

It's your Book of Mormon. Your Doctrine and Covenants. Your copy of the Watchtower. Your Dianetics.

Whatever it is that you've got. Cults teach that the Bible is not sufficient.

Inerrant. Or fully inspired. So they have other sources. Tradition. Other books that are supposedly more accurate than the

Bible. Now, there's an interesting one, right? More accurate than the Bible. In fact, my cousin just posted today.

About, you know, this false doctrine of inerrancy. They have to go for that.

They have to attack the Bible. They have to say it's not right. Otherwise, their religion won't stand up to scrutiny.

And then there are also religions that use church teaching apart from the Bible. That would be like the

Roman Catholics. The Jehovah Witnesses. What else do they do with Scripture?

They use kind of cut -and -paste proof -texting hermeneutics.

Very inconsistent. Because if you go through and you study in context, you would never come up with what they come up with.

So that's the first one. Second one is, your religion teaches that God, you might be a cultist if, your religion teaches that God is a lot like you.

Or that you are God. The prophet Joseph Smith publicly taught this doctrine in 1844.

Listen. God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens.

It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us.

Yea, that God himself, the father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did.

That's blasphemy. You know, we often hear people say when they object to Mormonism, they say, well,

Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan, Lucifer, were spirit brothers. Oh, it's worse than that.

It's a lot worse than that. And I tell people that all the time. I go, it's worse than that. They believe actually that I was

Jesus' spirit brother. And to me, that's more appalling. Because at least Lucifer, before he fell, was what?

You know, he was beautiful. The most beautiful of all the angels. And there I was, you know, dope.

But I wasn't there. So that's the problem with that. Let's talk about God for a moment.

Wrong view of God. Well, let's get the right view of God. He's the owner of everything. Psalm 50, verses 10 and 12 says,

For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle are on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills and all that moves in the field is mine.

And my favorite verse, at the moment anyway, If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.

God owns everything. And that's so humbling, especially when we just think, you know, if we want to try to elevate ourselves up with him and we just think everything is the

Lord's, even what we have is his. God is also the creator.

We know this verse well. Genesis 1, 1, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And by the way, a cult might say that he, like the

Mormons, might say that he rearranged matter that always existed. Well, matter didn't always exist. There was nothing.

And God spoke it into existence. He's completely sovereign. Psalm 115, 3,

Our God is in the heavens. He does all that he pleases. When my

Mormon cousin today posted that the Bible is inerrant, that we have a wrong view of it, etc.,

etc., etc., you know, he and other people want to say, Council of Nicaea, men created the

Bible, they edited it, they took things out. Of course, he didn't like when I pointed out Matthew 16, 18 a few weeks ago, and I said,

Here's the problem you have. You either have to believe Joseph Smith, who said the truth disappeared for 1700 years, or you have to believe

Jesus when he said, Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell,

Hades, death will not prevail against it. One of those men is telling the truth. You want to say it's

Joseph Smith, and I don't really go for that. And he says, Well, that verse is incorrect.

No evidence for that. And by the way, Velcro really can stick your tie. He is also talking about God omniscience.

Job 38, 1 to 6, Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said,

I will question you, and you make it known to me. In other words, Job, you tell me how everything came to be.

Verse 4, Tell me if you have understanding, if you know so much,

Job. Verse 5, Well, sarcasm is a sin, and we've got issues.

Or, who stretched the line upon it? Or on what were its bases sunk?

Or who laid its cornerstone? He just says, I know all this stuff, Job. You tell me.

Since you know so much, you tell me. He's also solitary. By that I mean unique.

Listen to Isaiah 45, 5, I am the Lord and there is no other.

Besides me, there is no God. I equip you, though you do not know me. No other

God ever. He's holy. We know the passage well.

Isaiah 6, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings. With two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

And one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

And I, meaning Isaiah, said, Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. This is a far cry from what cult leaders do when they get their new messages.

Joseph Smith went happily skipping along when he was 14 years old. Didn't tell anybody for years, allegedly.

But there's nothing like this recorded. You might be in a cult if, number three, you believe

Jesus did a pretty good job, and now there are a few additions you need to make so you can go to heaven.

Roman Catholics say if you believe that you are, you can know that you're saved by the finished work of Jesus Christ, you are anathema.

Roman Catholics also teach that Mary is a co -redemptress, that she participated in our redemption because she suffered.

She suffered seeing her son be crucified. Listen to this from the Roman Catholic Church. This motherhood of Mary in the orderhood of grace, in other words that she participates in dispensing grace, continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the

Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect.

In other words, until the end of time, Mary will be continuing to give out grace. Taken up to heaven, she did not lay aside this saving office, but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation.

Therefore, the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.

This is the official stance of the Roman Catholic Church. Why do

I call it a cult? Because of that. Listen to, again,

Mormons from their scripture, the Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi. For we labor diligently to write, to persuade children and also our brethren to believe in Christ.

That sounds good. And to be reconciled to God. That sounds good. For we know that it is by grace that we are saved.

That sounds good. After all we can do. Exhaust yourself in good doing and then grace just carries you the rest of the way into heaven.

The truth is, Jesus' payment for sin, His work was finished on the cross. Romans 3 says, verse 23,

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, but a satisfaction for the wrath of God by His death to be received by faith.

That was to show God's righteousness because in divine forbearance He had passed over former sins.

God had the right to be angry and was angry with sin and He poured that wrath out on the

Lord Jesus Christ. Number four, you might be in a cult if you believe the

Holy Spirit is a force or a personage, whatever a personage is.

Listen to how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, the Mormons, describe this.

The Church teaches that the Holy Ghost is a spirit man, a spirit son of God the

Father, a created being, first of all. But secondly,

He had to be a spirit because otherwise, and I don't really know how this fits in quite fully, but if He wasn't a spirit son, a spiritual being,

He could not inhabit us, so He couldn't have a body. Well, we don't believe

He has a body either, but we don't believe He's a created being because the Bible doesn't teach that.

But worse, listen to how the Jehovah Witnesses describe Him. The Bible's use of Holy Spirit indicates that it is a controlled force emanating from Jehovah God that He uses to accomplish a variety of things relative to His purposes.

To a certain extent, it, not He, it, can be likened to electricity, a force that can perform a great variety of operations.

Well, that's just wrong. We know that. The Bible says that He is a person with a will. 1

Corinthians 12, 11 says, That verb, wills, is the common

Greek verb, boulomai, which means to plan a course of action. So imagine this force that's like electricity sitting around and planning a course of action.

It's foolishness. But He is also fully

God. He is not a creation. Acts 5 makes that clear. When Ananias and Sapphira lie, what does

Peter say? You've not lied to man, but to God. Fully God.

Number 5, you might be in a cult if you believe that man is inherently good and possesses a complete, free, uninfluenced will.

Listen to what the Jehovah Witnesses teach. However, Witnesses do not emphasize the spiritual consequences of Adam's sin on humanity, nor do they teach that human free will has been damaged by the fall.

Rather, Witnesses expect and encourage their members to strive to do God's will and remain pure in His eyes.

This is, again, this is like the Mormon kind of theology. It's solo bootstraps. Save yourself.

Work on your own salvation. Stop sinning on your own. You have to perfect your own self.

There's a problem with that. Our will is enslaved. Romans 6, verses 17 and 18 says this, but thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

The idea of a complete, absolute free will, meaning we could choose anything, that's just not true.

We choose according to our nature. Number six, you might be in a cult if you are taught to stress doctrines of minor importance as if they are essential to the faith.

And I go back to Mormonism, and I look and what do they have?

They stress going to the temple. Well, there's nothing in the Bible about getting married in the temple. There's nothing in the

Bible about getting baptized in the temple, and yet they baptize for the dead in the temple, you know, 1

Corinthians 15, 28, and then they run wild with it. But there's nothing, there's not one indication in the

Bible or the Book of Mormon that anyone was ever married in the temple. Number seven, you might be in a cult if you could lose all your friends if you leave your church.

Well, that's true. If you leave the Jehovah Witness Church, they're supposed to, you ever heard of this shunning?

They're supposed to shun you, cut off conversation with you, not have anything, even your own family.

You might be in a cult. Number eight, if you value experience over Scripture. Now, this morning,

Pastor Mike was talking about that, but he was doing it in the evangelical way where people think that God leads them and talks to them and does all these things kind of subjectively.

This is exactly the kind of experience that Mormonism appeals to. In fact,

I would say that evangelicalism itself is putting itself in a position to be fooled, to be reeled in by this kind of thing.

What do they say? They say, read the Book of Mormon, pray about it, see if God will tell you that it's true.

And if you get a burning in your bosom, then it is true. That's what they teach. Why would you value experience over Scripture?

You ought not to. Number nine, you might be in a cult if you value relics, locations, and people dead and alive in an unbiblical way.

What do I mean by that? Well, relics is obvious. The Catholics are always trying to dig up things and then say that these have merits, that they will do you spiritual good by virtue of being in the same room with them, touching them, kissing them, whatever, but they have no value.

Locations, again, with the Mormons, it's the temple for different people. It's different for different religions.

It may be a different location. How about people? How do you value people?

I'm going to give you an example here in a minute. I think I have this. Well, I do have these.

Okay, I'll get to that in a minute. I'll put it under a different one. You might be in a cult. Number 10, if you downplay the seriousness of sin by believing man can deal with it.

It's odd. Years ago, I was asked to talk about Mormonism. They say, how do we evangelize them? And I say, well, long speech was probably my first one.

And I said, well, explain they've got a wrong view of scripture. They think it's errant. They've got a wrong view of God.

They think he's just like us, only better. They've got a wrong view of Christ, that he became

God, that he volunteered to do these things, but he really is not ultimately any different than any one of us.

Wrong view of sin, wrong view of just everything. I gave them this long list, and they said, okay, but what's the one verse?

And I'm going, let me review. Wrong view of God, man, Christ, scripture, sin, salvation.

Other than that, they're good to go. But how do you downplay sin?

Well, how about this? By suggesting that it can be expiated, that it can be forgiven by confession to a priest, by doing some kind of penance, that it can be paid for by spending, by you spending time in purgatory.

And also just by learning, by your own efforts, by learning not to sin, by just focusing on your own holiness and teaching yourself not to sin.

We're going to sin, even in our striving to be holy, we're going to sin. We're going to fall short. And number 11, our last one, you might be in a cult if you must give your allegiance to a man or leadership in addition to God.

Now, what does that mean? We say, you know, you need to submit to the elders. What does that mean? It means we come to a point of disagreement and you just have to decide to submit.

That doesn't mean if you can point to Scripture and say, you know what, this is just wrong, that we go, well, we don't really care what the

Bible says, you have to submit to us. Now, what church has this among its documents?

I think you're going to be shocked. Listen to these four points. We serve a lead pastor who seeks and hears from God.

We serve a lead pastor we can trust. We serve a lead pastor who pours into us spiritually and professionally.

We serve a lead pastor who goes first, he leads the way. That's a

Southern Baptist church called Elevation Church, pastored by a man named Stephen Furtick. Now, in the more kind of insane end, how about the lyrics to this hymn?

Now, just listen, I was listening to this today, it's a beautiful hymn. Listen to the words and you tell me who this song's about. Great is

His glory, and endless His priesthood. Ever and ever the keys He will hold.

Faithful and true, He will enter His kingdom, crowned in the midst of the prophets of old.

Who's that song about? Any guesses? If not,

I'll read the chorus, maybe that'll give away. Hail to the prophet ascended to heaven.

Traitors and tyrants now fight Him in vain. Mingling with gods,

He can plan for His brethren. Death cannot conquer the hero again. It's Joseph Smith, Mingling with gods.

I was listening to that song today, I'm going, this is just incredible. We sang this like all the time.

It's like one of the top hymns. And I'm just like, the whole song is about Joseph Smith. We're singing a song of praise in what's supposed to be some kind of worship service.

We're worshiping Joseph Smith. They'll deny that, but that's what this song is about. There's no mistake about it.

How do you know you're in a cult? Well, you're in a cult when it doesn't matter what the Bible says, what matters is what this man says.

His authority supersedes the Bible. Even when he takes a wife before he gets a revelation about polygamy.

So we've seen the need to follow Christ faithfully, to fight falsehood, to fully embrace Christ. Let me just close with this.

You might be a cultist or you might be in danger of becoming a cultist if you set aside the

Christ of the Bible and follow one who is the invention of man. One that you want to listen to rather than one who is portrayed in scripture.

One that you want to hear speak to you instead of the one who is presented as speaking in the pages of scripture.

Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you not for some false prophet like Joseph Smith.

We thank you not for any of these men or women through the ages who have sought to deceive men, women, to lead them from the truth, to ensnare them in systems that can only lead to hell.

But Father, we thank you for the clarity of your word, for the faithfulness of your son,

Jesus Christ, who at great personal cost to himself went to the cross on our behalf.

Father, let us live lives abounding in thankfulness at this great gift that we've been given.

The truth that you would not permit to be defeated, erased from the pages of history, eradicated by false religions like Islam, Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, wave after wave after wave of assaults on the truth.

But you preserved it. By your power, you have granted us to know these things that are about you, that we might love you and worship you as we ought.

Lord, turn us again and again to your sure word, not to our experiences.