Cults 101 (part 2)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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So, I wanted to start with just a couple of bumper stickers that I had seen and or come across in the past.

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Most of you have all seen the co -exist bumper sticker, I'm sure, with the various symbols of the religions and cults and other such things, and then you have the cross at the end, of course.

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There's another one that says, faith is a journey and not a guilt trip. There was another that said,

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God is too big to fit into just one religion. This is actually a quote from Gandhi on a bumper sticker, many of you may have heard this one before.

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It says, I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians, they are so unlike your

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Christ. And there's one that says, religious intolerance is un -American.

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So if you're intolerant of any other religions, you are un -American, I guess, according to this bumper sticker. And then you've probably seen the famous one with, you know, the fish with the cross, and then you have the fish with the feet, the

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Darwinian fish, and it shows both of them kind of next to each other, and it says, can't we just be friends? And then another one just said, you know, one nation, many faiths.

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And that's true, we do have many faiths, and we do have freedom of religion, and we'll talk about some of that, and that's a good thing for us, but it also is what a lot of the cults leverage today to get their message out to others.

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So those are just a couple of the great bumper stickers that we see on cars every so often.

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So two weeks ago, actually, it was, because I want to say Dr. Eric, but he's not a doctor yet.

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We're working towards it. But Mr. Eric was up here, he was teaching about context, and we'll talk a little bit about that, too, as we get in further into the message.

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But I wanted to wake you guys all up here, since we're all off by about an hour of sleep. And we talked last week about, you know, various cults, various religions, various instances, and I was a little bit scatterbrained, because I had just gotten to my notes in a few other areas.

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But one of the things I wanted to talk about, and we really didn't clearly define up front, and I'm going to ask the group here, what is unique about Christianity?

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Because I think until we understand the uniqueness of Christianity, we can't really understand where some of the cults go the other direction, or where they deviate from that.

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So who can tell me some of the things that make Christianity unique? The resurrection.

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Okay? The resurrection of Jesus Christ, specifically. Others do have resurrections of sort, or they'll state they are, but not of Jesus Christ.

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So we have, the Trinity is a key one, and we'll actually see that as we dig a little bit deeper into the text. Trinity is a very key aspect that a lot of the cults will go the other direction on.

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Yes? Yeah, the exclusivity of the way of salvation, very, very critical again.

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We're going to see that most attacks will go against the Trinity, a lot of attacks will go against exclusivity of how one is saved, based on what the

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Bible says. Yeah, good or neutral at least, right?

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Some will go as far as saying, well, at least we're neutral, we all start at the same line.

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But yeah, Christianity is the one that says we're essentially all wretches, right? In God's eyes. Yeah.

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Yeah. God came into the world, right? Instead of, wow, we're such great people, God came to save us because he loves us so much to save us.

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Was there something over here? Steve, did you have something or no? Yeah?

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Yeah. Five solas, very, very exclusive in that way. We got another hand in the far back.

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Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Anything else? Yeah. Resurrection of the dead.

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Yeah. Yeah, there are ones that believe in resurrection of the dead in different ways or means. A lot of them even, which is interesting, a lot of the semi -Christian cults that we'll talk about, they actually believe in even eternal life in a lot of ways or an eternal resurrection in essence.

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Right, you're only suffering because you've sinned or your parents have sinned or there's some form of sin or something else is the only reason you're suffering.

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Yeah, that is a key area for a lot of these other religions. Yes? Yeah, very similar over here with, you know, we're bad, we're dead in, you know, apart from Christ making us alive.

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So that is exclusive to Christianity also. That's correct. Any others? Way in the back.

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Yeah, Jesus was the creator. And what we'll see as we study through some more of these cults that at sometimes Jesus was the creator, but Jesus himself was also created.

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So it's interesting that he, you know, everything was created after Christ himself was created. So some other religions will hold to that.

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Yes, or cults. Yeah, we talked a little bit about salvation and works -based is key and we'll see that also in most of these other religions.

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It is all works -based. Any others? There's a lot. Dwelling in the

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Holy Spirit. Yeah, a lot of the other, what you'll see as you study some of the cults, you'll see the

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Holy Spirit may be there. Others do not even have the Holy Spirit, but it's more of the force, kind of like the Star Wars where it's external.

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It's something that impacts you or influences you, but it's not an internal dwelling of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, Charlie.

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Ah, interesting. Interesting. Yeah. So that's pretty exclusive also of that level of authority and there are chains of authority, but as you'll see in most cults, specifically those that are focused on personality cults, those who follow a specific person, there's no way of ousting this leader in essence because they are considered in most cases a god.

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So if we have that, let me ask a quick definition. We got a ton of things here from an exclusivity around Christianity.

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So what then would a cult be? We talked a little bit about this two weeks ago, but some of this is going to be a review.

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But what would a cult be? Man -centered. Man -centered, usually. Yeah. Now, it doesn't always have to be man -centered.

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I mean, it is... Yeah, I'll say yes. I'll say yes. And the only reason

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I was debating that is it's not always... So the person who is idolizing the leader, the cult leader, is not maybe thinking it's man -centered, but they are worshiping a man.

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So yes. Yes, I agree. But it may not be on... The follower may not understand that they are truly doing that.

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Any others? Yeah, that buffet style, right?

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I'll take a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I like this part. I don't like this part. I'll add other text to it, right?

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I like a little whipped cream on my pudding and things of that sort. So yeah, it's a mix of all sorts of things. That's right. That's right.

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A lot of times, there'll be a blending of materials and a removal in a lot of times or a changing of texts from the

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Bible itself. Anything else cult -wise, Charlie? You've been reading this book, haven't you?

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No? All right. Well, close enough. Good. Great definition, actually. Let me give you a few quotes of what people define a cult as.

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Now, these aren't the official quotes, but these are what some people say what a cult is. It says, the only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own.

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A cult is a religion with no political power. What's a cult, this person was asked?

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It just means not enough people to have a minority.

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So that's kind of how the world sees it. We talked about it in the class a little bit here.

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So I talked two weeks ago about the term itself. Anyone remember what the root of the word cult comes from?

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It's a Latin word. Anyone? Yeah, Gary. It isn't from occult or occult, as we talked a little bit about last time.

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It's actually a very close term. The Latin word is cultus, C -U -L -T -U -S, cultus.

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And it comes into a background. Think of some words that would have the word cult in it.

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Think of some English words that have the word cult in it. Anyone have any? Pop, top of their head? Culture, agriculture, cultivate.

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What does that mean? What do those words mean? What does that root seem to mean? To foster growth.

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Yeah. Any others? I have cultivate. It actually is a form.

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The Latin word simply means to worship or to adorn, to care for a person, to cultivate a relationship, a farmer cultivates the ground, he tills the ground, he makes it ripe and rich and so forth.

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Now we talked briefly, too, that the term cult first appeared in English right around 1617.

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And it derived from the French word, actually, the English form of it, derived from the

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French word culter, C -U -L -T -E. I believe I'm saying that right, meaning to worship in most instances, generically.

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And it's usually a particular form of worship, again, comes from the Latin word cultus, as we talked about, which is to care, to cultivate in worship oftentimes.

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Now a biblical dictionary says this of the word, a cult is a heretical sect that practices a form of pseudo -Christian,

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I'm sorry, pseudo -Christianity. It's a form and practice of worship and its devotion is often addressed to a particular saint or person.

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Let me give you a couple English dictionaries, definitions. The first one is that a cult is the followers of an exclusive system of religious beliefs and or practices, a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, or idea, similar to what

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Charlie was talking about earlier. It is a religion or religious sect, generally considered to be extremist or false, within its followers, often living in a unconventional manner.

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You think of compounds and other areas under the guidance of an authoritarian and or charismatic leader.

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And that we often think of when we think of kind of those really extreme kind of cults. Another definition is a system of religious beliefs and worship, very simple.

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Let me give you though a quick Bible dictionary definition of the word cult. It says this, cult, deviant and heretical pseudo -religious group.

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Cults may originate either within the host Christian society as Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonisms, Christian science, or be imparted from another hostile culture such as Hare Krishna, the

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Unification Church, Baha 'ism, Scientology. Pseudo -Christian cults have extra -scriptural sources of authority, deny justification by grace, brainwash their members, devalue

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Christ, and maintain punitive disciplinary practices for members who question their spiritual legitimacy.

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They often contain religious rites. They are often described as a sect. And there is adoration and or devotion often to a single individual.

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A couple of other quotes, so Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin, a very well -known book around cults, says that a cult is a group of people polarizing around someone's interpretation of the

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Bible and characterized by major devotions and deviations.

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I'm sorry, deviations from Orthodox Christianity relative to carnal doctrines of the

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Christian faith, particularly in the fact that God became man in Jesus Christ. So again, they want to deny

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Christ and who Christ is. And you'll see as we go through some of these cults, the main attacks are going to be the cores that we think of in Christianity.

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And as Steve quoted earlier, the five solas are critical here. Another quote on the new cults, the book says, a cult is this, a group of religions in nature which surround a leader or a group which either denies or misinterprets essential biblical doctrines.

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A cult is any religious movement which claims the backing of Christ or the

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Bible, claims the backing of Christ or the

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Bible, but distorts the central message of Christianity. Yes, Steve?

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And that's the worship of whom then, as you say? I mean, it's originally the worship of the leader. And who's the leader of the church?

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Jesus Christ is the leader of the church, right? And I think that's where even Charlie had said, you know, there are means and processes in place where that can be dealt with and yet, you know, the church is trying to bring in numbers and doing all sorts of crazy things.

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And a lot of things you'll see that churches are doing today for this, again, it's somewhat in the past,

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I mean, we're still seeing it, but the secret sensitive movement is how do we get people in and you'll see a lot of Eastern mysticism.

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You'll see a lot of different activities around what happens on the pulpit in other areas and that, you know, that could be a whole another

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Sunday school. So I'm not going to go that direction. So let me ask you this question.

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Why can't cults be called Christian? Sounds like a simple question, you know, answer to the question, but why can't they be called

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Christian? Okay. Oftentimes, some will say they do not deny the deity of Christ.

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They won't deny it based on how they define the deity of Christ. But the way that scripturally it is defined, yes, they would deny the deity of Christ in pretty much all instances.

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Any other reasons? Yes. Yeah, again, the fundamentals, right?

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The core soul is even as fundamentals are not being adhered to. Yeah. And often the interpretation of their own writing will supersede what the scripture says.

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So it is, this is over and above scripture, but scripture is still there, of course. If you talk to any cults, they usually will have the scriptures, whether they're retranslated versions of the scriptures or they'll have additional books or a combination of the two that will be part of what their worship would include.

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Any other things as to why cults cannot be called Christians? Yeah. They don't accept salvation in the work of Christ, did you say?

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Okay. Yes. That's correct. Again, Christ is going to be the main focus. You'll see the attack on Christ and or scripture usually higher than anything else.

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Most of these cults believe in, quote unquote, God, not defined as we see it in the scripture, but you'll see definitely an attack on the others.

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So some of the marks of a cult here, there were four different marks that somebody laid out and that is, you know, they add to the canon, as we talked about, they subtract from the

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Trinity, they multiply works necessary for salvation, and they divide its followers from the real truth.

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So again, they can't consider themselves to be radically different in the belief system, right?

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The teachings of a cult are going to be very, very different. So let me say this, do you think most cults want to be called

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Christians? Let me put it the other direction. Why? They want it, well,

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Christians aren't being accepted today, right? We're intolerant bigots from what most newscasts would tell us.

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Legitimacy? Well, I don't have to disagree because there's only 92 % of people say they're

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Christians. That's it. 92 % in the world say they're Christians, right? At least

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US, I believe, is what the poll was. Yeah, and I think, again,

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I think a lot of it is deception. I think a lot of it, they believe what they believe, and they themselves don't know

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Christian doctrine, right? They don't know what the Bible has to say in most cases, or they're only fed what they're given, right, in these cults.

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And we'll talk about some of that on information and how information is provided to a lot of people from within cults and not in cults.

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So did you know that most cults are actually hostile to Christians? There's actually hostility directed towards Christianity, maybe not

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Christians specifically, but Christianity as a whole. And in the core doctrines of the two, who would say the two biggest cults are probably in the

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US? Mormons? Rome is, yeah, okay.

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I've had some arguments around, not that I'm saying it isn't, but there's some discussions there. Who would be number two?

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Mormons and who? Jehovah's Witness. And Jehovah's Witness. All right. Now, would you say Mormons and Jehovah's Witness today would say that they are a

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Christian or part of the Christian religion? Yeah.

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Ah, we'll get to that too. So you're already ahead of my notes, but yeah, there is, there's that, they themselves will argue their own exclusivity.

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But what's interesting is if they knew their own doctrine, right, and Steve, you can probably argue this too based on your understanding, but if they understood their own doctrine, they would see that Christianity is really considered anathema.

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Since both in the Mormon church and in the Jehovah's Witness church, that is the only means of salvation.

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Any other church is not salvific. So they would see us here worshiping

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God in this church and they would, you know, see us essentially worshiping nothingness or even

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Satan himself, Charlie. Yeah, and we're going to talk again a little bit about that based on how much time we have of, you know, why does it even matter if they're a cult, right?

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Shouldn't we all be tolerant? If someone wants to worship someone else or something else, should they not be allowed to? And our country provides that, but we as Christians see that they're as lost as we were, right?

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And apart from God's grace, they're often, as we talked two weeks ago, they're often just seeking the answers that we have, the philosophical answers to, you know, what happens when

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I die? Who is God? Who am I? Right? The W questions in most cases, man is asking himself and oftentimes or there are times where when they're asking, right, then they get the knock on the door from the

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Jehovah's Witness or the Mormons. They don't know any better and that's what they're going to go with, right? So they are just as lost and they're only being fed what they're being fed and, you know, we'll talk about that.

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That is, you know, I mean, we can always say, poor, poor them. We would be there but for God's grace, but at the same time, we shouldn't just let them continue in that because it is damning, right?

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It's their soul that we're talking about, but as we'll learn as we go through a lot of this, what you have to say when the door, you know, knock goes on and you want to debate or argue or whatever else you might do when they come to the door, you'll learn real quick they're not allowed to listen to you.

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That's one of the things that they're specifically told not to do. So it's usually one -way communication.

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There was a question over here. Tom? Yeah. And what you'll see and I have some numbers here, a little bit older numbers, but those numbers show that the cults, the various cults, are sending out more missionaries than the evangelical churches today, which is pretty sad.

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Yes. It's all about love and you'll find it is.

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It's about love and acceptance and that's really what most of these cults will play on. From a psychological perspective, that's where they're going after.

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Most people are out there, they're lost and they want something and if someone's going to love them or a group's going to bring them in, sometimes they don't care what they're being taught.

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They just want to, they want it for the fellowship side of things. Yeah. Yeah. And then when they're hooked, it's hard to get out and you'll see that there's a tight noose around most people that are involved in those types of areas.

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So just as a quick example here. So Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon religion, wrote in the

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Pearl of Great Price this quote. It says, quote, all wrong, all their creeds were an abomination in his sight and that those professors,

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Christians, were all corrupt. So based on Mormon doctrine, Christianity is completely corrupt and wrong and an abomination to God himself is what they teach.

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A quote from the Jehovah's Witness. And again, this is why don't, you know, why don't they want to accept us in their group in essence, right?

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It says, outside of the Watchtower Bible Track Society or WBTS as it's often referred to,

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Christendom is considered demonic. Christianity is deemed apostate, filled with pastors who are antichrists in churches run by Satan himself who support the earthly governments.

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That's what they think about us. That's what they think about Christians worshipping as we are today.

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Now, what's interesting though, and as we talked earlier, a lot of these systems will claim

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Christian beliefs, right? We talked that they will hold to the same terminology, the same definitions, the same, if you talk to a

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Mormon often time or even a Jehovah's Witness and say, you know, is Jesus the son of God, you'll get, yes, yes he is.

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But it comes down to the analogy from the business world is, you know, you continue to peel the onion. You continue to ask questions.

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You continue to, where most people who aren't strong in the faith, those who might be less mature, will just say, okay, we accept it.

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You believe this and that's what you say, but without digging a little bit deeper. And often times as we dig deeper, as we peel the onion back, as we get towards the center, we will see pretty clearly that their beliefs are very different from our beliefs.

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Definition is key. Yes. Yeah.

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Saved by grace. No works. You know, sure, we believe that.

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I mean, most of these will say that that is. But again, they don't themselves, and they know their own doctrine, don't get me wrong, but there is deception that occurs.

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So I'm not saying that they are doing that to just mince words. There are means of deception that they're being taught as they go out to evangelize.

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I found a Christian who knows at least some terminology. Let me now see what I can do to pull them into the fold.

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And they'll use language to do that. One of the other key factors is the lack of biblical authority, right?

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We talked about that, that most of these groups lack complete biblical authority.

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And they esteem their other writings or the writings of man have authority over God's word as we esteem so much in the

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Christian faith. Often times too, they'll actually add to the pages of scripture.

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And as they add to the pages of scripture, they'll actually then remove the authority. of scripture and include their own works in there.

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So let me just give you a quick rundown. These are just a couple bullet points. Difference between, now we talked two weeks ago again, a little bit about the difference between a religion and a cult.

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And when we talked about the religion, we talked kind of about the high level, you know, five religions,

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Judaism, Christianity, Muslim or Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism are more what we would consider world religions.

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If you study world religions, those are the ones that often come up. And in cults, you actually have a very mixed group of those.

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But let me just give you a couple differences between them. Cults or culted groups usually have deceit in their recruitment, where religions often provide information up front.

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You know exactly what we're about. We have our covenant. We, from a church perspective, what we follow here, there's information back in the fellowship room.

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We've got information up here on the board. We openly say, here's what we believe. Here's what we offer as a church, where cults, on the other hand, are very deceitful in their recruitment.

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The other issue between a cult, the cults are usually totalitarian, where religions often will allow freedom of thought of its members and what they have to say.

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Cults will often destroy a family unit. Religions, in most cases, you'll see that the top religions will usually promote family unity.

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You've probably seen some of the more Mormon, more recent Mormon commercials also, where that's the big issue, right, family.

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It's all around family. And they want to kind of show that, you know, come in to the Mormons and you'll be a part of this great big family and we're such a loving group.

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Cults often isolate their members. Religions often work within a society. Again, that excludes the evangelism side of things of the cults.

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They'll usually go out and evangelize door to door. Cults will often keep non -believers out.

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If you're not a part of us, we don't want anything to do with you, where religions will often invest in people and open to the community, letting them come in and see and watch and worship alongside of us.

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Cults will often limit the development of individuals. Religions are often interested in promoting potential within others, growth and so forth, right?

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It's the mentoring. Cults will often exploit and manipulate its members with mind control techniques.

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And it always reminds me of those science shows, you know, they put something on your mind. And that's not what this is about. This is more of controlling the environment, controlling information, controlling various aspects of one's life and that's all they know, so it pulls them away.

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While religions, on the other hand, they usually have guidelines for their members and they're not systematically controlled.

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Cults will often commit to encourage during recruitment process. So it's that lovingness, that, come on in, we love you, we know you're hurt, we know your pain, we want to bring you into our fold and now you're part of us, right?

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Now we're going to control you in most cases. Where religions, on the other hand, people are free to speak out against the tenets of their religion and we see that often.

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Cult groups also, leaders and followers, consider leaders to be above reproach.

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Now the Bible says that elders and so forth are to be above reproach, it's not saying that they are above reproach.

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Where this is, leaders are almost on par or just below God himself or just below Christ.

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That's where most leaders of cults will reside from an authoritative perspective.

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Cults also, questioning the leadership is a basic tenet that is not allowed.

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You're not allowed to question things. And in world religions, critical thinking is allowed and sometimes even it's encouraged as it states here.

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So there are four different types of cults. If we were to break down all the cults in the world, there are four different types of cults.

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We have pseudo -Christian cults. Who thinks they know what a pseudo -Christian cult is?

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Just to keep you awake, keep the questions going. What's that?

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They appear to be Christian. What's pseudo mean? Similar, false, kind of aligning with but not, you know.

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Yeah, so one of the definitions here is they adhere to doctrines which are pointedly contradictory to orthodox

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Christianity and which yet claim the distinction of either tracing their original roots to orthodox sources.

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So these are groups that would say we've spun out of regular Christianity because Christianity became corrupt or it was a system of power or it was a social political type of control mechanism.

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So we spun out and now we are a pure religion and again they can use the biblical text and they often will add to the text itself.

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Yeah, that's always the easy out, right? Or God told me or I felt. Of course not.

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And we'll actually talk about that as having multiple translations available. I mean, you know, Greek and Hebrew, if someone comes knocking on the door, if they want to go to that level, right?

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Show them you're knowledgeable in the various texts to say, you know, this is why this is translated in a certain way.

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So that's pseudo -Christian cults. Then we have cults that are distinctly Eastern. Who might want to name a couple of Eastern cults?

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And we're not talking Eastern like East Coast. We're talking Eastern -Eastern, right? You got those

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Californians that are Western cults and then you got the Eastern cult. No, we're talking to East -East, like on the other side of the globe.

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Eastern. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. Okay. Others? Buddhism, Munis I heard.

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Yeah? Unification. Baha 'i. Baha 'i. Scientology is actually more of a

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US -based. It actually has a lot of Eastern philosophy around it, a lot of Eastern things that are, you know, wrapped into it.

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But it actually was, yeah, a very Western religion. So cults that are

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Eastern, what is usually one of the symbols of an Eastern cult? I mean, if you were to kind of categorize them, what makes them

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Eastern cults? What makes them Eastern in what they believe? Elevation of self.

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Elevation of self. And what would that normally entail? Meditation.

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Yeah. Meditation, clearing your mind, right? Those types of things. What's another word for that?

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I mean, in general, what's another word for that? Not meditation, but what's a general word? I'm thinking of what kind of covers

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Eastern religion in and of itself. Starts with an M, though, too. What?

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I heard it. Mysticism is what I was looking for, right? So you have mysticism. A lot of mysticism comes from directly out of the

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Eastern cults and so forth. Yeah.

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Yeah, I actually have a note here. The ultimate absorption of the deity. Oftentimes it is that you can achieve deity yourself, right?

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Eastern is I can become a god if I try hard enough, work hard enough, and so forth.

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Who knows? There's two different words also that come usually out of Eastern cults, and that is pantheism and another word called panentheism.

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Who can tell me what those two are? Pantheism and panentheism.

35:51

Right. In everything. Yeah, in everything. So God's in the tree, God's in the piano, God's in the chair. And I guess in some ways, would we deny that God is everywhere?

36:01

God is everywhere, but they're saying that deity is in, like it is a part of, right?

36:07

This piano is part of God rather than God can be here, right?

36:15

Yeah. Yeah, they're very, very blended in a lot of ways. And that's part of that whole mysticism side of things.

36:22

Oftentimes you have Hinduism, Buddhism, right? Doctrines that practice mysticism that you talked about.

36:29

Another kind of unique feature of Eastern cults are usually monism, recreationism.

36:38

What's monism? Monism. Mono. One.

36:47

Right? We're all either one, God is just one. Now we believe God is one, but they'll take it to the extreme that there is no

36:53

Trinity at all. Because God can only be one. And we are all.

37:01

Now there's an interesting group. The third group kind of makes my brain hurt when

37:07

I think of this one. And these are called Christian -Hindu cults. Makes me kind of question that too.

37:16

These are actual classifications of cults. And when I heard that one, I said, how do you do that?

37:23

I mean, it's. And what they talk about here, Robbins defines these cult groups, which interpret the

37:30

Bible based on Hindu worldviews. So they take the scripture. They take their

37:36

Hindu worldview. They interpret the scriptures. And he argues that as much as it is.

37:44

Going up here. It's an oxymoron. Or it is as much as an oxymoron as a

37:51

Christian Buddhist or a Hindu Jew. Or any other group that would consider itself such as Christian science.

38:01

Which is neither Christian nor science. Right? So again, kind of like grape nuts.

38:07

There are no grapes and there's no nuts. But they do taste good.

38:15

So Christian -Hindu cults is another classification. The last classification, which is what. So when we normally would say cult to someone on the street.

38:24

What classification would you usually think they would say a cult would be? Personality cult.

38:31

And what would be an example of a personality cult? Jamestown. Jonestown.

38:38

I was going to say Jamestown. Branch Davidians. Any others that we can think of?

38:48

Heaven's Gate. Right? Yeah. They were the pudding ones. Right? Oh, the purple.

38:54

Right? The pajamas. Oh, the Nikes. That's right. But they had like white pajamas, didn't they?

39:00

And then the purple Nikes. Yeah. Who did the pudding? Didn't someone have pudding?

39:09

I don't know. No, it wasn't Bill Cosby. That's a different type of cult. Back in our day.

39:19

So, yeah. Personality cults, again. These are usually a group of people that will gather around single authoritative leaders as a founder.

39:28

Again, the Branch Davidians, as we talked about here. Jonestown and so forth, based on your knowledge of history.

39:36

So why aren't these cults? Why aren't these personality cults as much of a,

39:42

I don't want to say concern, but maybe I'll leverage that word. Why aren't these as much of an importance to society and or even

39:50

Christianity in general? They are pretty far out there.

40:05

Yeah. Yeah. Until the next leader comes about.

40:11

But, yeah, normally, the biggest issue with personality cults is the death of the leader.

40:16

Once the leader dies, the cult just disperses in most instances, right? They're very isolated.

40:24

Very, very isolated. And that's where you will see that when we talk about some of the information exchange and some of the limitation, right?

40:30

It's that bring them into the campus. Protect them. Don't let them see the outside world. Feed them only information that you need or want them to know.

40:37

Don't have any outside interaction and so forth. And that's really what, so most people would think of when you hear the word cult and most people go, oh, yeah, that's a cult.

40:45

They would often be thinking of a personality cult because that's what's usually in the news.

40:52

Yeah. There's definitely control that is over those who try to usurp the government, right?

41:01

There are control to then squash them and worship the leadership and so forth in various countries.

41:09

I mean, I agree. I think that has the tie to it. That's not one that is specifically laid out in the list here.

41:15

But I do agree that that is something that could impact us quite a bit. Is that?

41:22

Wow. Okay. We've had so much fun today. I guess

41:28

I'll have to continue again some other time. We were going to go into, again, cults around the 19th century.

41:34

And then I wanted to get into some of the reasons around cults. And then we wanted to get into how

41:40

Christians deal with cults. And let me actually close with this. And I'll just touch on these really gently.

41:45

I mean, if you want some information, this is pretty good information on how should Christians deal with cults.

41:52

And I believe there are eight things. And I'm going to just list them for you. And then we'll talk about them in greater detail another day.

41:58

Just so you have them if you want to have them. Number one. Now, these are in the order that came out of Robertson's book.

42:05

So I would leverage some of these things higher than not. But I'm just giving to you the order that they are provided in the text.

42:13

Number one is do not argue. Do not argue with another member of a cult. And that comes down to the fact that they have a belief system.

42:21

They believe what they're teaching you in most cases. And arguing just puts up the wall, closes the door.

42:28

And as we'll learn later, that oftentimes is already there. But he talks about here, don't argue.

42:35

Don't ridicule the cultist himself. When they come knocking on the door, don't ridicule them and laugh at them and belittle them and so forth.

42:42

That doesn't help in the Christian evangelism side of things. Do not degrade the cult leader or the character of the leader.

42:51

And that's similar to someone degrading Jesus Christ, right? We would initially, again, back off and put up our dukes in most cases and go to fight for it.

42:59

So don't degrade the leader directly. Fourth, he says use the word of God.

43:05

I kind of would put that up a little higher. Give your own testimony. And as we'll learn a little later as we go through some of this.

43:11

Giving your own testimony is actually one of the things that most of the cults will also leverage. It's, I had a feeling, the warm bosom,

43:18

I read the scriptures, I felt this way. But again, our testimony can say a lot.

43:24

And I'm not saying some of the, some people say testifonies. But a testimony, something that would elevate

43:30

God and show what God has done for you in your life. Not what you've done for him. Sixth was to exalt the

43:38

Lord Jesus Christ. Again, I would have put that a little higher in the list. He says depend consciously on the

43:44

Holy Spirit. And then lastly, and the reason why I'm going through this, lastly, he says know what the cultist believes.

43:51

You need to know what they understand and what they believe and what they've been taught in most cases. So that you can open up the word of God and then be able to direct them and show them where they may be incorrect.

44:02

Right? And we are there to plant the seed. And again, God is the one who does the work. Any questions on anything we covered so far?

44:08

Any comments? I know we're running low on time. Yes? Sure.

44:28

No, no, this guy wanted to sell a book. So he said make sure you know what the cults have to say because he was selling a book on cults. No, and I agree with you.

44:34

I think even if we don't know any of these, right, this is more just as an assistance more than anything else. Right?

44:39

We should understand at least the high level in a lot of cases what they believe. But even if you don't, preach the gospel to them.

44:45

Right? And I've heard in many cases where people have preached to, you know, Jehovah's Witness and or Mormons. You know, they may leverage, they'll use the gospel.

44:53

Right? And then there may be some logic around, you know, what happens when I die as a non -Jehovah's

44:59

Witness compared to what happens when you die based on my religion to a non -Christian.

45:05

Right? Here I get to live on earth, which may not be nice, nicest place to live. You live for eternity in hell based on if my religion is true.

45:13

Right? So there's definitely that means where we can leverage some of that knowledge of just understanding salvation in a lot of ways.

45:20

You know, destination of those who die. Right? What their theology is or what their doctrines teach.

45:26

So we can leverage it and say this is how it's different from ours. And again, only one of us can be right. Right? It's not this we all believe whatever we want to believe and our reality is, my reality is my reality and your reality is your reality.

45:37

Right? That's right.

45:52

That's right. And that's correct. And in a lot of ways, you know, I wouldn't mind it if I was wrong and I got to live on earth for eternity.

46:01

Right? I might not be in heaven for eternity. But again, if I'm right and the Jehovah's Witness is wrong, you're going to spend eternity in hell and fire and torment.

46:11

Right? And so that hopefully would give them something to think about. Right? And preaching the gospel along the way.

46:17

Right? That's the whole part. Right? Oh, yeah.

46:37

Yeah. I mean, let's hit the dog with the stone. Right? Yelp. Right? Throw the stone in. Yes, Steve. Yeah. Okay.

46:52

You think it could be alright? Alright. Alright. Not a problem at all. Alright.

46:58

So next week, we'll finish where I left off. Why don't we close in prayer?

47:04

Lord, we want to thank you. We want to praise you for this time now. We thank you that we have the knowledge that you have given to us,

47:10

Lord. We know that it is not by ourselves, but only by your grace, your mercy, your patience, that you have saved any one of us.

47:19

Lord, we understand that those who are involved in these cults, Lord, those who are struggling in some instances with these, but know nothing else,

47:28

Lord, we would pray that you would be able to reach down your hand and allow them to see the truth and to understand the gospel.

47:35

Lord, allow us to be able to proclaim it to them as they come knocking on the door. And Lord, we just want to, again, thank you and praise you for this opportunity that we have now just to have fellowship and just to be able to talk about you and worship you through this.