May 11, 2026 Show with Andrew Soncrat AND Jeremiah Roberts on “Introducing the ‘CULTISH’ Podcast”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse 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 two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 11th day of May 2026.

I am so thrilled to have back—actually, not back, to have on the program for the very first time two brothers in Christ who co-host a program that many of you may have seen called Cultish, a very important podcast that educates its viewers on the cults, all kinds of cults of various sizes, shapes, and forms.

And we are hoping to be joined by one of these men, Jeremiah Roberts, at some point during the live broadcast. But we already have with us right now Andrew Sohnkrat, and he is a pastor elder of Apologia Church in Utah as of April of 2024.

He was a church planter and deacon since it was founded in October of 2021, and prior to Utah, he had been serving in the diaconate for several years and training under the elders at Apologia Church in Arizona.

Andrew is also co-host of a podcast that we just mentioned called Cultish that dissects cults and fringe movements of many types and the biblical worldview. From the biblical worldview, his heart is to reach the lost and help those coming out of false assemblies.

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Andrew Sohnkrat.

Hey, thank you, Chris, for having me on. It's an honor. I've listened to Iron Sharpens Iron for many years, and I didn't think I'd ever be on this side of the microphone talking to you. So this is wonderful.

And did you mention everyone listening on Earth very specifically because of all of the UFO, UAP information coming out from the government?

No, just because we do have listeners that we are aware of in at least 28 foreign countries, in addition to the 50 states of this great union called America. And so that's why I say that. And but you never know, maybe we'll have an extraterrestrial one day send in a question to us, but by the way, did I butcher the pronunciation of your last name?

So it's Sohnkrant, just like it looks, it's always been a last name that people look at and they're like, how in the world do I say that? But I know a dear brother of mine, Aaron Shafvalov in Utah, his last name is a thousand times more difficult.

I still can't spell it after like four or five years. So, yeah, Sohnkrant, Sohnkrant, Sohnkrant.

And I said Sohnkrant, I believe, so that was that was almost right. Well, before we get into the theme, the major theme of cultish today, we have a tradition here whenever we have a first time guest, that guest will give a summary of their salvation testimony, which will include the religious atmosphere, if any, in which they were raised in the kinds of providential circumstances our sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to himself and save them.

So we'd love to hear a summary of your story.

Absolutely, brother, it'd be it'd be my honor. So I grew up in a Christian household. I was born in Las Vegas, Nevada. I have an older brother. Some of those providential things in my life, my father, he actually passed away when I was three years old from brain cancer.

And, you know, growing up at Calvary Chapel, I was there every Sunday. I was raised going to church. I believe that a really young age, I think is as far back as I can recollect, is maybe like five years old, is talking to people even in my preschool and kindergarten about the flood, Noah, God killing men because men deserved punishment and understanding that Jesus paid the price for my sins at a very young age.

And so one big impotence in that is the fact that I believe my father believed.

Right.

And so I thought one day I'd be with him even again in heaven. So at a very young age, I think I had a recollection of somewhat of what the gospel was. Anyways, my mom ended up getting remarried shortly after my father passed away and we ended up moving from Las Vegas, Nevada when I was eight and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

And I lived there from the ages of eight and 13. During that time, things got a little dicey in our lives. I was still going to Calvary Chapel Christian school, still learning about the things of God.

I would consider myself a Christian. And something happened when I was around 11 to 12 years old. My stepfather actually ended up cheating on my mother and I was the one who actually caught him doing it.

And our whole life kind of changed after that because my mom, they tried to make it work and get counseling with the pastor, but things just kept happening. Eventually, we left Albuquerque when I was 12, about 13 years old and moved to Phoenix, Arizona.

That's how we got there. And by the time I was 13, I stopped going to a private Christian school and ended up going into a charter school. It was called Arizona Conservatory for the Arts and Academics.

And now it was a brand new school at that time, but it ended up being like one of those schools where everyone who gets kicked out of public school goes to. And I was angry with God at this time and I consciously made the decision, and this is so horrible, to hurt God.

I felt like I was hurted or I had been hurt from God. I know hurted is not a word. Sorry about that. But, and I wanted to hurt God. It's, it's, it's absolutely horrible. And I turned to drugs. I did psychedelics.

I remember, I think the first time I smoked methamphetamine, I was about 14 years old and I lived a life of sin. I was a horrible sinner. And what's interesting during this time, as I'm going to just like a regular charter school, is when I got really introduced to people who believed things that were way different than what I believed, whatever I was raised in.

I talked to new age people that were my friends. I talked to Mormons. I talked to all kinds of different people. I was now being exposed to the evolutionary worldview, which I was vehemently against, even as I was doing horrible things.

And I was that individual going up throughout my high school years where I was partying all weekend. We never had school on Fridays, so we'd party Thursday night, party Saturday night, and I would be talking to people about Jesus while I was high on drugs or, or, or I was drinking.

And it's ridiculous when I look back at it, because obviously I was not living the life that I claimed to have, right? And by the time I was 19, 20 years old, I really wanted to take my life more serious.

I got kind of bored with the drugs and the alcohol and the party life. I used to be in a punk rock band. We traveled all over Arizona, played shows for years. And I was like, you know what? I really want to get back in focused into Christianity, Christian apologetics.

So I started going to a place called Glendale Community College. From there, I transferred to Grand Canyon University in order to get a Christian studies degree. It's so interesting guys, because I still was not living the life a Christian would live.

God is so patient. God is so loving. God is so kind. I deserved death as a teenager. I truly did. I wasn't going to church. I wasn't being discipled at this time. But anyways, since God is loving and patient and kind, just to summarize things, around the year 2014, my wife and I got married and shortly after that, it was around 2017, we found Apology at Church because I was working my desk job.

I was an underwriter at the time. I ended up graduating with a psychology and Christian studies degree from Grand Canyon University. And I was just doing an underwriting job. And I was like, Hey, Mormon apologetics or Mormon talking to Christian on YouTube.

And I found Pastor Jeff Durbin's videos. And I was like, Hey, I've been to that temple. I know where that's at. And so I started watching those videos and I was like, wow, this is great. And I found out they had a church and then there was abortion, no ministry, stuff like that.

And at this time I was vehemently against Calvinism, against reformed theology. And I ended up watching Pastor Jeff's Tulip series. I recommend that to anybody who's on YouTube. Just watch that Tulip series.

It's phenomenal. And right at the T, right on total depravity, I remember being like, wow, everything I thought I knew was wrong. I don't know when God saved my soul. I couldn't tell you if it was when I was five years old and I could give the gospel articulately to people or when I was, let's say 27, it's almost like a born again, again, experience when I started understanding reformed theology.

If that makes sense. But in that moment, my wife and I decided to stop going to CCV, which was Christ Church of the Valley, which was like a massive mega church in Arizona. There's like over 27 ,000 members.

And we decided we wanted to go to Apologia Church in Arizona and get really heavily involved with abortion apologetics, just going out to go to the abortion mills and preaching the gospel and seeing God save babies.

And then from there I went into the Mormon evangelism as well, had been studying the cults already, reading Dr. Walter Martin's book, The Kingdom of the Cults, and also reading The Four Major Sects by Anthony Heckman.

I don't know if you've ever heard of him. But my life in general, I always had a love for people who did not know God and I wanted them to know Christ. And I wanted them to see and experience the power of Christ's blood for salvation, you know, by the power of the gospel.

So by the time I was at Apologia, I'd already been studying these things. And then that's how kind of cultish fell in to my lap as well, because Jerry was already in talks with Pastor Jeff. But that's my testimony in a nutshell, Chris.

I don't know when God saved my soul. I couldn't pinpoint it. All I know is I deserved death as a teenager, knew what the gospel was, could explain the gospel. And then when I was later in my life, I said, what the heck have I been doing this whole time, shaking my fist at God and blaming—I'm like the opposite of Job, if it makes any sense.

I was the opposite of Job. And now, man, I just look back and I go, God, you are so good. You are so patient and kind. Who am I? I'm but a retina worm, man.

Now, if I'm not mistaken, you said you were raised in the Calvary Chapel?

Yeah, I was raised at Calvary Chapel.

Yep.

And did your folks ever come to the Reformed faith?

My mother is now, actually, which is pretty awesome. She goes to our church in Apologia in Utah, so that's pretty cool.

Oh, praise God for that. Yes, because I know that Calvary Chapel, as much as I love those brothers and have friends in there, they have a tendency, as you know, to be vehemently anti-Calvinist.

That was me, man. That was me, you know.

Well, praise God for that. Well, I love the cultish podcast that you have, and can you tell us about some of the most amazing stories you've heard about cults, cults perhaps that either our listeners might not be familiar with, or that you have information about them that they're not familiar with?

In other words, it might be a cult that they have heard of, but they're going to be surprised to hear some interesting facts about them that they were ignorant of.

Yeah, absolutely. Maybe one cult that everyone's heard about, but doesn't necessarily really understand unless you've listened to cultish before, is Jim Jones and the People's Temple.

Yes, I actually, believe it or not, I actually interviewed on my old show when we were broadcasting out of WNYG, 1440 AM in Babylon, Long Island, I interviewed one of the few folks that escaped Jonestown, a woman who wrote about it, a very sweet woman, fascinating story.

I don't think that she became an evangelical Christian after leaving there. She had some kind of faith journey that she was on, and I know that she had a high view of Jesus Christ, but I wasn't quite sure if she was saved, but I did interview somebody that escaped that cult.

Wow, that's interesting. I need to go back and find that, see if I can go to the archives and listen to that, Chris. That'd be really interesting. So with the People's Temple in Jonestown, you always hear it from secular media that they're a Christian cult, and I actually think that this is wrong.

It's wrong to say it. When you actually study or listen to the audio lectures or the preaching that Jim Jones did, you can go find the archives at the San Francisco Institute online, they have all of it, all of the FBI transcripts, all of his audio recordings that were ever recorded.

I've listened to hundreds of hours of his preaching, and what you'll find is that Jim Jones essentially believed in practice, I would say, what most people in my generation believe in practice. The same people who wagged their fist at Jim Jones actually believed the same things that he believed.

He was a proponent of new thought, also mixed in with new age. He called God, Sky Daddy. You hear that all the time from a lot of people coming in my generation. I'm 36 years old or 37 years old now, and he taught the same things.

He talked about reincarnation. He talked about a Christ consciousness. He said that sin was just a construct. All of this type of stuff. And I find it interesting that it's painted by secular media that he was a Christian cult when really he actually just taught a lot of the same things that actually the world believes.

I find that really, really compelling and really interesting. I don't know. What did, what did the lady that you interviewed, do you remember if she talked to any about his theology or what she believed about people?

Uh, it's been so long, but I'm almost certain, uh, that she went over some of the facts about Jones that, uh, many people assume wrongly that he was some kind of a right-wing charismatic cult leader, but he was actually a leftist.

Uh, he came out of the disciples of Christ denomination, which is the left wing branch of the restoration movement. On the right wing, you have the church of Christ, which many people are familiar with, but the disciples of Christ really morphed into a mainline liberal denomination, and, uh, he was, was the darling of leftist politicians, uh, in California and, uh, and ironically, um, they had him pray, the leftist politicians had him pray, I believe on the Golden Gate Bridge, uh, during a ceremony commemorating, um, a, an organization meant to be an outreach to prevent suicide, very bizarre.

And the likelihood of something like that is amazing, uh, to occur, but I just remember her bringing up some of those details, uh, his sexual deviancy and things like that, um, his, uh, seducing both men and women sexually, and, uh, just, just a, uh, really satanic individual.

Yeah. It's, it's good that you mentioned that he was actually in bed with a leftist because what he said in his main impetus for being in the church and of the church, quote unquote, was in order to infiltrate the church to spread communism.

So he believed in something called divine economic socialism, and he believed that people could manifest this form of government through the earth by listening to him. He was essentially that form of prophet, uh, because communism would solve all of the world's issues.

So you can even listen to, uh, many of the talks that were given in Guyana. Uh, they actually had a Russian come down and give a talk, but sadly enough, just how you asked me for my testimony, Chris earlier, uh, Jim Jones would keep people up all night and he would even ask the children and make them give their testimony of divine economic socialism and how they are ready to give their life in order for it to infiltrate the world.

And that's a branch of new thought theology, which is you can manifest things into power and many cults like to do that, like Scientology, for example. Once you become an operating thetan, which is, uh, you spend already $200 ,000 to $250 ,000 doing auditing sessions for the church of Scientology.

When you become an operating thetan, you can manipulate matter, energy, space, and time. That's what they call it, MEST. Uh, so many cults love to give these types of promises, right? To, to manipulate and get around what God's decree would be.

It would be a promise for individuals, what to become like God, to be gods of their, their own universes. And that's exactly what Jim Jones taught. And what's funny enough is the people of my generation believe the very same thing.

Very sad.

Yeah. I also was, uh, blessed to have two former Scientologists on the show. Um, one of which, uh, Jeff Durbin had, uh, interviewed years ago, Andrea Schwartz.

Yeah, she was on cultish.

Yes. That's right. She was on cultish as well. And, uh, before that in 2008, when my show was in its infancy, I had a woman named Karen Presley on, who was a, uh, Scientologist along with her husband.

And they were in the specific department of Scientology that, uh, their task was to reach out to musicians and celebrities, uh, to lure them in to the, the cult and her husband wrote a very famous song that most people, well, maybe you're too young to know it.

Um, but it was a song that I can't remember the title of it right now. Uh, but, uh, it was On the Wings of Love. That's that was it. On the Wings of Love. Uh, a very well-known wedding song. Uh, I will look up who sang that and made it a hit momentarily.

But, um, you, uh, have, have you had any, well, first of all, I was very joyfully, um, praising God for what you just recently told me. In fact, I think he told me today that my friend, Jason Contino, the former Jehovah's Witness, who is now a pastor, pastor of Harborview Christian Church in Port Jefferson, Long Island, a Reformed Baptist church.

He was a Jehovah's Witness and, uh, you told me that there were Jehovah's Witnesses that watched his interview and were favorably responding.

Yeah, absolutely. I was so, man, I was so encouraged. He started sending me text messages and screenshots of individuals. He, of course, no names and stuff like that, who were currently in the Jehovah's Witnesses organization that listened to the episodes.

And they're like, Hey, I need help. I need help to, how about, how do I think about these things? And kind of like, how, how do I get out even essentially, you know, how does this work? And that's amazing to me to really think that, uh, God is able to use.

I love to tell people this, like two idiots, like Jeremiah Roberts and myself. Jerry's a kind of an undercover genius though, but we'll say mainly an idiot like myself in order to get, to get the gospel out there and that people who were actually stuck in the cult are listening to it, like, I would think that it would just be mainly like a Christian audience that listens to cultists, you know, but some people, they stumble upon it and I think it was four or five different messages.

And I'm sure he's gotten more than that, but that's just from what he sent me from people who have reached out to him. So I praise God. Thank you, Jason. Thank you. Uh, how the Lord used your life in order to help these individuals right now.

You know, that's what God does. That's Romans eight. God works all things together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purposes. And that's the purpose of cultish. That's the purpose of our ministry.

We want to see people come out of the cults and into Christ. Uh, just like Walter Martin said it, you weren't a cult. I love you. I want you out of it and with Christ, you know, like that's the reality.

Did you ever interview Dr. Walter Martin?

No, he, um, I did interview his daughter, uh, Cindy Martin Morgan on a couple of occasions who has been involved in, uh, rescuing the unborn, um, for many years, uh, but, uh, I'm trying to think if Walter Martin, I can't remember when he went home to be with the Lord, but, uh, I think that may have happened before, I'm almost certain now it happened before I was hosting Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio, which began in 2005.

I'll have to look up when Martin, Walter Martin went home to be with the Lord, but, uh, he was definitely my first introduction to apologetics on the John Ankerberg show, and I just was utterly fascinated by that program, especially when Walter Martin was on and even, um, Calvin Beisner, uh, debating different members of cults and so on.

And, uh, that really lit the fuse in my mind to begin exploring that whole subject more deeply. And, uh,.

Me too, man. You said the John Ankerberg show. Uh, sorry. Like I, I found that on YouTube as well. It was around 2017 and I binged so much of the John Ankerberg show. I am so thankful. I, I think we need another Christian platform like that where, uh, they're doing the same thing.

Jerry kind of had an idea for cultish. Maybe we'll do it in the future called Lion's Den, where maybe he would be kind of like the host that is moderating those types of conversations, but that show was phenomenal, super ahead of its time.

We need another show like that. It was great. I love that show. Anyone who's listening after this, you need to, you need to stop what you're doing, need to go to YouTube, you need to type in the John Ankerberg show and you will not be disappointed.

It is absolutely phenomenal. When Walter Martin is talking with the Oneness Pentecostals, it's huge. When Walter Martin's talking to the Seventh-day Adventists on the John Ankerberg show, that was huge.

Massive reforms came from that within the Seventh-day Adventist community. Like it was so ahead of its time. I love that you mentioned the John Ankerberg show. It's such a good show.

Amen. And are there organizations, churches that even during the years you've been doing cultish, that at first you were surprised that they should be placed in a category of a cult, where you might have thought, I don't agree with them on a lot of stuff, but they seem like a great, well-meaning bunch of folks who love the Lord and so on.

And then you realize, wait a minute, I didn't realize they believe that and so on and so on.

Yeah. You know, we've been mainly focused on like straight up, down the line cults. I think some of the ones that have surprised me when you dig deeper into it would be certain parts of the Church of Christ that are down South.

A lot of them that believe in essentially like a workspace salvation or a form of Pelagianism in type of the control they have on individuals is very cultish and cult-like. But also the Seventh-day Adventists actually just going through the John Ankerberg and then doing our studies and having our series and episodes on that.

That was, that threw me for a loop as well. I'd say that those two were probably one of the more interesting ones in terms of how, you know, I had thought about them previously and how I now think about them.

But what's really interesting about the Seventh-day Adventists as well is they'll have people that are within their organization and I know one specifically that doesn't really believe certain aspects of what the Seventh-day Adventists teach that are really different than mainline Protestant Christianity.

But at the same time in general, there's a few distinct beliefs about the Seventh-day Adventist Church that I'd say are pretty, pretty, pretty interesting. Ellen G. White, for example, coming from the Millerites and the end time prophecies that never occurred.

For me, I believe what Deuteronomy 18 says, if someone calls themselves a prophet, they speak in the name of Yahweh, but they speak presumptuously and the thing does not come to pass. They are a false prophet.

Don't listen to them. So I throw, with the objective standard of the word of God outside of my personal experience, I would throw Ellen G. White and her prophecies out. Even William Miller, who he himself didn't even see himself as a prophet, but people later took some of those prophecies and ran with them.

I mean, the Jehovah's Witnesses themselves, they come from the Millerite prophecy in the 1800s.

Yes. The worst of their teachings that I'm aware of anyway is the investigative judgment, because that's where they really, what's the word I'm looking for? Conflict with the doctrine of justification by faith alone in that more than anything else they believed.

Yeah, I would agree with that. The investigative judgment is something that is extremely interesting and it has to do even with their eschatology. There's a reason why that there's an investigative judgment happening now prior to the return of Christ, which, you know, mixing in justification with your sanctification and certain rules or aspects that need to be followed, given by man, there's a reason why anyone who's reading their Bible that ought to make the hairs of their arms stand on edge, right?

Like we're given a very specific outline in the New Testament. Paul tells us, 2 Corinthians 11, verse four, if someone comes and preaches to you another Jesus, another gospel, another spirit, right? So we have the impetus from the apostle Paul to tell us that there's going to be people who bring different ones.

So we have the ability to actually test it and see what is true according to God's word, and if you get a different gospel than the one that's been presented to you through the blood of Jesus Christ, then you ought to reject it and rightfully so, like Galatians three and Galatians four.

If you're not justified by faith like Abraham, we're not talking about the same covenant here, you know? And that's one of the reasons why cultists exist really, is we want people to know who Jesus is, what the gospel is, and that they can have full assurance of their salvation through the righteousness of Christ in Christ alone.

That's it. Because any cult or any leader who's trying to mix or add things to the gospel is exactly what Paul warns about in the Colossians chapter two. It's the exact same thing. They're going to place on you their own standards, their own doctrines of men, they're going to persuade you with plausible arguments, and they're going to take you away from Christ.

And they're going to say that there's something you can offer God that Christ didn't offer. And if you can see that, you won't fall prey to the cults.

Amen. By the way, I was able to look up the woman who I interviewed who escaped Jonestown, Leslie Wagner Wilson. Fascinating story, how she escaped with one of her children, very tiny children, and her husband remained there with the cult because he was loyal to it.

And her book was titled Slave of Faith. And I'm going to have to see if I can have my webmaster, Eric Nielsen, her retrieve the audio from that, because that was all the way back in 2012. And the new website that we have doesn't go back that far.

That's when I was broadcasting out of WNYG. But we have to go to me. I'm sorry.

Oh, so that's amazing.

Yeah. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is Andrew Sonkrat, and he is one of the co-hosts of Cultish, a podcast that educates its audience on the dangers of the cults and what those cults actually believe.

And if you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence.

By the way, Andrew, one of my favorite interviews was with a former Seventh Day Adventist. We were talking about the Seventh Day Adventist earlier. Desmond Ford, who was one of their leading theologians in the Seventh Day Adventist Church at one time, he actually appeared on the John Ankerberg show as well with Walter Martin.

And he finally was excommunicated by the Seventh Day Adventist Church because he openly and aggressively opposed the doctrine of investigative judgment. And I interviewed him before he went home to be with the Lord.

If anybody wants to look up the interview I did with him on December 26, 2017, just type in Desmond Ford, D-E-S-M-O-N-D, Ford, and you will see my interview on the investigative judgment and the everlasting gospel.

And I also interviewed him a year later, April 25th, 2018. I had Desmond Ford on with Ken Samples, who used to be one of Hank Hanegraaff's co-hosts on the Bible Answer Man, speaking of Walter Martin.

And they did a program on David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and the Waco, Texas disaster 25 years after the siege. Desmond was a part of that program because the Branch Davidians were a breakaway cult from the Seventh Day Adventists, as you may remember.

And going back to cultish, have you gotten any hate mail?

Oh yeah, actually for a time, or actually we probably still get them. Many of our mail that's hate comes in the form of Apple reviews. Or podcast reviews, let's say on Spotify or Apple podcasts, where it's like a one-star review.

You're just a cult talking about other cults. Things of that nature would be the height of our hate mail. In terms of, you know, cult organizations reaching out to us, actually we haven't had any, not to my knowledge.

I know there's a subsect of LDS individuals who specifically hate what I do with Apologia Utah and have found cultish through Apologia Utah, and they'll just not like us and, you know, comment on our stuff just because of what we do out here.

But other than that, mainly our bad reviews that we have, which are like our fuel to keep going, is essentially many atheists just upset that they wanted to listen to a cult podcast with no objective standard of morality.

So that's mainly what our hate mail comes in the form of.

Yeah.

And do you have any more stories about the opposite? We have already heard about Jehovah's Witnesses. Responding to your recent interview with my friend, Jason Contino, the former Jehovah's Witness. Anything similar like that ever happen?

Oh man. Yeah. Over the years, we've had many people sending us emails talking about how, you know, they heard something on cultish or their family member did. Someone who was once New Age is now out of the New Age.

Things of that nature that we actually have had on the podcast. A lot of times that it happens is that these same people will then be on the podcast a little bit later, just so we can hear how they came to Christ.

But in terms of specific people and names, I can't think of any off the top of my head, but there has been, there's been a lot in all glory to God for that. God gets all of the glory. So, so praise God.

Yeah, it's, it's been a, it's been a wild ride. I'm not gonna lie. It's been a wild ride. It's, it's, it's interesting. I just received an email actually not too long ago from a man who is coming out of Mormonism and found our content.

And so I started emailing with him back and forth and it all always comes down to the fact that when someone's coming out of the cult, one thing we have to recognize and realize is that when Jesus says that, come, come to me, my yoke is easy.

My burden is light. He meant it, but he also meant this, no one who does not hate father, mother, brother, sister, right? They won't come to him and they're not worthy. And the reality is, is people, when they're coming out of the cults, they have to come face to face with that very verse because they're leaving everything.

They are leaving literally everything behind. Sometimes their jobs, it puts their marriage in jeopardy, their relationship with their children. And they have to make the decision. Is it worth it now to follow Christ and the ones whom Christ has saved, they'll always come.

They'll always come. His sheep will always hear his voice and he'll never lose one of them. And one thing I like to encourage people when they're coming out of the cults, you were once deceived by a false prophet.

Don't become a false prophet yourself. Meaning this, you do not know what's going to happen in the future.

Okay.

You may be coming out of the cult right now. Sometimes maybe your family will be angry with you. Maybe your wife will be angry with you, but do not make decisions about your life by determining what you think is going to happen in the future.

I'm not going to leave the cult because my wife will leave me. That's a prophecy. Don't do the same thing to yourself that you were deceived by. We need to allow God to work in our lives. And one way to do that would be trusting God in his word.

If you know Christ, you are to follow him and trust in him. And many times, you know, what people think is going to happen to them is not necessarily always what happens to them.

Okay. We have Ted in Moundsville, Alabama. I was intrigued when hearing your guest's background given somewhat recent accusations of cult-like behavior that have been lodged against an Arizona church that he knows well, i .e. Apologia Church.

Has your guest encountered any such allegations against Apologia? If so, how did he respond? If not, how would he respond? I'm particularly curious if he has established definitions of what behavior qualifies, of what behavior qualifies as cult-like and how much of that behavior is required in order for a religion organization to be declared a cult.