WWUTT 910 Q&A Essential Doctrines, Signs of a Cult, and Hidden Treasure?

What are the essential doctrines of the Christian faith? What are some of the signs of a cult?

And what is the meaning of the parable of the treasure in a field? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text. A daily study in the word of Christ that we may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom we shine as lights in the world.

Visit our website at www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you,

Becky. You're welcome. Now being Friday, we take questions from listeners. Yes, we do. And you can submit your questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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Shirley. No thanks. I changed the name of the product.

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Good, I'm glad, but no, no, it doesn't appeal. This past week,

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On what videos? No thanks. Clearly they haven't seen the one we've done on marijuana. Obviously.

So anyway, like we said, you can submit your questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com.

We're heading to Canada for the first two questions. Woohoo. Hello, Pastor Gabe and Becky.

Hello. Question mark. I'm sure it's for the spelling. You got the spelling right. Perfect. Yep, this is

Johnny from Canada. Greetings from Canada. Don't know if you guys get snow down there, but hope things are getting warm for you guys.

They actually are. Yes, we had a beautiful 70 something degree day on Thursday.

I don't think it quite got up to 70, but it sure felt nice. Not quite, but it was close. I had my hoodie on, never had to put a jacket on or anything like that when

I was working out in the garage. Today is supposed to be close to 70. And then we're gonna hit some 70s next week.

Which is amazing. Also a chance of thunderstorms. Which is not okay. Because about this time of year, we get the tornadoes.

Yep, we're getting closer and closer to tornado season. Tornadoes and hail that can be up to softball size.

Yeah, we can get some pretty big hail in Kansas. But there have already been parts of the country that have, they've had tornadoes this year.

I hope it's not that bad around here. Might be a rough season. We'll find out here. Anyway, Johnny goes on with his question.

I want to ask, what do we do with exclusivism, particularly

Christian churches that claim that their local church or denomination is the true church and all others will perish because they don't belong or believe?

No, we don't have any churches around here like that, do we? No. Just down the road in Topeka is

Westboro Baptist Church. Yeah, they have a reputation. Yeah. That goes much further than Kansas.

According to them, they're the only group of people that's getting raptured at the second coming.

I've heard this more than a few times when sharing the gospel. This doesn't shake my assurance in the least, but I tend to put this in the cult category when

I come across it. I'm gentle in this approach and only ever told one person that exclusivism is a cultish characteristic.

Exclusivism adds to grace, which I see to be a highly offensive attack on the gospel. So I can at least say it is an error, but is it classified as a characteristic of a cult?

I recently had an encounter with a coworker and was told because I wasn't a part of their church,

I assume, I was condemned. Because we don't believe what they do, we will perish, which are no

TV, no upbeat music, no dancing, no alcohol. And the most frequent thing brought up is because their pastors don't write their sermons, which is an example of actually possessing the

Holy Spirit. So because their pastors don't write their sermons, they're speaking from the

Holy Spirit. Are they saying they're prophets and apostles? It sounds like it to me, but -

My word is the word of God. And if you disagree with it, then it's the same as disagreeing with God. That's what that sounds like.

It's what it sounds like they're setting up there. So Johnny goes on, what should we do with something like this in terms of labeling?

Question 1B, and what makes a false gathering merely a church in error, heretical or a cult?

For example, we never, or at least I have never heard anyone call the Catholic church a cult. So what would we classify it as?

You can use a KGV -only -ism and maybe a Seventh -day Adventism as an example as well.

Thank you for your time. I've been itching to ask you this for some time now. Also, thank you for the work and ministry that you do, and even your showing of your lovely marriage on the

Friday podcast, which I find to be encouraging as well. Aw. Okay, so I think the best way to go about this here is to be reminded of what the essential doctrines of the

Christian faith are. Yes. I have brought up CARM, the Christian Apologetic Research Ministry that's headed up by Matt Slick.

When we were at G3. Yeah, we were just a couple booths away from that. That's right, yeah. Our booth was right next to Striving for Eternity, Andrew Rappaport, and then on the other side of him was

CARM. Yeah. So it was cool to talk with those guys. I think one of them came from Idaho, which is where Matt Slick is at.

And then I can't remember where the other guy came from. I don't think they both came from the same place. But anyway, so it was neat to have them at G3.

So I'm gonna use CARM to look at some social aspects of cult -like behavior.

But before we get to that, let's be reminded once again what the essential doctrines of the Christian faith are.

Yes. So when it comes to a doctrinally sound church, what are the doctrines that that church is going to believe?

Now, of course, okay, maybe I shouldn't say maybe I shouldn't say a doctrinally sound church.

We're just gonna talk about the basic doctrines that should make up a Christ -following church. Right. Because there are churches that we differ on some secondary issues with, but we still partner in ministry with because we agree on the same mains.

Right. Now, when it comes to summarizing what those essential doctrines are, I tend to use this acronym, doctrines.

So I take that word, well, not as an acronym, but as an acrostic. So every one of those letters represents an essential doctrine that a church must believe.

The letter D stands for deity of Christ. So you have to believe in Jesus Christ and that he is

God, that he claimed to be God, that he is the son of God. As we talked about this past week going through the book of John, when

Jesus referred to himself as the son of God, this was not like we might say we are sons of God because we're adopted into the family.

For Jesus to say this of himself and to call God his father was to make himself equal with God. That's the way the

Jews perceived it and that's what they wanted to kill him for. They believed that he was blaspheming when he called himself the son of God.

Right. So we understand that Christ is God. He is one with the father, but submissive to the will of the father.

He is God in human flesh who came and dwelt among us. And actually incarnation is one of those essential doctrines so I'm gonna get to that here in a moment.

But basically deity of Christ. We understand that Christ is God. This past week

I was listening to R .C. Sproul and one of the things that Sproul said is that when Jesus referred to himself as son of man, which is the most common title that he used for himself, he wasn't merely making a reference to his incarnation and saying that he was associating or relating to man,

God in human flesh. That wasn't merely the reason why he used that title. Okay. It was mainly because he was showing that he was the fulfillment of the

Daniel prophecy of having seen one who had come from heaven who was the son of man.

And so Jesus using that title, that also was a claim of divinity. It wasn't some secret code.

Right. When somebody asked him, who are you? Where are you from? He would say, I am the son of man.

So he's saying he is the fulfillment of that Daniel prophecy. Gotcha. So this is understanding the deity of Christ.

He is God and he sits on high as God, seated at the right hand of the throne of God, interceding for us as our advocate before the father, deity of Christ.

That's the letter D. So the next one in that acrostic doctrines would be the letter O, which stands for original sin.

It is necessary for us to believe that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Romans 3 23, all have sinned. Everybody. There is no exception to that.

Little babies, they haven't sinned yet. Nope, they're sinners too. They are born with a sin nature that we have all inherited from Adam.

And this doesn't mean we're being blamed because of the sins of Adam. It means we're all participants in the sin of Adam.

We're all willing participants in his sin and rebellion against God. And so having been born in the sinfulness of Adam, we need to be born again in Christ Jesus.

If we don't understand that we have sinned and what the wages of sin are, which is death, Romans 6 23, and that the wrath of God burns against all the unrighteousness of man.

If we don't understand those things, we have no need for a savior. That's right. What's the point of calling upon Christ as savior if you don't think you need to be saved from anything?

Right, because I'm a good person. I'm a good person. Yeah, no. Why wouldn't God like me?

You're not that good. Yeah, and that was what you shared in your testimony two weeks ago. Yep, yep, I was. I like me.

Yep. Everybody likes me. Yep. Why wouldn't God like me? That's right. I was so fooled.

So full of yourself. So fooled. So, and I'm saying you were so fooled and so full of yourself.

Sorry, I was trying to be cute. Yeah, sorry. It didn't work. I'm, it's just, I'm not there. I'll leave cute to you and I'll be the goofball.

But you can be cute too if you want. I don't know how

I can go through this seriously anymore. Sorry. I've lost the serious tone. Okay, so we have doctrines.

So we have the D and now we have the O and then we have the. She's taking over now. C. Go ahead.

No, go for it. So the C stands for. D is deity of Christ.

O is original sin. C stands for canon. Now that one's complicated. I think of all the letters.

And again, I just summarize this in these letters so that it's easier for you to understand. And remember.

And remember. Yes. C is the one that is the most ambiguous but canon is basically just another word for Bible.

So it's understanding that the Bible is made up of 66 books. We have the old Testament and the new

Testament and that these books are the word of God. Right. It was

God having spoken through his prophets in the old Testament and through his apostles in the new Testament.

Even the words that we have written in red. If you have a red letter Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, primarily the gospels.

There are red letters in other parts of the new Testament but that's where you get the bulk of the red letters. Even that was written by the apostles.

Right. There's so much credit that some people will try to give to the red letters in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as though those letters are superior to every other word in the

Bible. They're the same as every other word in the Bible. All of it is the word of God. Right. 2 Timothy 3 .16.

All scripture is breathed out by God. Right. And so the apostles wrote down what we have in the gospels and then also the epistles, the book of Revelation, et cetera.

So these are the books that make up the Bible which we know to be the word of God.

And it is our guide in all matters of faith and obedience, understanding the mind of God, understanding what he desires of us, what we need to do to please

God, understanding what the gospel is, who Christ is, what he has done for us. Everything that led up to the coming of Christ who is the fulfillment of all the law and the prophets, what he is instructing his disciples to do in this world, the call to go out and preach the gospel and to teach all that Christ had commanded.

Right. And of course his hope and his promise of returning again and that he is with us always, even to the very end of the age.

All of these things we get from the Bible and you can't get that from anywhere else. Right. Much to Andy Stanley's chagrin.

Yeah. Yeah. Moving on. Moving on. So what have we covered so far?

Doc. Yes. Deity of Christ, original sin, canon, which is understanding that the

Bible is the word of God. That is an essential doctrine. And then the next one is the letter

T which stands for Trinity. It is knowing with certainty that our

God is triune. He is one God. Monotheism, okay.

Monotheism is an essential doctrine and that's all kind of wrapped up in Trinity. Right. We worship one God, not three gods, one

God. That's right. That's the what of God. When we talk about God being one God, we're talking about the what of God.

When we talk about him being three persons in one God, we're talking about the who of God. And the who is father, son, and Holy Spirit.

So we believe in the Holy Trinity that our one God is three distinct persons, father, son, and Holy Spirit, all fully divine, co -equal, eternal, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

There are many statements of faith that have been written on the doctrine of the Trinity. And we believe in the historic confessions of who

God has shown himself to be, revealing himself as father and son and Holy Spirit.

And it's the son of God, Jesus Christ, who has shown us the father. Right. We see the father through Christ, the distinctiveness of the

Trinity was really kind of veiled in the Old Testament. And it wasn't revealed to us distinctively until we got to the

New Testament, until the son of God came and showed us the father and gave his Holy Spirit.

Right. So all who are in Christ are filled with his spirit and know the father and worship the son as salvation is a

Trinitarian work. We are predestined by the father. Our salvation was effected by the work of Christ on the cross and his resurrection from the grave.

And then it is actualized by the Holy Spirit that lives within us. Okay, so that's

D -O -C -T, Trinity is the letter T, the letter R in this acrostic doctrines is resurrection.

Right. And it is knowing that Jesus Christ rose bodily from the dead.

It wasn't a spiritual resurrection. Spiritual resurrection is of no use to us. Right. Because we live in this body and our body is going to die.

So to know that we are gonna be raised again, a spiritual resurrection would be of no use to us.

There is no conquering over the wages of sin if Christ only rose spiritually from the dead and not bodily from the dead.

So his physical resurrection is an essential doctrine of the Christian faith.

Now, last year in the 50th anniversary of the remembrance of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

And TGC and the ERLC teamed up and they did their Martin Luther King 50 nonsense conference.

One of the criticisms that was regularly made of Martin Luther King Jr. is that he did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ.

And at best, at best, his apologists have to concede that Martin Luther King Jr.

at the very least said that believing in the bodily resurrection of Christ wasn't important.

You can believe he was spiritually raised from the dead and that's good enough. And he preached this during an

Easter message. Oh, wow. It was an Easter that he preached this. Wow, but the tomb was empty.

The tomb was empty. It was empty. That is the testimony of the gospels.

You are going against what God's word testifies about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Wow. When you deny his bodily resurrection. So he rose bodily. He was seen by more than 500 people in the 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension into heaven.

Right. And he is the first to receive a glorified body and we all likewise will receive glorified bodies on the day of Christ.

So this is an essential doctrine. D -O -C -T -R, the letter I stands for incarnation.

So I alluded to this one back when we were talking about deity of Christ. Right. But the incarnation of Christ is understanding according to what we read in John one that the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Right. Philippians chapter two, Christ though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. All of this wrapped up in his incarnation.

And in fact, first John tells us first John four two by this, you know, the spirit of God every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.

And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

By the way, I skipped a first John two 22 when we were talking about Trinity. First John two 22 is who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the

Christ. This is the antichrist. He who denies the father and the son.

So you see how essential the doctrine of the Trinity is. Whoever denies the

Trinity is an antichrist. So the oneness Pentecostals, even the Mormons because they don't believe in one

God. They actually believe in multiple gods. But anyway, those who deny the triune nature of God are antichrists, the

Jehovah's Witnesses that would be another group. So where was I? We were talking about the incarnation.

But anyway, yeah, the essential understanding that Christ came in the flesh and.

He was fully man and fully God. That was the other thing I was gonna mention. So he was very man and he was very

God. Right. Right. At no point did Christ cease to be God.

Right. He stepped down from his throne in heaven and put on human flesh and was submissive to the will of the father fully in his human nature.

Right. He was fully a man. But still divine. And he was fully tempted as a man. And everything.

Yes, and he underwent death. He actually experienced suffering in his body and death in his body.

As it says in Hebrews, he became like his brothers in every respect. Right.

And so therefore we worship a high priest who sympathizes with us in our weaknesses.

Jesus did not like, you know, transport his spirit somewhere else while he was dying on the cross. So we wouldn't have to experience that.

Right. If he did not experience suffering and death, then he was not obedient to the will of his father. So Jesus underwent all of these things on our behalf.

That's right. First Corinthians 5 .21, for our sake, he became sin.

I'm sorry, second Corinthians 5 .21. For our sake, he became sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

So Jesus experienced all of this in his flesh. It is an essential doctrine to understand the incarnation of Christ.

And all this also tied up with, he was the first to receive a glorified body.

And so we likewise. Yeah. We'll receive glorified bodies as he has. That's right. Okay, next one is, let's see,

D -O -C -T -R -I -N. That's new creation. Yes. So in this acrostic, the letter

N stands for new creation. We were once dead in our sins and our trespasses in which we once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

That's Ephesians 2 verses one through three. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, didn't leave us dead in our sins, but he made us alive together with Christ.

By grace, you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that we would understand the full measure of the kindness that he has showed us in his son.

Ephesians 2, eight and nine, by grace, you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of work so that no man may boast.

Right. And then verse 10, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which

God prepared for us beforehand that we should walk in them. So all of this is referring to our new nature.

In our old nature, we were dead in our sins and our trespasses. In our new nature, we are alive together with Christ and we walk in obedience in the works that God has prepared for us beforehand.

We are in these works being shaped more and more into the image of the son, Romans 8, 29.

And as Paul instructs in Ephesians, also in Colossians chapter three, that you put off the old self and you put on the new, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

So a person who becomes a Christian will no longer walk in the deadness of their sins, but they are walking in new life in righteousness in the pursuit of Christ.

That's right. Growing in holiness and desiring God as we continue in this world.

When a person, we talked about this past week, when we were in John 10, but when a person makes a profession of faith, but you do not see any change in their lives whatsoever, then it was just a passing opinion.

They had an emotional moment, but it was not a genuine conversion. So it is necessary, it's an essential doctrine to understand the doctrine of new creation.

The old is passed away, the new has come. Galatians 2 .20, I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me. And that's the understanding of the doctrine of new creation.

D -O -C -T -R -I -N -E, it's like anytime you do the, you're trying to remember something in alphabetical order.

You ever have to go through the alphabet in your hand, in your head? No. Alphabet in your hand? Not really, but.

Counting, I see, I count on my hand. A, B, C, D. Anyway.

What were you gonna say? No, I was just gonna say, I don't have to do the alphabet, but whenever I do words,

I have to do the same thing. Yeah, I've been talking so much that I can't remember what letter I'm on. So I have to go through.

You're fine. Yeah, so the letter E stands for eschatology. Right. Or more specifically, end times.

So an understanding of the end times. Now, we are gonna differ in opinions on the manner in which

Christ is gonna return, like the order of events, what's coming first, the millennial kingdom, some of those kinds of things.

That's all secondary doctrine. Right. The essential doctrine that we must believe is that Christ is coming back.

Is actually coming back. Right. Yes. He will return to judge the living and the dead. Yes. That is an essential doctrine, because this is what we're looking forward to.

He hasn't already come and died again. That's right, and the apostle Paul said that those who had preached such a thing, saying that the resurrection of the dead had already come, they were put out of the church.

Right. So either claiming that Christ has already come, which is preterism, claiming that all these things that Christ had talked about,

Matthew 24 and 25, what we read about in the book of Revelation, the full preterist is a heretic, because they're claiming that all of this stuff has already happened.

Right. And that is, Paul put people out of the church for teaching such a thing.

Yep. So Christ has not come back yet. He is still to return. And he says in Matthew 24, as far as lightning shines in the east and is seen as far as the west, so will be the coming of the son of man.

So everyone will see the return of Christ. Right. It won't be a secret. It's not gonna be a secret.

We're not gonna be going, hey, what was that? There's not gonna be headlines in the newspapers going, Christ came back.

Everybody's gonna know, everybody's gonna see it. And when he comes back, that's it, that's the end. Yep. So we are looking forward to that event, although we might differ on the details in how that event's gonna come about.

So you have dispensationalists, you have historical pre -millennialists, you've got amillennialists, you've got post -millennialists, you've got pre -trib, mid -trib, post -trib, and there's, oh, you got pan -millennialists.

Mm -hmm, yep. Where it's all gonna pan out. It's all gonna pan out in the end. We will differ on these things.

And it's good to have those discussions. Right. Come back to the word of God, challenge one another in our understanding of what the word says.

But also understand that that is secondary. Yeah, those are secondary issues. Now we as a church,

I think you fielded a question earlier this week, what does our church teach as far as eschatology is concerned?

Yeah, I was asked what we believe as a church. Yeah. And we just believe that Christ is coming back.

That's right. So, you know, whenever I cover those end times things, I might tell you what my view is, and then

I'll give you an overview of what the different views are. Right. But there's not a requirement for people in our church to center on a particular eschatology related to the return of Christ.

Only that we all agree. And we shouldn't hold each other to that either. I think that that is unfair for someone to feel so strongly about theirs that they're right and everybody else is wrong.

And if you don't believe them, then you're a heretic. Yeah, right. That's not fair. And that's generally the extreme fundamentalist churches that might fall into that category.

Okay. Of requiring people to have a certain eschatology in order to become a member there.

The thing that bugs me about that is it's almost as if they're saying not quite. I mean, you might have to interview them to hear what the specific reasons are for doing this.

But it's almost as if they're saying you can't be a member of a church unless you believe this doctrine, this eschatology in this way.

So that's the thing that kind of makes me a little, you know, whenever I hear a church require you to hold this particular viewpoint of eschatology.

But only that we all agree Jesus is returning. Yes. Might disagree on the details, but we all agree that he's coming back.

Yes. And then the last letter in this acrostic is the letter S. And that stands for salvation by grace through faith alone.

Right. That is an essential doctrine because that is the gospel. Right. Martin Luther said that the church rises and falls on a doctrine of justification by faith.

And this is what's led, you know, the Catholic church to become such a wayward church is because they denied the doctrine of justification by faith.

Luther saw that that was the main issue concerning the Roman Catholic church was that they had abandoned a doctrine of justification by faith.

That doctrine is the basis of the entire book of Galatians. That's the one doctrine that Paul is defending against the

Galatians, having left the doctrine of justification by faith and they've added works now into it.

Right. And they still probably believed in Christ and the gospel, but they also believe there needed to be more than that.

So I believe that Jesus died on the cross, but I also have to do this, be circumcised in order to be saved.

And that corrupted the gospel. Paul said, it's a different gospel and a person will be condemned if they believe in such a gospel and that Christ died for nothing.

Because then you're boasting in yourself, like, oh, I got this done. Look what I've done. I've done this part, so now

I'm saved. No, you didn't do anything. God did. Right, it is all the work of God from beginning to end.

That's why it's a gift. It's a free gift. Yes. No strings attached. It's grace, right?

So you believe you were saved by grace, but you had to do something or make a decision in order to, then it's not grace anymore.

It's not grace. You add a work to it, or you add something that you did and grace is no longer grace.

It was a - And praise the Lord for that because seriously, I would be still. Right, that's why it's the gospel.

That's why it's good news. Right. Because even our best deeds are as filthy rags before a holy God. So we would never be able to get there anyway.

Even as a good person. Even when you were a good person. I'm a good person. I'm a good person. People like me. That's right. Everybody likes me.

It was Augustine who prayed, Lord, command what you will and grant what you command.

And so the Lord does demand righteousness, but the wonderful thing about that is he also gives us righteousness.

Right. He commands righteousness and he gifts, he gifts, he gifts to us what he commands.

This is the righteousness that we receive by faith in Jesus Christ. We are clothed in his righteousness and we are saved.

That is justification by faith, by grace alone through faith alone. That is the gospel.

It is an essential doctrine of the Christian faith. Now, as I was going through this acrostic, some of you might be aware that Hank Hanegraaff was actually the originator of this acrostic.

Right. He's the one that came up with doctrine and each one of those letters represented an essential doctrine of the

Christian faith. But Hank Hanegraaff is Eastern Orthodox. He doesn't believe the letter

S and nor is the letter S on his acrostic. I added that one. Right. So doctrines,

S, salvation by grace through faith alone. That is an essential doctrine because it is the doctrine, as Luther said, that the church rises or falls upon.

Right. And Hank Hanegraaff, unfortunately, abandoned that doctrine when he became an

Eastern Orthodox. But even in his acrostic, originally it wasn't included in there. He didn't ever have the letter

S. Right. That was one of the things that troubled me about that acrostic was like, well, where does salvation by grace through faith come into this?

And because even before he became Eastern Orthodox, he didn't believe that. Right. That was why it was so easy for him to come into the faith that he is in now, abandoning the truth of the gospel, which is unfortunate.

Pray for the man, but we can no longer recommend the Bible Answer Man. Right. Not a trustworthy guide.

Coming back to Johnny's question then, he said, what makes a false gathering merely a church in error or a heretical church or a cult?

For example, we never, at least I have never heard anyone call the Catholic church a cult. And now

I had a friend of mine who made a very funny joke one time. It was, we were all kind of sitting around a table and we were talking about what makes a cult.

Uh -huh. And we were talking about essential doctrines and things like that in this conversation. There was a friend of mine who had been quiet for the conversation for the most part, and he was not more mature in his, in doctrine.

Okay. And so he was kind of listening to us, but there was at one point when the question came up, is the Catholic church a cult?

I remember that being the point where he spoke right up. Uh -huh. And he goes, yeah, it is. And we're all kind of looking at him, we're like, so where do you get an understanding that the

Catholic church is a cult? He goes, the head guy of the church dresses like a wizard, carries a magic staff and sits on a gold throne, you know.

And he says all the pomp and circumstance of the Catholic church. I don't know that I agree with the

Catholic church being a cult, but I thought that was funny. Yeah, that was funny. And that was really humorous. Maybe like a wizard.

A very light cult, because, you know, there's still a lot of coming and going of people in the, it's not like, there's not the isolationist aspect of a cult in the

Catholic church. Right, and they don't go hunt you down. You know, they don't turn your family against you. They used to.

They used to, they've really lightened up from that, at least in America. I don't know about overseas or anything, but.

Yeah, in the United States of America. But I mean, all of that is because of the Reformation. If it wasn't for the Reformation, the Catholic church would still be the ruling power.

True. And they would still be putting people to death for having a Bible in the English language. Yeah. They just don't have the kind of power and control that they used to.

So anyway, marks of a cult. So that was where we were gonna go next.

Right. And this was where I was relying. Or CARM. Right, going back to CARM, Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry.

Matt Slick with this article entitled, What Are Some Signs and Practices of a

Cult? So a cult may not necessarily meet all 14 of these different signs.

Okay. But you could probably get an idea of. Red flags. Yeah, there you go. 14 red flags of a cult.

Number one, submission. Complete, almost unquestioned trust in the leadership.

Now this, again, this may not necessarily be the mark of a cult exclusively.

Because you can have King James only churches that might be this way. Okay. And they demand unquestioned trust in the leadership.

So you ask the pastor a question. Don't question me on that. You just have to take my answer on that.

You know, they might say something to that effect. Okay. Because we'll get people in our church who will have come from a church like that.

Oh yeah, that's right. And they'll be like, are we allowed to ask questions here? Yeah. In fact,

Becky and I have a show. Yes. Where we're answering questions. We love questions.

We do. And you can question something that I have preached as long as you bring the word of God to me on it.

That's right. But yeah, a cult will certainly have an unquestioned trust in the leadership.

Also under submission, the leaders are often seen as prophets, apostles, or special individuals with unusual connections to God.

This helps a person give themselves over psychologically to trusting someone else for their spiritual welfare.

I just had someone today follow me on Twitter that under his little blurb about himself said that he's a greater apostle.

I was like, block. Yeah, block. Sorry, dude. Nope. I'll pray for you.

Second Corinthians chapter 11 would directly speak into that claim. I'm a super apostle.

The apostle Paul would go, uh, no, you're not. Yeah. There's also an increased. That was alarming. Yeah. It's nice that they give themselves away that easily though.

That's true. That is very true. There is an increased submission to the leadership, which is rewarded with additional responsibilities and or roles and or praises, increasing the importance of the person within the group.

How's that again? Okay, so you get more privileges within this cult if you are more praising or submissive to the leader.

Oh, oh. The more you submit to the leader. So you gotta suck up. That's right. Brown nose, check.

That's a mark of a cult. All right. Number two, exclusivity.

And now this is the thing that Johnny was asking about. Okay. And again, this may not be the telltale sign of a cult because there can be some pretty harsh bullying churches that would believe in exclusivity, but doesn't necessarily mean that it's a cult.

It's just a very rigid, strict, ungracious church. Exclusivity, the group is the only true religious system or one of the true remnants of God's people.

Now, of course, that definitely applies to Westboro Baptist Church because they think they are the only remnant of God's people.

If there is a church that says you have to follow our church and if you don't follow us, then you're not really saved,

I would call that a cult. There are many churches of Christ, church of Christs.

What would be the plural of the church of Christ? Church of Christ, churches of Christ.

Well, no. Anyway, I don't know that they necessarily all believe this. Yeah, I don't know that they all believe this, but most of them believe that you have to be baptized and baptized in a church of Christ to have actually received an actual baptism.

Right. That is at best, that's heresy. And at worst, it's a cult.

So there's a persecution complex. Number three, a persecution complex, it's us against them mentality.

Therefore, when someone inside or outside of the group corrects the group in doctrine and or behavior, it is interpreted as persecution, which then is interpreted as validation.

So if we've been persecuted, well, that just affirms we're right, because we've been persecuted over this.

Number four, control, the control of members actions and thinking through repeated indoctrination and or threats of loss of salvation or a place to live or receiving curses from God, et cetera.

So like, if you leave us, you're cursed. Yeah, I remember listening to one person who escaped a cult, and it was on a

TV show or something. And she said that she was only allowed so many squares of toilet paper. Oh my goodness.

Yeah, no. So don't shake hands with anyone in that cult. Oh my goodness, no.

Well, they were still allowed to wash their hands, but seriously, I wouldn't survive.

They get under their nails. Number six, I love this one, love bombing.

What? Love bombing. Bombing, okay. Showing great attention. Did I skip number five?

I think I only did control. Okay, you've got. You only did control. You have to wait on my explanation of love bombing then.

Oh, come on. Number five, isolation, minimizing contact of church members with those outside the group.

This facilitates a further control over the thinking and practices of the members by the leadership.

I think you can probably put that as a subcategory of exclusivity though. And control. And control, right, it kind of falls under that.

Which might be the reason why it has its own number. So isolation, yeah, that's definitely an aspect of a cult.

Oh yeah, definitely. Number six, love bombing. Here's the explanation of love bombing. Showing great attention and love to a person in the group by others in the group to help transfer emotional dependence to the group.

Oh, so like I can't do anything without you because. Yeah. Oh, wow.

So this kind of goes with the control. Man. But maybe in a less bullying sort of way, more in kind of an esoteric sort of a way,

I guess. Wow. But like, see, our spirits are interconnected. So if you leave, our spirits are broken.

Yeah. And you would hurt the whole group. Yeah. Number seven, special knowledge.

Instructions and or knowledge are sometimes said to be received by a leader or leaders from God.

So God is transmitting messages to these leaders. The leader then informs the members.

Oh, one of those, now you haven't heard this before. Right, yeah. Kind of moments. You won't find this in your

Bible. Yeah, okay. But God said this to me. Mike Bickle over at IHOP. Nobody else. Yeah, Mike Bickle over at the

International House of Prayer does this all the time. God has revealed things to him. This is the guy who claims to have been to heaven and had a personal audience with God.

And whatever he teaches there at IHOP, he believes God personally gave him.

And so whatever we teach here comes directly from God to me, to you.

So there has to be this submission to Mike Bickle at the International House of Prayer.

Now there are some ardent apologists of IHOP that always get on me every time

I talk about this. But I'm like, you just don't understand. I don't think you've listened to the audio tapes.

I have them. Where Mike Bickle is talking about, he's giving in detail his trip to heaven to meet

God face -to -face. Right. And he said, he even says, this was not a vision.

It was as real as life here. I was standing before Jesus in a face -to -face conversation with God.

And he told me this, and I'm back here to tell you this. You know, that's. Okay. That's his entire stick.

His whole ministry is built on that. Wow. The special knowledge can be received through visions, dreams, or new interpretations of sacred scriptures such as the

Bible. So somebody might say that they are giving it to you from the Bible, but it's, this is what this really means.

And I gave you examples earlier this week when we were talking about the little God's doctrine and Benny Hinn saying, little

God's, this is God saying you are a little God. No, God was rebuking those who thought more highly of themselves than they should have been thinking of themselves.

Let's see, that was special knowledge. Number eight, indoctrination. The teachings of the group are repeatedly drilled into the members, but the indoctrination usually occurs around special knowledge.

Number nine, salvation. Salvation from the judgment of God is maintained through association and or submission with the group, its authority, and its special knowledge.

So the only true salvation is from this group. Oh, well, of course. Yeah, you can't get it anywhere else, which is again, you know, the church of Christ.

We have the real baptism. That's right. We've got a cult here in town. In fact, we went to go get our taxes done last week and the lady that was helping us do our taxes had a card by her computer, which was this cult church that we have in our community.

Right. And I pointed it out to her and I said, nice card there, where'd you get that from? And she said, oh, these two young men came in and said, hey, can we advertise our church in here?

Would that be okay? And I said, yeah, it's a cult. And she kind of looked at us with wide eyes.

Didn't question it though. She just grabbed the cards and threw them in the trash. Yeah. But this is what that church teaches.

They have the true baptism. They have true salvation. If you haven't been baptized in their church, well, then you've not actually received a real baptism.

Right. Have you been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ? Then you, and it can't be in the name of the father and the son and of the

Holy Spirit. It has to be exclusively in the name of Jesus Christ. Oh, see, I've been asked that question and I'm like, well, of course

I have. I mean, it's, you know, but I didn't really put it together that it was. No, they totally, they totally, and that's on their cards.

That verse in Acts is on their cards of being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Cause that is their central doctrine.

Right. That you have to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Okay. They totally dump. I'm putting it together.

In fact, I even talked to somebody from their church and they said that Matthew 28, 19 was added to the

Bible later. Oh, well, that's a good excuse to ignore it. That Jesus did not actually say that you must be baptized in the name of the father and of the son and the

Holy Spirit or baptizing in the name. So you just get them to talk about themselves and they'll open up.

They'll kind of reveal what they believe. Because you can't question them. Yeah, right. You can't question the leaders.

That's right. So you just have to get them to open up and chatter with them. Well, I have encountered a number of cults that will tell you whatever it is that you wanna hear.

Oh, that's true. And then it's just kind of win you in, but then you get there and you're like, oh, okay. So everything that I heard about you guys was true.

All right. So the next one, number 10, groupthink. The group's coherence is maintained by the observance to policies handed down from those in authority.

And there is an internal enforcement of policies by members who reward proper behavior. And those who perform properly are rewarded with further inclusion and acceptance by the group.

Number 11, cognitive dissonance. Avoidance of critical thinking and or maintaining logically impossible beliefs and or beliefs that are inconsistent with other beliefs held by the group.

Don't judge me. You're terrible for judging me. Don't judge me.

Avoidance of any facts that might contradict the group's belief system.

Avoidance of and or denial of any facts that might contradict the group's belief system.

So you have to stay away from any facts. This is Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez, by the way.

If she could, she would be starting her own cult. She might actually have one started and not know it.

There may be some groups of followers of hers that may already be cultists.

But yeah, you cannot question her with facts because her feelings are.

Yeah, because they trump everything. Yeah, it trumps everything. Number 12, shunning. Those who do not keep in step with group policies are shunned and or expelled.

And I would add to that to say, members of your family that aren't part of this cult and then you start shunning them.

You shun friends. You shun people at the workplace. Right. Yeah. You can't talk to them anymore.

Right. You can't have relationships with them anymore. Not only do you get shunned if you're questioning authority, but you as a part of this cult will end up shunning people as well.

Number 13, gender roles. There's a control of gender roles and definitions and a severe control of gender roles sometimes leads to sexual exploitation.

Oh. That's pretty common in cults. Yeah. That cult church in our town. Yep. Yeah, you know the story that happened there.

So yeah. You guys don't. There's a history of sexual abuse in that church.

Long history. Number 14, appearance standards. This is the last one. Often a common appearance is required and maintained.

For instance, women might wear prairie dresses and or their hair and buns and or no makeup and or the men might wear white short sleeve shirts without beards or all wear beards.

So you'll have appearance standards that cults will have. So kind of like a uniform. Yeah. Without calling it a uniform.

Which this cult church in our community that we were talking about, always know when they've gotten out of services because they all come down to the grocery store and they're all wearing the exact same thing.

Yeah. I encountered them in the store. So anyway, there you go. And I don't know how much help we were able to provide with you,

Johnny, regarding this church within your community, but going through the essential doctrines of the Christian faith and then those 14 marks of a cult might help you to decipher a little bit.

And now sometimes it can just be an independent fundamentalist church. It's not necessarily a cult, but they're exclusivists.

They're kind of bullies. They are very divisive. So this kind of division because of that exclusivity is not just caused between them and people outside their church.

Those divisions happen within their church as well. And there's often fights and squabbles. Right. And things like that, that happen in these kinds of churches.

And the pastors generally come across pretty mean. Well, because you can't question them. Right. We're going back to Canada with this next question.

This is Don who says, hello from Vancouver, BC. Hello. At our church, our pastor preached on Matthew 1344 about the treasure in the field, the treasure being

Jesus. And we rebury treasure and leave everything to buy the field where treasure was found.

This doesn't seem right to me. We buy and rebury Jesus. I obviously had heard a sermon on Matthew 1344 previously somewhere else, because in the margins of my

Bible, I wrote that the treasure was Israel, the church crafted in two, and only Christ could buy the field or the world by salvation, which interpretation is correct?

Well, it's a short parable. It's just one verse. Matthew 1344, let's read it. Okay. And then the explanation is actually very simple.

Okay. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

You gotta be very, very careful about reading too deeply into the parables, because there's a particular audience.

There is a reason, a point that Jesus is trying to make, and he makes it through a parable. And in this parable, all

Jesus is saying here is this, that the kingdom of heaven should be so valuable to you that you should be willing to give up everything to get it.

What does it take to earn the kingdom of God? Well, as Jesus said, other places, you must die to yourself.

You must take up your cross and follow him. Take up your cross daily and follow after Christ. Whoever would try to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

Giving up everything for Christ. That's really the point of the parable. Consider the next parable. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

Same message being taught in that parable as in the previous parable, the treasure in the field. So there you go.

Very simple explanation, Dawn, but I hope that helps you out and maybe gives you something else to write in the margin of your

Bible. Last email that we have to read here. Hello, Gebeke. Hello, I love it.

I recently enjoyed, or I'm sorry, I really enjoyed your podcast over the last couple of years and I'm thankful to have learned so much through your ministry.

I'd like to submit a question for Gabe on your Friday Q &A session. This question has been plaguing me for some time and I'm afraid asking it may force you too to break fellowship with me.

Uh -oh. I certainly don't mean to insult your intelligence as a pastor and a theologian, but this is a question that I'm sure many of your

Twitter followers have, Gabe, and perhaps they're just too timid to ask, but I refuse to remain silent on this issue any longer.

So here goes nothing. What did you do? Gabe, why don't you ever like tweets?

I mean, it's a very simple, non -time consuming way to communicate that you agree with or appreciate people's replies.

Just tap the little heart thing. That's literally all you have to do.

And then the rest of us can all rest assured knowing that you've seen our replies. As it is now, we all have to speculate sometimes for hours whether or not you've seen our reply to your fabulous tweets.

You could put an end to our misery by taking the few milliseconds to tap the little heart.

Tap the heart, Gabe. Just tap the little heart. Sincerely, a random anonymous cow.

No is my answer to that. All right, let's pray. He doesn't even tap my little hearts either.

I always have to ask him at the end of the day I'm like, hey, did you see that? Yeah, I saw it.

Sure, I saw it. Yeah, and I laughed out loud too. But I don't hear anything.

I'm with you, anonymous cow. So are you gonna answer the question?

I did, no. No, he said, why? Didn't he ask why? I don't have to give you an answer.

I just don't like it. I don't like the like feature on Twitter. I think it's silly.

If I like it, I'll retweet it or I'll comment. Oh, so you don't like mine. Oh, oh, oh, oh.

No, it's because I see you. I see you and we communicate personally. We do. So there's not a reason for me to have to tap the little heart.

I tap your other heart. I tap your other heart. I tap your real heart in other ways.

This is very true. That was my attempt at something cute.

See, this is why I leave the cute to you and I'll just be the goofball.

Be cute in your own way, sweetie. Heavenly Father, thank you for laughter.

Thank you for your love and your joy and for demonstrating your love for us and that while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us. Help us to be encouraged by this truth and enlivened by the hope of the gospel of peace that has been proclaimed to all of the world.

And may we have opportunity also to share the gospel with others so they may also know the truth and believe.

Teach us in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Okay, check, check, check.

I don't know. Hello? Test, test, test. I feel like this should be louder. Hello? Hello? I can't hear myself at all.

Typically there. Hello? I heard you moving it. I think our mics are typically there. There it is.

There we go. Hey. Much better. I forgot the norms. Yeah. You're distracted today.

It's something, yeah. I've only done this for 910 episodes.

It's all good. Think I would know this by now. I don't think. Maybe we need to change the name.

Change the name of the program. Yeah, because that's about that time. Yep. It's about that time I get tired of it and I need to change the name to something else.

For like two weeks. For two weeks and then realize that this is dumb. I need to go back. Go back to what it was.