Marks of a Cult (Part 1)

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This lesson accompanies the DVD entitled The Marks of a Cult which was produced by The Apologetics Group. The group watched a portion of the video and then Pastor Keith leads in a discussion. This is the introductory discussion wherein the group focuses on defining terms. The accompanying video can be found here: http://store.nicenecouncil.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=77

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Marks of a Cult (Part 2)

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As we can see, as we watch the video together, it's going to be an interesting journey.
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They really do dive deep into the various aspects of different cultish behavior.
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And tonight was really just an opportunity for an introduction.
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We're looking at the video, The Marks of a Cult, and he noted in the video there are going to be four aspects that we look at.
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The adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing.
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So the next four nights, that's what we're going to look at, and that's how it becomes five parts.
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We have the introduction tonight, and then the other four parts will be looking at all of those distinctions.
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So now, as I have done, put together some questions for us.
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I'd like to ask the questions, and I'd like to see if anyone has anything to say.
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Of course, I've thought about these questions and thought about what I want to say about them.
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But I want to begin by giving you an opportunity to answer back if you have anything to say.
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Obviously, it's very important because part of what I want us to do in learning about these anti-Christian cults is that I want us to be able to take a stand when necessary.
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I want us to be able to clearly define the differences between Orthodox Christianity and an anti-Christian cult.
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And I want us to be able to know that what we're teaching is biblical and correct.
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So number one on your list, it says in today's relativistic culture, taking a stand can seem extreme and downright rude.
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Why not just embrace everyone who uses the label Christian? Someone want to tackle that? Why not? Why shouldn't we just embrace everyone who calls themselves a Christian as our brother in Christ? You're closest and you'll probably be picked up on the recording desk.
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So go ahead.
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It devalues true Christianity.
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It devalues true Christianity in what way? It says that what we believe really doesn't matter.
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Words don't matter and what we believe doesn't matter.
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Anybody want to add something to that? That's right.
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If everything is true, then nothing is true.
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That's right.
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Because there's no truth.
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If there's no falsehood, there's no truth.
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And that's right.
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When we say that everyone who claims to be a Christian is, in fact, a Christian, what we're doing is we're saying there is no distinction in what it means to be a Christian.
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Yeah, these are distinctions that must be made.
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And there is an eternal consequence to what not only what we believe, but how what we believe affects how we behave.
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There's an eternal consequence.
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And that's true.
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This is the answer that I wrote on mine.
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I said, because there are certain parameters to Christianity which are set down in Scripture, that's why we must not embrace everyone who uses the term Christian.
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To deny them is to deny to deny the parameters of Christianity is to deny Christ himself.
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If a group worships a different Jesus, then they're not genuine Christians.
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Do you do you all understand that there are people who call themselves Christians and who say, I worship Jesus? But when they define who Jesus is, they're talking about an entirely different person than the Jesus that we worship.
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Do we understand that? Yes.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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It has been.
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Yes.
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I buy not by embracing everyone who uses the label Christian.
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What we're saying is that the parameters for Christianity, which are set down in Scripture, do not matter.
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And obviously those parameters do matter.
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Number two, if someone is sincere, who are we to label a person or a group of people like cult? Hey, they're sincere.
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Who are we to say what they're doing is wrong or cult like? Very true.
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Very true.
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Sincerity does not make truth.
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There are a lot of people who sincerely believe in what they're doing and what they believe in.
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It doesn't matter.
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Truth is truth, whether I believe it or not.
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It's why it's why I'm always put off when someone asks me the question and people ask me the question a lot, particularly people from outside the Christian faith will say, well, why do you think you're right? And everybody else is wrong.
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Why do you think you're right and everybody else is wrong? And the response I always give is.
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Don't come at it from that direction.
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Don't don't come at it from whether or not I'm right or wrong.
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The question is what is and what is not true, because I can be wrong.
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You can be wrong.
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That's not the answer.
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The question is whether or not this is true.
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And you may say, well, wait a minute, Pastor, you're saying that you're no, I believe that I'm correct.
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But the point of the matter is whether or not I could turn tomorrow, tomorrow I could stand up before the world and I could claim atheism.
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I don't plan on it.
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So don't don't don't worry about it.
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But but I could I could tomorrow.
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If if if if for whatever reason, if I stood up and claimed to be an atheist, would that make atheism true? And it wouldn't diminish the truth of the gospel.
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That's what I'm saying.
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So take me out of the equation.
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Take yourself out of the equation.
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It doesn't matter.
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What matters is what and what is and what is not true.
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And doesn't matter how sincerely I believe in something.
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I can sincerely believe that I can fly.
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But next week, when we go to Stone Mountain, if I take a step off of that mountain, I don't care how much I flap.
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I don't care how much I call.
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I'm not a bird.
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And I will hit the ground pretty solid because sincerity does not make truth.
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We won't be anywhere near the edge of that mountain.
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I probably won't even be up there.
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I'll be on the ground.
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When a person calls themselves a Christian, yet the system in which they believe denies the very tenets of historic Christianity.
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They are the definition of or the group itself is the definition of an anti-Christian cult.
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Number three, devotion to specific ideology means an allegiance to specific to a specific set of beliefs.
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What problem do you see in the various cults? Now, this question may sound kind of funny.
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Let me let me just let me read it again.
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Devotion to a specific ideology means an allegiance to a specific set of beliefs.
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What problem do you see in the various cults? I don't think I worded that question very well.
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Do you get what I'm saying? Yes.
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Yeah.
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They call themselves Christians, but they don't believe what historically Christians have believed.
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That's the problem.
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It's like in the video when he had the lady.
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I thought it was kind of funny.
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She had to meet his murder shirt.
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It was the vegetarian shirt and she's eating a hamburger for the guy who's selling stocks.
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And he's got the picture of the communist leaders in his office.
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It's you can call yourself whatever you want to call yourself.
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But if you are deviated from what the historic meaning of that is, then you're not really that thing.
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If you're a vegetarian and you're eating meat, well, you ain't a vegetarian.
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If you're a capitalist or communist and you're selling and buying stock and making yourself wealthy, then you really ain't a communist.
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And if you call yourself a Christian, but you don't believe what Christians believe and taught for the last 2000 years, then you ain't a Christian.
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That's the point is it doesn't matter what label you use.
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What matters is what defines what you are and who you are.
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And this is what is so dangerous about the cults as Mormons are thrusting themselves into the public arena and demanding to be called Christians.
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We are the same.
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We're just another denomination.
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And that is not true.
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And they're trying to hopefully with God's grace, they will fail.
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Number four, claiming to be a Christian.
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Well, this is sort of on tab number three.
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Claiming to be a Christian does not make you a follower of Christ any more than calling yourself a vegetarian makes you one regardless of what you eat.
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What would you say to a person who claims to be a vegetarian if you saw them eating a hamburger? What would you say? You're not a vegetarian.
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You are.
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You are.
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You're a you're a vegetarian of convenience when you when you when you want to be.
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And that's OK.
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And and I do not mean that in a negative way.
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I'm a I'm I'm pretty much a meatitarian.
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That's that's all I like.
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I'll throw potatoes in there once in a while, just around it out.
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No, but I but.
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And that's what I'm saying.
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So for you, it's not hypocritical for you to have a fish sandwich because you've stated on many occasions, I would like to eat vegetables mainly, but I'm still going to have meat every once in a while.
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But somebody who calls himself a strict vegetarian and then you see him with a hamburger in their hand.
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What do you call that person? We call him hypocrite, a liar.
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Well, well, the vegan and vegetarian are different.
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No, vegan is a person who does not eat anything that is produced by animals.
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A vegetarian will still eat cheese and milk and things like that.
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But a vegan will not eat anything that is produced from an animal, cheese, milk or anything else.
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They are strictly has to be produced from the earth.
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So there is a difference there.
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Not that that really matters for the for the lesson.
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But there is a distinction.
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I'm beginning back to what I'm saying is so.
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So.
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So could we then by definition say that someone who calls himself a Christian, but yet does not adhere to the historic tenets of Christian faith? Could we not say that that person is lying, that they're really not being honest? Because if a person said, I'm a vegetarian, but I eat meat, then you're really not being honest with the definition of the word.
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Now, you can redefine vegetarian to mean I can eat what I want.
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But really, you've gone against the the definition that's historically been understood.
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Likewise, this is what the cults have done with Christianity.
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Number five, it has been said, and this isn't in the video, but this came to my mind.
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It has been said, and this is a very old quote in essentials, unity and not essentials, liberty and all things charity or in the more modern vernacular and all things love.
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But what are the essential things? That's where the most difficult aspect comes, because if we believe that that has truth.
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And I do believe when Augustine said that that did not originate, by the way, with the Restoration Movement and Barton Stone.
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I know Stone used that phrase, but did not originate with him.
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That originated, as far as I understand, back in the fourth century with Augustine and his claim that in essentials we should have unity.
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And in nonessentials, there should be liberty.
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And in all things, there should be charity.
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There should be an ability for us to love one another in the nonessential things if we disagree.
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And I think Romans 14 bears that out.
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Romans 14 says, hey, if you eat meat or somebody else who doesn't eat meat and you both can do it with a good conscience, then do it to the glory of God.
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If that's what your conscience has been bound towards, then do it.
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But yet there are essential things such as thou shalt not commit murder.
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I don't care what your conscience says about murder.
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You're not supposed to commit murder, right? It doesn't matter what if your conscience says it's OK to commit murder.
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You check your conscience because there's something wrong with your heart.
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So we say that's an essential thing.
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But but really, when we talk about doctrine.
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What could we say are the essential doctrines of the faith which would be shared universally among the denominations such as the Reformed Church, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church, the even the Pentecostal movement? What are what are the things that are the essential things that would help us to be able to say in these essential things? We agree sin and the necessity of grace.
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OK, so so there would be there would be an agreement on what we would call soteriology.
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How a person gets saved is by grace and not of works.
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Any group that would teach salvation by works would not be a Christian group.
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That's why the first edition or the rather the multiplication sign is the multiplication of works.
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Because when you look out at the Mormon Church and when you look at the Jehovah Witnesses and when you look at these other groups, that's what they do.
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They have a multitude of works that have to be done to gain or to merit salvation.
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So, yes, that's that that would be one.
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That's one of the essential things.
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Salvation is an act of grace alone and it is received by faith alone and not of works.
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Yeah.
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Yes.
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The gospel is essential.
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Absolutely.
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Because the Mormon Church would say they believe in grace and the Jehovah's Witnesses would say they believe in grace.
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But this comes down to that issue that he mentioned in the video is that they've redefined terms.
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They redefine what words mean.
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They redefine how they're used.
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That's important as well.
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But we understand there's a sociological a salvation issue that's essential.
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What is another issue that is essential? That is often is always put out in cult groups.
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Trying to make the Trinity, the Trinity, the deity of Christ.
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The Trinity is the number one historical teaching of the church that is jettisoned by these anti-Christian cults.
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The Trinity and the Trinity can be attacked in all aspects.
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The deity of Christ.
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The personality of the Holy Spirit.
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The individuality of the person's yet distinct nature within the Godhead.
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There's all kinds of ways in which you can attack and disunify the Trinity.
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But I would say in the essential things, the Trinity is number one.
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That is the thing that's most often put away and attacked character and nature of God would be number two.
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And that comes back somewhat to the Trinity.
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But the character and nature of God in such as in Mormonism, which sees God as a man who was on another planet.
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Who grew up and because of his allegiance to Mormon teachings, became a God.
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And as this is what they teach, this is not something that's I'm not making this up.
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They believe that he lived on a planet that surrounded a star called Kolob.
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And he grew up.
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His name was Elohim.
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He grew up into a man who believed in Mormon teachings.
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And because he believed he was brought into being a God and he became a God.
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And with his spirit lives, many spirit lives, he propagated an entire universe of offspring.
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And that is what we now live in is the universe of Elohim's offspring.
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And one of those offspring was Jesus and the other was Lucifer.
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They were spirit brothers in the Mormon system.
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Satan and Jesus are brothers.
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And those two had a disagreement as to who would get to be the savior of the world.
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And that's why there's this battle between good and evil is because of the disagreement between Satan and Jesus as to who would get to be the savior.
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It's a long and drawn out affair, and we'll get to more of it as we go through the weeks ahead.
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But the point being the very nature and character of God, the nature of the Trinity, the nature of salvation, all of these things are essential.
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Are there more essential things? Yes.
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But these are the foundational things.
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Who is God? What is the problem between God and man? And how is that problem remedied? Who is God? What is the problem between God and man? And how is that problem remedied? Those three things are essential to know as a Christian.
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And that's what distinguishes the Christian faith.
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Those are essential things.
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And in the cults, those things are disrupted.
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If you wrote in your notes, if you didn't, I want you to write down one verse, Jude 1 3, because they made a big point about it in the video.
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But I just wanted to bring it up again.
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Jude 1 3 says, Beloved, although I was eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
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That phrase, the faith, indicates that there is a specific faith which has been handed down to us from the apostles.
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We often call it the apostolic faith because it was what was given to us by the apostles.
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This is what comes to us in Holy Scripture.
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This is the faith that's been handed down to us.
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And we are supposed to contend for it, strive, agonize over it, battle for it because it is truth.
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Number six, the Bible is clear that the most dangerous attacks upon the faith would not come from outside, but from inside the church.
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And he listed many Bible verses, and I'm not sure how many of them you wrote down.
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But if you want to write these down, I made note of them so that you would have them.
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Acts chapter 20, verses 29 and 30.
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Acts 20, 29 and 30.
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I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.
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And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.
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Isn't that sad that we don't have to worry about just the pagan religions outside of us, but we also have to worry about people from within the church who rise up and who draw a group of people after themselves.
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You know, people like Joseph Smith.
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Joseph Smith came from within the church to branch out and create Mormonism.
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People like those who began the Jehovah's Witness movement and that movement of prophecy seekers that began that movement and the Christian science movement and the Mary Baker Eddy and all of these things.
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They rose up from within the church and they took a portion of the church and created their cult from within the church.
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Second Peter 2, 1.
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Second Peter 2, 1.
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But false prophets also arose among the people.
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There just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
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Says there will be false teachers among you and they will bring in secret, secretly bring in heresies.
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They will secretly bring in heresies.
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They will come in and they will appear to be teaching the truth.
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But what they're teaching is actually false.
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Galatians chapter 1, Galatians 1, 6 and 7 says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.
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Not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
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There are people who are not interested in starting their own religion, but rather they are interested in contorting Christianity to fit them, distorting it.
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And another word for that word distort is pervert.
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They are perverting the gospel, making it something it was never intended to be.
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Finally, Second Corinthians 11, 15, one of the scariest verses, I think, for our modern time.
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Second Corinthians 11, 15 says, It is no surprise if his and his, the antecedent of his is Satan.
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So I'll say it this way.
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It is no surprise if Satan's servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.
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Literally, there are people in churches and there are people in pulpits who appear to be righteous, who appear the outward signs of being that which is good.
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And they are agents of the devil himself.
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One of the things that I used to hear people say, I don't hear it so much anymore, but I used to hear people say all the time.
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Well, man, how can you say anything bad against the Mormons? Man, they're so nice.
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They do such nice things.
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They care for one another.
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None of their people ever go without.
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Man, they're living the life.
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They're doing good.
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Mormons are good people.
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And I've heard that.
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But you know what? I my response has been it always has been this.
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I said, look, if if Satan is going to influence the people, he's not going to influence the people to act like a bunch of idiots because that's not attractive.
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I mean, honestly, these people are out in the woods, circling around a cauldron, worshiping the trees and pentagrams on their forehead.
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I don't think Satan's involved with that.
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I think they're stupid.
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I mean, Satan's involved, but he's laughing.
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What I'm saying is you see movements where there is righteousness without repentance.
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Hear that again.
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When there's an outward righteousness without an inward repentance.
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When there is a seeking after good without seeking after truth and you have a call.
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And that's what Mormonism is.
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Yeah, man, they don't drink coffee.
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They don't drink tea.
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They don't drink soda because caffeine is wrong, but but.
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They don't have the true Christ, they don't have the true gospel.
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But they've convinced themselves that what they do makes them righteous.
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And the world is convinced, hey, they're pretty righteous.
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It doesn't matter if you believe a lie.
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Oh, sure.
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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Number seven, Christians do a lot to fight moral and social evils.
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And just stop right there.
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Christians really do do a lot to fight.
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You know, there's coalitions and there's groups and there's Christians that band together to try and fight moral issues and they try to fight the evil.
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You know, there's a lot of Christian groups who fight things like abortion.
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That's a social evil.
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And there are people who try to fight things like alcoholism.
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That's a social evil.
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And there are Christian groups that band together to try to to try to help the homeless or help those in need.
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And these are all wonderful, good things.
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That is what is necessary.
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That's what the church should be doing.
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However.
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Why do they not fight as ardently against theological evil? Well, for most of us, for most people, that's true.
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There's a lack of understanding of theology to begin with.
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How do you fight what you don't even understand? And that's one.
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But I think that Dr.
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White, oh, by the way, for those of you who always heard me talk about James White, you saw him in the video.
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He was the bald guy with the goatee.
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Tremendous, tremendous apologist, expositor.
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He's a wonderful teacher.
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But one of the things he said, and I think it was very true.
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He says, we do not realize that there is an ethical issue at stake.
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In regard to what people believe.
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See, we know there's an ethical issue at stake in regard to abortion.
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We know there's an ethical issue at stake in regard to marriage and the definition of marriage.
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We know there's an ethical issue at stake in regard to violence and in regard to drug abuse and alcohol abuse and familial discord.
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We know there's an ethical issue at stake.
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But do you understand that there is an ethical issue at stake as to whether or not you believe Jesus is divine? Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought about the fact that what you believe about Jesus Christ and salvation is going to influence how you live? If you don't, I will tell you this.
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I have friends that are ultra conservative.
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Man, they're opposed to abortion.
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They're opposed to gay marriage.
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They're opposed to everything.
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But they do not believe in Jesus Christ.
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And they would object to the gospel and to the Bible.
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And let me tell you something.
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They're just as fit for hell as the ardent atheist is.
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And that's why we leave it alone, maybe, is because it's always hardest to talk to people who you know real well about those things.
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I tell you what, I live that verse.
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And I mean that because I grew up in this church.
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I grew up, you know, it takes time when you know someone as closely as I know a lot of people here to earn and develop that relationship of leadership because, you know, it's tough.
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Yes, sir.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I mean, that's one way to keep a friend.
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Well, yeah, absolutely.
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We have this responsibility to share the gospel.
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And obviously, obviously, I have friends that are not believers, but I don't I do not think and I can honestly say this.
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I don't think that I have any friends that are unbelievers that I've never shared the gospel with.
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Now, if I've shared the gospel with them and they have rejected the gospel, I don't reject them as friends because I still have an opportunity to live my life in front of them and be a Christian to them.
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And I don't preach the gospel every time I see them, but I seek to preach the gospel by word and deed when I see them.
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But at the same time, if I did know there was somebody I know as a friend and love who has never heard the gospel, it would be incumbent upon me to share the gospel with them.
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That's my goal.
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Maybe, yeah, they'll go 10,000 miles to share the gospel with a native Indian or a native African.
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They won't go to Walmart and hand out tracts.
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It's a good point.
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One other thing you mentioned about friends, one of the things is most dangerous.
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And I've seen this before.
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This has happened to me.
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I'm going to share something just kind of reminded me.
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I've heard people say, well, you've got to get to know somebody before you can share the gospel with them.
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You've got to develop a relationship and have relationship evangelism.
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While that is true in a sense, there is a sense in which people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
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You've heard that before that.
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And there is some truth to that.
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Let me say this.
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I've seen this happen.
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Well, I've got to get to know the person before I can share the gospel with them.
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And then I get to know them real good.
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Oh, man.
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Now we're too good friends.
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I don't mess up our friendship by dividing us with this gospel thing.
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You know what I'm saying? So it's like I couldn't do it before and I can't do it now.
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So this is why I say just share the gospel with everybody.
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And who cares if they're your friend? Well, brother, well, that's funny.
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And that leads into the next question, because the next question is, what do you think when you hear and the guy said it? And I want to know kind of what you thought when you heard this.
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What do you think when you hear the phrase that the church today is very unlearned and even ignorant? Would you do you think that's harsh or do you think that that's true? Sadly, it is very true.
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We live in a time where literally any question somebody asks, you can pick up your phone.
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You can go to the Web.
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You can look up Yahoo, Google, you can whatever the other things are.
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You can look up any question.
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The other night, my wife and I had some weird question come up.
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I think it's like how many hot dogs did something or whatnot.
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I forget it was some weird question.
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And I said, I don't know.
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It took me two seconds.
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And I had the answer.
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Who invented something to do with a hot dog or something? There's some weird question, but maybe it was a con.
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But that but but what's bad is the negative is that it sort of dumbed us down.
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Is there's no more there's no more need to retain information because it is so available.
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There's no more need to memorize and to keep things in our mind.
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What does the Bible say that we should do with the Bible? We're to hide the word in our hearts so that we don't sin against God.
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Not in our iPod.
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Yeah, I was going to say, absolutely.
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Osteen's popular.
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Why? Because people don't know the gospel and they think he's a gospel preacher.
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No, he's not.
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He's not a gospel preacher.
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He's a he's Tony Robbins with a Bible and he doesn't use his Bible.
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And we see this over and over and over.
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And I'm not trying to be negative against these individuals.
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But as a church, my job is to tell you who the wolves are.
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And I believe there are wolves out there.
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And I don't care how popular they are.
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And I don't care how many books they sell.
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If they're a wolf, they're a wolf.
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Oh, yeah, absolutely.
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In fact, I know of a church right now that I have a friend that I do some things with in his church is very similar to some of the things that our church has gone through in the past.
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And some of the problems that we've gone through in his is going through some of the similar things right now.
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And and I'm kind of ministering to him and talking to him about those things.
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And the thing that he's saying is there they had an interim pastor just had to resign because it was just there was just so much he was trying to preach.
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And he wasn't doing a lot of the reform stuff.
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He was he was just preaching the gospel and he was preaching how the church ought to be.
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And because there was this traditional hold within the church that was that was that was burying the church in tradition, that they just they forced them out.
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And this is an interim pastor.
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Can't even keep an interim pastor.
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You know, things are rough because they're not even meant to be there for a long time.
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They're meant to come in for six months and be gone.
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And it's just sad because people do not want to hear, you know, people don't have a problem.
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I'll come in.
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I preach about abortion.
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And 95 percent of people, they want to hear that because they agree.
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If I preach on homosexual marriage, 99 percent will agree.
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But if I come in and preach on something that's difficult.
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Oh, now you're wondering because you're like, oh, what if what if I? Absolutely.
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That's what I'm saying.
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What if you know, what if I preached on on on on the sins that we all deal with? Well, what if I preached on placing ourselves in a higher position than we ought to be? And, you know, there are sometimes people that do that, and I remember one time in church preaching on a message on where Jesus said, he says, when you come into the feast, you sit at the lowest spot and then somebody will move you up.
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But if you sit at the highest spot, they might move you down.
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It's best to sit at the lowest spot and have them move you up than to sit at the highest spot and have them move you down.
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And I preach the message on how there are people in the church who really feel like they're more important than they really are.
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And as such, they grasp control of everything.
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Even though they don't really have a right to.
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After church, I got accosted by one individual and I said, I never said your name, but they knew.
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Wasn't you? It wasn't.
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No, I know it wasn't.
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I wasn't her either.
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Oh, OK.
37:53
OK.
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I thought you said that's you, Pat.
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I was like, no.
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But it was it was angry.
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Number nine and we're we're getting well, what's.
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Oh, we're OK.
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Let me just let me finish these.
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I'll give you the answers and then you'll know we've finished the first night.
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Number nine, anytime two people use the same term, but do not mean the same thing.
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Confusion inevitably results.
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Have you experienced this? I know I have.
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I'm sure many of you have used the same language, but different meaning.
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And that comes up all the time.
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I was in a Pentecostal church.
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Pentecostal churches use the word sanctification different than we do, because they tie up speaking in tongues with sanctification.
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Know that if you're going to have a conversation and use the word sanctification, they have tongues tied up in that.
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Number 10, some groups define cults by using the acrostic D-I-T-E, that is behavior control, information control, thought control and emotion control.
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And we see that in a lot of the groups like Jonestown and places like that.
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Number 11, a more appropriate definition is as follows, a cult is any religious movement which claims the backing of Christ or the Bible, but distorts the central message of Christianity by A, an additional revelation.
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They add something to the Bible or B, by displacing a fundamental tenet of the faith with a secondary matter.
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They take out the fundamental truth and they replace it with something else.
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Number 12, a group can be defined as a cult if they add to the books of the Bible, subtract from the deity of Christ.
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Or that you say the person, any person of the Trinity, multiply the works needed for salvation or divide their following from the church.
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So I'll end with the first question that he asked in the video.
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Why would a group like Mormons be called a cult and Islam be simply considered a world religion? This is the answer.
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Any group that claims to be Christian.
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See, Islam don't claim to be Christian.
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Hindus don't claim to be Christian.
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These different Buddhists, they don't claim to be Christian.
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But Mormonisms, Jehovah's Witnesses, these groups claim Christianity.
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Any group that claims to be Christian that denies the central tenets of the faith is by definition an anti-Christian cult.
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And that is how we're defining the term and over the next four weeks, how we will understand it as we learn.
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I hope tonight was beneficial for you.
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I hope you learned something from the video as well as our discussion.
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And let's have a word of prayer.
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Father, we thank you for this opportunity again to be in your house.
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We ask, Father, that you would encourage us the next four weeks as we study along with this video to learn the various marks of a cult and be able to define them.
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And just as the lady in the video did, if people come to us sharing a false gospel, be willing to stand our ground and say that we believe in the Christ, the Bible.
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And the truth that is taught about him in the Bible.
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We love you, Lord.
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We ask now, as we go all to our individual homes, that you would keep us safe.
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We pray that you would keep us seeking after godliness and righteousness and that in all things and in all ways, your word would be the light to our feet.
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We pray this in Jesus name and for his sake.
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Amen.
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All right, beloved, let me give you just a couple of now.