Cultish: The World Mission Society Church of God (Part 2)

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Sermon: 3 Essential Christian Truths - Part 3

00:00

Consider yourself in the time that we have together, not so much in church as in school.

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I cannot hope to give in the time that we have a thorough exposition of the subject of the cults.

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It usually takes me a solid year in college or seminary just to cover the basic cults.

00:20

So obviously the best we are going to be able to do is a reader's digest condensation of the kingdom of the cults in the time that we have together.

00:29

So I hope that you will think of this as a time that we have together to study.

00:36

How many brought your Bibles with you? That's an essential thing. Because dealing with a cultist you have to have a

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Bible. Good. I'm glad you brought your Bible with you. It's very important. Because the average well -trained cultist can take the average

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Christian and with a copy of the Bible twist you into a doctrinal pretzel. All right.

00:55

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Cultish, Entering the Kingdom of the Cults. My name is Jeremiah Roberts.

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I am one of the co -hosts here. I'm always joined by my trusted side,

01:06

Andrew the Super Sleuth, the Super Sleuth of the show. You were a sleuth in a little bit in the last episode. You're here to sleuth again and talk.

01:12

How are you doing, man? I'm doing well. And that's a real doctrinal pretzel. Walter Martin's referring to that.

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I've been there. I've been in that life. Yes, we all have been in doctrinal pretzels and we were talking a little bit about that in the last episode.

01:24

Josh, you were with us once again. How are you doing, man? Doing pretty well. Ready for round two. Awesome. And we are here once again with Mike Winger.

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You can check out all of his stuff over at Bible Thinker on his YouTube channel. Mike, how are you doing, man? Doing great, man.

01:40

I'm glad to be doing this with you guys. I thank you for having me come on and helping to spread awareness about this particular cult group, which is not enough awareness out there about this group.

01:50

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, I'm really glad that we are kind of able to do this joint venture here because there's a lot of people who listen to us.

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There's a lot of people who follow you. And we quoted right here Walter Martin, and he was really heavily influenced.

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This ministry, this podcast was a direct result of both Jeff Durbin and I really kind of being impacted as young men.

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And a lot of what he did, we were really impacted by. One of the things he did was that he had his ministry based out of California when he was the

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Bible Answer Man, and he had the Christian Research Institute. One of the things he tried to really do to really combat the cult is really reach out to fellow

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Christians, even while they wouldn't, they would not see eye to eye on some of the in -house discussions.

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He wanted them unified on the essentials because they realized that we have bigger fish to fry right now. Amen. And the bigger fish to fry in his time was the world, the kingdom of the cults.

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And that's why we're really glad to have you on because I know you have the same heart as us.

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We want to look at a cult like the World Mission Society, Church and God, which in many levels is still in its infancy.

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And now we have the ability to combat it, you know, and that's what Christians need. We need to be able to join together.

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Now's the time. Yes, absolutely. So it's interesting, too. He mentioned about people, cultists, taking a

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Christian and twisting them into a doctrinal pretzel. And that's how you got involved with this because you said you had two of your students or people from your church, and they were kind of thrown off by these people who were addressing them.

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And so here we are talking about them. So in the last episode, we wrapped up and we were talking about the

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BITE model, right? And so in this episode, we're kind of focusing more on engaging these members.

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So if you're at a mall or wherever or an essential business, given current circumstances, whether it's a

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Target or a Walmart, there's a chance you might run into them again. I don't know exactly if they've made any changes with their evangelism.

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Given current circumstances, I know things have changed within the LDS Church, and you don't really see too many

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Jehovah's Witnesses in their booths or anything. They're not necessarily going door to door anymore, at least as of right now.

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But yeah, so you're talking about thought control and emotional control in regards to the membership.

04:16

So can you kind of emphasize the things you want to mention regarding those two cultist characteristics of the

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BITE model? Yeah, and this is not only to say, like reinforce the claim that this is actually a cult group.

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This is also to create, I think, soft hearts on our part. Absolutely. That when we see members, our hearts break for them and we care for them.

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And we don't see them as someone to combat, but as someone to rescue. And that should be our heart and attitude towards them.

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And when it comes to like emotional control, the members of the World Mission Society Church of God are told that they are basically in immediate, great and immediate danger at any time that they step out of line with what the church wants them to do.

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Whether this is regular attendance or giving financially, being part of their group is hugely important.

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And you're in great and immediate danger if you don't. There isn't any like security in the salvation that they preach. On top of this, you have to believe in like their secret knowledge and their secret revelations from God.

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But in part of their thought control or their information control, they keep back large amounts of their teachings from new members.

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So, in fact, new members, if you meet them, they will give you a slew of verses to turn you into a doctrinal pretzel.

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And they will immediately invite you to come to their church where they will put you through hours of lessons. They will also immediately that very day ask you to get baptized.

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There's a good chance if you say yes to that baptism, that the first time you hear the name Aung San Huung is while you're being baptized in his name.

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This is just they delay information as much as they can. Now, one of the effects of this is that you have dependency on the group, not just on the doctrines.

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Because you know there's things you don't know that are secret information the group has. So you need the group, you need constant access to them because they have to feed you this stuff piecemeal.

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And in addition to this, there's things like thought control where you have to pretend to be happy. You're not even supposed to think a complaining thought.

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This is something that they're told. Mother knows. Mother knows their thoughts. And they shouldn't think a complaining thought. Although if they visit her, they have to wear name tags so she'll know their names.

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They have about 50 or 60 studies that are sort of prepackaged studies that they go over.

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And they go over these again and again and again. So I asked one former member, I said, at what point in your 10 years of membership did you stop learning new things?

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And she said six months to one year in, she never learned a new thing. Because you just keep going over the same material over and over and over again, which is interesting.

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Now you still don't know everything. And you still have answered questions where they say, all will be revealed, sister. All will be revealed, brother.

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But their interpretations are off the wall so it's impossible to predict how they're going to interpret a verse of scripture. So you can't just go to the

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Bible and study it. That's not really helpful. You need the group to tell you what to do with the different verses. So these are just different ways in which they cause you to depend on them.

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Cause you to feel as though even your very thoughts and your behaviors throughout the week are, it just creates a lot of anxiety.

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I mean just imagine thinking that if you step outside the building on Sunday or Saturday that you might be in danger. Right. Yeah, this is a lot of control.

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Definitely. In fact, you mentioned that you have to be happy all the time.

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You can never really act like as if anything is wrong. It reminds me, we had an episode about a year ago.

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We had another guy who goes to Apologia Church. His name is Clay, a former Jehovah's Witness. And I don't know if you're aware of this,

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Mike. But this might be part and parcel to, there might be a similarity to the

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World Mission Society Church of God. But he said specifically within him, he became an alcoholic while he was in the

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Watchtower. Just because you had no way, you could never talk about your problems.

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Because you always had to act like everything was fine. Because as soon as you admit that I'm broken or I've got this issue,

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I need help with it. Something's wrong with you. Maybe there's some sort of secret sin you haven't confessed. So a lot of times when people would confess when they're broken would lead to them being disfellowshipped.

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So people were caught in a rock in a hard place. What do you try and do? You try and drown those things.

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You can't unload those to your hierarchy or your elders.

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So you go to the bottle, right? So yeah, Mike, basically what I was saying too is that I don't know if there's a parallel between, there might be a similarity too between the

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World Mission Society Church of God and their members. Where if there's no place to confess or really to really show your brokenness.

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Because we're all made in the image of God. And everyone's a sinner. Everyone has their guilt.

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The question is, what do you do with it? But if you're not in an environment where you can really truly have a mediator, where you can confess your sins to, that you have to do something with that.

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With Jotunheim, with talking to former members, was there any instances where they're kind of caught in that environment?

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Like I said, with our interview with Clay, he became an alcoholic. And maybe that was different with former members that you talked with in that regard.

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Was there any similarity with the people that you talked with? Well, the ones that I talked with, the impression I have is that their struggles, their doubts, all that is all entirely private.

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And you don't talk about those things. If you do ask questions, they're very quickly answered with, hey, all will be revealed, sister.

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We'll find out when we're in heaven. Or if you're going through a hard time. What happens in this very works -based system is that you just start getting treated like a second -class citizen.

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And you can actually be someone who loses their blessings. They call them blessings when they give you a job to do for the local church.

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It's called a blessing. And you can lose those blessings if you show yourself to be one of these problematic people, problem -ridden people.

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And so then you can attend stuff, but nobody will invest time in you. You're a second -class citizen.

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And so there's a lot of motivation to just bottle up and hide anything that might be wrong and not actually seek help because it goes ugly.

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No, that's not. It's very, very true. In fact, so one of the things I want to mention too when it comes to talking with a cultist, it's just to take into account is that, again, we're embracing this from like what does the

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Bible say about us, like who we are as human beings. We're made in the image of God. So we're talking about us being the

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Imago Dei, but also we have to take into account what is the nature of the world in regards to the spiritual realm.

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Right? So it's not just there's psychological things going on for sure when it comes to the bite model, the behavior control, the information control, thought control, emotional control.

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But there's also there's a spiritual battle. You know, in Ephesians 6, it talks about our battles not against flesh and blood, but against wars, powers, and principalities.

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And it also talks about how I believe it's in Corinthians. It talks about how the God of this world has blinded those.

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I'm seeing the lie of the gospel, the glory of Christ. So in a sense, like I said, you're not trying to combat them, but you're trying to deal with people who have been blinded spiritually.

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And what we're dealing with is that while they've been trained to use the Bible in different areas and take it out of context and almost sort of weaponize it in an improper way, the

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Bible does say that the word of God is like a living and active sword. And it's able to cut to the joint.

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Even it's able to cut to almost to the marrow bone. Go ahead. Do you have the verse in front of you? Oh, no,

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I don't have the verse in front of me. Yeah, it cuts through the marrow to separate pretty much the soul really.

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It cuts through the soul sharper than any two -edged sword. Yeah, the word of God is like a sword. And it's able to see even the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.

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So that's what you're dealing with. And when you're talking to someone from this cult or anyone, you're dealing with the spiritual battles, what

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I was trying to say. So I want to just jump into unless you have any thoughts, Mike. What is what

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I want to kind of jump into when you're in a conversation with them? What are the verses that they kind of bring up and what are the arguments they make?

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And yeah. And what are the ways that you found as far as like the good answers for that? Or even talk about the former members because they probably

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I know people who form members. They got sometimes when they got challenged with certain things, they kind of thought outside the box. Yeah.

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Yeah. And let me before we get into these specific verses, I'll just mention one thing, which is the way that they're taught to use the

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Bible. We mentioned this in the last episode, but the way that they're taught to use the Bible is the absolute worst kind of proof texting.

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And, you know, you read a verse and you'll even see in their books, they'll quote like three or four verses. And then they'll just have a summary of their theology.

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But they're not actually even interpreting the verses. Interpretation isn't something that actually happens.

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It's just the use of scriptures to prove a point. It's not really looking at the context. Now, when you do this over and over and over again, you this is what

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I've learned from talking to people. You actually get to the point where you just you can't read the Bible as though you're just reading something to learn from it.

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You look at the Bible as though all it is is a source of proof texts for already held beliefs.

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And so that you've got to get them out of that mode. I like to look at someone like that and ask them, what do you think the book of Galatians is about?

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Or what do you think the book of Hebrews is about? And when they these are people who say, I know the

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Bible, I know the Bible. I like to ask them, what's Hebrews about? Because frequently that's when they go, oh, I don't know, but I know

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Hebrews 928 is my proof text for this. You know, that's all I really know. And if they would just stop and take the, say, four or five verses that they always use when they go preaching.

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And they would just take each of those and look at them in context and ask, is this really saying what I think it's saying? They would leave the group just from that process alone.

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It's pretty powerful. So when they do approach people, one of the ways that they argue is an argument from analogy.

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And so this isn't from the use of scripture, although they will use scripture when they do this. But the argument behind it is just an analogy.

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So they'll say something like, you're a son and you have a father. But the fact that you have a father is itself proof that you also have a mother.

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You have to have a mother because all sons have fathers and mothers because life only comes through mothers.

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Where there are children, there are always mothers. Therefore, we have a God, the mother.

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This is one of their standard proofs for the existence of this, this alien deity, alien to the

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Bible, alien to Judaism, alien to Christianity. Is that, you know, children have mothers.

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We're children. We have we have a God, the father. We must have a God, the mother. It's just by analogy. It comes in. Now you can.

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I think the way to argue against this might just be to argue from analogy. Say, OK, let's just take it. Let's be consistent. Don't don't all mothers also come from another mother?

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Don't all mothers have a mother? So shouldn't there be a God, the grandmother, a God, the great grandmother?

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Can we just invoke as many gods as we want now at this point? You know, children, if we're going to use analogies, children are always the same as their parents.

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I always bear the same kind of being as I am when I have kids. And if I'm God's child, then I must also be a

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God. And God must also be human. Because if we're just making analogies and we're inventing theology, then we may as well just go all out with it.

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Now, in Scripture, God doesn't produce us through sexual intercourse. He creates us.

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His position of fatherhood is not because he created us through sexual intercourse. So there's no mother needed because the sexual thing didn't happen.

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OK, so that's why the analogy breaks down. And in Scripture, we're adopted. We're his children by by reason of adoption, not by natural birth.

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This is why Jesus has yet to be born again. And so that so the analogy doesn't actually work with Scripture. And it doesn't work to argue from analogies like that.

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But here's a really good example of how it how it comes down in actual conversation. So they'll say and I'm going to quote from their from their websites on this stuff.

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This is the verse. It's Matthew 6 9. First, I'll read it. And I want you guys to think how on earth can this teach that there's a

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God, the mother. Here's the verse. I'll read it. Then I'll tell you what they say about it. So here's the verse. Matthew 6 9.

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This then is how you should pray. Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. That's the verse.

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How does that prove God, the mother? Here's what they say. Word for word quote from their sources. It says Christ showed us to pray to our father in heaven because as children of God, we also have

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God, the mother. So here a verse that declares that God is our father.

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Is being used to prove that there's a whole nother deity out there called God, the mother. I think, though, that what gets you is their confidence.

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They say it was such conviction. Yeah, it's so obvious. Duh. It's confidence. It's like this.

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This is what popular atheists do. This is why they're popular. They have such an exude confidence in their skepticisms.

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And that when you actually analyze their arguments, they utterly fall apart. But the confidence is what persuades people.

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And I think they do the same thing. Yeah. I can talk if you guys want about some of the other verses. That's really good.

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I think, Josh, you had something you want to say real quickly. It's definitely interesting that you bring up the confidence issue because I have heard that before from Christians.

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Right. So whether it's folks in our small group who say, you know, man, my atheist friend just says this with so much confidence.

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It makes me think, is the Bible really true? Or is it, you know, is this guy right?

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I think that's fascinating, especially, too, like in today's day and age where you've got a whole culture shouting at you certain things about morality, whether it's sexuality, whether it's abortion or other things.

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That sometimes we can need to stop and think, am

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I right? You know, what is the right position on this? And I think often it's that confidence or that volume that can sometimes mess with our heads.

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I think that's important, too. I mean, if anyone who's listening is pretty familiar with Apologia's content or has watched the atheist debate with Jeff Seiten and there's another man, the word confidence literally means with faith.

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So if we see someone with extreme amounts of faith, you know, exuberating that it can be a little challenging to yourself.

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But then we've got to realize, well, what are the presuppositions that they are holding to that gives them this type of confidence?

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Right. And so in this case, we would say it would not be necessarily the Bible. Right. So they're looking at the

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Bible through a lens with proof texting. The standards that they're using is actual extra biblical lenses through the teachings of the

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Jew, Kim, Jewel and on Song Hong. Correct. Yeah. Jew, chill, Kim. Yeah.

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Yeah. Yeah. That's the current. I mean, he's really the driving force as far as the teaching goes in the church now.

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Jew, chill, Kim. Yeah. And I want the general pastor. Yeah. And one thing I'll say to like Mike, when you're talking about them, even how you bring this stuff up or how you'd even ask them a question like outside, like, do you know, do you know what

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Galatians about is about? So that's a good that's a good example of one of a good way to even talk to a cultist.

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And this would apply to whoever you talk to, whether it's someone, whether you're talking to a pair of missionaries or you're talking to a

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Jehovah's Witness or we're talking with any sort of cultist, is that a lot of times they've been indoctrinated.

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They've gone through this extensive amount of Bible studies, and they're just there. They automatically go to their go to versus the things that they've memorized, the proof text.

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So a lot of times if you just sort of ask them a question that they're kind of not used to, it allows them to just for a brief moment, almost critically think for a moment outside of the cult mentality.

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So that's one of the things, too, that Stephen Hassan talks about in his book. And again, he kind of takes a Freudian perspective, but I think there's an element of truth in it where he talks about how a person has their authentic self, but then they're given the cult identity, which sort of suppresses their authentic self identity.

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So a lot of times, though, if you ask them a question like that, and I've done it, too, when I've talked with them, is that, and Walter Martin would do this, too, where he would bring up a

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Bible verse, but then have them read the Bible verse and then ask them, so what do you think that means? And you get them to think outside of that.

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Have you noticed that, too, Mike? I know you've done critiques, too. You've got video content, too, on Mormonism. I think you did one recently.

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And you've done some stuff on Jehovah's Witnesses. Do you kind of see a similarity there yourself? Yeah, I think the value is getting people a little bit off script and where they're actually thinking, and they're engaging their minds, and they're actually really engaging with Scripture or with the theological idea.

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And so, yeah, asking them questions like that, can you show me why it means that? Or I try to think of open, not just yes or no questions, like questions that cause them to have to have critical thought.

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All right, Mike. So we, there's no way we can obviously cover every single little aspect of this cult.

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Like I said, there's a lot, there's so much to unravel in this, and even, you know, especially just with all the content we've,

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I've even, we listened to going up to the series, you know, listening to forum members and things like that. And even there's audio

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I've listened to of a guy, he uploaded it, and it was a conversation that he recorded when he had some people he interacted with at Walmart.

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And so, but a lot of times you'll see, these are the kind of the verses that we noticed were kind of brought up consistently, either from forum members of when they were taught, this is what this means.

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And this is the primary verse where they got challenged at, where they came out of the cult, but also people who were encountering them, like I said, at Walmart, at Target, at a shopping mall or whatnot.

21:53

And so you already gave some examples too of how they took a father who art in heaven, how they completely turned that upside down.

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So here's a verse that we made note of, and you did too, Mike. Genesis 126.

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Very simple. Yeah.

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So what we, they'll say it's something like this. You know, the Bible says, let us make man in our image. And then

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God made us male and female because we're both in God's image. The male image, the father and the female is mother

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God. And so there's, now here's the first thing you want to notice is they took the word us, let us make man.

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And they said, that's two different gods. God, the father, God, the mother. But they also took the word image and they made it into two images.

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So it should say, let us make mankind in our images. Right. Right. But they've also ignored the next verse, which says, so God created mankind in his own image, in the image singular of God, he singular and masculine created them male and female.

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He masculine singular created them. So the male and female are made in whose image, the image of God, who is he, who is singular and he.

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So the thing is, this is a puzzling verse for a lot of people. It's a really interesting verse. Why is it we, why is

23:27

Genesis 126 say we, and there's a few options people throw out there. I lean towards the Trinitarian view, even though some people think that's silly.

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I think that that there's good grounding for that view. Others say, well, it's just a majestic thing. God speaking says we, because he's being majestic.

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It's like speaking of the majesty of God and the glory of God. Others think he's talking to angels. And I don't,

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I don't think that that's accurate either, but you know what nobody thinks? Nobody in church history or until Aung San Huung came around, as far as I know, really, actually not even him.

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It's Joo Cheol Kim until he came around. Nobody thought this was about God, the mother, like this is like definitely forced upon the text.

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There's one image, two genders that are in one image because the gender of man and woman, that's not the image of God.

24:10

The image of God isn't gender. I mean, animals are gendered and they're not in God's image, right? They're male and female.

24:16

No, no. Cause our imageness isn't about just our gender. That's not the nature of the image. Yeah. And even how they'd come about this interpretation would be not that they spend an exhaustive amount of time really kind of digging out this passage and trying to interpret to the best of their ability and saying, okay,

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I think this, this kind of sums up what this person is saying about God, the mother. And this, this makes sense because they're, they're almost sort of holding them to this upheld standard.

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But instead it was, it would have been Ahn Sung Hong or who made this assumption about the text and came along and said, okay, this is who it is.

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And so people are saying, oh, this authoritarian person says this is how it is because I said so. Therefore, I believe it.

24:59

Right. Not necessarily examining it critically. And you'll, and you'll, again, you'll see this a lot, regardless of what, regardless of what the cult is, they have, they'll come up with their own authoritarian revelation, whether they either make it up, conjure up themselves, or possibly they may have had some sort of revelation that's not of God, which is the

25:21

Bible talks about that. That could be the case too. But the reality is that the cultist, they're not really analyzing it critically because they're saying, oh, it's from, this is via private revelation.

25:31

This is how it must be because they said so. Yeah. And they move away from this verse as fast as possible. Right. They, they quote the verse, they tell you, oh, it's because of God, the mother, and then they move on to another verse.

25:40

Yeah. But let me, let me share with you too. They, they think Elohim here, the Hebrew word is referring to lots of, or plural gods, two gods,

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God, the father, God, the mother. And Elohim is a word that's in plural, but in Hebrew, it's all, it's, you know, when we're talking about God, it's, it uses singular verbs and singular adjectives.

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And here's something we're not used to in English, but basically that means that there's only one Elohim right here in, in, in the context of God.

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There's only one God, but we can support this. Even if you don't know Hebrew, we can support this with lots of scripture.

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Malachi 2 .10, it says, did not one God create us? One God, one Elohim, singular.

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So Elohim is like a, a name for a God that's, it is, it is majestic, but it's only talking about one

26:21

God. Also, let me see. First Corinthians 8 .6, there is but one God. First Chronicles 17 .20,

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and you should write these down if you want to have these ready for people when you talk to them. First Chronicles 17 .20, it says, there is no one like you,

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O Lord, and there is no God, but you. Deuteronomy 32 .39,

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see now that I myself am he, and there is no God besides me. There isn't anyone else.

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Isaiah 44 .6 and 7, I am the first and I'm the last. Apart from me, there is no God. Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it.

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Mother of God apparently is like him in their theology, but not according to scripture. Isaiah 45 .5,

26:57

I am the Lord and there is no other. Apart from me, there is no God. Isaiah 45 .14,

27:02

surely God is with you and there is no other. There is no other God. Isaiah 46 .9,

27:08

I'm God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. And I can go on and on and on. We could do an hour on just this topic.

27:14

So yeah. Yeah, definitely. And one thing I want to address, too, in regards to these verses, too, because, again, we're talking about analyzing, you know, these are the verses, this is how you respond.

27:26

But jumping back into the mind of a cultist, and in this specific example, we would talk about the

27:31

World Missing Society Church of God. So a lot of times what will end up happening, and this has to do with kind of the psychological characteristic and traits, not only of a cult, but also of their members, is that many times they'll have somewhat of what

27:43

I would call a siege mentality, where if you're talking with them, they're almost taught that any sort of critical analysis or opposition to the way they see things is at some level, some sort of unwarranted persecution.

27:59

So it's very easy for them to get their defenses set up and completely shut down whatever you're trying to say to them, and then automatically go to whatever, almost their program to talk about.

28:15

So I know that one of the things that it's always good to do, I found in my experience, and you'll jump to this in a second,

28:22

I think Josh had a question here, but is to almost, like I said, ask questions, but not, if you're bringing out a doctrinal point, is that not as much like make an accusation, because if you kind of like, you'll come across like you're sticking your finger in their chest, but it's almost,

28:38

I would say, almost come across like you're asking for clarification on something as you're bringing it up.

28:45

That tends to lower down their defenses, and also too, when you talk with them, show that you genuinely care for them, because you should, because if you're not caring for them, now

28:55

I've been on the bad side of this, I had times when I was younger where I just wanted to get my talking points across, and I had my

29:01

Bible trivia out there, and I sliced, you know, Mormonism to little bits, for example, but, you know,

29:08

I didn't really have a lot of love for that person, that wasn't the argument, but what good is that if you don't care for them? Like Paul says, if I don't have love, profit's nothing.

29:16

Yeah. Yeah. Like a great way to do it is you could say, take the list of scriptures I gave you and say, can I read some verses to you and ask you what you think they mean?

29:24

And then you just read through them and say, can you explain that to me? And then that's a way to keep that conversation going.

29:30

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Josh, what did you want to ask, or what were your thoughts on what we're talking about right now?

29:35

Well, one of the things that I was thinking about, as Jerry mentioned, the defenses coming up.

29:42

You know, one of the things that I've noticed in interactions with, say, Mormons is that you hit them with a particularly difficult doctrinal question, or, you know, you're saying, oh, you answer their misinterpretation of scripture, and they say, well,

29:59

I've prayed about it, and I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet from God, and they basically just recite their testimony. In the communication that you've had with former members, as well as the research that you've had, do they have one of those kinds of fallbacks when they don't know what to do with your attack?

30:18

Yeah. The thing that's drilled into them is, hey, all will be revealed, all will be revealed, and they'll say, come to Zion, you know, come with me and, you know, ask your questions.

30:26

But one of the constant fallbacks, if you ask a question and there isn't a ready answer, is that we'll find out when we're in heaven, or all will be revealed, sister, just keep studying, keep studying.

30:36

And so they'll just say that and move on to the next point, yeah. Okay, and then one other thing, too,

30:44

I guess on the next topic is that you had talked about, and I saw this as a bullet point here, and maybe you can emphasize this,

30:49

I'm really intrigued by this, it's a prophecy of the 40 years of David. What could you tell us about that?

30:56

Yeah, this was something I was contacted by a former member who, they really liked my videos, and they'd seen all my three videos

31:01

I did on this topic, and they were like, but can you explain the prophecy of David, the 40 years of David, and I thought, what are you talking about?

31:07

And I might have read it in their material and just thought it was weird and didn't think much about it or something, but it's actually a really important issue for them.

31:15

It's drilled into the Church of God members that there's a prophecy that David, he reigned for 40 years.

31:22

And his 40 -year reign was three years in Hebron, or excuse me, seven years in Hebron and then 33 years over all of Israel, so he had totally 40 years of reign.

31:33

They say that Jesus, because he's like David, he has to reign for 40 years as well. But, they say,

31:39

Jesus only had a three -year ministry from his baptism to his death, so there's still 37 years left for Jesus to reign on earth as king before the end of all things happens.

31:52

And so, they are looking for somebody who is the second coming Christ, in their case, they believe Aung San Suu Kyi, who has reigned for 37 years as king.

32:02

This is considered a very powerful and very good reason to be a believer in Aung San Suu Kyi.

32:10

They say he was baptized in 1948 and he restored Passover, the gospel, which to them is the gospel, and for 37 years he preached

32:17

Passover until he died in 1985. So, 1948 to 1985, there's the 37 years

32:22

Aung San Suu Kyi fulfilled it. So, they say he must be the one who fulfilled the 37 years of Messiah.

32:31

There's a lot of problems with this, but let me break them down for those who are listening, especially if you're a member, you need to think about these things and please consider this.

32:40

In the dates and times that are given by the Church of God, it was actually 36 years, 2 months, 9 days.

32:46

That would be how long from the baptism of Aung San Suu Kyi until his death. It's not quite 37 years. Also, there's other problems.

32:53

It doesn't look like he was actually baptized in 1948. According to SDA records, Seventh -day Adventist records, which

32:58

I'll give you guys a link as well for this. You can put it in your show notes. And there's photographs of the actual book where it records his baptism in 1954 and gives the name of the pastor who did it.

33:08

He was actually expelled from the SDA church in 1962. So, the years don't work anymore.

33:13

If he was baptized in 1954, then he doesn't have 37 years. Well, there's another problem.

33:20

Aung San Suu Kyi and his teaching about Passover would be rejected by the SDA. They didn't believe this stuff about Passover.

33:26

And they wouldn't baptize a man who was going around preaching that if you didn't do his version of Passover on his special day and time, you were going to go to hell.

33:33

Like the SDA wouldn't even baptize this guy. The fact that he was baptized in the SDA in 54 and he was kicked out in 62 means he wasn't preaching his

33:41

Passover stuff until at least 1962. So, he can't have done the 37 years.

33:46

And this may not seem important to those of us who aren't part of the group, but I mean this is a really big deal. This is a huge deal to them.

33:52

So, I think it's worth us spending a little bit of time on it. He actually started his church, his own church, didn't start until 1964.

34:00

So, he doesn't have anywhere near 37 years going for his supposed reign, although that's not really a reign, is it?

34:07

You're just preaching. You're not reigning or something. Also, a bigger problem is there is no prophecy that Jesus will fulfill 37 more years.

34:16

There's no verse in the Bible. When I was asked about this, I asked the lady who reached out to me and I was like, show me what verses they use to support this prophecy.

34:22

And there is no Bible verse about it. They just go, look, it says in the Old Testament, David reigned for this long.

34:28

That's it. That's the whole prophecy. So, it's just not a prophecy. There's no verse for it.

34:34

Show me in Scripture where this is a prophecy. Also, Jesus, his reign is not for 40 years. In Scripture, his reign is forever.

34:40

Amen. Right? In Isaiah 9, it says of the increase of his government and peace, there shall be no end.

34:47

On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish and uphold it with justice and righteousness from this time forth and for 40 years.

34:54

No, like forever more. It says forever more. He will always reign. And so, I would share with them

34:59

Isaiah 9, 6 and 7 and say, look, it says here that Jesus will reign forever, not for 37 years.

35:05

Right. This is the difference between David and Jesus. He's the eternal king. He's the king of kings.

35:10

And here's another issue. They think that Jesus reigned for three years in his earthly ministry and then stopped reigning.

35:17

Right? So, he has 37 years left because he stopped reigning. But when did Jesus stop being the king? Revelation 1, 5, it tells us that Jesus, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

35:30

Revelation written years and years and years after, certainly, you know, probably at least 40 years after the death of Christ.

35:37

And he's still reigning as king. Right. So, everything about that prophecy falls apart. And it's worth talking about because it's had such a grip on people's lives in that movement.

35:46

No, that's really good, man. And especially it's always interesting to see kind of when you like the eschatological cults and even how their eschatology, whether it's a sort of a dominionist -themed eschatology or a lot of times a very sort of doomsday eschatology scenario.

36:03

But they always sort of spin that into a very unique way. So, I mean, within evangelicalism, there's a lot of different people who disagree, like on the end times, for example.

36:13

We have a lot of respect, for example, for like John MacArthur. And there's a lot that we really appreciate him and a lot of things that he's done.

36:19

We don't agree with him eschatologically. He's a brother in the Lord. And so while eschatology is a non -essential issue, it is important to get—just at least be wary to the fact that eschatology, the study of last things, always has a large—there's always a large emphasis that goes into the playbook of any sort of cult.

36:40

Especially as a means to recruit, essentially, saying that, oh, the world's going to hell in a handbasket.

36:46

And I would be curious to know, too, how they're interpreting current events, right? But also,

36:52

I mean, they also kind of—a lot of times it's almost like a Noah's Ark mentality of— Yeah, yeah. They're waiting on World War III.

36:58

They think it'll happen at any moment. Nuclear war is the thing that's coming at any moment, and they need to be rescued from that by being one of the group.

37:05

Exactly, exactly. Josh, you had something that was on your mind. I kind of saw the wheels in your head turning over there. What's going on?

37:11

Yeah, two kind of tangential thoughts here. Questions, actually. So if you can answer the first one, and then

37:19

I've got a follow -up to that. So you said that they claim that he was baptized in 1948, but SDA records show a later date.

37:30

Do you know when that 1948 date starts showing up? When it was first claimed?

37:36

That I don't know. That's a good question. Yeah, yeah. They have a claim, and they have the name of a pastor who supposedly did the baptism.

37:43

But in the SDA books, where someone actually went to the church in Korea, to the SDA church, took photos of the church, took photo of the book, opened the book, took photos of the pages, it records

37:52

Aung Sang Hong, when he was baptized, the name of the pastor, different name, and when he was excommunicated.

37:58

See, that's interesting to me because the follow -up question here, I notice in our notes that we've got on Aung Sang's history, he was born in 1918.

38:09

So if he was baptized in 1948 at the age of 30, that is the same age when

38:15

Jesus was baptized and begins his ministry. Do you think they potentially could have used that as a way to strengthen the connection of him to Christ and say, see, he's the fulfillment, he's the second coming, he's

38:29

Jesus, he's Christ? Absolutely, they do that. Yes, they make a big deal about the fact that he was baptized at the age of 30.

38:35

It just doesn't seem that it really happened, but yeah. Okay. And another question

38:41

I have for you, Mike, is you mentioned earlier about how they viewed the feast and the observance of the feast. And it's one of the things

38:48

I noticed, too, in one of the conversations. Andrew, do you know the name of the guy who recorded, he had the interactions of,

38:55

I messaged it to you, who had talked with members of the World Mission Society Church of God, the recordings are on YouTube, where the guy was a witness to them?

39:02

Yeah, I think it's like, I think it's Jordan Young. I think he has his own little YouTube channel where he talks to, you know, people and they, almost their whole

39:12

YouTube channel is actually devoted to Wombskog research. Yeah, and so, but yeah, I think that's who that is.

39:17

But in that conversation, while he has this recording where he was talking to members who are evangelizing, who approached him in a

39:23

Walmart, the issue of the feast and observing the feast being essential for salvation.

39:30

It's just kind of interesting, too, because I think not just within the World Mission Society Church of God, but there's almost this sort of resurgence of kind of like the

39:38

Hebrew roots elements, where I think when it comes to what role did the feast have and what was the role of Passover and those sorts of things.

39:47

I mean, I think those are good things to look at. And maybe you could, if you want to do a service where you kind of do one of those, at least to kind of understand and appreciate what people are doing at one time and then have a deeper appreciation of the gospel, that's fine.

40:01

But I've seen a lot of times, even within Hebrew roots, where it becomes sort of this have or have -nots, where I'm observing these

40:08

Hebrew elements, therefore I'm better than you. But specifically with the World Mission Society Church of God, is that they're saying not only is it, am

40:17

I better than you, or I have a special knowledge which makes me a higher Christian, but you are not saved because you're not observing these.

40:24

Can you just talk about what does it actually look like then, if you're aware of, to actually practice those feasts, and what are they trying to use to back that up as far as modern day practicing it, as far as being essential for salvation?

40:37

Yeah, boy, I'm going to try and summarize a large amount of information here. So let me just try, because I know we don't have a whole lot of time.

40:43

So quick shot response to this would be, they believe that the command of Jesus, when he's like, here,

40:52

I give you my command, my commandment is this. We know that that is to love one another, but they say that it means Passover.

40:58

And so, you know, his command is Passover. They also think that the gospel itself hinges on Passover. So when they say the gospel, preach the gospel, they mean preach

41:05

Passover. They think the early church did this, and that it was slowly eroded away, until the

41:11

Council of Nicaea, where they said, no more Passover, you can't celebrate it on Nisan the 14th, you know, at twilight, you can't celebrate it on the special day.

41:18

And they say that at that point, the gospel was lost from Christianity, period, until Aung San Huung showed up.

41:26

And so there were no Christians, nobody was saved. And there's a lot more to it than that.

41:31

But basically, they think we're the only ones really doing this. Our church is the only church that really has true Passover.

41:37

And by Passover, they don't mean having communion or remembering the remembrance of Christ, but they mean right on twilight on this one day of the year coming and doing our specific service.

41:46

Now, what's weird about this is that, like you said, Hebrew Roots groups all over the world celebrate Passover. And many of them do it just because they think they should, not because they think it's going to save them or something like that.

41:56

Many of them, I think there's a lot of sincerity and love for Jesus that's there. Other ones get weird. And the

42:01

Hebrew Roots people know that within their own camps, there's a lot of troubling issues going on there. But the

42:07

New Covenant Passover, excuse me, the World Mission Society, Church of God, the Church of God people are taught that they're the only ones that observe this, and that nobody has observed it except for them.

42:16

But I think throughout the years, there's always been somebody doing it. And basically, the main point is this, though.

42:22

In Scripture, we are not commanded to observe the yearly Passover ceremony, like as Christians, we're not.

42:29

Let me read some verses, and this is stuff you'd want to write down. And I would want to say to a Church of God person, how do you understand these verses?

42:35

And please read the whole context when you try to explain them. But Galatians 4, verses 10 and 11, it says,

42:40

You are observing special days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you that somehow I've wasted my efforts on you.

42:47

Paul was worried that them attaching themselves to the feasts of the Old Testament was a sign that they had forgotten and gotten away from the grace of Christ and understanding what it meant to be in Christ.

42:58

In Colossians 2, verses 16 and 17, he says, Therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration, or a

43:08

Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ. See, in Jesus, I have, if I can give you my theology on this, in Jesus, I am fulfilling all the feasts, all the laws, all the rules, all the things, just by being in Christ.

43:24

And so then I'm not needing to walk through those things in order to be forgiven, because Jesus has walked them all out for me.

43:30

In Romans 14, verse 5, it says, One person considers one day more sacred than another. Another considers every day alike.

43:37

Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind, meaning, you want to do something special, go ahead, but don't act like this is a law for Christians.

43:45

You can do your thing, that's okay. Like you said, go to the thing and enjoy it and benefit from it, fine, but don't push this on other people.

43:54

So I think that the rule about Passover is based on a lot of pieces of misinformation all pooled together to basically mean in the bottom line, do this our special way, at our special time, or you're going to hell.

44:08

And guess what? Nobody else does this except us. Take our word for it, don't Google it, because that's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Yeah, yeah, no, that's really good.

44:16

And in fact, one thing I would just say too, and it's on my heart, that if anyone's listening and you're kind of questioning things, and maybe you're somewhat upon this podcast, and you're kind of battling back and forth and thinking through, maybe you're being challenged for the very first time of what you've been taught, everything that you've been taught.

44:33

Maybe you're having second questions about that. I'll just say this in regards to trying to do all of those things that you've been told to do to earn favor with God.

44:42

Your conscience bears witness that that's an unbearable burden. So I would say, first of all, you need to look to the real

44:48

Jesus when he says, come to me, all of you who are weary laden, and I'll give you rest.

44:54

Right? So this is my yoke is easy, my burden is light. So just consider that, but also think about this.

45:01

So you're talking about the law of Moses, the father of our faith,

45:07

Abraham. This is what it says in Romans chapter 4, and I just want you, if you're part of the

45:12

World Mission Society, Church of God, or you're just having second questions, just listen to this verse with an open mind.

45:20

This is Romans chapter 4, where it says, What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh?

45:30

For if Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the

45:36

Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works, his wages is not counted as a gift, but that which is due.

45:47

But the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted to him as righteousness.

45:55

So I just want to say there's absolutely nothing that you can do. There's no amount of work, of evangelism, of service to this organization that believes in a different Jesus that can earn you favor with God.

46:07

You need to let that aside, turn to Christ in repentance and faith, and in exchange for your faith and being broken, that's what

46:15

Jesus says as far as the Beatitudes, Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Look to Christ, and in him you can be clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

46:24

And that's the one thing that's different between the world of the kingdom of the cults versus real biblical

46:30

Christianity, the true gospel, the good news, is that with cults, it's always due.

46:36

You constantly have to do, do, do, do, do. And literally, do, do, righteousness is as faithful rags, is as filthy rags.

46:44

So you think about that too. So it's the difference between doing versus done, knowing that what

46:51

Jesus said, when Jesus said, it is finished, looking to him, you can have peace with God, you can let all, you can forsake the teachings of Aung San Hung, you can have rest and righteousness in him.

47:01

So I just want to, it's on my heart just to put that out there for anyone who ends up listening to this podcast. So Mike, one of the last verses

47:09

I want to talk about real quickly is, we haven't talked about yet, surprisingly, but this is something that comes up a lot, and I also heard this mentioned in both people who are former members about what they believed, but also this has come up in recordings and also from,

47:23

I've talked with you, Josh, about this verse too. Galatians 4 .26, but the Jerusalem that is free, she is our mother.

47:33

So I'll have you respond to that real quickly, Mike, this will probably be one of the last things we do in this podcast, and we really appreciate you coming on here.

47:40

I want to emphasize that when a cultist sees a verse like this, a lot of times they will see a word that immediately fits their presuppositions, and they immediately come to a conclusion that this is what it must mean without any look at the broader context.

47:58

So in here, they would see, I'm assuming, and you can elaborate on your thoughts here, they would see something like mother, and like, oh, there it is, ha -ha, got it.

48:07

That's my, I'm cashing all my chips, and here we go. Like, let me go ahead and we're going to roll with that.

48:15

So just kind of give your thoughts on that and then talk about too, what would you say, how do you bring up this verse?

48:22

How have you responded to this? Yeah, so we can understand where they're coming from, right? They read it as though it says, but the

48:30

Jerusalem that is above is free and she is God the mother. I mean, that's how they're reading it, right?

48:36

They're reading Jerusalem that's above is God the mother. That's their conclusion, but it doesn't say that. It says she is our mother, and the question we should ask is, what does he mean by she is our mother?

48:45

And this is a fantastic example of taking verses out of context. So there's some problems with the interpretation here, and Galatians 4 verse 24, if we back up two verses, we can see some of the problem here.

48:56

In Galatians 4 verse 24, it says, now this may be interpreted allegorically.

49:02

These women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery. She's Hagar. Now, Hagar is

49:08

Mount Sinai in Arabia. That's one of the women. She corresponds to the present Jerusalem for she's in slavery with her children, but the

49:13

Jerusalem that is above is free and she is our mother. So here we have to say that if you want to personify

49:20

Jerusalem as a deity, then you have to personify Sinai because they're both there, but you shouldn't personify either of them because he says it's an allegory.

49:32

I mean he's making an allegory. This is an inconsistent interpretation. There's a

49:37

Jerusalem on earth. There's a Jerusalem in heaven. The Jerusalem on earth represents the bondage of the law, and the

49:42

Jerusalem in heaven represents the freedom that there is in Christ, and these cities are mothers in the sense of having citizens, not in the sense of being persons who are deities, who are existing beyond space and time or something like that.

49:58

So it's like mother Russia. Russia is my mother or something like that, or I might say California is my mom or something like that because I'm a

50:05

Californian guy. Being the citizen of a country gives you certain privileges, and being the citizen of Jerusalem on the earth allegorically represents being under the law.

50:15

Being a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem, the eternal abode of the saved represents the freedom that there is in Christ, but it's a location here.

50:25

It's not a person. This is one of their key texts, one of the key, absolute key texts, and it's difficult to—all you have to do is get them out of the mode where they're reading just a key word equals my theology.

50:40

It has the word Jerusalem. It has the word mother. Therefore, my theology is true, but that's inconsistent for, like I said, a number of reasons.

50:47

It's said to be an allegory. You'd also have to make Sinai into—who's Sinai? Is there a third God the mother?

50:53

What is this? It just doesn't work, and also God the mother is the mother of us all, right? But apparently this

50:59

Jerusalem is the mother of only those who are the saved. Yeah, Josh, did you have a question about that real quickly?

51:05

Yeah, well, I mean it's more of a comment that it's— when I had interactions with World Mission Society Church of God folks, you know, one of the things that I brought up is, okay, if it's going to be an analogy, it needs to be consistent, right?

51:20

It's two women, two covenants, two places. You can't have two women, two covenants, one place, one woman.

51:30

That doesn't fit. It doesn't—the analogy can't hold up. It's got to be two equal things, if you will, in order for it to actually make sense.

51:43

Otherwise, his whole point in verse 24 that this is allegory, it falls apart.

51:50

No, I'm sorry, go ahead. I just said yeah, good point. It's exactly that. The thing is that it's so unsupported that we almost are— and this is a trap we can fall into, where we're kind of like trying to defend an alternate interpretation when perhaps what we should say is, how on earth do you get a second

52:10

God out of that passage? And ask that question first and then offer an alternate explanation.

52:17

No, that's really good. That's really good. So this has been really good.

52:22

I think, you know, just having you on, Mike, has been fantastic, and I think this is just an example too of just the need to be equipped to be able to engage the world of cults.

52:35

Aside from you, Mike, most of the answers to the world -missing society, the

52:41

Church of God, even ex -members, the majority of them ended up becoming atheists or agnostic. They would talk even about the abuses of being taught through a

52:52

Bible study for a long, extended amount of time, but really used that as a tool of indoctrination. It's almost about, when you think about a couple of years ago, some of the school shootings that happened, which were horrible and horrific, some of the kids out there, immediately they went after, they hated guns.

53:11

They wanted to go and just, I'm just bringing this up, that was their emphasis. They wanted to demonize the weapons being used, but then they had that sort of, they were angry at that.

53:24

So almost in the same sense, they had the Bible weaponized against them, and so they then became atheists or agnostic.

53:33

That's one of the emphases too, when it comes to the world of cults, not only dealing with current cult members, is that the majority of ex -cultists, which a lot of the content online regarding the world -missing society,

53:45

Church of God, is with ex -cult members who now don't have any religious interest whatsoever because they were abused by it.

53:54

So, yeah, it's really unfortunate. And that's one of the huge, there's a huge need for a conversation in the points that you have made,

54:02

Mike, to be able to really show people that, one, that wasn't God to begin with, but also say that there's real hope.

54:10

There's a way that you can even make an accounting for the fact that you were abused because you're made in the image of God. You're made to be fellowship in relationship with Him, and the

54:19

Bible says a lot of good things about who you are and how you can be made right with God. And it grieves me that someone used

54:26

God's word in such a way to abuse you when, in fact, it says that the word of God is something that is supposed to bring healing and refreshment to you.

54:37

Renewing to the mind. Renewing of the mind, not an abuse or enslavement of the mind, which is what the world of cults always does.

54:44

Yeah, if I could maybe share a word for anybody who's in that position and you've been in this cult or in some other cult, and now you feel like your only safety is in just cutting off any sort of spiritual commitments in your life and that that's what's going to protect you.

55:00

And it's almost like someone who's been abused, they've been in, say, an abusive relationship, they've come out and they feel the only safe thing to do is to never enter a relationship again.

55:07

And the thing is, that only means the abuse continues because the abuse that hurt you in that relationship is continuing to kill a healthy and proper relationship.

55:16

The same way the lies of the cult are keeping you still from the true God. And that is just a second tragedy on top of the first one.

55:25

If you've been in a cult, here's some advice I'd have for you, is go back to Scripture and reset, start over, read the

55:31

Bible, starting with the New Testament, read it verse by verse, never read a verse alone, always check the context, and just release all the teaching you've had and start fresh with just the

55:42

Scripture. No one's there over your shoulder telling you, I'm the authority that's replacing the cult.

55:47

I'm the new authority in your life. You're letting the Bible take that place properly as it should. This is a habit you can learn of checking context as you go verse by verse.

55:55

I also would recommend, read a variety of commentaries. Read commentaries that don't even all agree with each other. Because now what you're doing is you're reading these people as people who are giving you insights and thoughts to consider, not as the new authoritarian person in your life.

56:11

And what sometimes happens is you're so used to this, it's like, I submit to this authority that you unintentionally think that coming to anybody for insight means you're entering into that same relationship again.

56:24

So you don't need that. You don't want to isolate, that's a trap. You don't want to isolate and cut off God from your life, but you also don't want to just replace one authoritarian group with another.

56:33

Instead, you want to go to the Lord. Don't let them get you twice. They deceived you about Jesus the first time and they're continuing to deceive you as they get you so scared that you can't go to God on your own.

56:43

So the last thing I'd encourage you is to start seeking the Lord in sincere prayer, knowing that God is good and He is the one who can guide you and walk you through all this.

56:54

Awesome, absolutely. Was there anything that you all want to just say real quick before we wrap things up here?

57:01

I think that is solid. I want to leave just one verse out there for anyone who may be part of the

57:09

World Mission Society Church of God. They may be hearing these things like, well, I believe in Jesus, I believe in Jesus. Well, I do believe in Jesus.

57:15

They can maybe not necessarily care too much or just get caught up in the

57:21

New Jerusalem and Heavenly Mother and things like that. But I just have a warning that's from Paul. It's in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 4.

57:28

He says, Or if you have accepted a different gospel from the one you've accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

57:44

So we can see with biblical precedent that there are different Jesuses. There are different gospels.

57:52

So is the Jesus you believe in the Jesus of Scripture? And do you have peace with God?

57:58

That's the question. It's really good, man. It's really good. So Josh, thanks for coming and hanging out with us, man.

58:04

Thanks for letting me out to join us again. If I could offer a final thought, particularly since, you know,

58:11

Andrew, you addressed, and Mike, those who might be in the World Mission Society Church of God, I'd like to address the

58:19

Christians out there listening to this podcast. Ephesians 4, in verses 13 and 14 in particular, talk about the importance to become mature.

58:34

So that, in verse 14, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness, excuse me if I can actually speak today, in deceitful schemes.

58:54

This connects back to what Dr. Walter Martin was talking about. Don't be turned into a doctrinal pretzel.

59:01

Learn your faith. Attain maturity. And, you know, that's when you can start, as these folks, like World Mission Society Church of God or others, start approaching you, you can start to identify those.

59:14

And one of the best questions to ask is, what must I do to be saved? Absolutely.

59:20

Good way to wrap things up here, man. Definitely a good point. Alright, so Mike, this has been fantastic.

59:25

Really appreciate you coming on here. Again, if you guys want to check out all of Mike's other content, definitely check him out on his

59:33

YouTube channel, Bible Thinker. Mike, was there any last things you want to jump in real quickly, or do you feel like we've covered all the bases?

59:38

I think we have. You know, I have three videos where I go into other details on this stuff. You guys are welcome to check that out. There's a playlist on my

59:44

YouTube channel called Help for the Mother God Cult. And so that may be there for you.

59:50

And thank you guys for inviting me to come on and talk about this. Because of your invitation, I dug back into the issues.

59:55

I did lots more hours of research and brought new content. And so thank you for initiating that. Yeah, and just real quickly, again, if someone has materials that they want to forward to you so we can continue this research to help counter this new, this sort of more recently evolving cult, if they want to get materials forwarded to you, where can they send that to you, or how can they get ahold of you?

01:00:17

Yeah, now you can go to my website, BibleThinker .org, and you can check that out there. And there's details there. But you can also just send it to P .O.

01:00:23

Box 39, Bellflower, California, 90707. And that, just address it to me,

01:00:29

Mike Winger. And I'm so grateful for you sending that over. Especially if you have old material.

01:00:35

Like you got an old copy of the Green Book, because they've edited this thing several times. And they collect the copies and take them and destroy them,

01:00:41

I guess. But someone's got a copy out there of an old one. That would be fantastic. Okay, awesome. I do have a total side question, on a total unrelated note, aside from everything you covered, which

01:00:51

I really appreciate you coming on. While we were in break, we ran over into the studio, into the other room to grab something.

01:00:57

We actually, the cameras were on, you had left. And so we saw just a preview of your office and the lighting and everything.

01:01:03

I noticed a guitar in there. Yeah. Are you a musician? Did someone give it to you as a gift?

01:01:09

Or what's the story behind that? Yeah, actually the guitar was a gift, actually. But no, yeah, I'm a musician. I've been a worship leader for many years.

01:01:15

And I don't do it very often anymore, like once a week. But yeah, it's actually up there, because I play guitar so little nowadays that I found if I mounted it on the wall,

01:01:24

I was more likely to pick it up than if I kept it in the case. And I thought it looked good in the background. Okay, I just thought it was unique, all these different theological books, and I like the lighting you had set up, and then there's a guitar.

01:01:33

I'm like, oh, that's kind of interesting. Yeah, but I have a rule. You shouldn't put an instrument in the background that you don't actually play.

01:01:39

That's, I don't know, maybe that's kind of legalistic. It's all good, it's all good.

01:01:45

Mike, thank you so much for coming on. Hopefully we can have you on sometime soon, in the near future. This has been great.

01:01:51

I know a lot of people were looking forward to addressing this cult, but just the fact that we got to kind of join forces today and release this series, and people were even really excited for that when we made the announcement we were doing the episode together, so hopefully we can do something like that in the future.

01:02:07

So if you folks really like this episode, go ahead and leave comments on our social media, let us know what you thought.

01:02:13

And also, like I said, we have a new after show that Andrew and I will be doing even on this specific cult, this conversation here, called

01:02:21

Cultist the Aftermath. So if you go to Apologyistudios .com become an All Access member, you can get access not only to our after show,

01:02:29

Cultist the Aftermath, but we have a ton of other great resources, great theological training to equip you in many different categories.

01:02:36

And so it's definitely worth your while to become an Apology All Access member, and that also helps keep the studio going, which makes

01:02:42

Cultist a possibility. Also, Andrew and I are making the hustle and effort to do this full time.

01:02:48

There's still a lot, we still have a lot going on in between doing Cultist, but our desire is to really get it where we want to go.

01:02:54

We want to be able to do it full time. So we are getting in that direction, but we'd ask that if you want to partner with us to make that a possibility so we can get not even more content, there's a lot more we want to do on top of just the podcast, but that can only happen with your support.

01:03:09

So please go to thecultistshow .com and you can donate either one time or monthly, be in partner with us to help be salt and light to reach the world of the kingdom of the cults and all the other crazy and interesting fringe topics that all at the end of the day go back to the gospel and the good news of Christ.

01:03:26

So all that being said, thank you all so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time on Cultist where we enter into the kingdom of the cults.