The Birth of Ancient Heresies and Modern Cults

and modern cults. The truth is, we could spend a year on this and just touch the high spot. So we're really going to be flying this morning. Lots of ground we could cover. We're just going to touch on some things. One of the things I wanted to do, though, is give Josiah an opportunity to catch up on, I think, a question that came up last week. Sure. Yeah. Thanks. Well, we had some trouble with septu-millennial view last week.

We were trying to determine if there were six 1,000-year periods, or a total of seven. So, what I found out is that—I researched a little further—beginning with the Epistle of Barnabas in the 2nd century, that document was the first to promote this view, and then from there on out it's found in the writings of fathers. What they believed was that each literal creative day—six days of creation—represents one 1,000-year period. So there are six 1,000-year periods which represent, quote, the space and duration of the world. And then the seventh day of rest represented—well, I'm sorry, the seventh day of rest debuted as the Millennial Kingdom, when Christ would reign for 1,000 years.

And they derive that from 2 Peter 3.18 and Psalm 94, where it speaks of, with the Lord, one day is like 1,000 years, and 1,000 years like one day. So you're telling me that has nothing to do with 1,000 septuagintings, right? No. OK. All right. That's good. All right. I hope we cleared up any confusion. Yes?

Well, when the Epistle of Barnabas was written, They viewed days 1 through 5 including past history. So they were in the sixth day. They believed they were in that last thousand year period before Christ's return. But didn't God move off of the seventh day?

That's the idea of the millennium is the rest. The millennium is the rest. It's the span of time since creation that would have taken up to 6,000 years. Okay. If the seventh day, when God rests, is sort of the millennium, then what is the logic? I don't see the logic between the six days of creation and then the seventh day of the millennium, which is supposed to come. That's right. We are in the creation days, they would say. This is not a biblical teaching. But we are in those thousand year days now. Okay? Okay.

So anyway, we've got next week, History of Christian Music and Worship, and we'll be using that as an opportunity to touch on the history of some of the Christmas carols that we have. And some of them have a very complex history. And some of them you may even be surprised about. Anyway. And then the next one, and the final one, would be the Roman Catholic Catechism. And in that, I think you'll find some surprises. So anyway, just a surprise all the way along. OK. Let's start off. You've gotten your handout, and we'll be tracking together on this. Since we're looking at cults, heresies, the question is, what's a cult?

If you look in the dictionary, there's about a half-dozen different definitions. It's used in different ways. I've got a definition here. It's not intended to be one you'd necessarily find in the dictionary, because it has some biblical backing. And it's a combination of two things. One is a teaching that's outside of scripture, such as to deny salvation. the means of salvation is biblical. So that's point one. The second point is unbiblical control over people. So it's the combination of those two that creates a cult.

You may have somebody that is teaching something that's off, but at least it wouldn't fall under this definition. So there would be aberrant teachings, teachings that are not squaring up with scripture, This is a definition of a cult that at least gives us a way to get a handle on it. Tom? Correct. In other words, on the right side here, now you've got the doctrine and authority. Alright, now, so then it comes to the other question, are all false teachings cultic?

And that reveals the fact that if you use that definition, it's possible for somebody to teach something that is not biblical, and yet have that not qualify entirely as a cult. It may be just an unusual teaching of some kind. The New Testament epistles, for example, will deal with people where there's problems, but it isn't necessarily a cult issue. And so we have both kinds of things taught and dealt with in the New Testament. Okay, now, some of the false teachings that the apostles dealt with, and we have a listing. These legalists, sometimes you hear them as Judaizers. Early Gnosticism, and we'll look into that in a little bit here. It has a couple of different forms. And then the early philosophy and earthly philosophy and wisdom. Paul dealt with that especially in 1 Corinthians 2 and 3 and other places as well.

And then Pagan religions and the Roman Emperor's deity. Those were some things that they dealt with. And here you see the Demetian Temple and the Augustus Temple. Demetian was the one who was emperor during the time of John, responsible for getting John on the Isle of Patmos.

But throughout the New Testament era and in the centuries that followed, the believers were under persecution in part because they refused to acknowledge the emperor as deity. And then angel worship was another one brought out in the book of Hebrews particularly.

Can you think of any others? Did I miss some? These are some of the main ones. Okay. I'll assume we got them. Let's take a look here at this Gnosticism. The basic idea is that God's good but matter is evil. God's good but matter is evil. That's the first step. The next thing since this body is evil, right? Because this is matter.

The Gnostic teachings went one of two directions. They either were what we call ascetic, that is, denied anything of the body. Don't give the body what it wants. And they would deny material things or deny anything that seemed like physical pleasure. That was one approach. The other approach is amoral. That is, it doesn't matter what you do because this body is bad anyway.

So those two approaches showed up, and you see both of those described in the New Testament letters, don't you? You see on the one hand them dealing with people where immorality was supported and taught, and then the other one where people would come along and say, oh, well then just don't do this and don't do that, don't touch this and don't have that, because you need to deny your body it's evil. Both approaches you'll see in Gnosticism. When applied to Christ, the idea is that a good God couldn't actually come in human flesh, because human flesh is fat, right?

So there you see the teaching in 1 John. One of the things that he brings out is that they denied that Christ came in the flesh. So it's an early Gnostic teaching that you find there. Now, let's take a look, talk a little bit more about what's going on. Here's God, and here's matter. God's good, matter's evil. So what they said is that an evil angel created Jehovah. So Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament, is an evil God, closer to the matter that you see on the earth.

That was the Gnostic teaching. Weird, huh? I see a lot of furrowed brows and scratching heads. Very odd teaching, but that was what was taught among the Gnostics. Modalism. And I apologize, by the way, you may need to write these in. The idea, because of the printout there, I think, loses it.

It's God in the upper one, then Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the lower one. The idea of modalism, which this is intended to represent, is that God is not three persons. He's just one, and just sort of expresses himself with three different masks. Okay?

Now, You may say that's a strange teaching. That teaching is carried on today by the United Pentecostal Church. The most prominent teacher of that church is T.D. Jakes. Maybe you've heard of him. T.D. Jakes speaks often at different conferences and he's been included, I've noticed, in each of the Left Behind videos. Very strange. Anyway, T.D. Jakes is a proponent of this doctrine.

Here's Arianism. Arius This is a fellow in the fourth century. He taught that Christ was not deity, but rather the first created being. And then, the interesting thing is though his teachings were officially denounced, he was condemned, officially, he still found ways of getting his message out. Heretical and false, though it was.

And we'll take a look at that next week when we study about music. So, at any rate, he He continued on and even sent missionaries up into Germany, what is now Germany, and spread his gospel that way. We'll take a look at him a little more next week. Cults during the period of 590 to 1517. This is during the era starting with Gregory the Great.

Basically, you had Roman Catholic Church control of doctrine, and so if a cult sprang up, They were militarily and politically suppressed. They did show up. You did have the Paulicians, which you would think that would be nice, but it's not. They're Gnostic. Another one was the Bogomils, and a Cathari. They believed in reincarnation and asceticism, basically kind of an Eastern religion. It was mostly centered in France.

By the way, this was one group that beating them down drew away from the military power they were able to apply during the Crusades. One of the things that ended the Crusades is fighting the Cathars. The Reformation period, given an environment in which you have new ideas expressed, all sorts of things came up, things that we might call a cult, but a lot of those, now you have the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutherans and the Reformed groups who all had military power, all swatting down these other groups. So a lot of them would spring up and very quickly be suppressed. One of the things that happened during that period of time is you would have these groups and they would get suppressed right alongside others who were indeed Bible-believing Christians. And so as we mentioned before, the Anabaptists were one group that got condemned right along with them. Okay, as we step into the era since the Peace of Westphalia, 1648. Okay, now you step into an era here in the United States or America, before it was the United States even, the religious utopian communities that were here in America.

Typically, what would happen is you'd get these groups and they would tend to form communes. And there's a pattern that's real interesting. They were either celibate, no marriages, or commonly they would have communal marriages. Several wives, several husbands, all just kind of grouped into one thing. So they had one of those two combinations seem to be common among those groups.

And interesting, the Amanda Church Society and Oneida community now are no longer these utopian communities, but both of them are now corporations, right? Producing things. silverware and refrigerators and things of that sort. So you've heard the names probably that way. Okay. So here's these bizarre cult groups now turning into corporations. Strange. Still happening anyway.

All right, there's a should be a chart here that looks like this. It's a special as you'll notice not in the page series, numbered page series. And you'll want to track that with me because there's some things in it that we'll be looking at in more detail. Is that in the package? Yes? Okay. Got it? All right. I don't expect you to read it here other than to give you some location, but I want you to have that in front of you so you could work alongside me here.

First thing to point out before we work into that chart, the Northeast U.S. was a starting place of most utopian communities and the major cults. Isn't that interesting? I would suggest to you that one of the reasons why these groups got started is because there were political and social environments, plus freedom that they had not had in the continent, in Europe, to grow. And that is what brought about the development of all these groups here.

Every single one of the utopian communities and the major cults we'll be looking at this morning had at least one place in this circle, if not having been founded there. Now, let's look at the first one, Mormonism, starting around Actually, people can look at the roots earlier, officially 1830 with the printing of the Book of Mormon.

And a lot of people think of, you know, they think of one church, the one in Salt Lake City, but actually there's about seven or more. And the main one is in Salt Lake City, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is probably none of those. But anyway, that's their name. There's also the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Temple Lot, the Bickertonites, the Cutlerites, and several other groups whose names I've forgotten.

And it's even been within the last century that the U.S. Cavalry had a battle with some of these groups. So the military and militaristic background of the Mormons has taken a while to fade. Next group there is Seventh-day Adventism. We'll take a look at that in a little more detail. I have a sort of a a staggered start, because they began before 1850, but actually took several decades to develop. And we'll see that in a bit here. One of the break-offs from them is the Jehovah's Witnesses. And we'll see how that took place. Yes, oh yeah, very direct, and we'll see the connection, you have it in your handout.

And the last one there is Christian Science. So these are three major cults. There are a whole bunch of others. Can you think of some that I've missed? Yes, Tom. The Moonies, yes, the Unification Church. I could tell you all kinds of stories about that sort of thing. Had some close calls and connections with those guys. Helped some people escape in the middle of the night from one of their brainwashing camps.

Anyway, yeah, anybody else got any others? British Israelism, yes, saying that the British people are the lost tribes, right? Yes, that's another one. Good, thank you. Any others? David Koresh. And that's, by the way, a Seventh-Day Adventist group. Another break-off of the Seventh-Day Adventists. That was about a 1930s break-off of the Seventh-Day Adventists. Good. Any others?

Jim Jones and People Simple. Right. A lot of the guys I went to high school with died with him. Yes. There was a whole splinter of New Age groups of different kinds. Yeah. We could add to that the Christadelphians. Nancy and I knew a really neat couple who did become believers after decades growing up in a group called the Cuneites, or the two-by-twos. So anyway, very strange. They had a teaching. They would talk about, for example, they'd read the Bible and say something about, so that you might be saved, and they would dangle that over them. You might be, but you might not. So, anyway, different groups, yeah. Yes. Ah, Witness Lee, yes. And I knew a fellow that got sucked into that, too. Yeah, the Children of God, the groups go on and on. It's amazing. Okay.

Joseph Smith, you know, claimed that he translated the Book of Mormon from these golden plates, the Urim and Thummim. You can look at Exodus and Leviticus and see if that looks like anything you translate golden plates with. I don't think so. Anyway, to that he added the Doctrines and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price. They're glad to give you free copies. I found them unbelievable.

Anyway, William Miller led thousands to anticipate the Lord's coming once in 1843 and then twice in 1844. And by the way, that was more of the septu-millennial view that Josiah was talking about, and one of the reasons I felt it important to bring it up. The idea that since the original creation, that thousand-year periods had gone by and were just waiting for the millennium to start. And by trying to clock that, they ended up with different dates.

The followers were greatly disappointed, and various ones broke off, but there were some that were very persistent and said, we just have to figure out exactly what this means. We're close. We're just not quite there. And so a lot of them continued to look to find ways to make it work.

Ellen G. White, a half a century later came up with these books that she wrote, and that was the thing that spurred on the main core of Seventh-day Adventism. By then, other groups, including the Jehovah's Witnesses, had already started to break off. And here's the thing I was pointing out. This Herald of the Morning here, which you have also in your handout, although I admit it's not that great a printout, Nathan Barber was the editor Charles Taze Russell, the founder of Jehovah's Witnesses, was the assistant editor of this Seventh-day Adventist publication.

So there's your connection with Seventh-day Adventism. Again, the Jehovah's Witnesses now believe in the Septimalennial view, and you'll find evidence in the handouts that we'll go through. They keep looking for the millennium to start any time. The last date that they really headlined was 1975, and that's long since gone, so they've backpedaled several times on it.

He broke off from the Adventist to form the Jehovah's Witnesses, also known as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. Mary Baker, and she gets called Mary Baker Eddie, but she was married several times, Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddie, wrote Science and Health, the Key of the Scriptures. The way I describe it is she described a mental framework for Christian science, very mental.

Very mental, and we'll see what that means in a minute. OK, here's your chart that we were looking at. And you want to track with it, because I do not expect you to read this. If you can, congratulations. I would like you to track through here, and hopefully it'll be helpful. Here's the way I'm approaching it. I've got this circled in this area, and then blew it up a little bit, so hopefully you can track with me where that's at.

The first thing to note is that every one of these major groups has an extra biblical source of authority. You see that? Every one of them has it. For the Mormons, they've got their, you know, Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and they've got that. Then you get the writings of Ellen G. White, that list of books that we talked about. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures for the Christian, you know, science folks. And then the New World Translation, which is an altered translation of the Bible.

Yes? As one person said, when he was confronted with free coffee, he said, well, there are versions of the Bible in there Yes, that's a good play on words that makes the point. It's a very strange writing. But anyway, I think that's a key thing. Extrabiblical revelation is key to each one of these major groups. Is it required for you to have a cult? Not necessarily. Some of them don't have some additional writing, but their approach to scriptures is still aberrant or twisted.

One of the things you see in the Mormon scripture, this is a copy of the first of the title page, the 1830 version of the Book of Mormon. It's been revised numerous times, most recently in 1981, and it has almost 4,000 specific revisions since that time. I sat down with two different sets of Mormon missionaries and went over the revisions and I said, you compare that with this quote where he says it was more perfect than any book on earth, That was when it was first printed. How come we have 4,000 revisions? They didn't have any answer. They just said they had a burning in their bosom. OK. The contents basically are really fantasy. There's no way to connect it to reality.

Send that in the scriptures. Look at this. We believe the revelation and inspiration of both the Bible and Ellen White's writings to be of equal quality. The superintendents of the Holy Spirit was just as careful and thorough in one case as in the other. Right on par.

This is not like this is some helpful book. He's saying the scripture, right? Okay, Christian science. Basically it is an approach to here's how we understand the scriptures. That's really what it is. It does not study the scriptures in depth, understanding it from the original context. Instead, What it does is it imposes a method of interpretation and understanding on top of the scriptures. That's the key to the scriptures that it uses. And by the way, it doesn't work. My great-aunt died of a goiter. She didn't have. Anyway.

Here's the Jehovah's Witness scriptures. They've got the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. I don't know if this is currently the case. Several years ago, when I was reading up on it, they had the world's largest printing presses printing out this stuff. And you've seen them. They'll stand in Carson City. They'd stand in front of casinos, you know, with these copies of these things and hold these things out.

They believe that everything that comes out of there is inspired. Oh, no, no, no, no. The food deals were too good to pass up. They also claim to have exclusive authority to interpret scripture. You cannot understand the scripture apart from what they say it means. So they're told, don't study the scripture apart from what they have to say about it. Gail? You've got to explain why at the hospital where I work, the head night manager who visits the host's witness will throw away whatever anybody else puts out without the donor.

Ah, yes, that's right. That's the battle of the paper. Yep. And one of the things we'll see here in a bit, and you've got it, I think, in part of your handout, is they've had to adapt their prophecies from time to time because they haven't worked out. This one in 1975, for example, that was when the millennium was supposed to begin. It's been a while, folks. Anyway.

Allegorical interpretation is one that almost all the cults will use. Why? Why do they use allegorical interpretation of scripture? Can you tell me? That's right. The problem with allegorical interpretation is that there is no control over how you interpret it. If I interpret literally, then we have a basis of control and understanding, and we may have to work out our understanding of it, but the bottom line is we have a basis to arrive at a common conclusion. With allegorical interpretation, I can make it say anything I want. And so a lot of them like that because that allows them to say, I am the one who knows what the right allegorical interpretation is. That's why the Jehovah's Witnesses in here, Commentary on Revelation, claim that they are the creatures in Revelation that are the scorpions that are let out for five months and sting everybody. That's their allegorical interpretation.

By the way, that's the interpretation form that is used by most of Christendom still. Okay, the next thing here is the doctrine of God. What's interesting, you look at the difference between each of these cults. We've seen before they had the commonality in their extra-biblical interpretation, that aspect. Look at it, basically Mormonism is polytheism. Here's the basic teaching of Mormonism. This comes actually not from Joseph Smith explicitly, but from Brigham Young. As God is, he was once man. As you are, you can become God. That's the basic Mormon teaching. You are to become God, or can become God. God was once a man. You can become like him. That's the teaching.

And so, it's polytheism. The other thing is that God had a body. When Mary became pregnant with Christ, it was because of physical intercourse that Christ was born. That's the Mormon teaching. Now, the Sebb Dadman's teaching on the doctrine of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is basically orthodox. Now we go into the Christian science and it's pantheism.

All is God. It's Hindu. All is God. Matter does not exist. I talked to Dr. Banu Dave when I was going through a course in Eastern religions and he was a doctorate in Hinduism and he said, this is but a dream. This is but a dream that we all see and live.

Yes, Tom. That's right. Yeah, it's just wrong thinking. One of the phrases that's quoted in the front of the Science and Key to the Scriptures is, you know, good and bad is neither here nor there. It's all in the thinking. Okay. Finally, monotheism. The doctrine of the Trinity is denied because the Father is God, Jesus is a created being, and the Holy Spirit is a force. The Father is God, Jesus Christ is the first created being, not deity, and the Holy Spirit is simply a force. So that's their approach. Now, we look at the next one, the person of Christ. Christ is divine, but not unique. Why is Christ not unique in Mormonism? Sure, you can become gods too, and so what's so special about that? He was just the one who kind of gave the example. Shows you how to do it too. That's the Mormon teaching. Then we come into Seventh-day Admonism, and the person of Christ is basically taught as Orthodox.

In the Christian science view, they distinguish between Jesus, a man, and Jesus, who is a divine idea. They don't like the idea of connecting them. There's Jesus, and then there's Christ. And so it's Gnostic. They like the idea of, since matter doesn't exist, Jesus really didn't appear in a material form. Not really. Not Christ, the divine idea. So it's a Gnostic idea. And then the last one, that's basically Arianism. The ancient Arian heresy is now brought forth in the Jehovah's Witness teaching. So you have ancient heresies just resurrecting themselves with a new face. Here's another one, the work of Christ.

For the Mormons, the death of Christ erased the effect of Adam's sin, thus providing for the resurrection of all people. Basically everybody can eventually get saved except for a few nasties. And then in the Seventh-day Adventist teaching atonement is substitutionary but not finished.

I have a friend who had been raised in the Seventh-day Adventist church and he now of course is no longer in it and he tells them, he says, are you telling me, because he still talks to them because he gets family members beating him over the head about it, He says, are you telling me that this ministry of death, and he holds up Paul's writing, this ministry of death is what you'd like me to follow? Paul says it's a curse. You'd like me to be under this? Is this good? But that's their approach.

Yes, Christ died, but now we have the investigative judgment coming. In the Christian science, Christ was the great example of a scientific healing practitioner. And then finally, in the Jovah's Witness, ransom removes original sin from good and faithful people. How about that? If you're good and faithful, then you get the ransom applied.

It's like if, you know, you're only partway lost, and now Jesus helps you the rest of the way. So now you have an opportunity for everlasting life. Only 144,000 in heaven, the rest of them on a new earth. Okay, here's the next one, the salvation. You see that on the next part of that chart.

Mormonism says salvation comes through faith, repentance, baptism, the laying on of hands, and keeping the commandments. Grace plus, right? Grace plus, faith plus. The next one, in the Seventh-day Adventist there, it comes through faith, keeping the Mosaic Law, especially the Sabbath Commandment. Especially the Sabbath Commandment. I'm going to make a jump here to Jehovah's Witnesses. It comes through faith plus works to gain God's approval. Bottom line is it's faith plus, isn't it? Every single one of those three.

Now, I have in a separate blue box there, salvation comes through realizing that sin and evil do not exist. So instead of saying you've got to work to deal with the sin, they just deny it. Different approach. It doesn't exist. If you think it exists, that's the problem. That'll fix it. You've just got to deny it and quit thinking that it exists, and then you'll be fine. Deny it.

That's entirely contrary to 1 John 1.8. If we say we have no sin, The truth is not in it. Okay, the next one, individual eschatology. In other words, what's going to happen to you when this life is over, when we're done here on planet Earth? What happens next? Look at the pattern. There's a second chance after death in Mormonism. There's no real eternal punishment. Man eventually advances to Godhood.

It's Hinduism. Soul sleep and annihilation of the wicked are taught in Seventh-day Adventism, and what a surprise, the break-off from Seventh-day Adventism, the Jehovah's Witnesses have. Same teaching. Soul sleep and annihilation. And then finally, in the Christian science, there's probation after death, allowing growth into truth, much like the Mormons.

Second chance, otherwise annihilation. Interesting pattern. None of them wants to recognize the eternal consequences. Yes, Nancy? Yeah, some sense of that, yes. There is a relationship, kind of like purgatory, where you've got this second chance idea and we've got to deal with it. Not identical, but similar thought. There's something yet left to be done. Something yet left to deal with. Leave a door open. Yes, leave a door open.

And basically, most of these cults tend to do that. The general eschatology, and this I've circled a couple of them particularly, the Mormons, see their view, just in case you're not familiar with it, their view, if you look at the Book of Mormon, it's not that one, it's this one, the Book of Mormon says that different groups of Jews traveled from Israel over to the Americas, and on ships and things of that sort that they made, and that those are the American Indians. the source of the American Indians.

That's a quick summary. It's more complex than that. But that's the basic idea. That's what this thing says. So they've got that. Then you look over here at the Jehovah's Witnesses. Christ returned on the heavenly scene in 1914. Originally their documents said that the millennium was going to start. But they had to rewrite that one. As a matter of fact, you've got a copy, a brief summary of some of their little corrections, several different generations of corrections. And then, basically, the Millennium Kingdom was to begin in 1975, after Armageddon. And then the 144,000 will spend eternity in heaven. One of the things that they said from way back is the 144,000, the original ones, the first ones, were not going to disappear from the earth until the Millennial Kingdom would begin. But the problem is they're dying off. And matter of fact, I think it's hard to find any of them that are still alive. So they've had to kind of backpedal on that one. Okay, here's a quick summary on Mormonism. And this, by the way, is in contrast.

If I look in the Bible and it says Jerusalem, is there a Jerusalem? Margaret, can you tell me, is there a Jerusalem? Okay, she can tell us. There is a Jerusalem, okay? If you say, where's the Bethlehem? You can find a Bethlehem, you know. If it talks about Babylon, you can go to Babylon.

The problem with the Book of Mormon is they have the foggiest idea where any of that stuff is because it doesn't relate to reality. And so there's two different theories about what is described. And one is that the places described cover basically a good portion of North and South America. The other position is that it's just in these localized areas in Central America. The bottom line, they haven't the foggiest idea.

And the leadership of the Mormon Church right next to where Nancy and I lived, we could see their church from our front yard. They actually came to a position of what we would call neo-orthodoxy. They said none of it's historically real, it's just spiritually true. They actually just gave up.

Here's the Jehovah's Witnesses. This is their edition where they were talking about, you know, why are you looking forward to 1975? Why? Because that's the millennium. There it is with the name Watchtower right on it. And that's what they were telling people, boy, we're really looking forward to this, because that's the time, the Septu-Millennial view, that's the time when the Millennium starts, because we've clocked it, looked through the Bible and figured it out, 1975 is when the Millennium begins. Didn't happen, so they've got some stories to cover that. Okay. Bottom line, as you look at this, here's these old heresies, and now what you find is those have crept into new heresies.

If we look at Mormonism, it is a combination of Islam, New Age, and Freemasonry. Why do I say those? It is a combination of Islam, one, because the origins of Mormonism are very military. Secondly, the origins of Mormonism, like Islam, were to define a whole society. That is, Mormonism started off and they had their own banks and currency and military, and at times we even had the U.S. government cooperating with the Mormons. in order to make some military sweeps throughout the West. Islam also has multiple wives, right? And what did Mormonism start off with? So there's some connections there. New Age. What's the New Age teaching? You're going to be a god. I'm going to be a god. We're all going to be gods. Eventually, everybody gets there. That teaching.

Freemasonry. Joseph Smith was a Freemason before they kicked him out. And so what you see is in the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City, a whole bunch of masonry symbols. Symbols out of Freemasonry that he's reproduced there. The rituals are kind of reworked masonry rituals. The Adventism is basically Judaizers.

You've got the law to keep. Make sure you keep the seventh. And some of the splinter groups, Josiah brought up one, the David Koresh, the Waco catastrophe, that was one Seventh-day Adventist group. Another one is Jehovah's Witnesses. We even have the Seventh-day Baptists. Ever heard of those? Seventh-day Baptists. They are very similar to the Seventh-day Adventists. William Miller, the founder we mentioned earlier, was originally a Baptist. It springs out of that similar group. And they hold to a lot of the same legalism, especially calling themselves the Seventh-day Baptists. They're focusing particularly on that seventh day. Again, it's made over Galatianism. It's the Judaizers all over again.

The same thing that Paul warned the Philippians about and the Colossians about as well. Gnosticism is basically reborn in Christian science. Jesus really didn't come in the flesh. this matter is evil, or we just have to deny it. Because the reality and the goodness is God. It's the thought that counts. In Gnosticism. So in Christian science.

And the Jehovah's Witnesses are Arianism combined with the Judaizers. You've got lots of laws to keep. You've probably heard of the, you know, do not dare have a blood transfusion. Right? Don't have those And then various things about we don't pledge allegiance to the flag and serve in the military, things of that sort. They've got various laws and rules to keep along with their Aryanism. Yeah, Helmut? Well, that's another group. I'm trying to think.

One of the things that you'll find with the Church of Christ group, and by the way there's a well-known author that goes by that, he's a pastor of the Church of Christ, Max Lucado, or Lucado, you heard that name? And basically the Church of Christ is a very exclusive teaching, they say that they're the group, And it's not just faith. You also have to be baptized and several other things that they've got. They say you're not supposed to use musical instruments in your worship.

It's one of their things that they're big on. But yes, there's another, that's another one of the groups that's out there. Oh, I would say they're probably outside this group. They would, they are not, I would not say as controlling as some are. some of these other groups are in terms of keeping their grips on people. Yes, they can. The bottom line is they're using legalism. There's legalism in there. So there's that aspect to it.

So anyway, I think it's real interesting. You see these old heresies basically brought forward and a lot of them have just been recreated. And the minor or lesser groups may have different variations. A lot of those variations come in, you know, who's the leader? A lot of them are focused on a person. And those ones that are focused on a leader tend to fade off with the leader.

It's just tough to keep it going. Like Mother Anne Lee was, for the Shakers, was considered the second incarnation of Christ, the second coming of Christ. So when she died, and you can go to her grave now, it's marked well, you know, what do you do then? What do you do for an encore?

It's like this Jim Jones guy, I remember sitting across from him at PTA meetings, you know, they had potlucks, and sitting across from the guy, and he's gone, and so are all the people that went with him. So a lot of those cults will die off with the leader if the leader is considered the focal point. If they develop an organization, then frequently that stays on, and that's what we see like in the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons, where the organization ends up carrying things on and not quite so focused on some charismatic leader. Of course, this is room for lots of questions here. We'll get in a minute. I think a key point to bring this to a biblical focal point is Colossians 2, 8-12.

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of man, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. You see the deception, the philosophy, things that men come up with. For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and that's not Job's witness doctrine. And in him you have been made complete.

And of course all the cults will tell you what? You're not complete, right? They'll tell you you're not complete, therefore you've got these and these and these and these things to do. You've got stuff to do. And they'll lay that before you. This says, no, you have been complete.

He is the head over all rule and authority. Which, of course, a number of the cults like to make him just an example. And in him you are also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands. Ah, so this verse is contrary to the Judaizers. Here's the laws and rules you've got to keep. Nope. The marking that the Lord has in mind is not superficial. And not just for the men.

Then, in verse 12, "...and you have been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead." You've been identified with Christ past tense. It's done, folks. You don't have a bunch of work left to do to make sure that you've obtained salvation. It's unlike what these folks do, where they're always dangling this, you've got to do this in front of you. This lays it out. You've been identified with him. Past tense. Done deal. It is finished. Just like Christ said. Okay.

Questions? I'm sure I haven't covered everything. Questions? Thoughts? Comments? Exasperations? Overwhelming. Yes. The truth is we could spend a great deal of time on all these different groups. Carol? And I've forgotten what part of that is. So I'm going to follow up with that first. Follow on to the definition? Well, when you said something about masonry, I kind of wondered if it was an extra. Excuse me. Is this a comment on masonry? Yeah, Tom? In fact, I actually bring it out to someone who was 33rd retreat. Yeah. So was my grandfather. Yeah.

Here's the thing I think with the Masons, most people who are involved with are involved with it as some sort of a social club. I mean, that's the bottom line. So that level of involvement is for most people not something that's all that big a deal. Most people just look at it as the Elks or Kiwanis or something of that sort.

But, if you really look in depth at its teachings, it's definitely not biblical. It's a secret society. Yes, a secret society. As a matter of fact, they're supposed to be vowed not to keep it. My dad's dad was a 33rd degree Mason, which a lot of times they don't even claim it. Pardon? They don't have to reveal the answer. Yes, that's right. Yeah.

So it's one of those things where most people involved, and by the way, especially down south, a lot of Mason's groups meet at churches. They'll have, you know, here's the church sign and here's the Mason's sign. And a lot of people haven't gotten the idea that, okay, this may be thought of as a social club. The truth is, what they have is teachings that if taken seriously are really false. And some some very bad teaching. Yeah, Tom. Yes. Right. Yes.

It's, you know, people who look into it and delve into it in depth find it rather shocking. Most folks who are joining it have no idea that it's anything other than just the Elks or the, you know, Kiwanis or something like that. Yes. Have you ever been to the funeral of one of the Masons to their will?

No, I haven't. Haven't had that. Really? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty strange. Yeah, it's very pagan stuff. Other thoughts? Yeah, Art. It's interesting in regards to the Mormons. It was only until Columbus discovered America that their Indians were called Indians. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, there was actually for a number of centuries quite a bit of speculation about how did they get here and all that.

Some people have made connection between basically a fictional work by Solomon Spaulding. And some people have taken his work, put it side by side with the Book of Mormon and said, hey, boy, we've got a lot of parallels. Between Solomon Spaulding's writing and the King James Bible, you can put together most of the Book of Mormon. So it appears by that to be a combination of Joseph Smith's ideas and plagiarizing from Solomon Spalding's work, which had to do with this American Indians issue, and the King James Bible.

Real interesting. Other thoughts, questions? Totally disgusted, huh? Okay. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that as we see these things that we indeed have been so abundantly blessed with your truth and the salvation that we can look upon as completely because of grace and because of faith. And Lord, we give you thanks for that. At the same time, Lord, we know that there are those who, maybe even our friends, family members of ours who are caught up in some element of these, perhaps even names we haven't discussed here. And we would pray for them, and Lord, pray that their eyes would be open, the eyes of their hearts, that they would come to understand, that the veil would be lifted, and they would see by your Spirit's working and convicting. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. By the way, how many people have friends and or family members who are involved not just in these, but some kind of cult or aberrant teaching? Yeah, that's a pretty common issue, isn't it? We'll be heading next into this history of Christian music and worship, and then finish it up in dealing with the Roman Catholic Catechism. Let me mention one more thing.

If you're really looking to, you're welcome to take a look at some of these copies of their writings, if you like. You may be aware of this book, Kingdom of the Cults, which is a good summary of some of their teachings and what's wrong with them. Another quick one, if you say, hey, books are too thick for me, this is a really good tract that somebody's put together that summarizes among the different cults, and they include the Unity, Unification Church, Eastern Mysticism, and a lot of the New Age. They've done a good job of summarizing this. So, anyway, that's out there too, in case you're not into reading big, thick books.

It's also handy because, you know, If you have contact, you can kind of quickly summarize and get a thought as to what this or that particular group is about. So anyway, I just let you know those are available and you can make use of those in case those are helpful to you. Yeah, Tom. Yeah. Yep. How? This one? Yeah. Let me speak briefly about a couple other things, because that's a good point.

The last two weeks, what we're going to do is get the earlier additions of this thing laid out here so that you can pick anything that you've missed. So we'll do that this next two weeks. We'll lay them out here so you can you know, fill in any blanks that you happen to have if you happen to miss a week or two.

And so we'll do that. We'll also want to get a CD available to you. And yeah, it sounds like it'd be good to get something like this for people as well. But anyway, we'll try to get those in your hands. What we'd like to have is when you're all done here, a complete, you know, binder with the whole set.

If you use a computer and have access to it, CD, So that's available to you and you've got something you can look to in times in the future and kind of look at, use it as a good reference. Yeah, Roman. You know, when I compare this with sort of a geometrical idea, it's almost like Christianity is walking on a rooftop, just on top, and everybody slides off to the side. That's a good way to put it.

Rather than being in a valley, everybody comes together. People don't recognize that truth is narrow. Truth is narrow. It's not inclusive. And a lot of folks want to put their arms around all these things. That's not the way scripture puts it. Truth is narrow. Oh, well, there's different ways to look at it. First of all, let's go beyond psychological. Let's look at spiritual. The flesh is constantly demanding, give me something to do. And so a lot of the cults are just feeding that. Why? Because they come at them and say, you want something to do? Here it is. You can do it.

And so in order to do that, they have to discount or disbelieve Jesus when He said, it's finished. Is it finished or not, folks? And He said it's finished, and we'll say, well, not quite yet. That was only 50% finished. And so what does it need? What does Jesus' sacrifice need to complete it?

Your works. The flesh loves to hear that. So I would say it's not so much a psychological problem as basically a spiritual problem. And that constantly the flesh is saying, give me something to do. And they just feed that beautifully. They give them something to do. Plenty to do. Lots to do. All right, let's call it.