Polemics - Discernment - Church of Christ

We are looking at the Church of Christ today as a group, and if you ever want variety, this has it. Lots of variety. I was rather astounded at the variety. Kind of a strange printing situation here. We send things into the printer and don't know until we get here how it prints out, and so sorry about the strange heading there. So anyway, Church of Christ, lots of variety.

It's another one of the American, you know, out of the 1800s kind of groups. was at a time somewhat competitive with Mormonism, both of them claiming to reestablish the original church. And even at one point in time, some debates or offered debates between Joseph Smith and some of the founders of the Church of Christ. as to which one is really re-establishing the true church. So we make this comparison to baseball. Try real hard to get back to where you started. Get back to home plate. And so this is what characterized the Church of Christ initially as they were trying to found kind of a re-establishment because all these different denominations had gone off track.

Some of the names you'll see, of course, are the Church of Christ, the Boston Church of Christ, which actually more recently has switched in names to the International Church of Christ, and then the Christian Church and the Disciples of Christ, which these days those two have also kind of done some changes. Christian Church, parentheses, Disciples of Christ, un-parentheses, is more the pattern. They were founded by Thomas Campbell, Barton Stone, Walter Scott, and Alexander Campbell, who's the son of Thomas Campbell.

So this is the early 1800s. They proclaimed that the Church of Christ was the sole restoration of the apostolic era church. We're the only ones. Of course, a lot of people make that claim. They proclaim that the Church of Christ was the sole restoration of the Apostolic Era Church, though both of the Campbells, that is, both Thomas and Alexander, were originally Presbyterian. But they left it in denominations. Now, let's ask this question. What is Can you have a soul restoration of the apostolic church? Can you have that? You can't, right?

Why was that a unique time? Why was that a unique time? The time of the apostles, why was that a unique time? It was always right after Christ died, it was the initiation of the church, the founding of the church. Okay, and who were those founders? The apostles, right? They were uniquely assigned as the messengers, as the witnesses by Christ, and were given gifts and authorities that were unique and not reproduced.

Right? There was a commission to establish authority in a community that was singular. Even after that, people who were appointed in leadership in different places, in different churches, were subordinate to the apostles, but were otherwise individually authoritative within the church in that community. Right.

And essentially, what did Jesus say? I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. When someone becomes a believer, they are, by the Holy Spirit, baptized into the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians chapter 12. They are baptized into the body of Christ. For someone to be placed into the body of Christ and for the church to be established, it's God's doing. It's God's doing. He chose us, the Father chose us, in Him, in Christ. The Holy Spirit does the baptizing. All three members of the Trinity are involved in establishing the Church. And the Church isn't going to go away until God takes the Church away through the Rapture.

And nobody can re-establish it. So the foundational ideas here are in error. You can't establish something as human beings You can't re-establish something that God only established in the beginning. And it doesn't matter what kind of denominational name you give anything or organizational action that you take, you cannot re-establish something that's God's to establish and maintain in the first place. Anything that we do is just at a human level. If we try to make a denomination or re-establish a church or anything of that sort. There was an individual in a church that we went to a number of years ago that got involved with the Boston Church of Christ.

It was awful. He gave up his family. He gave up most of his money. The Boston Church of Christ, more recently called the International Church of Christ, is very heavy handed. They essentially take over an individual's life. You're cut off from your family, you're cut off from your assets. You sign them over, you know? It's extremely heavy-handed. And that is characteristic of some of the worst cult groups. It is extreme control, basically loss of family, loss of assets. It can be horrid. Yes?

One other thing that seems to be coming up in different cult sects, is this idea of a very communal perspective on worldly goods. What I think from an expositional perspective, when you look at Acts chapter 2, or you look at Philippians 4, or wherever you're looking for this issue of need. The need comes with a stewardship so that the body grows. At times you have to have more so that you can give it to those who have less, and sometimes you have to have less so that you can give it to those who have more. But it's done with a stewardship and an ownership responsibility so that the body can become more intimate. You do a communal or a communistic or socialistic or whatever you want to say sort of approach to ministering like that, You neuter the ability for the body to become more intimate.

I've seen, unfortunately, several different situations like this where they get really heavy-handed. One of the gals I went to high school with, shortly after high school, got involved with this group called the Children of God. Again, very heavy-handed.

Take your possessions. Separate you from your family. Control everything. just down to minutiae, heavy-handed control of your life, and loss of any background, family, individual, etc. They take passages like, Obey your parents and the Lord. Guess who your parents and the Lord are? Those are the leaders of this group. Those are your parents and the Lord. so uh... yeah it's it's and you all the sudden go from being an adult to being a child commanded around by these parents in the lord uh... net nonetheless uh... yeah that the boston uh... church of christ more recently called international church of christ uh... so they went from being named after city to being you know global uh... very heavy-handed and they're not the only ones that are yeah Isn't an eyewitness part of that? Yes, very definitely.

One of the things that's an issue is that people think I'm going to reestablish something. Well, it never ended. What God put in place never stopped. And it doesn't matter what kind of superficial names you have on it. Those who put their trust in Christ are part of the church. And they're there because of the apostles.

But I thought the thing was, to be an apostle, you had to be an eyewitness. Yes. Which means those other guys can't. That's right. They were not eyewitnesses, therefore they can't be apostles. Here's Peter. He's finding a replacement for Judas, right? And one of the criteria, just exactly like you said, one of the criteria, Acts chapter 1, is it had to be someone who was an eyewitness and having walked with the Lord.

And after a while, all those guys are died off, right? Not eyewitnesses. Now, let's ask one other question. What's the value in studying the history of a group? What's the value in studying them? You can see shifts and changes in their theology. That usually is indicative of the fact that they often cite that they're restoring things back to the original way.

Right. Yeah, one of the things... Stan, you had something to say as well? I was just going to say, that tells you the motivation. Ah, yes. And the direction that they're moving. Yeah, it tells you the motivation and direction. It also lets you know, oh, this is how they got started. They're not from the apostles. Right? Yeah, and you find out that. Often you also see that it's based on personalities. And here Paul writes to the Corinthians, and what does he say? Some of you say, I'm of this guy, I'm of that guy.

It sounds like, from what you've said so far, that they would call themselves Christians, that they believe in at least the book of the Bible, not all parts of it, because if so, that they present themselves as Bible-believing Christians, that if you don't know anything of the details of it, it's very misleading. Yeah, here's something that's real interesting.

The Christian Church, and by the way, that was what Nancy was brought up in, you know, in earlier years. The Christian Church has gone in the direction of being extremely ecumenical. I mean, just, you know, we're connected up with everybody, World Council of Churches, all that. But a number of, not all of, the churches of Christ have gone to being very exclusive where you can't be saved unless you're right among us, and that's it.

I talked to one fellow who was of a Church of Christ background, and he looked at me and he said, I'm not saved. I said, how do you conclude that? He said, well, before I was baptized, I was supposed to list all of my sins, and I missed one. And then I got baptized, and so my baptism wasn't effective because I missed one.

And so that's another thing, and this is not universal among the Church of Christ, but many of them have baptism as a requirement for salvation. We've got a Church of Christ on the opposite side of the road, just down the road here. And for many of them, baptism is required for salvation, confession of all your sins, no exceptions. before you get baptized is necessary. You've got to list them all. If you miss one, your baptism is not effective. And you still have to baptize in their church. Getting wet here doesn't count.

Right? Yeah? One of the things that's fascinating is the idea of all your sins being something that you have the time to list out in any given way. I can tell you right now that I've probably sinned without knowing it on so many occasions that if I were to try to go back and attempt to list them, I would fail. Yes. Yeah. Well, and let's ask this question. Is there any instance in the New Testament where anybody was told, you need to list down all your sins before you get baptized here?

You find zero instances of that. So that tells you right off, this is bogus. Right? You're not reestablishing something. from the apostolic area, you're making something up. You're making something up. Let's take a look at page 2. They have a lot of different groups and so it's difficult to make a summary statement and we'll be taking a look at what some of those different groups are because there's lots of variety.

On the numbers we have there, salvation requires faith, repentance, confession, baptism by immersion, not all of them believe that by the way, as a believing adult for unto the remission of sins by someone who holds the Church of Christ doctrine and is therefore within the Church of Christ and this person who is thus being saved will adhere to the behavioral standards of the Church of Christ.

While a valid baptism is looked upon as effective for salvation, the Lord's table is looked upon as merely symbolic. So here's the way it went in church history. About the year 220, a lot of the churches started counting both the Lord's table and baptism as doing something, not just symbolic. So here, They've got a mixture where they see baptism, not all of them, but many of them see baptism as effective for salvation and necessary for salvation, but the Lord's table is symbolic. And so they've got kind of a mixture there.

If you're really going to establish something as an apostolic era church, are you going to have baptism as effective for salvation? You're going to have baptism as necessary for salvation. The answer is no, right? The answer is no. So, what they've done is gone back and they've kind of picked what they consider, you know, apostolic era, and that brings us to some other ones here.

Many, and perhaps most, churches of Christ forbid the use of musical instruments in worship services. Not all of them, but many of them do. No musical instruments. That's worldly and fleshly and not going to do it. Yeah. The argument I've heard from a few of the folks is that it's not specifically commanded in the New Testament. That you use instruments. Right. Yeah. But it does say about singing or things like that. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's acapella only.

Churches of Christ are typically reluctant to publish a doctrinal statement, as that might seem as another authority, thus constructively adding to Scripture. And what we do here is, yes, we have a doctrinal statement, it's fairly detailed, and we point to Scripture as to where it came from. Churches of Christ in the present era are usually amillennial in their view of future things.

That is, there's no rapture before the tribulation or any time during the tribulation. There is no tribulation. There is no coming millennial kingdom. Not happening. So that's the amillennial teaching. The amillennial teaching is the standard teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches. The Amillennial teaching is common among churches of Reformed. background and Lutheran background so Yeah, Christ comes again, and there's a General judgment, and that's it and and so rather than having you know details about when things happen And you know who gets judged when it's all just sort of here.

He comes okay now. We're done. Yeah, and So, it's just lumped into one event. Their all-millennial will view Christ will come in the future, but without a literal rapture of the church, tribulation period, or millennial reign of Christ. Those of this persuasion say that there'll be just one second coming of Christ, at which time all will be judged, saved, and unsaved, and that's it. Yeah, so then go back to the baseball theme. One, one, one strike, you're out, right?

What about the usual Church of Christ doctrine, okay? With the number of bases one must run for salvation in the churches of Christ, if failure at any point results in initial failure to achieve salvation or in loss of salvation, once supposedly achieved, salvation is precarious indeed under such circumstances, but more importantly, is it biblical? Romans 3, 27 and 28, where then is boasting, it is excluded by what kind of law that is Of works, no, but by law a principle of faith, for we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law." So in the church of Christ, you not only have to do everything right to get saved, you know, go through all the hoops, do everything right, but you could also lose it. You lose your salvation. And scripture just doesn't give any support for that. 1 Corinthians 1, 14-17, I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius. If baptism is necessary for salvation, why would he write such a thing? He would have said, boy, I've got to make sure all of you are baptized. And I'll make sure personally that you are. Right? Yeah? Yes, it's legalism.

It's heavy control. It's one of the things that's characteristic of the cult groups is they do things for varying degrees of control of the people. In other words, you come here to Holly Hills, and I tell you, if you want to feel guilty, I can't help you. If you want condemnation, I'm sorry, you'll have to go somewhere else, right? Yes, and that's one thing. The Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, goes into this thing. You follow this guy and you follow that one.

And they also, the various groups, will put the focus on the organization as the channel for salvation. Whereas, where's the channel for salvation? You go directly to the Lord for that, right? You go directly to the Lord for that, and that's it. And we'll talk about what the gospel is here, and we'll talk people through to the point of people coming to know the Lord, and that's great, but we're not the channel for salvation. That's God's doing. God does the saving, okay? God does the saving.

Galatians 2.16 Nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, since by works of the law no flesh will be justified." Not happening. And we're going to see that again this morning in the main service. Galatians 3, 1 and 2. You foolish Galatians who has bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

This is the only thing I want to find out from you. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are works of the law going to do it? No. Listing all your sins, make sure you've got them all listed before they get you wet. It's pretty sad.

Here's Ephesians 2.8 and 9. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And that's perfect tense, saved. Completed past action, ongoing results of the future, implying permanence. And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Salvation is the gift of God. Not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. I listed all my sins. How many sins does the theme on the cross list? Yeah, here's the thief on the cross. He didn't have time to list anything. He didn't have time to get baptized.

But today you'll be with me in paradise. Since the churches of Christ claim to be a restoration of the first century church, it is a problem to make baptism of any kind essential for salvation, since it is known that baptism did not begin to be seen in the church as effective for salvation until about 220 A.D. Over a century after the apostolic era ended and the canon of scripture was completed, The few passages that link believing and baptizing are structured in the Greek so as to convey baptism as an expression of salvation by faith. There's an addendum that I have in here. We probably won't have time to go through it, but it talks about those passages that you believe and be baptized and looks at the structure of the Greek there. So we probably won't get to it, but it might be worth your looking at.

How about the use of musical instruments in a church service, which many, not all, Churches of Christ forbid. The Old Testament required priests to use trumpets as part of a holy convocation and harps were used in the temple as well. Josephus wrote about that. Psalms makes repeated reference to the harp and the lyre in righteous use. Harps are mentioned in heaven in the book of Revelation as trumpets blown by angels.

In Colossians 3.16, Paul says that the word of Christ dwelling in believers richly would result in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Psalmos is the one translated psalms, and it comes from the word meaning to strum. To strum, as in a harp or a guitar. By the way, the harps that they used were called kathara, which is where we get our word guitar.

Ephesians 5.19 is similar and uses the same word, psalmos.

Paul writes about musical instruments in 1 Corinthians 13.1 and 14.7 and 8 with no warning or caution about not using them in church gatherings. Scripture nowhere forbids use of musical instruments in worship, so there is no basis for asserting a prohibition. So the reference to it is the fact that there's not a command to use a musical instrument. Do we have the freedom? Yes, we have the freedom. Do we have to use a musical instrument? No. So Verne's not sinning if he sings a cappella, right? Okay.

2 Corinthians 3.17 conveys liberty in such matters where scripture is silent or nearly so.

Is a doctrinal statement unbiblical or does it constitute supplementing scripture? And so that's one thing I have found some churches of Christ who do have a list of beliefs Okay, so it's not universal, but many of them refuse to have a doctrinal statement And obviously, you know, we do we don't see a problem with it because we reference scripture Here's the basis for this statement. So it's simply this is doctrinal teaching based on scripture And so we don't see a problem with it.

Yeah? What's funny is that if you say we don't want to have any other authority of scripture, so we're not going to write it down, you still are going to cover doctrines and exposit, or at least proclaim, if you're not expositing, your doctrine as a denomination. They're sidestepping on a technicality, but not stepping away from actually teaching doctrine. You still have to study doctrine, otherwise you go to church and everybody's got to listen.

What you'll find on because today you've got websites, right? What you'll find is that they'll they will refrain from having a doctrinal statement But they have all kinds of other things about their teachings and you can pull together Essentially a doctrinal statement from the other things that they have posted the website. So it's kind of ludicrous a doctrinal statement is succinctly representing this is biblical and Doctrine and we give the references for it and you know why we hold to those teachings It's useful to look this is on page four here. How many teams are in the league? Because there's quite a bit of variety I think it's somewhat helpful rather than making a summary statement and just assuming they all fall into that We can look at the variety here. Number one, the mainline group.

These believe in their church only, mostly allowing no musical instruments, not all, and do not fellowship with those who do not adhere to their doctrines, which they refrain from publishing. But the Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas, the pastor of this church is Max Lucado. Ever hear that name? Max Lucado, a well-known author, author of more than 50 books. He's prolific. They're sold in Christian bookstores. He hasn't had a salary paid to him since 1990, because he basically is supported by the books.

So they changed it from Oak Hill's Church of Christ to Oak Hill's Church, just left it at that. They do use musical instruments. They offer an acapella service. Because they have multiple services, because it's a fairly large church in terms of its population, they have musical instruments except for the one acapella service that they offer for those who prefer that.

It also does not teach baptism as necessary for salvation. So there's an interesting break from the usual. They do publish a doctrinal statement labeled beliefs. So they have that. It's not very thorough, but nonetheless it's there. Then there are the non-cooperatives. These do not support the Herald of Truth television ministry and missionary societies are the mainline group. These are also called independent. Churches of Christ.

Yes. So what's the bad thing about Oak Hill? I'm just curious. It's a big church. It's a big church. It's Church of Christ. And so they haven't cut off their connection to everyone else, but they've kind of subdued and made low-key their Church of Christ affiliation. It's no longer in the name. They don't have musical instruments, as these are prohibited. They are very accommodative. So they've moved over into more mainstream, and some of the more peculiar things, they've dropped out.

When you talk about apostolic secession, does that mean that the Church of Christ has an apostle? No. The Church of Christ was founded with the idea that we're re-establishing the apostolic church, but that they don't claim to have apostles. The Mormon Church, however, does. That's one of the things they do. If somebody is claiming to re-establish the apostolic church, one of the things they have to do is make some choices. How much of it are we going to re-establish? Can these people write new scriptures?

The Mormon church does. They have ongoing revelations. They have a revelation that we have polygamy, and they have another one that we don't. They still claim there's polygamy in heaven though. So anyway, there's... different ideas from one church to the next as to, you know, what does reestablishing the apostolic church look like? And so the Mormon Church has embraced continuing revelation and having apostles and all that kind of thing. The Church of Christ has not gone there. They stick to the Bible as seen through their, you know, founders and whatnot. So, different idea.

Apostolic succession, that particular term, was one that had had this idea that the Apostles appointed certain people as bishops and Then those bishops then appoint somebody else and you know, so you have that lineage of appointment Is what apostolic succession refers to right and so the Catholic Church the Orthodox Church's The Methodist Church and the Anglican Church those all claim an apostolic succession because they have bishops that are appointed Then you have the one cuppers, okay, they use a common communion cup okay, so that's another group within the the Church of Christ and then there's also pre-millennial I Found one is really astounding This is the Humble Church of Christ in Humble, Texas. It's right near the George Bush International Airport. The Humble Church in Humble, Texas believes in a pre-tribulation rapture. And they don't teach salvation by baptism.

And they do use musical instruments. So, real curious. But anyway, they still claim connection to the Church of Christ. Non-Sunday School Churches of Christ. Some of them, no, Sunday School isn't good. And again, one of the things is they'll take what's not commanded and make it a commandment. If it isn't commanded that you use musical instruments, then it must be that you can't. If it isn't commanded that you have a Sunday school, then you most certainly shouldn't have one. So whatever is not commanded is then taken as a commandment.

And so different groups will do that. Black or African American churches of Christ, that got established from long time ago, where they'd have separate churches of Christ that were black or African. There are still some that are basically that, segregated by race. Some others are just simply a matter of the neighborhood and the demographics and that kind of thing. But nonetheless, that's another group.

The Boston Church of Christ, more recently naming themselves the International Church of Christ, that's the one that is very, very heavy-handed. take you away from your family, take your assets, you sign everything over to the church, and they control your life and watch over you very tightly, intensely. The Christian Church Disciples of Christ. These tend towards more mainline views, ambiguity in their views of the future, and following musical instruments, allowing musical instruments in the church service. The Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, tends to be less doctrinal than the group that Nancy was raised in in earlier years.

Prominent members, at least at one point in time, John Muir in his earlier life, James Garfield, President James Garfield, Colonel Harlan Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, Tom Selleck, John Stamos, and John Wooden, the UCLA basketball coach.

People's Temple, Redwood Valley, California. Jim Jones. He became a minister of the Disciples of Christ in 1964. My sister's 7th grade teacher used to sit across from the PTA meetings. And when I worked for the engineering firm, he used to do surveying on some of his properties that he'd get from people. You'd sign your house over to Jim Jones, right?

So, all right. Then, yeah, we got also the United Church of Christ, which sounds similar, it's not related. It is more kind of Presbyterian, and it's actually derived from the pilgrims in early American history. Again, sorry for the strange printing, that was something that happened at the printer here. We have a United Church of Christ at Colorado and Hamden. So we have that here locally, but again, it's not part of the Church of Christ family, just the name sounds similar.

All right. Then we go through a write-up by Ron Merriman. that helps solve the connection between believing and being baptized and that kind of thing, and it brings out the fact that in the Greek, there's nothing that says that you have to be baptized in order to be saved.

Baptism is an expression of salvation, and you also don't have to list your sins, every one of them, before you're baptized. Why is it that you would not have to list your sins before you're baptized? Pardon? Yeah, one is a believer may in fact sin afterwards and likely will. Yes, that you'll sin afterwards and so what does that have to do with those, right? I have to be listing my sins and being baptized every five minutes, right? Yes. Yeah Yeah And the real question is did Christ die for all of my sins?

Yep, and and so this is a something where you know, we're going through this for the sake of discernment because you'll run into people that Believe that they're saved because they're baptized You'll encounter them, but you know, what are some of the different groups? Yeah, you know thought or question God does not want us to dwell on our sins because what He is looking for is fellowship.

One of the illustrations that we've used, you know, before Nancy and I moved into our house about six years ago, we lived in a multi-story apartment building that had a trash drop. You go and open this little doorway and it goes down a number of stories and then, you know, foomp, and hits the bottom.

Before we take the trash out, Nancy and I didn't, you know, get the trash out on the table and talk about, you know, remember these eggs and this little wrapper for the butter here? Remember that? That was good butter, you know. We don't go sit there and talk about that. Why? All we do is we agree it's trash. It goes out, right? Okay. It goes in the drop. That's it.

We don't sit there and meditate on it and make sure we got a list of the whole thing. Why? Because our relationship is not all centered around the trash, right? We're not going to spend time meditating on it and fondling the trash and contemplating and being focused on it. We agree, now this is trash, it goes in the trash drop and that's it. And we agree with God that this is sin. We agree with God about the sins, not sit there and meditate on it.

We focus on Him. We focus on Him. Church seems like that whole idea of when's the last time of your confession. would seem to say, let's keep our list going. Churches, in whatever way they do it, that keep you focusing on your sin, that's not what the Lord wants. Looking from everything that will distract unto who? Unto Jesus. Beholding the Lord through His word. That's what counts. John wrote, we beheld his glory, not we beheld our sins. Huge, huge significance.

One more thing I think for us to take a look at, on the back here, origin of the church is is given in some time bars here and So you have it from starting in the early 1800s and then switching over to a united movement Around 18 at the early 1830s into just after 1900 and then splitting up again, so there's been a lot of a coming together and splitting up in different ways and that's one of the reasons why such a great variety among these various churches. There's one other reason for the great variety and that is that they don't have a consistent way of approaching scripture. One of the things that The elders will do here at Holly Hills is we'll spend time looking at different passages of scripture and looking at our approach to scripture and seeing that it's consistent. Seeing that there's consistency there.

And so what you find here at Holly Hills, we don't have church splits. We don't have, I'm going this direction. We don't have the elders like Hassan who was here and I'll hopefully see him in about a month. Hassan who was here, he really liked meeting with the elders. He says, we don't have that with the elders over in Uganda. The elders are tugging at each other and have different opinions and that kind of thing. A consistent view of scripture and taking scripture consistently as the basis of authority ends up with stability of doctrine and unity rather than having groups that are going and taking off in different directions and changing over time.

Yeah? What was the cultural thing back in 1808? Was the grounds work for all these different groups taking off? There must have been something going on there. Yes. One of the things that you find in the 1800s in America, what were some of the things that were happening? You had the country moving west, and so that was one of the things that was happening.

With that, you also end up having a lot of instability, you know, with different groups and different people, you know, moving west. You have a lot of instability because it's not like, okay, we've got a church here, and this church has been meeting here for quite some time, but instead you'd have towns spring up, and who can be a pastor? Well, that guy, you know. And so you had people stepping into leadership in the churches that were of varying kinds of backgrounds and motivations. And some of the denominations had gotten pretty stale and off track.

And so people were like, OK, we're going to reestablish something. So you had a social environment that tended to generate lots of false teaching, essentially. And an inability for people to understand and know what does the Bible say. And we're going to go with just that.

You have women coming to the forefront too. Leaders in different areas. And with that, so you have it like Ellen G. White, all of a sudden she would be considered authoritative. Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy, all the different names there, with Christian Science. So you've got that movement bringing women forward. And Jesus placed a value on women. That's not the issue, but the point is who ought to be the authority in families and in churches. Another thing I think is kind of fascinating, having read a biography on Abraham Lincoln, for example, is Illinois was the frontier.

He was a kid. His dad, when his mom passed away, took off and left him under the supervision of his 12-year-old sister. And when his dad came back with a new wife, She said that they looked like animals and they were just kind of scavenging. And their illiteracy was a major problem. So if somebody shows up and they tell you the Bible says something, you have no way to fact check that. You have no way. He was like, well, whatever he said, because I don't know. So in the country, there was a literacy problem as well that really compounds the risk and danger of somebody coming in as an outside stranger from a far itinerant preacher or else. Must be true. Yeah.

When I was starting high school, my folks moved from what's now the Silicon Valley, and my dad had founded one of the early electronics companies there. The family moved up to this little valley that was very isolated. This valley was isolated to the point where going over to Ukiah, this little town, whoever heard of Ukiah, that was the big city. Weeks after I arrived, there was some federal money that was given to the school district to take all the boys in the school on this multi-day trip down to the Bay Area to look at job opportunities. And so here I am with all these guys from this little isolated community. And I had just come from the Bay Area, and now they're going to take me down there to look at job opportunities. Well, a lot of these guys had never been out of the county. Never been out of the county.

And so crazy things happened. At one point in time, I walked up press the button to go, you know, use the crosswalk at the traffic lights. These guys had never seen traffic lights before. And one of them just, they were all doing this group hug thing, all scared and excited and everything, and one of them comes up and grabs me and pulls me into this group hug, you know. And that same night, you know, several of us got in an elevator and one of the guys freaked out and he started banging on the elevator and broke the controls and so the elevator stopped mid-floor. You know, just guys that had no idea.

Now this kind of environment where there's a lot of isolation, where there's a lot of ignorance, That's an environment that generates cults and that's why Jim Jones could come in there and get a start in this little valley. That's why the Moonies established a 600 acre training camp in this little valley. That's why Charles Manson did some time in this valley. It was a great place for cults. And that's part of the answer to your question, and that is, why was the 1800s this time when you got so many of these crazy American cults started?

It's ignorance, it's isolation, just provides people the opportunity to come in and take control, even instability in families from all this moving around. And it's kind of sad because a lot of the people that I know that have ever gone off in that direction, they're the people with the real desire to learn and to really understand, you know, spiritual and spiritual things. It's a desire of their heart, and that's why they're seeking it out. And they get hooked up with one of these places, and initially it looks like, wow, this is utopia, you know, spiritual utopia.

And then it turns out to be, you know, brainwashing. Yes, it's brainwashing. Some of the kids I went to high school with took the Kool-Aid with Jim Jones, right? And he went down to Guyana, and when he said, take the Kool-Aid, they gave him the Kool-Aid, and they gave it to their kids, knowing full well this is going to end your life.

Just you know this guy's got control and and it's it's that kind of environment that generates these cults and Frequently what you find is the cults are you know taking people's assets? giving them you know lack of freedom and you know putting them under law and and having them under the control in varying degrees of this church organization and And that's why absolute, pure, total grace and understanding that salvation is by faith, period, that's absolutely necessary. Or the tendency towards these cult groups in varying degrees comes into play.

So that's one reason why here we put absolutely zero law, right? Total, complete, full on, full out, pedal to the metal, mountains and fountains of grace. And no law, and no condemnation, and not trying to control anybody. Anyway, this is why discernment is important. The apostles intended one thing. Not the 30,000 plus denominations and groups that there are now.

Within Christianity or Christendom, maybe is a better way to put it. Other thoughts, questions? Last week, I think Randy covered Church of Christ Scientology. Scientology is different, but Christian Science, yes. Yes. A lot of the nomenclature can be confusing. Because Christian science isn't the same as Scientology, for example. Very different. But you do have, like Christian science, a lot of groups that get into a lot of mind games.

And again, it's another way to control people. I had a great aunt that died of a goiter that she didn't have. She was a Christian science practitioner. But my grandmother, fortunately, even having been brought up in that, was saved. She died at age 87, was saved about three weeks before she died.

And amazing, different expression on her face. She went around very stone-faced a lot of the time throughout her life. And she had good reason to. But she became a believer about three weeks before she died. And the expression on her face, even though she was dying of cancer, was just phenomenally different. Because she knew where she was going and who she was going to. And the difference was huge.

Other thoughts, comments, questions? Okay, let's pray. Lord, as we look at this Church of Christ group of churches, In the Christian Church, we just thank you for the truth of your word. Thank you that we can have an assurance of salvation by simple faith in your death for our sins and burial and resurrection.

Nobody controls that. No human being or organization on earth has an exclusive claim to it. Salvation is your doing and your accomplishment. And even the church is of your creation and not ours. We just thank you for those assurances. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.