Polemics - Discernment - Miscellaneous Cults
Vern Peterman · Sep 27, 2015
Defense of the Faith, No. 37
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492651624496

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

One of the things that we mention in here is we talk about that there's lots of different cult groups, lots of different Christian denominations. What's amazing is how many denominations did God intend? Zero. God did not intend that there be denominations at all. I can't find any basis for it in scripture. God didn't intend denominations.

God did not intend that we have, you know, some groups that teach the Bible and some groups that teach the Bible and something else, and some groups who, you know, say, what's a Bible? But still call themselves Christian, right? So, at any rate, yeah, that's not God's intent. Why do we have so many of these different groups?

Deception is a good one. It's not exclusively it, but it's certainly a big one. You have deception. Deception on the part of who? Part of it is satanic. The more different groups I can spin off, the more confusing it is, and it gives people lots of different options for getting confused. Lack of knowledge. Lack of firm knowledge. How do I even know what's true? Those kinds of issues are out there. Egotism.

And one of the things you'll see is that a lot of the different groups will either have in the name of the group a person And so that's a dead giveaway right there. A person whose this group or following is named after, or there will be with that group a prominent person who is a part of it, even if the group itself is not named after the person. So take for example, we've got Lutheranism, we've got Calvinism, named after a person. The Mennonites were named after Simon Menno. So you've got lots of those kinds of things where the group name is a person. So what did Paul say about following a person, a man? 1 Corinthians chapter 1. It was the first issue with the messed up church in Corinth. The first issue that he addressed was following a person.

Galatia. Galatia has bewitched you. Who is it? There is a who here. So you've got that. You've also got other groups where a single person is prominent in the founding of the group, but not necessarily in the name. Example would be the Seventh-day Adventists. And who's the prominent person? We covered that a few weeks ago. Ellen G. White is the prominent person.

With the Christian Science, you've got Mary Baker, Glover, Patterson, Eddy, pick a name. She seemed to keep going through husbands. But at any rate, so it's her interpretation of scripture that is what guides and leads them. So as you go down there, frequently a person is behind it. It can even be geography can be a significant one.

Here is England separated from the rest of the European continent by the English Channel. And so when King Henry VIII wants to marry Anne Boleyn and the Catholic Church won't cooperate with it, he says, I'll fix that. He says, you guys are cut off. We are now the Anglican Church. and no longer the Catholic Church and so because of that we're cut off from you guys and cut off from the Pope and cut off from all that hierarchy and we have our own and these guys, because I'm king, are going to let me marry Anne Boleyn and that's exactly what they did.

So you have geography and politics and things like that that get involved. Bottom line is these are all worldly things. These are all worldly things. Yes? I guess you could say then, from treatment and knowledge of good and evil, they saw goodness in their own eyes. Yes. Yeah. This looks good to me. Right? This looks good to me.

I think some of it has to do with parental upbringing, particularly in the cults. Because if you're in a cult, because your family's in a cult, it's really difficult to get out of it, if you want to understand. Yes it is. And furthermore, once you're in the cult, the cult is now your family.

You're often cut off from other people. You don't just have friends and things like that. Though the Jehovah's Witnesses used to raise money by selling Christmas cards. They said, well you're not going to do Christmas anymore, and you're not going to get together with your family, and you're not, you know. And so they basically cut you off from other people. And yeah, frequently the cult is very controlling. And there are even groups that don't get called cults that are so controlling. But that's frequently it.

And as we look at these various groups, one of the reasons we go through their history is to find out these guys didn't start off by looking at the Bible and saying, what does the Bible say? They have their own earthly explanation as to how they got started. It's an earthly explanation as to how they got started, not a biblical explanation as to how they got started. So you can go back to what's in the Bible and start a church. That's how this church here essentially got started. You can go back to the Bible and start a church, but if you say, I'm going to start, you know, this is now the official denomination and nobody outside of this group is saved and all that kind of nonsense, then you're starting another cult group. So is this normally a revelation that they have? Yeah, if you look at it, there is quite often some additional authority aside from the Lord and aside from the Bible.

We mentioned the Anglican Church got started because King Henry VIII wanted to marry Anne Boleyn. He was previously married and so the Catholic Church wouldn't grant him his annulment to go get married to her and so he just cut it off. Therefore you have the Anglican Church. And the Episcopal Church is basically a split off from that.

So you've got all these different groups and there is an earthly explanation for all the different groups. There's an earthly explanation and that's why we go through the history of these different groups. So you see, wait a minute, this is based on a person or a small group where the Jehovah's Witnesses basically started with a person and it ends up now, although they have a line of presidents, that they have a ruling committee that basically calls the shots and keeps establishing different doctrines, different dates for the Lord's coming and all that. But understanding why all these different groups get started and understanding why, okay this is wrong, why they're there and being able to discern what the problem is. is important to be able to do. So we're going to go over a few different minor cults, if you will. These are groups who do not teach a saving gospel. It's not exhaustive at all.

You may very well encounter different ones. I can remember one time I was going to San Jose State Engineering School, and I typically went there using the bus. Get on the public transit bus and travel to school. One day I was waiting for the bus to take me home and this very nice elderly lady got up and started talking with me. All of a sudden her face changed and she started getting in this tirade about the Sabbath is on Thursday. I got on the bus and she kept talking even though she was on the ground and she kept Going on this Thursday is the Sabbath tirade, you know, as the bus was driving away. Where do these people get this stuff? I don't know. One of the things, I have numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 in the middle of the page there on page 1, and those points are salvation is gained and sustained by keeping the laws adopted by the organization.

Almost across the board, Why are they legalistic? Law is power. If I can hold law over people, that's power. So frequently power and control is an issue. And if I can hold law over them, That is a big power advantage, right? The real advantage is they'll never make it. Yeah, that's right. You have these people just with the law held over them. And what does the law do if you fail? Kills. It condemns. It condemns, right?

And so it's fear of the condemnation that keeps people in these groups. Well, it's manipulation too. I understand that that's control, but down the line from control, it's manipulation so that the ruling people can get their way and force the people underneath to conform. So if you're Jehovah's Witness, you've got to turn in your card to show I've put in enough hours this week You've got to keep turning in your cards so you've put in enough hours to stay in the group and to stay under the blessings of the group. You've gone door to door. So it was an age away at home. Oh boy. Anyway, number two. Loss of salvation has the eternal consequence of annihilation or diminished standing. Typically annihilation for most of these groups. Why annihilation? Why is that so appealing?

Fear. Yeah, that I might cease to exist, but they teach annihilation, why not teach some horrific doctrine about hell? It's too far from there. Yeah, in other words, there are some groups that do teach hell, but an awful lot of these cults have annihilation as their way of dealing with things, so they kind of downgrade what the Bible teaches about hell.

And why would they do that? It's a better alternative. Yeah, because in fact the leaders are on their way to the lake of fire. And that's a scary thought. So if I can teach, you know, the worst thing that's going to happen is annihilation, well, what's the deal? Matter of fact, I look at them and I say, so what's so bad about annihilation?

Right? All right. So then the next, oh, excuse me, in this loss of salvation, why loss of salvation? Why is that taught? Fear. Fear. Fear, yeah. Yeah, the loss of salvation thing keeps the fear, and that keeps you, you've got to stay right with the group and stay with what they're teaching and stay under the leaders or you're going to lose it.

Right? It gives them total control. It's total control. So here at Holly Hills we teach absolute total grace, not one law. Right? So is that bad? It doesn't give us a bunch of control, does it? And fear is not the motivator if you're teaching grace. Grace is to be a motivator, right? Grace is to be a motivator, but it's not fear.

So if you want condemnation, if you want loss of salvation, you've got to go somewhere else. I can't help you. And the reason they join the groups is for salvation. Ah, yes. Salvation is exclusively in this group. Right. And so if you tell them that they're going to lose salvation, then that's the antithesis of why they're there. Right.

So you come here because we have the only way to get saved, right? But you better toe the line Because if you fail to keep up with all our rules and laws, and if you don't toe the line, and if you kind of slack off, then you're going to lose it. We're the only ones that have it, and if you slack off, if you back away, any of those things, you're going to lose your salvation, because we're the only ones, and you've got to stay in the fold, and you've got to stay under control. or you're going to lose it. Instead of what the Bible teaches, we are in grace. We stand in grace. Romans 5. This grace in which we stand, perfect tense. Perfect tense. Completed past action, ongoing results in the future, implying permanence. Total grace.

Number three, interpretation of elements of prophecy is by allegory adopted by the organization. There are a great many groups who use allegory for prophecy. And the reason why allegory is so useful to these groups is because what control is there over the interpretation? there isn't any control over the interpretation, you can make an allegory mean anything you want.

So the Jehovah's Witnesses have five months during the tribulation period, where these scorpion-like creatures come out and sting all the unbelievers. And so they interpret themselves as being those scorpion-like creatures. They're the scorpions stinging all the unbelievers. That's their interpretation of it. And they're doing it right now, not in the middle of the tribulation period. So that's the interpretation they have of it.

The 144,000 that are given as the tribes of Israel, where each tribe is named, and 12,000 from each tribe, and in summary it says 144,000, all of Israel, those are the only ones that are going to heaven, according to Jehovah's Witnesses. Those are the only ones going to heaven. Everybody else, if they're saved, and they're saved by works, are going to be here on earth.

So, allegorical interpretation is real common. But it's used by a lot of Christian groups because then they control the interpretation. They tell you what the allegory is. So then, the next one, the organization has some exclusive role of interpreting scripture, supplementing scripture, and or dispensing rituals.

You cannot accumulate grace unless you come to our church. You cannot be saved unless you come to our church because we have the Bible that's the right translation. Because we have the Bible plus the other special books written by our special prophet. And nobody else has these books.

Which groups have additional revelations that they operate by? The Catholic Church has one, and that's their traditions. The Mormons are another one. They have, in addition to the Book of Mormon, which by the way is closer to the Bible than it is to the Mormon teachings. In addition to the Book of Mormon, they have the Pearl of Great Price and the Doctrine and Covenants.

But they have ongoing revelations through their president and through their apostles. Ongoing revelations all the time. And it even changes the Book of Mormon. So the ongoing revelations or some special group like that, that ends up being what really controls, not what the Bible says.

Here is Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, and it's her writing, Science and Key to the Scriptures, it's her writing that is the lens through which the Bible is read. And so you can go on and on. A lot of these groups will have some additional book, or additional persons, and or additional persons who have the ability to reveal things to the group. And you're not allowed to interpret directly. The Jehovah's Witnesses are warned against reading the Bible directly and studying the Bible themselves.

Yes? What's the difference between an allegory and a parable? Ah, OK. That's a very good question. There are a lot of different terms like fables, myths, allegory. And it's important to get those terms straightened out. Let's take an example. We looked last Sunday morning in the main service at the parable of the Good Samaritan. It so happens that Jesus' parables are all things that are feasible. They're all things that are feasible.

For example, the parable of the Good Samaritan, he talked about the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. Was there such a road? Yes, there was. And he talked about this man He didn't say whether it's Jewish, or Samaritan, or Gentile, or anything. He just said, there's a man going between Jerusalem and Jericho. He got attacked by thieves. That also happened fairly often on that road. So very feasible. And so Jesus' parables, particularly, are things that are historically feasible. A sower goes out to sow.

Did people ever see that? The parables that Jesus talked about did not have the element of the miraculous or the fantastic. Whereas, let's say a fable, Aesop's fables, frequently have the tortoise and the hare. Do the tortoise and the hare ever sit there and communicate with each other and get in a race? No. So that is an element missing in Jesus' parables. An allegory is where I have, this is what's stated, and then I have a supposed parallel truth that comes from the allegory. And let's go back to what I just referred to.

For the 144,000 who are 144,000 from Israel, 12,000 from each tribe, each tribe is named, right? So the interpretation of that that is allegorical, that is done by those of Lutheran, done by those of the Orthodox churches, by that I mean Russian, Serbian, et cetera, is allegorical. Even a lot of those under the Calvinist bracket have this allegorical interpretation. The allegorical interpretation is frequently, and this is by mainline Protestant groups, that those numbers don't mean anything other than there's a lot of people. And the tribal names don't mean anything other than there's different groups. And so that, the allegorical interpretation is that those are the Christian denominations.

It's just right out of context, it's just Jewish. It says Israel, and it lists the tribal names, and it gives the numbers, but they set aside all the numbers, and they set aside the tribal names, and they set aside the fact that it's summarized in total as 144,000 in Israel, and they say it's just the Christian denominations.

That's it. This is Matthew Henry, which is available as a freebie commentary in a lot of places. I have a commentary by a Coptic Orthodox author on the book of Revelation. Same thing, allegorical interpretation. It's Christian denominations. So that's a frequent interpretation that's allegorical, regardless of what it says directly. So they take the facts, they use the facts, but they manipulate them to fit their situation. Right.

And also, instead of seeing the distinction between the church and Israel, they see the name Israel and use that as a justification to call that the church. So instead of seeing things clearly and seeing distinctions that scripture makes, they'll see, oh, that means this. The original King James Bible, 1611, has, in the Old Testament, everywhere Israel is named, the notes at the top say the church. Why? It's because that was Anglican, an offshoot from the Roman Catholic Church. So does that answer your question?

Yeah. It's something in parallel, but there's also no control over it. In other words, if I wanted to look at something allegorically, because it's completely subjective, I could draw other conclusions. Why not say, well, all those numbers and everything, that's really the 50 states of the United States. Makes just as much sense, right? It seems weird when it's stated so specifically. Yes, it is weird. Well, think about this.

All the prophecies about Christ's first coming, were they fulfilled literally or allegorically? Literally! Every single one of them, right? Jesus is on the cross, He's bearing our sins, and what does He do? He quotes from Psalm 22.1, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And so he quotes it literally and directly. Christ is going to die on the cross, Isaiah 53, 700 years before Christ died on the cross. He bore our sins. iniquities.

Is that literally fulfilled or allegorically fulfilled? Literally. All the Old Testament prophecies are literal. Why does it make any sense at all to look at prophecies yet unfulfilled And by the way, the Bible has about 10,000 prophecies if you break it down into all the details. 10,000 prophecies. About half of them have been fulfilled. The other half are yet to be fulfilled. The first half were fulfilled literally. I would suggest to you that the second half is going to be fulfilled literally as well. It makes sense.

Alright, so let's take a look here One is the Unity School of Christianity, founded in 1889 by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, who between them had a background in Spiritism, Methodism, and Christian Science. She was raised Methodist, right? They're headquartered in Unity Village.

They rejected Christian Science. They thought that Christian Science stuff is OK, except that Christian Science denies the reality of the physical realm. And they didn't like that. They said, no, there is a physical realm. Other than that, they went ahead and embraced that. So they're headquartered in Unity Village, Missouri. Heaven sakes. And one might characterize this group as some sort of a cross between Christian science and Eastern religion.

And why do I say Eastern religion? Because they teach reincarnation. Now, does the Bible teach reincarnation? Did Jesus teach reincarnation? No. So what they've done is, just to make a hybrid that ignores scripture in great part, they've created this hybrid that is a mixture of this Christian science, except that unlike Christian science, it doesn't deny the reality of the physical realm. It teaches reincarnation. And so, why is it the Unity School of Christianity? Christian science holds to one life here on earth. The Unity School of Christianity teaches reincarnation. Charles Fillmore having been the reincarnation of the Apostle Paul. Okay, there's where I get my authority. There's where I get my power over people. I am the reincarnation of the Apostle Paul.

What made him believe that, really? Or was he just using that? It's bizarre. With a lot of these guys, you've got to wonder, what's motivating them? I mean, this is kooky. If you start off with the assumption that reincarnation is true, then you just have Do I believe that he's the Apostle Paul or not? Are you sure he's using the right vocabulary or whatever he's doing to try to sell the agenda?

You've already presupposed the reincarnation idea, so after that it doesn't really matter. Let's ask this question. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And not to be absent from the body is to be given another one. Right? So this is what the Apostle Paul wrote, right? So it doesn't make a lick of sense. But the justification gives him, I'm the reincarnation of the Apostle Paul. Oh, you are? Wow. And if you swallow that, yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense. But nonetheless, that's a group.

There are still people who follow that. There are several groups that fall within the same general approach to the Unity School of Christianity, including science of mind, religious science, and that sort of thing. Anybody ever run into anybody who is into science of mind? Or religious science. They have a group here in Denver.

I've known friends and even have relatives that follow that same idea. All you have to do is think it and it will happen. That's right. Your mind is really what controls things. So now, let's take a look at page two. The two by twos. That's an interesting one.

Until I spent a little time in Texas, I'd never heard of this group. But what's interesting, we knew several Christians who were Christians out of this group. who come out of this group. They have a great number of names. I won't go through them. They're in the footnote, a long footnote. Lots of different names.

They often have a greater presence than is widely known because they have no identifiable buildings or accompanying signs or anything like that. You can, for a lot of these groups, you can find some sort of a building with a some sort of placard or something out front to identify the name of the group. The two-by-twos don't have that.

They don't go about widely distributing literature. They do have an element of tight control, however, over the different people. You are not supposed to use electronic forms of communication and entertainment. So don't you dare have a television, don't you dare play DVDs, don't use computers.

So that's part of the rules. And salvation is by works that can be lost by failing to abide by the list of works defined by the group, and is always held in question before the adherence of the group. Be careful, or you'll lose it. Leaving the group is presented as a move to be feared.

They are reported to have a relatively substantial presence in the Denver area." Interesting. When I talked to the folks down in Texas who are from that group and told them I'm moving to the Denver area, they said, oh, there's a lot of two-by-twos there.

So, I don't know. So anyway, that's one group. Another one is the Hutterites. They're originally an Anabaptist group founded by Jacob Hutter. Here you go following after a person, right? Following after a person. The Hutterites have established themselves in isolated colonies of about 60 to 150 people. They'll have these colonies that will typically settle in a rural area. There are generally about a dozen last names among most of the colonies in the United States and Canada. This is a very inbred group here. There is a Hutterite colony in Japan and in Nigeria, but these do not hold consistently the practices of the rest of them.

Some of the other characteristics of the Hutterites can be summarized, a specific dialect of 15th century German spoken within the group with a general reluctance to trust those who do not speak the dialect. So you're kind of raised up within this group, you're stuck in 15th century German, generally against the implementation of technology except in the production of food for consumption or for sale. So it's different from say the Amish who still do everything by hand. So the Hutterites are different in that regard.

Much of the language and elements of Hutterite culture are founded in communal living based in Acts 242 with an orientation toward retaining much of the culture common to the rural 16th century European Alps. Salvation by works would generally be denied, but if a member conforms to the works as given through the Hutterites, then salvation is not in question. So continued obedience to the group's lifestyle standards supposedly assures that one is saved. So it's not what you believe, it's what you do that counts.

Similar groups of Anabaptist history and background would be the Amish and some Mennonites. Among Mennonites, there's sort of a spectrum. Everything from fairly mainstream to being more isolated and culturally different. Again, they're following Simon Menno. That's where the name comes from. These having a tendency to retain some cultural aspects of rural 16th century Europe. The Mennonites are more varied in that regard. Another one, the Aryan Nations.

Ever run across these guys? I did a business trip up to Northern Idaho a couple of different times and that's where I ran across them. This group was formed in recent decades, some pinpoint 1974, from the Church of Jesus Christ, Christian, and the efforts of the late pastor Richard G. Butler. Here you go, following a person again, right? What they do is interesting.

They have sympathies with Nazi political movements and with Muslims who share a hatred for Jews. So this is putting the Jews as, these guys are the enemies. And so everything in their group is Christian with the Judaistic influence bleached out. Hate the Jews. Gotta hate them. They're evil, deceptive people, according to this group. They hate the Jews, they hate the blacks, and selected other non-white ethnic groups.

So they have declared violent opposition to those seeking appeasement of the hated ethnic groups, including the U.S. government. So they'll form their militia and that sort of thing because they don't trust them. So Northern Idaho is a significant presence of this group and have been driven by some of their churches.

They are only secondarily spiritually focused. That's a rather strange thing. It's all about here on planet earth and the different groups and we hate this group and we hate that group and things are rather worldly. They make an emphatic point of referring to God's name as Yahweh. So real interesting, which is a very Hebrew pronunciation. So they'll go for, they'll talk about God, they'll talk about Jesus, they'll even call God Yahweh, but just Hebrew Jews. Another one, Unification Church.

Anybody ever have any contact with the Moonies? The little valley where I went to high school, They established a 600 acre training camp. They tried to do things that were kind of like farming, but they didn't do very well. Nonetheless, so here's Sun Myung Moon, who died just a few years ago here, and he established the Unification Church.

It's officially the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. That's the official name. They remain centered upon their now deceased leader. He claimed to have been commissioned by Jesus Christ to bring unity to the world, noting that Jesus Christ failed in his admirable mission to bring unity to the world. So Christ assigned him the job of bringing unity. So it's his job. While they speak of unity as a goal, its prime characteristics have been using the church as a shield for property acquisition, avoidance of taxes, ownership of several business chains, et cetera, as well as national and international political influence.

The church has a history of heavy-handed indoctrination and control of its adherents. My brother spent overnight just, you know, have an overnight stay with a friend of his next to this 600 acre piece of property. And he couldn't sleep all night because of the screaming. Brainwashing.

So we figured some of these people must want to get out of here. So we're driving by one time and there's a couple, a guy and a gal, running towards the front gate which is locked. And so we see them running towards the front gate, they climb over the gate, and there's a car right behind them, chasing them, right? And so we tell them, get in the back of the pickup truck, they get in the back of the pickup truck, and we just haul bananas, fast as we can, and drive away on this winding road, and then take them up to our ranch, two miles off the highway, we give them dinner, a place to take a shower, that kind of thing. And then we arranged for them to get to another Christian home out on the coast and to get away from there.

So we would, wherever possible, help people escape. But again, heavy control. You know, one of those unifications and strains, they would talk about spiritual things, but then have this brainwashing going on, and also use this as a cover for buying businesses and escaping taxes and all that kind of stuff. At the same time, try and influence political leaders. Yes? Would you call these wolves in sheep's clothing? Yes. Very easily, yeah.

In the end, however, they say that all spiritual beings will be saved, including Satan himself. Isn't that great? Everybody's going to get saved in the end. Moon was seen as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and the Lamb of God. The Lamb of God and the one to whom Jesus will one day bow down. Yes? I was amazed a few years ago how much The Americans revered Moon.

They just didn't know. He must be a man of God because he's so humble and all that stuff. You see, he and his wife were true parents, capital T, capital P, who had children who had no original sin. How about that? It's amazing. Sinless children. Yeah, amazing. So anyway, the present president is Michael Balcom. Moon initially handed off the presidency of this church to some of his kids, and then now this Michael Balcom guy is the president. So anyway, we'll see what happens there. The Christadelphians.

Yes? The Moonies, those are the people that used to be out in the airports, right? Yes, some of them would be the guys at the airport. You also have some other groups that would hang out at the airport and look for donations and that kind of thing. Dress funny. But yeah, they're one of the groups that used to go out to the airport looking for support.

But do they, when they live within their It sounds like they go out into the world. Are they in a small group that they can't find? They first have to be brainwashed. And like I said, my brother went through what that's like. And we talked to some of the people who would escape and get their stories. They first have to be brainwashed so that they're safe to go out. And then do they wear those sheets? No, that's actually a different group.

Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. And they're another one that tended to hang out at the airport and that kind of thing. The Hare Krishna group, a lot of that degraded into a lot of armed groups, heavily armed groups and that kind of thing. But yeah, very strange expressions. Christadelphians. Ever run into Christadelphians? I used to work with one. So they, again it goes back to a guy, here's this John Thomas. I have a photo inset below, it's kind of low quality, but the original picture is not all that great.

Initially involved with the Church of Christ in the U.S., having crossed paths with Alexander Campbell of the Church of Christ, Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, as well as Baptist William Miller of the Great Disappointment. Now the Great Disappointment started the Seventh-day Adventists, and then the Jehovah's Witnesses were a break-off of the Seventh-day Adventists. And there was also the Seventh-day Baptists, and they have a church up in Boulder.

So you've got that group. So this guy has hit several different cult groups, and he says, oh, I'm going to start one of my own. So after crossing paths with these different cult groups, he starts his own, and that's the Christadelphians. Thomas returned to Britain to found Christadelphianism there. Ultimately he made a few trips back and forth between the US and Britain establishing his group. So you've got the US and Britain are kind of the founding places for this guy. And he finally died in New York in 1871. They teach that Jesus, who was not a deity, so that would be similar to the Jehovah's Witnesses, had a sin nature. Jesus had a sin nature, so he needed to save himself before he could save us. How about that? They have other deviant beliefs.

They say baptism is necessary for salvation. So that's a common one. What groups say that baptism is necessary for salvation? What's that? Church of Christ. Most of them say that baptism is necessary for salvation. Other groups? The Mormons do it as well, but then you can also get baptized for people that you're related to that have already died. So at any rate, baptism is necessary for salvation is something that's common to a number of different groups. And the baptism has to be done by who? that group because the other groups don't cut it.

It doesn't work for them. Jesus did not exist prior to his incarnation. That's another one of their teachings. He was born as a human being with a sin nature which he had to overcome. He didn't exist prior to that time. That's their teaching. The Holy Spirit is neither personal nor deity. Much like the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Christ did not die in our place for our sins, nor can one be saved by grace through faith alone. Subsequent works are required as evidence of the validity of that saving faith, therefore it is possible to lose one's salvation. Souls exist here on earth only, and only those shown to be saved while on earth the first time are recreated at Christ's second coming. So, you're saved here by your own works, and then when you die, you're recreated if you're considered worthy and having followed all the right rules.

How did they get that? It's invented. It's not what the Bible says, right? To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. So you're reincarnated as yourself. Yeah, there we go. You're reincarnated as yourself, if you qualify. The unsaved souls are simply not recreated, and Satan is not real. How do you like that?

Subsequent offshoots of the Christadelphians have changed names and joined and re-divided and rejoined numerous times again since about 1874. So the various present day Christadelphian subgroups call themselves the Old Paths Fellowship, the Berean Fellowship, the Dawn Fellowship, the Nazarene Fellowship, not to be confused with the Church of the Nazarene. That's a Methodist offshoot. So at any rate, how do you like that?

Pretty kooky, yes. Well, again, they're using these words to get people in. Yeah. And then once you're in, then they have to get control over you. But they're using these great words. I mean, Nazarene. Yeah, and what you'll find, that's a very important point. Various groups will use a lot of the same words, but mean something different by them. We say Jesus, right? Do they mean the same thing we mean when we say Jesus? No, they don't. Not at all. Does this group teach that there is a hell, a lake of fire? No they don't. So what about all the other groups they have there? In truth we could continue on with these groups and their subgroups for many weeks.

The numbers continue to shift, vary, and multiply by the day, but their characteristics continue to fit within the points on the first page of this document. It can be illustrated by the diagram that we started with back in our fourth meeting when we addressed the subject of discernment as reproduced on the next page.

These all fall within the outer ring of Christendom's three circles, with some even stepping on or straddling the outer line. Unity School of Christianity, for example, is basically a Christian science thing. And then reincarnation, it steps really far outside of Christianity, even though they have Christianity in the name. So if you look at this circle that we presented earlier, we've covered today that outer circle. These are groups that claim or are viewed as Christian, and yet they don't even teach a saving gospel. Frequently a lot of their other doctrines are off-whacked as well.

And then the next circle in is what we'll start this next week, and we're going to start with Spiritual formation, contemplative spirituality is another name. It's essentially what I would call Christian Buddhism. It's Buddhism with Christian names. And it's been established as this is the way to go at Denver Seminary, at Dallas Theological Seminary, at Westmont Christian College, and a lot of other places. Lots of these places have embraced the spiritual formation, which is essentially Buddhism with some Christian names sprinkled over the top of it. It's profoundly unbiblical. But it is being embraced by schools and by churches as, boy, this is the way to go. It's the only way to get spiritual. So anyway, we'll take a look at that. Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Yeah?

So would these people who teach in these calls and stuff fall under that basket that teachers are going to be held to a higher degree of accountability? Yeah, essentially they have a lot to answer for, right? Yes? You have a handout that there's different levels and punishment, right?

Yeah, yeah. There is eternal accountability. for what people teach. And by the way, there's also a solid foundation reward for Christians. So there's both a reward motivation for Christians to stand on a solid foundation, as well as a problem for unbelievers who have been presenting these things that cause people to head off in a direction thinking that they're saved, but they're not. Yes. A big name is Charles Swindoll. He's Dallas Seminary, right? Charles Swindoll became the president of Dallas Seminary. I think that was a real degradation of the school. But seminaries have a tendency to go off whack over time. Is he still there? No. He was replaced. As a matter of fact, Mark... I was over at John Walbert's house when he was writing a recommendation letter for Mark Bailey. It didn't help, Mark Bailey is not correcting anything. It's when it all put in motion.

So Dallas Seminary is not scriptural anymore? Oh, they've gone pretty far off whack, unfortunately. So they were on track at one time, weren't they? For the most part. The truth is that it is real easy for a seminary to be not well founded. And even in Dallas, there are some things that you can look at and say, I wish they taught the things properly. Yeah?

Just an observation on seminary culture. It's very common for there to be kind of a competitive environment there to come up with some new niche or new observation that nobody else has had. And that becomes your identifying a legacy. And so a lot of times in the seminary, over time, it will decline just because people will gather around one or two central ideas, and it's about the agenda and not about the scripture. That's common.

Also, I think at seminaries too, they're trying to, instead of their measure of progress being, let's be more and more careful with scripture, they oftentimes feel like they have to invent something. They have to develop something. And that mindset is a problem. Because that's one of the ways you see them degrading, is they have to invent something.

But isn't that the same reason you have so many liberal professors and teachers in higher education? A lot of the motivation is pride to get to the high level of achievement that's required. And the same thing with seminary. I mean, not only to go there, but to be an administrator in a seminary. I mean, that's a huge responsibility and takes a lot of self-motivation and pride to get there.

What are they supposedly doing? They're supposedly training pastors, right? So they send somebody away from the church. to get them trained by people who generally are not pastors. In order to have them come back here and carry out the shepherding role. And Acts 20 says it's the Holy Spirit who makes you overseers. It's a work of the Spirit, not a work of the seminary. So let's pray that people come in here. Lord, we do thank you for your word.

Thank you that we do have clarity and that we can use your word to discern what is true and what is false, what is right and what is wrong. And we see rather quickly with a lot of these groups where they went off track. And also that a great many of them were founded by a person or a small group of people. So we see the human origin of many of these groups. And we just thank you for guiding and leading us through your word and through your Holy Spirit. And we just pray in Jesus' name. Amen.