Polemics - Discernment - Methodist & Wesleyan Churches

looking at Methodist, Wesleyan, and offspring churches today. And so this is another one of those situations where there is an attempt at reform. And what happens usually with attempts to reform something? It doesn't work, right? And so you think about it.

How did the Anglican Church originate? Basically, the Catholic Church had its power extended to Britain and into England. And then King Henry VIII wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, and the Catholic Church said, You can't do that, you know, you're already married, and, you know, we can't give you an annulment because we've got these rules, and so, anyway, he said, well, that's it. I've got the English Channel in there. I'm just going to cut everything off, and I'm now the head of the Anglican Church. in England and cut off from the Catholic Church and so they established their own.

They did some kind of connecting up with the reformed churches, John Calvin and that kind of thing, but not so much. Largely still very Catholic. So early on there was an attempt to reform and that was the Puritans. And how did that work out? The Puritans end up coming to the United States and that's part of my ancestry. Early 1600s, my ancestor had been the vicar at Colchester and tried to join this Puritan movement and tried to reform the church and it wasn't happening. So he, along with a number of others, came over to the United States.

So there was an attempt at reform with the Puritans during the 1600s, and that didn't work. So then along come the Westleys, with some others, along come the Westleys in the 1700s, again trying to reform the Anglican Church. And one of the things that the Westleys particularly wanted to do was to correct the apathy that was there in the Anglican Church structure. It was just this kind of malaise, apathy, you know, who cares, and we're just going through the motions. Like today. Yeah. Yep. Now, there's something else too.

If we say Methodist here in the United States, it means actually something quite different from Methodist over in England. There was a different development because the Wesley's tended to have more of the influence, although they went both places, they tended to have more of the influence in the United States and how things developed here in starting the Methodist Church because they didn't reform the Anglican Church, right? That got rejected.

And so, but over in England you had George Whitefield who was more of a Calvinist leaning sort of fellow. So you have the Methodist churches in England developed with a Calvinist bent, and the Methodist churches in the United States developed with a more Arminian bent. Calvinism being God is sovereign, the tulip, all those kinds of things. And Arminianism being the idea that it's man's will that everything pivots around. and not always, but typically, including loss of salvation. So you have the American development being more Arminian and with the Westleys being involved.

The early Methodist leaders, as they are now, are inclined to engage in and encourage social activism. What do we mean by social activism? Church reaching out into the society and trying to change. Right, so looking at a lot of outreach kind of things and essentially let's change the world kind of perspectives.

Now, because the Methodists, particularly in the United States, because the Methodists were most often trying to correct the apathy, what did they make sure was included in their meetings? A lot of enthusiasm, right? A lot of emotional expression. So that was to try to counterbalance the apathy that they saw in the Anglican Church. So they included lots of emotional expression and also open to different experiences, things that stirred people up. So that was their approach. Now, what you see about two-thirds of the way down the page, you see a line that goes Methodist, holiness, Pentecostal, charismatic, hyper-charismatic.

So let's step our way through that. So here in the 1730s approximately, and for some decades after that, the Westleys are involved in getting things started in the United States. Then you have various kinds of Methodist, Wesleyan groups, lots of different groups starting up, splitting off, joining together, that kind of thing. Then around the turn of the century you have holiness churches being established. And we'll talk a little bit about what that's all about.

And then the Pentecostal first wave. Anybody here have any background with like Methodist churches or Wesleyan churches? Yeah, okay, yeah. In my high school years. some of that. My grandparents were Assembly of God. The Pentecostal movement began just after the turn of the last century, but then began establishing denominations in the 20s.

You have the fourth square and the Assembly of God and things of that sort. So that's sometimes called first-wave charismatic. A lot of them that are kind of old-line, particularly, don't like that title or label. But First Wave Charismatic. Then in First Wave Charismatic, the general doctrinal teaching of like Four Square, Assembly of God, things like that, some variation, but in general they'll say that the gift of tongues is the evidence that you've had this baptism of the Holy Spirit and experienced after Salvation.

A separate event. A second blessing, or some term like that. And it's not only that, but it's also a proof of salvation. Yeah, some of them would say that as well. In other words, this is not just the evidence that you have had the baptism, but it's a proof that you were in fact saved. So, you know, my grandfather was either the first or among the first Assembly of God pastors in California.

So, and that's when things were just getting started. Okay, then you have Charismatic Second Wave. In other words, the first wave, Pentecostal, everything is focused on the gift of tongues. and everybody's looking at, you know, you've got to get that gift of Thomas. The second wave Charismatic did two things. One is it said, well, there's other gifts out there that are okay to have, and it jumped denominational lines.

You're no longer talking about having to, you know, be within the assembly of God or four square or something like that, but it actually got started in the Episcopal Church. And the first charismatic there was actually more of an introvert. He was not one of these extrovert kind of guys. But that's how it got started.

So it jumped denominational lines, and then see, I'm joking here, but you get your Baptocostals, you know. You start getting other categories of people. As a matter of fact, in some of my family connections, Catholic charismatics began to develop. Was that also for the same reason, because of apathy in those churches? Well, I think there's something else that started to develop.

Because if you think about it, what are you having? You're having what's often an extremely emotional experience. That's part one. Part two is an awful lot of an awful lot of church expression can get pretty dusty, dry, you know, kind of thing. So this kind of puts some life in it, the question of whether it's true or not, based on what's biblical. But now, one of the things that's key here, and we'll talk more about this, so there's the second wave Charismatic starting around 1960. Okay, so you have the the Jump from denominational lines and then you have about 1980 the hyper charismatic movement and the hyper charismatic movement is They go back to in many cases back to having a denomination particularly the vineyard churches, where it's kind of centered, and then that spills over into the Pentecostal churches. But here's the deal.

It is extra-biblical expressions. Holy mooing, holy barking, mock birthing, holy spirit glue, where you glue to the floor and can't get up, drunkenness spirit, all those kinds of things. So it's When we say hyper-charismatic, it's no longer, okay, when we read this in the Bible, it's stuff that's just like, whoa, we've never seen anything like this, and it's not described in the Bible, but we've got a whole bunch of people over here mock-birthing the church, going through birth pains, and they have coaches, and this guy over here is holy barfing. spitting up demons. And you'll have the whole church, everybody's moving, and other people start barking, and animal sounds of different kinds.

So that kind of thing, that's the hyper-charismatic movement. Yeah? What about this slain in the spirit? Is that their immaculor or touch? Yeah, and that's one of the things. Now, what they attempt to do is they'll take different biblical descriptions. Here, for example, Revelation chapter 1.

Here's John. What was John's response when he turns and there's Jesus. Hasn't seen him for decades. So what's John's response? He fell down. So that's slain in the spirit, right? And Daniel had a similar kind of thing. So they'll point to things like that and say that's slain in the spirit.

Yeah, and what's amazing, sometimes they'll, you know, even just from across the room, and somebody will just go crashing down. They'll have catchers. Yes, Randy? Having worked with a gal who was heavily in that movement, what ends up being is a fascinating sociological phenomenon where they basically come expecting that. And they're primed to have that reaction to those motions. She was ready to go to a Benny Hinn thing where they were going to do that. And this one gal was ready to go.

And she said, I could feel his spirit at the Coliseum or whatever else. And I was like, really? You could feel Benny in spirit? You were ready for his power? That's not even biblical at all, but that's how she wanted it. It's a strange psychological and sociological phenomenon.

Yes? It would seem to make more sense if they also had holy tipping over of tables. Uh-huh. Holy tipping over of tables? That's what Jesus did. Well, there might even be some of that. Okay, so let's take a look here on the second page. And so we get a little more detail here. So Methodists, this is actually an entire family of denominations which has continued to morph into various forms. And so relatively theologically conservative free Methodist churches.

To the liberal United Methodist Churches, at the core of the Methodist belief is Arminianism, which teaches that it is a person's willing to believe which saves. But it is generally believed among Arminians that a person, not always, but generally believed, that a person may also lose their salvation by willing, otherwise, or by neglect. Also among the teachings of Methodism is the second blessing idea, the work of the Holy Spirit supposedly allows one to live a sinless life. So you've got that in, let's say, an offspring church, the Church of the Nazarene, and so they'll have the doctrine of entire sanctification. where you're sanctified as a sudden jump instead of a process. And that's a second blessing kind of thing.

And so, let's see, I think Vani is of that background. Those under the Methodist banner include those who have the word Methodist or Wesleyan in their church or denominational name, plus others. One of the appendix items that you'll see, you've got a family tree of denominations. Family tree of denominations. And so what you have there is Methodists. It didn't copy real well, but it shows some of the different Methodist denominations.

Methodist, African Methodist Episcopal, AME, and then Salvation Army. That's one thing that is often overlooked. Salvation Army is a Methodist offshoot. So are they Arminian? I believe so, yeah. They're Armenian, and so they have this structure that they've set up, but it's basically started off as an offshoot from Methodism. I just heard the other day, I don't know if you know this, but they can't marry outside of the church. Out of the Salvation Army, you mean? Yeah. I've seen some of those marriages. Yeah, that's the way they do it.

Then you have other Pentecostal churches. The Church of God, which they call it Pentecostal. I guess I'd call it a holiness church. Very legalistic, by the way. Very legalistic. And then you've got Pentecostal assemblies, Assemblies of God, Four Square. This was Amy Semple McPherson, way back when.

And then today, one of the bigger names, Jack Hayford, if you've heard of him, he's out of that four square background. And then the charismatic, you've got Calvary Chapel, which is kind of charismatic light, but that's second wave charismatic. And then John Wimber, who was at Calvary Chapel, was asked to leave. because he started doing these extra-biblical, you know, the Holy Moon, Holy Barking stuff, and so he started the Vineyard Churches. So, he got that patent. I'm sorry, what?

What about the Alliance Church? Christian and Missionary Alliance, CMA, they are a Methodist offshoot. Christian Missionary Alliance, which has its origins back in the 1800s, the last half of the 1800s. In the area that I grew up, Methodist was very predominant, but you said that a lot of them were formed, rejuvenated because of lack of apathy, but this, I didn't know, about legalism at that time, but they couldn't, you couldn't dance, you couldn't play cards, you couldn't, I don't know, I guess you could sing in church, but I don't know, they seemed very legalistic. And when I think about it now, it doesn't seem like that would be very motivating. But I guess what they could do in the church and what they could do in the community were different things.

Well, and here's a part of what you find, you know, those saying, well, there's apathy here, right? So what do we do that we get all excited and, you know, and by the time you start doing that, well, wait a minute, what am I doing here? I'm trying to correct the problem I see here by doing this in the extreme instead of saying, now, wait a minute, what's true? What's biblical? and patterning ourselves that way. So by people trying to correct and react and all that, you end up getting all these different groups. And this other group says, well, that's a little weird, so I'm going to go off and do this other thing. So they'll get lots and lots and lots of Methodist denominations and split-offs.

Because it's fundamentally not looking at what's true and what's biblical. Doesn't that occur mainly because of focus on numbers? They want to keep the numbers in their church. And that can be another thing, was it safe to get the numbers up? Pack the pews or whatever. So getting the numbers up, getting people there, getting them excited, and that's where you can easily get into what markets markets well.

And then the holiness churches, similar to Methodist churches, but underscore personal holiness as central to their teachings, often theologically more conservative. Some have been prone to legalism. Many of these are also Arminian, teaching laws of salvation. On Nancy's side of the family, we had people that are of a holiness background. The gals, they look very plain because of all the rules about you don't wear this and you don't wear that. Very plain. Again, the legalism comes out there.

Those under the Holiness Church banner will include the Nazarene and Church of God denominations. The Nazarene denomination has more recently, and this we make mention of before, the spiritual formation that we talked about some weeks ago, where essentially it's Christian Buddhism. That has significantly impacted the Nazarene denomination. A lot of shift in that direction.

And again, the tendency, it's not universal, the tendency is to lean towards loss of salvation. And it's amazing, I'll have conversations with these people and I'll say, you know, the Bible teaches you can't lose your salvation. Boy, they just look at me like I'm a heretic, you know. And boy, it's just, even if you bring out this verse or that verse, boy, it's just, They're really backing away.

Yeah? I've noticed the Nazarenes have got a book out called Renovating Holiness. I don't know if you've ever got a chance to look at that. I have not. No. The term itself kind of like brings up a red flag. Yeah, Renovating Holiness? Yeah. So I'm not sure whether that's something they're looking at going back or they're changing or something. Yeah, I'm not sure either. That's very interesting. I talked to a Nazarene or somebody that ever worked there.

They said, you mean to tell me that if you murdered somebody, you know, a Christian murdered somebody, that they wouldn't lose their salvation. You know, it's this thing, well, you're going to lose it if you don't. It seems logical. You can't go to heaven if you murdered somebody. And that's scripture. I think of scriptures as murderers and adulterers will not enter heaven. They can take a scripture like that and say it says right here. Anyway, there's an argument. I think they have some arguments. Oh yeah, they do.

We had several years ago a Q&A class and we spent a couple of weeks going over their verses and passages that they take a look at and use it to justify a loss of salvation. I was just thinking, Vern, that in essence John MacArthur's salvation is based on the evidences rather than on the work of Christ, which would lead you to say you're not saved if there's no evidences. Yes, it's backdoor loss of salvation. In other words, if I teach the perseverance of the saints, which is the pea and the tulip, that a true saint will persevere, then you have a difficulty with things like here in the book of Hebrews. Here are these people that by now should be teachers, but they've gone backwards. There's retrogression. And it's hard to explain how, wait a minute, so these people lose their salvation, or they never were Christians in the first place, or it doesn't fit.

The Corinthians will be having an elective in 1 Corinthians, right? And Paul writes in the beginning of chapter 3, and you guys are fleshly. Well, he told them right in the beginning that they're sanctified in the perfect tents. But they're fleshy. And they even have some that have backslidden so badly that they're dying. Chapter 11.

So things like that are tough to reconcile with this, I've got to persevere perfectly. So now the Pentecostal churches, and again this is where my grandparents were at, in the assembly of God. Classically held, the tongues was the singular gift evidencing the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is specifically the second blessing. Many, but not all, of these churches have in recent years drifted towards charismatic or hyper-charismatic views and expressions. Some of them, however, are old-line Pentecostal and are very upset with these other people. I've crossed paths with them. So, essentially, the old line view was it's tongues that is the singular evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Now, one of the things that's a problem is that tongues is actually more likely a psychological phenomenon. Just about every major religion has some expression of it. It has even been reproduced in atheists. And essentially it's a psychological phenomenon.

There's about three to five phonemes which vary from one person's language to the next. For example, in the southern part of Africa where there's all these pops and clicks and things like that in the language, how come that doesn't show up? What typically will happen is English speaking people will have certain kind of phonemes that are within their range of language and not some other language. 30 years ago or so, Pat Robertson, and they'd have the speaking in tongues, and now it's Trinity, what is it, the Trinity Network or something. Don't they still have that kind of, you're familiar with Pat Robertson. Yes. Don't they still have their, what, TV network? Yeah, there's still going on with that.

Interestingly, in Central America, the Latin American mission has a Pentecostal bent to it and allows speaking in tongues. Whereas the Central American Mission, same area, working among the same people, has a no speaking in tongues is valid today position.

And we were involved with Central. And we had friends in the Latin American Mission because that was our sister stations in the other countries. And it was interesting to work with them. perfectly legit and it was fine. But man, the basis of what they believed was really different. And it caused some of the mission's people, because there was marriages between the two missions, some real problems.

So another thing that is increasingly prominent among these groups is to have women in teaching and leadership positions. And that's pretty much down the line here for a lot of these groups. Isn't that prevalent in Episcopal town? Yeah, essentially what you have is you've got other groups. Episcopal church is one of them. where they're embracing that. The Evangelical Lutheran Church, for example, is kind of the more liberal end. So the more liberal end of a lot of the denominations are embracing that now. And then you had, historically, some high-profile names were Amy Semple McPherson, you know, with the four square, and Catherine Kuhlman, It's another historically influential name in the Pentecostal category.

Then you have the Charismatic Movement, which ended up being kind of an infiltration of existing denominations, had a variety of supposed apostolic-era gifts, and did not spring up a characteristic set of doctrines such as much of the denominational profusion.

You've got on your handout, this chart here, and this is something that we've developed that was presented in our first Corinthians elective with a listing of spiritual gifts in the back there. So what we have divided there is apostolic era gifts and church age gifts. The apostolic era gifts being gifts explicitly for the apostolic era, but with the evidence that those gifts have ended. And so what they would say is all these gifts are possible, right, in the charismatic movement. All these gifts are possible and all these gifts can be expressed in any denomination or show up anywhere.

And so I've had some family members that have been of, for example, charismatic Catholic background, extended family. So you'd have, they would say any of these in the second wave charismatic, any of these gifts might show up, any that are described in scripture. Anybody had any exposure to any of these particular charismatic groups? You've seen that? And so rather than the Pentecostal doctrine of, boy, we're just aiming for the gift of Thomas, they'd look for any of the gifts, as long as they're described in scripture, than any of them.

In Peru, there was a split with Wycliffe. The only reason I know about it is a personal friend of mine from high school days went with Wycliffe to Peru, married a British lady, and they were excluded from the other missionaries because they wouldn't participate in the holiness type demonstrations. Speaking in tongues, they said, that's not scriptural. And eventually, they resigned from the mission. And it's particularly difficult with missions organizations where you get splits along those lines.

It's like, what are we trying to tell people about here? What is our gospel? What is our message? And once somebody becomes saved, am I trying to grow them in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? Or am I pressing them to have this second blessing experience?

And what does that look like? Well Richard said it was more that they were looking at themselves rather than the Lord Jesus. He recognized that there were some real problems with that. My brother, who's been in Northern California in Bible churches there, he had one lady come into the church that had been out of one of these hyper-charismatic churches, and then she became saved. My brother gave her the gospel and she actually became saved, but she had been doing all this expression as an unbeliever.

So you're saying that these gifts up above don't exist anymore, like discerning of spirits and faith and healing? Word of Knowledge and Word of Wisdom, or they shouldn't be preached? I'm saying that the valid expression of those gifts does not exist anymore. We don't have apostles.

For instance, a valid expression of those gifts. In other words, when people talk about tongues, what they're expressing is not the biblical gift of tongues, but rather a modern psychological phenomenon that's been around. Yeah, Crystal? So, in the past, what would the outward appearance of discerning of spirits, that gift, what would it have looked like?

What we do here is we have, here's the description, that's the next column over, so distinguishing the power behind a teaching or prophecy, and then exposures of false teachers and prophets, and then we give an example, 1 Corinthians 14.29, so that's how we do with each one.

A couple of things, one is that a lot of these things were necessary because the New Testament was not complete or had just been started and so you didn't have New Testament scriptures to guide and lead and direct in different things. Now we can look at it and say, well, here is the Word of God. I can use that to discern. But lacking that in the early stages of the Church, that would be a necessary gift, because I didn't have the New Testament to guide and lead and direct.

The gift of discerning spirits is basically the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. It's using the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, both of those together. In other words, what you would look at is a combination of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, which of course using the Holy Spirit, in order to be able to discern. Just think of this, why would some people be able to discern now better than others? One is close attention to the Word of God. Close attention to the Word of God. So that's a key part of being able to discern.

Wait a minute, that doesn't square up with For instance, I go to my uncle's church, and everybody in the whole place is speaking in tongues all at once. Does that square up with 1 Corinthians 14? So everybody is speaking in tongues all at once. One of the gals is up on the stage with a dress and her legs up in the air. What's wrong here? That's a matter of saying, wait a minute, that doesn't square up with scripture. Why are you being impacted by the Holy Spirit to put your legs up in the air on the stage with what you've got to dress on? Something doesn't square up with scripture here. It's using scripture, that's at the core, This is not the gift of Thomas. This is not being biblically expressed. For example, we have listed on the top category of apostolic gifts the gift of healing. Can God heal? Yes. I can testify to that personally. God can heal. but that's not the same as the gift of healing.

The apostles essentially had a super gift, that is, they were able to carry out all of these things. So here's Peter, he doesn't just go to this man who's lame in the temple and say, hey, I'll pray for you and we'll see what the Lord does. silver and gold have I none, such as I have given thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, and of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. and orchestrating and moving those things as a sign to establish the church. The gifts were establishing something, rather than just being a neat trick. It wasn't like a magic show.

Right. Yeah. And so when we tried to make it a magic show, that's called Simonine, right? Yes? So in the apostolic era, it was to show that these people were apostles and that they were the true followers. Whereas nowadays, that's not necessary, right? Yeah. In other words, we don't have apostles anymore, right? We don't want to focus on an individual. Right.

And so you'll have people who claim to be apostles, right? But one of the characteristics of the apostles is that they endured great suffering. The point I was going to make is that it's interesting that these different groups that have, you know, done their thing and have broken off, who want all these gifts, you know, and all these outrageous expressions, not one of them says, we choose the gift of suffering that we thought was given to the apostles. Not one of them says, I personally want to be put in prison. I think I need the gift of being scorched. They'll tend not to gravitate towards that.

You know, here's Acts chapter 9. The Lord says, you know, Paul's going to suffer. And so what does Paul do? He describes great suffering. He writes to the Church of Corinth. I went through this many shipwrecks and I was beaten. Lots of suffering. And that tends not to be something they volunteer for. They tend to go for God wants you to be rich. Yeah, we get a lot of that. And it works. The only thing is it works for the person who is the high profile guy that gets all the money.

A lot of the high-profile prosperity teachers have a net worth of somewhere between $10 and $40 million. Benny Hinn is at $40 million, right? Joyce Meyer is about $25 or something like that. But anyway, Creflo Dollar is at $27 million. So you've got guys, you know, the prosperity teachers, it's their prosperity, you know. See, it works. Yes, it works for them.

So then, so you have then the charismatic movement, Calvary Chapel, founded by Chuck Smith, who is kind of a denomination that worked off in that direction. So that would be second wave charismatic. The hyper-charismatic movement has been actually around for a while now. The 80s was when that first started up. Anybody hear of the Toronto Blessing?

It's that kind of thing. And so there you can have expressions that are supposedly of the Spirit that are outside of anything described in scripture. And this is the holy mooing, holy barking, holy barfing, the holy spirit glue, you know, those kinds of things. The flame in the spirit thing.

So you'll have that phenomenon and it tends to have a psychology and a sociology that goes along with it as well. You get people together in this group, and it's even contagious. So a lot of these churches will incorporate the spiritual formation stuff, that was back in Lesson 38. Some Methodist denominations in their seminaries have also substantial influence from Christian liberalism. The Islet School of Theology is one of those.

Christ is not deity. The Resurrection never happened. And so Christian liberalism in its extreme forms is just going to talk about social action and deny miracles, deny the resurrection. Yes? Yeah, that would be my thoughts exactly. I think if you could make more money, you could have a better way if you just dropped the whole Christian It just doesn't make sense. As a society and a culture, usually if it's Christian, it's not very successful anymore. The Methodist Church, the United Methodist Church, in the little town where I went to high school, had some Christians in it that were genuine Christians.

Of course, the bishop decides who goes where. in terms of pastors. And they were strongly objecting to the pastor that was being assigned to them. They said, this guy is not even saved. And the bishop said, you are going to have this pastor. Enough noise out of you. And so most of the church just vacated. going to a church where the guy's not even saved, you know.

So, yeah, I mean, it can get to, what's the point? Yeah. In another instance, there was a pastor who was there giving the message and people were getting kind of excited about what he was saying. It sounded pretty good. And he says, too bad I don't believe any of this stuff. Yeah, and that's what people do. In other words, that's a market-directed approach to church, is what sells. What do people want? You go out and do a lot of polls and studies and market segmentation.

Well, everybody knocks the Catholic Church for having the Pope and having directions come down from them on how they're supposed to believe. But if you look at the Methodist Church and the Baptist Church and the Presbyterian Church, they may not specifically have one individual that they call Pope, but they do have a governing board above them. And in that governing board you have a hierarchy, and at some point on the top of that hierarchy is an individual.

And so he's passing all this stuff down to all these churches. It's really, when you think about it, not terribly different. And why does the Methodist Church, why do they typically have a bishop over a number of churches? Well, and it's because they came from the Anglican Church, right, trying to reform the Anglican Church, and they've got the... where did the Anglican Church get its bishops? From the Roman Catholic background. So, essentially you can see how that got carried along. Is there any biblical basis for having a person who's a bishop over a number of churches? There is not. So it's tradition, and they got it from where they came from. here in the States, it's the Episcopals, whereas in Canada, it's the Anglican, but they're both the descendants of that revolt against the Roman system.

And Anglican is also a prominent one in Uganda. In Uganda, it's interesting, a lot of people, if you talk to them about becoming a Christian, they'll say, I'd like to be a Christian, but I just can't afford it. Because they charge for the baptism. They charge for the baptism, and therefore a lot of people just can't afford it, so they can't become a Christian.

So that's the mindset that's developed there. Lord, thank you that we do have your word. We do have your word to establish what's true and to make things clear. And we thank you for just your working among us and we just pray that we would indeed be discerning as we come across these various groups and see in general ways how they developed and we just thank you that your Holy Spirit is not there to produce all these strange effects but rather to guide and lead us into the truth the spirit of truth and so we give you thanks we pray in Jesus name Amen