The NXR Podcast - July 28, 2021


THEOLOGY APPLIED - How To Identify A Cult

Topics
peace with god peace with God test
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Walter Martin Andrew Jesus Christ John David Koresh Jeff Durbin Jeremiah Stephen Steve Hassan Jim Jones Rick Allen Ross Talladega Nights Anthony Hecima Warren Jeffs Led Zeppelin Jamie White Ben Shapiro R.C. Sproul John Bunyan Jonestown and 6 more
THEOLOGY APPLIED - Christian Persecution In America THEOLOGY APPLIED - The Puritans Message To The American Church

Episode Stats


Length

52 minutes

Words per minute

186.53

Word count

9,883

Sentence count

278

Harmful content

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

12

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On this episode of Theology Applied, I was privileged to have Andrew and Jeremiah, co-hosts of the podcast Cultish, join me to discuss cults, how to identify a cult, and the signs that you might be a member of a cult.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 On this episode of Theology Applied, I was privileged to have both Andrew and Jeremiah,
00:00:05 who are co-hosts of the podcast called Cultish.
00:00:08 We actually took our interview and broke it up into two parts.
00:00:11 This is the first part where we primarily deal with the question of,
00:00:15 how do I know if I'm in a cult?
00:00:17 How do I know if a loved one is in a cult?
00:00:21 We deal with the universal signs that you can look towards to identify cults.
00:00:26 Hope you enjoy.
00:00:28 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.
00:00:31 This is Theology Applied.
00:00:39 All right, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied.
00:00:42 I'm joined again by Jeremiah and Andrew from Coltish.
00:00:47 They're a part of Apologia Church in Arizona, where it's nice and hot,
00:00:51 and soon to be, Lord willing, planting another church, a new Apologia Church in Salt Lake,
00:00:57 which is really the kingdom of the cults.
00:00:59 But we know that truly, in the ultimate sense, it belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ,
00:01:03 who is the King of all kings.
00:01:04 And so I wanted to do an episode specifically about cults, how to identify cults,
00:01:10 what are some of the most dangerous cults, what are the signs that you might be a part of a cult,
00:01:14 what are the distinctions between cults and the Christian faith,
00:01:18 all things cultish with the co-host of the podcast cultish so without further ado uh jeremiah and
00:01:25 andrew thanks for coming on the show feel free to introduce anything about yourselves you'd like to
00:01:29 share um sure well i'm uh jeremiah roberts i'm one of the co-hosts here at cultish if you've
00:01:34 listened in and uh yeah so i am i i'm originally from california and but california by origin
00:01:42 Arizona by choice I've lived in Arizona pretty much my entire life I the background to even like
00:01:48 how cold is a possibility and how this came about is that I ended up going to a charter school I
00:01:55 believe going into ninth grade and it just so happened to be about 98 percent Mormon which is
00:02:01 actually right not too far away from where we host our services at Apologia Church that whole process
00:02:07 began a point where I started to really question and really think through what I'd grown up to
00:02:14 believe. This was really the first time kind of being sheltered in homeschooled where I was just
00:02:18 in a tribe of people who believed something very different than what I did. And through that
00:02:23 process, I got a book. I got a hold of a book of someone you may have heard of, Dr. James White,
00:02:30 a book called Letters to a Mormon Elder. That was sort of a really great book, a bunch of fictional
00:02:36 letters written to a Mormon missionary talking over a variety of topics. I'm really surprised
00:02:43 there haven't been more books written in that format of actual letters, like to a Jehovah's
00:02:48 Witness or letters to a Muslim. I'm generally surprised that hasn't been the case. But this book
00:02:52 had a huge impact on me. During that time, someone gave me a copy of the giant thick book of I think
00:02:59 the fifth edition of Kingdom of the Colts by Dr. Walter Martin. And yeah, and so yeah, then,
00:03:05 You know, through that process, I've just had a genuine interest in apologetics, specifically in relation to the world of the cults.
00:03:12 And especially when Jeff and I connected, we back in the day, we would listen to Walter Martin on a lot of VHS videos and tape cassettes.
00:03:21 And, you know, I can't believe I'm actually saying that should get you an idea for my age.
00:03:24 So and so, yeah, that's just kind of a little bit about where I come from and my relation to cultish.
00:03:29 And yeah, this is just something that started roughly about two, about two and a half years ago that we relaunched. And I think in many ways, and you'll jump into this too, Andrew, I think I told people too that the success we've had on some level, you know, there's a lot of work and effort you have to continually put in to a podcast.
00:03:50 But I think just for the topics that we cover, there's a huge, huge marketplace. And being able to give a definitive Christian apologetic and response to the different topics that are brought up in issues like ufology, the whole UFO alien discussion, the New Age, the occult, Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientology, all those broad variety of topics we cover.
00:04:19 There is not much out there that's covering it from a definitive biblical worldview.
00:04:24 So I think that is one of the reasons why even people who are atheists or agnostics still appreciate our podcast because they know if we're going to talk about the Branch Davidians or David Koresh or Warren Jeffs or any of the cults that we talk about, they're going to get that Christian worldview.
00:04:42 in the same way where if someone listens to Ben Shapiro, they know they're going to get a very
00:04:48 fast talking, if you listen to him, conservative view on the topic of the day. So anyways,
00:04:54 that's enough of me. You can go ahead, Andrew. Yeah. So yeah, I was born in Las Vegas, Nevada.
00:05:00 I moved to Phoenix when I was 13. I've been here for 18 years now. And it was during my high school
00:05:06 experience as well when I met, started meeting a lot of people that were from different backgrounds
00:05:10 and beliefs because prior to me coming out here, I went to a Calvary Chapel Christian school
00:05:14 growing up. So it was sheltered in the sense of coming up against differing beliefs. So
00:05:19 in high school, I had a falling away of sorts. I met a lot of people into the new age. I even met
00:05:26 many LDS people. It was during this time where I was really formulating, in a sense, the worldview
00:05:32 that I grew up in, in terms of actually having and engaging in conversations, even though I wasn't
00:05:37 acting out what it really means to be a Christian. Uh, it wasn't until around college when I really
00:05:43 wanted to take things more seriously. I remember I picked up the first book I picked up on the
00:05:46 cults, uh, besides, you know, reading the Bible and trying to become familiar with the authentic,
00:05:51 uh, was Anthony Hecima's four major cults. And, uh, that started piquing my interest really
00:05:57 into learning more about these differing beliefs. And yeah, so that, that's, that's how I got into
00:06:04 cults and then it was around 2017 when i started going to apologia church and one of the first
00:06:10 people i met actually at apologia was jerry and um we just kind of hit it off we started talking
00:06:15 and he started talking about cults and started talking about um oneness pentecostals yeah there's
00:06:21 some people out there's some people who are oneness apostolic pentecostals and i was meeting up with
00:06:25 them and then i yeah so i was like telling them all about the conversation and then you were like
00:06:31 taking all these notes i found out that you have this amazing research ability which that's how you
00:06:35 sort of became the super sleuth because like oh my gosh you just would have you know 10 is like hey
00:06:39 can you look up this one topic and actually know i'd get an email back with about 10 pages of
00:06:43 research like 30 minutes later it was funny maybe maybe 45 an hour well i had already been reading
00:06:49 the topics before we even started discussing them which is hilarious because i was already going
00:06:53 through kingdom of the cults just you know listening to pastor jeff and you know watching
00:06:57 apology radio always talking about kingdom of the cults like i gotta buy this book sell my shirt
00:07:01 provide the book and um yeah it's just cool how all of that worked out and jerry and i became
00:07:05 best friends and we just uh enjoy that yeah yeah that's great yeah cool guys well i it's great to
00:07:12 get to know you a little bit i'm sure our listeners are happy to get to hear some of
00:07:16 your backstory and i'm honored that you came on the show today so let's go ahead and just dive
00:07:20 right in um again kind of a 30 000 foot view i i want to basically i my hope is that this
00:07:27 would be kind of a primer on cults and so not really dealing with any one specific cult
00:07:33 in detail but cults in general and so that said the first question that I have is this certainly
00:07:39 individual cults will vary but are there any universal characteristics any common denominators
00:07:45 that we can find across the board that would mark pretty much every cult well I'll start and then
00:07:53 you can give me your thoughts Andrew I think one of the things you'll see that's universally
00:07:56 is that you will have a it'll be a group of people or an organization either centralized
00:08:03 around a charismatic leader that is on some level either a proclaiming deity that they somehow are
00:08:13 divine or god in the flesh you've seen that manifested many different times just for the
00:08:18 sake of time you know there's a lot of examples we could give or they believe that they are
00:08:24 tapped into a source via God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, and they are
00:08:32 deriving this revelation. The only way to be in the know, to be in the truth, is through them.
00:08:38 So in other words, they're sort of trying to emulate really what Christ warned about,
00:08:43 you know, false Christ, false messiahs appearing. So that's usually one characteristic. You'll have
00:08:49 someone who is a charismatic leader tapped into some sort of revelatory source. I'll give one
00:08:54 more just sociological sociological um you would have a usually like a another characteristic
00:09:02 would be a rigid uh restrictions in regards to the uh member about how what they can eat uh where
00:09:10 they can live um even like how often they can sleep a lot of times the regulation especially
00:09:16 during early recruitment and usually involves a sleep deprivation which gets people a lot of
00:09:22 time is into a very vulnerable and suggestible state where they, you know, the love bomb and
00:09:28 all that sort of things. But those would be two sociological characteristics. What are some
00:09:32 examples you give, Andrew? Yeah, yeah. I'll give some tangible examples of what you just
00:09:37 explained. So for example, in terms of charismatic leaders, although they might not be the most
00:09:41 charismatic, we can look at the LDS organization, right? We have their prophet that exists today.
00:09:46 Let's say they have a special tapping in with God. I mean, in that sense, we actually can see that
00:09:51 when there is one of these types of leaders who claims this special knowledge will actually have
00:09:55 extra biblical revelation in the form of books, right? We can say the Book of Mormon, Pearl of
00:10:02 Great Price, Doctrine and Covenants. We can even go to the Watchtower Track Society and their
00:10:06 publication saying that you need to view the Bible through the lens of extra biblical revelation. So
00:10:12 I'd say any big red flag to a person would be if someone's coming to you and saying you need to
00:10:19 look at the bible in these specific terms given through this rigid set of structure uh from that
00:10:28 that roots from an organization or a system or a person and that's a big red flag and typically
00:10:35 uh what what will happen is we'll have a distortion of text right so you can go to the lds.org or
00:10:40 whatever the website is now or even jw.org and what are the first things that they do when you
00:10:44 you look at the website, they redefine who Jesus is, right? They redefine how the church fell. They
00:10:51 would say there was a great apostasy, both would claim that. And you'll see that they have to 0.99
00:10:56 redefine everything in order to reimplant their worldview. First, they have to make you go, well,
00:11:01 does the Bible really say that? Can the Bible be trusted? No, trust me with my revelation.
00:11:07 And this is what you need to do to achieve salvation. So anything, which also leads again
00:11:11 into a works-based type of salvation model and system where you have to listen to the leader
00:11:16 and do as they say right yeah yeah that's really helpful so making bringing people this you know
00:11:23 the social aspect bringing them to a place of vulnerability and then and then trying basically
00:11:27 breaking them down and then building them back up reshaping them affirming them the love bomb thing
00:11:32 that you said jeremiah but then also um this sense of always around one charismatic leader and and i
00:11:38 have experienced that where people say, man, I never understood the Bible until so-and-so and
00:11:43 still until, you know, so-and-so's teaching. And, you know, if they say, you know, if they're saying
00:11:48 someone who's faithful, like until I heard, you know, R.C. Sproul, you know, Jeff Durbin, well,
00:11:53 it's really not so-and-so. That's just the first good Bible teacher that they've ever come across.
00:11:57 And we have 2000 years of church history. And so that's, that would be different. But, but if it's,
00:12:02 you know, this person made the Bible make sense for the very first time. So that's really helpful
00:12:07 to hear that it's, you know, it's, it's kind of like, um, multiple steps removed instead of just
00:12:12 to the source, uh, the scripture it's, I've got to have this guy working as a lens, my hermeneutic
00:12:17 for understanding the scripture and probably also functioning as a priest. Uh, so he's functioning
00:12:22 as a prophet, right? He's helping me understand revelation. He's also functioning as a priest,
00:12:26 uh, helping to absolve me of my sin and, and, you know, tell me the path and give me my, my works,
00:12:32 my penance and those kinds of things. And then ultimately it's strict, rigid guidelines, um,
00:12:37 a real absence of grace is is that a good summary i i think that's that that's brilliant it's
00:12:41 beautiful that you you pointed out in that sense of how they try to achieve what jesus achieved
00:12:46 perfectly because they don't actually give a sacrifice for people's sins instead that
00:12:51 wants everyone everyone else to sacrifice things for them uh which is something that i'd point out
00:12:56 i think that was a that's good that man yeah and i think that's i'm glad you brought that out too
00:13:01 that a lot of times people will go up to even like one of our pastors or jeff turban for example and
00:13:06 say wow that's just amazing the way he's doing this expository preaching i've never heard that
00:13:11 but again if you're going to a very seeker sensitive friendly church with the 30 minutes
00:13:15 of the self-help go and get it all but then all of a sudden it's the first time you're hearing about
00:13:19 justification the imputation of christ's righteousness or hearing about the role
00:13:24 that the gospel had the gospel of the kingdom that's being proclaimed we've been now in the
00:13:28 gospel of matthew i think for i don't know six six seven years we're kind of we're kind of towards
00:13:34 the end yeah but what's different though is that when we talk about someone who's revelatory and
00:13:39 charismatic that's not the ultimate standard what ends up what you ultimately would have to do is
00:13:44 that yeah this person can be can be charismatic they can you know have a have a maybe a magnetic
00:13:50 personality that kind of draws you in to hear what they're having to preach but ultimately doesn't
00:13:56 line up with scripture so if there is someone if there's a group of people who are following for
00:14:01 example a charismatic leader and he's teaching from the bible and he and people are saying wow
00:14:06 i've never heard anything like this before something unique that he's saying but it doesn't
00:14:10 line up historically with basic christian orthodoxy or maybe he is sort of being honest on the
00:14:18 forefront but then once you become a member you start learning the deeper doctrines and through
00:14:23 that maybe you find out salvation is actually a 10-step process you have to do or all of a sudden
00:14:30 the deity of christ is begins to be questioned well actually we have some deeper doctrine
00:14:36 there's always this appeal within the cults and the occult and it's been something that
00:14:41 christianity has been at war with since its inception is the aspect of secret hidden esoteric
00:14:47 knowledge that is something that the cults always will appeal to so a good biblical pastor will say
00:14:53 don't take my word for it test what i say by scripture so even this past week when i was out
00:15:00 at the um one of the mormon wards we're doing outreach i would say don't take my word for it
00:15:06 like go home and like read this yourself um you don't say this is my word and this is the way
00:15:11 this is my way this is my way because i said so so yeah i really appreciate the fact that you
00:15:17 brought that up yeah yeah it also sounds like one of the things i'm detecting from you guys is
00:15:22 we could probably talk a lot about church polity um so like what you're saying the berean kind of
00:15:28 mindset of you know don't just take my word for it but go and test it against the scripture
00:15:32 but then also within like a local church one of the ways that christianity would be distinct from
00:15:37 cults is at least for you guys and me i know that we're in the reformed baptist tribe and i'm pretty
00:15:43 sure apology would hold to the 1689 and i know that i do and so there's you know we have we have
00:15:48 chapters in our confession that um that speak to the common suffrage um of the congregation or they
00:15:55 speak to the the priesthood of all believers not just one charismatic individual and so
00:16:00 in a very real sense uh at least in a reformed baptist church uh the pastor can be removed by
00:16:07 by the peanut gallery for lack of a better phrase meaning that you know so they're not just peons
00:16:12 they're priests um the congregation matters they're you know it's a big deal to be a member
00:16:17 of a church and there is there is a a congregational polity uh to where every christian
00:16:24 has a responsibility, but also rights. And I think that's what I've noticed with
00:16:28 cults or cult-like churches is big, domineering, charismatic leaders. They love to give
00:16:36 responsibility to the people, but I'm always wary when people have lots of responsibility,
00:16:41 but they don't also, with that responsibility, possess any rights. And so for the members in my
00:16:47 church, hey, man, you're responsible for a lot. It's a big deal to be a part of Christ's bride.
00:16:53 The faithfulness and the purity of this church's gospel witness
00:16:57 falls ultimately on the elders in a larger sense,
00:17:00 but it falls very much on the members as well.
00:17:03 And one of the ways that it comes down to your responsibility
00:17:05 is because you are the ones who ordain elders,
00:17:09 and you are the ones who have the authority to remove them.
00:17:12 And so I always express it like this.
00:17:14 If I tell somebody, hey, you're responsible for cleaning my house,
00:17:18 but I don't give them the keys to get inside,
00:17:21 then it just doesn't really make sense.
00:17:23 With every responsibility, there has to be a police officer, serve and protect.
00:17:29 There's your duty, your responsibility.
00:17:31 But then you also equip them with a badge and a gun.
00:17:33 There's certain rights and privileges, power that comes.
00:17:37 And I see that as a constant theme throughout the scripture.
00:17:40 God calls us to something and also gives us the rights, the ability, the power, the enablement to carry out what he's called us to do.
00:17:49 He's a good father.
00:17:49 he doesn't exasperate his sons, asking them to do one thing, but giving them no power to carry it
00:17:55 out. And that seems to be a common denominator in cults. So pushing past that, if somebody was in a
00:18:02 cult, all right, so I know you guys have probably addressed many people who would fall into this
00:18:06 category, but let's just say that somebody's listening to this episode of the podcast right
00:18:10 now and they're in a cult, or perhaps more likely they just, they have a friend or a loved one who
00:18:15 they suspect might be a part of a cult. What are some telltale signs that you can, you know,
00:18:22 if you were just a list, you know, I wrote in my notes five, but five is an arbitrary number. So
00:18:26 whatever number you decide, but are there any clear signs that you can say these are quick
00:18:32 identifiers? I know we've already kind of been discussing this, but some things right on the
00:18:35 surface that would pop out. So identifiers to say that someone was in a cult? Yeah. So one of the
00:18:43 things that you would see is that one of the things that happens initially when someone gets
00:18:48 into a cult and you'd see this for example with the moonies and steve hassan who's not a christian
00:18:53 but his book combating cult mind control is excellent and i would actually argue that the
00:18:57 only reason he can even make a basis for anything within the book is because he's an image bearer of
00:19:03 god and he's appealing to the standards that ultimately god gives in regards to how you we
00:19:09 are supposed to love your neighbor and love does no harm to its neighbor so while Stephen
00:19:13 while Stephen was borrowing from God's standards to come up with a bite model which is behavior
00:19:19 control information control thought control emotional control one of the unique aspects
00:19:24 when someone gets into a cult it's this conversion experience where it's the replacement of their own
00:19:31 unique self and the and the the severing of that and the replacements with the cult identity so
00:19:38 one of the ways that you can see that is that usually there is a huge process, especially in
00:19:44 the early times of recruitment, there's a lot of indoctrination where they're cut out from any sort
00:19:49 of alternative viewpoints. They are cut off from friends and family who disagree. And a lot of
00:19:57 times they will just sort of given this level of programming, and you'll see it where a lot of
00:20:04 times if you are familiar with whatever cult that it is they'll kind of have these points where
00:20:09 they're they're their own unique self and they're being their authentic self and all of a sudden
00:20:13 it's like something will switch and all of a sudden they'll start saying some sort of mantra
00:20:18 robotically and almost and it's weird too especially you've heard them say something
00:20:25 you've heard dozens of other people say and this is just something that pre-programmed this is how
00:20:29 you respond. So that would be one example. I think one of the things you have to be very careful
00:20:36 about when talking with someone who's in a cult is that they have what would be called a siege
00:20:43 mentality. So what they would do is that they would interpret any sort of criticism of their
00:20:50 group as unwarranted persecution. So if you come up and just yell out like, you're in a cult,
00:20:58 oh my gosh you have to get out like and you just go completely bananas and go cage stage on them
00:21:04 they will they will completely throw up a wall they want they don't want to hear anything that
00:21:09 you have to say so i think one of the best ways you can uh do something and even walton martin
00:21:16 talked about it too where you would just calmly you know it's one your behavior like people there's
00:21:23 a saying that says people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care they
00:21:27 Cults are usually taught that anyone who is an outsider means them harm in many ways, or they are someone who is a suppressive person, or they are an anti, or they're just something, usually some sort of negative connotation, not just people who are on the outside, but those who are critical of the group.
00:21:46 So if we are doing evangelism, we come up to someone who's a Jehovah's Witness, and we're engaging with them, off the get-go, they don't feel very positively towards us.
00:21:57 But just the fact there's a smile on your face and that you look them in the eye and you're genuine, there's something just in that that will throw people off. 1.00
00:22:06 But another thing, too, is to whether it is just bringing up something in regards to their history or bringing up scripture, a lot of times they are taught to isolate when they're taught their doctrine.
00:22:19 me every single cult has something they have to do with jesus or the bible but they always have to
00:22:25 have it molded within their image and so and really it's it's really their own idol that they've made
00:22:31 but you have to be able to bring up different different questions uh different topics and not
00:22:39 but don't do it in the form of like well you believe this right what the best way to do it
00:22:45 I would just give one example in the end, or I'll let you jump in here as well, too, is that I would give, ask, not necessarily accuse someone of something, but bring it up through the way of asking for clarification.
00:22:57 So if we are talking, for example, about the nature of Jesus Christ, and for example, we're talking with someone who's a Jehovah's Witness who believes that Jesus Christ is Michael the Arking of Jehovah's first creation.
00:23:11 you know bring up hebrews chapter and in hebrews when it talks about how christ is superior to
00:23:17 angels and or and it says as written let all the angels of god worship him so you would bring up
00:23:24 that or if you're dealing with someone who's a oneness apostolic and they're talking about how
00:23:29 jesus didn't exist prior to the incarnation and he's just a manifestation well you could bring up
00:23:36 John 17, 5, where Christ talks about sharing the glory with the Father before the foundation of
00:23:42 the world. When Isaiah 42, 8, God says he will not share his glory with another. And so usually,
00:23:49 for example, I would bring that up and just say, well, what do you think about that? Pause. And
00:23:54 usually that's the best moment where you can bring up any sort of question in the moment.
00:23:59 And it could be anything in regards to scripture. It could be something regarding
00:24:04 a certain leader because a lot of times they have the sort of perfect messianic view of whoever the
00:24:11 leader is whether it's uh lng white whether it's mary baker eddie whether it's l ron hubbard
00:24:17 whatever you want to whatever it is but you bring up a topic and ask through clarification just to
00:24:23 get them to think outside how they've been programmed to think and that's usually the
00:24:27 best moments because you used to see them almost like that classic like winnie the pooh it's like
00:24:31 Think, think. When you get them to get outside of the pre-programmed bubble, that's that's where the place that's where you want to be able to play the game in regards to communicating with people who are in a cult.
00:24:44 That's that's beautiful, brother. But one thing that I'd like to mention, too, is if there's someone who is in a cult and they are listening to this and they don't know if they're in a cult.
00:24:52 the first thing I'd ask is, do you have peace with God? Do you have peace with God? Because we
00:24:57 know that the Bible says that if you do not believe in Jesus Christ, the Christ of scripture,
00:25:03 you know, by grace through faith alone in him for your salvation, that you don't have peace with
00:25:09 God. And I got to believe what God says about you rather than how you portray yourself to the world,
00:25:14 even replacing your identity with the identity of the cult leader. The question is, is do you
00:25:19 have peace with god because the bible says you don't if you don't know who jesus is right so the
00:25:23 gospel number one is the answer to getting someone out of the cult the only good answer because the
00:25:29 secular world doesn't have a great answer we go from one cult to another we like to use the term
00:25:35 out of the frying pan and into the fire from the cult of the jehovah's witnesses to the cult of 0.76
00:25:39 secularism and secular humanism at large right there's no answer in that it goes from purposelessness
00:25:46 to more purposelessness right it goes from not being at peace with god to still not being at
00:25:51 peace with god so the question is is do you find yourself a slave do you have freedom christ says
00:25:56 when you believe in him that he sets you free free indeed to worship him in spirit and in truth
00:26:02 to be who you are truly right while being conformed to the image of christ yet being more
00:26:08 the way the lord intended for you to be in right relationship with him right the christian we have
00:26:15 the ability to look and test what we believe, right? We can do that. We have the freedom.
00:26:21 We have the freedom to look at the Bible when our pastor talks and say, is what he said actually
00:26:26 correct, right? Do you not have that ability? Do you have to listen to every single thing this
00:26:32 person says? Do you have to do X, Y, and Z to achieve salvation? Do you have to pay for this
00:26:39 and to pay for that and do this course and that course in order to gain more knowledge to get
00:26:43 you closer up the ladder you know towards this new knowledge if that's the case and i'm sorry
00:26:50 you don't have peace with god the ladder never ends jesus died once for all right for our sins
00:26:57 that we could have peace with god the gospel is the answer you find yourself a slave set yourself
00:27:02 free through the blood of christ that's what i was amen amen no that's great uh how would you
00:27:07 respond andrew or jeremiah uh because i like what you were saying in terms of do you have peace with
00:27:12 god um my experience though as a pastor is um the individual that i'm asking that question too is
00:27:19 not always um the best person to accurately assess whether or not they have peace with god meaning
00:27:27 um a lot of non-christians think they have peace and uh and then there are some christians that at
00:27:36 times um don't have peace um you know that they are truly regenerate i think you know john bunyan
00:27:43 i'm a big fan of pilgrim's progress you know and as you know the the debate is you know when when
00:27:47 was he saved you know was it at the wicked gate or was it at the you know the cross and the
00:27:52 sepulcher when the burden rolled off of his back and and then there was a moment where he lost his
00:27:56 assurance even past um even past the wicked gate past the cross and the three shining ones who came
00:28:02 down, and he had to go back, and there were multiple times throughout the journey that
00:28:08 Christian, the main protagonist, was not at peace, and then there are many times when
00:28:15 those who do not fear God, sadly, are at peace, and I think of even, you know, Amazing Grace,
00:28:22 the second stanza, it says, "'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fear
00:28:27 relieved. And one of my big concerns for the church and I think our modern generation here
00:28:35 in America is that the love of God has been wasted on a generation that's never been taught to fear
00:28:39 God. And that a line like that from the famous hymn, Amazing Grace, is completely, it leaves
00:28:47 people bewildered. They don't even have the first inclination of what that means. Grace teaching a
00:28:53 heart first to fear and then grace relieving that is actually a gracious thing of god to reveal to
00:29:01 us his holiness and our sinfulness right the first use of the law it functions as a mirror it shows
00:29:08 to us our sinfulness by virtue of reflecting the holiness of god and that it's actually you know
00:29:13 these days everything's you know shame is always demonized you know this is a shame-free zone this
00:29:18 is a safe space. These are my trigger warnings. Whereas the gospel does not create a people who
00:29:25 are immune to shame. It doesn't. I think the gospel creates a community, namely the Church
00:29:30 of Christ, that actually heightens shame when there's something to truly be shameful about.
00:29:36 There's a grace of shame. But what the gospel provides is a place where that shame can ultimately
00:29:40 be dealt with. And so for me as a Christian, I'm no longer just sinning against my maker,
00:29:45 my creator. I'm sinning against my savior, the one who gave his life for me. I am, as it were,
00:29:51 trampling underfoot the blood of the lamb again. And so my shame has actually increased this side
00:29:58 of conversion. And so there are moments of extreme distress and discomfort and anxiety
00:30:04 as a Christian. Now, that's not the ongoing perpetual state of the Christian. There is 0.67
00:30:12 peace to be found in Christ, to be sure. But there are moments of immense distress,
00:30:17 falling under, the Puritans used to say, falling under the fatherly displeasure, right? You're not
00:30:22 losing your salvation. He's no longer, God's not reverting back to the stance of being judge. He's
00:30:27 still your adoptive father, but you've fallen under his fatherly displeasure. Or like Psalm 32,
00:30:34 David says, his hand was heavy upon me. My bones were wasting away inside. And so the Christian
00:30:39 can experience, my point is the Christian can experience what subjectively feels like in the
00:30:45 moment, a severe loss of peace. And the unbeliever can experience what they perceive due to their
00:30:54 blindness. Now, it's a willful blindness, but due to their blindness that ultimately stems from 1.00
00:31:00 rebellion, they're lying and suppressing the truth of God and deeds of unrighteousness. But by doing
00:31:05 so ignorance is is progressively uh growing from rebellion and and they can be at peace and so so
00:31:14 my question is when you ask that person you say are you at peace with god and you know this person
00:31:19 is a part of a cult you know that that based off of the fruit of their lives and based off of their
00:31:24 testimony there is no way that you could affirm this person's salvation you say are you at peace
00:31:28 with god and they smile and say you betcha what do you do yeah well that's that's a good question
00:31:35 man let me also just comment as well too like i pilgrim's progress is also one of my favorite
00:31:41 books again that's one of the books i grew up watching and reading the abridged virgin dangerous
00:31:45 journey which the art the artwork in there is incredible but i think one of the points that's
00:31:51 great to show that christians do as you mentioned earlier deal with emotional struggle turmoil and
00:31:57 pain uh even post salvation having peace with god and with christ is christians and hopefuls
00:32:03 experience at doubting castle when he runs into giant despair and all that happens and i mean
00:32:11 i mean he's one of the there's no i don't think there's really any literary person today who
00:32:17 would be able to talk about the aspects of what christian hopeful were really dealing with i mean
00:32:24 he went right at the point where he's bringing up the fact that they were
00:32:27 thinking they were contemplating suicide.
00:32:30 The giant bear gave them the noose,
00:32:33 the knife or the bottle of poison to end it all.
00:32:37 But also it was amazing.
00:32:38 There was a whole pile of bones of other pilgrims who had succumbed to three
00:32:44 of those things to end that despair. 0.78
00:32:45 But in that Christian finds this little key called promise and he uses that
00:32:51 to lock the gate.
00:32:52 so anyways ah i love pocket yes pocket so um so needs to say what's different between a christian
00:33:01 who is struggling with that is that ultimately we have an ultimate standard we have the ultimate
00:33:06 point of reference of who we talk to what their basis is i mean that there's a reason why hebrews
00:33:13 talks about we have a faithful high priest who is able to have empathy with our weaknesses who
00:33:18 was tempted in every way that we were yet without sin it says therefore let us let us go to that
00:33:25 throne with confidence that we may find grace in the time of need the cultists on the other hand
00:33:30 whether admittedly or unadmittedly they don't have peace with god um and they deal with a lot
00:33:37 of those same emotions they're image bearers of god but they don't have an ultimate point of
00:33:43 reference if they are good enough so whether or not they admit it there is i don't there's not
00:33:50 a cultist in the world who can genuinely look at the claims of christ where he says come to all
00:33:56 come to me you who are weary laden and i will give you rest there's no cultist in the world
00:34:02 who can genuinely say that yeah you're right yeah absolutely and so what do you think about this
00:34:07 jeremiah and andrew would could would this be a good litmus test and i'm genuinely asking
00:34:12 These aren't trick questions. You guys really, you know your stuff on this topic far more than
00:34:17 I do. And so I'm learning along with our audience with this episode. And so I'm grateful for the
00:34:22 opportunity. So I genuine question, would this be a decent litmus test to say, do you have peace
00:34:28 with God? And let's say the person says, oh yeah, you betcha. And could, could you maybe say, you
00:34:34 know, do you have, do you have a sense of peace when you read the Bible? Have you ever read the
00:34:41 bible you know maybe start with that but then i challenge you you know would you be willing to do
00:34:45 this would you be willing just as a test would you be willing to read the bible or i for me i would
00:34:51 go to first john you know because i think first john for the christian is just shot i call it
00:34:56 shotgun assurance you know it's just you know it's like all these different tests but the point is
00:35:00 because if someone's a christian they're going to have at least some fruit in one of these areas
00:35:04 it's shotgun assurance so it's not like you've got to be this tall in this area in this area
00:35:08 and if you don't measure up in any of them, you're not saved. No, like, I mean, John, he says
00:35:13 expressly, you know, his point in the gospel of John is I write to you so that you might believe,
00:35:16 but in 1 John, I write to you so that you might know, right? And there's a difference between
00:35:20 believing and knowing that you believe, knowing that you have eternal life. And so his point is
00:35:25 assurance, it's shotgun assurance. But I remember in my life, before conversion, thinking that I was
00:35:32 a Christian and professing Christian, raising the church, but before conversion, reading 1 John,
00:35:36 and it was my least favorite book in the Bible.
00:35:38 It terrified me.
00:35:39 I could not, you know, because it was just, you know,
00:35:41 just statement after statement.
00:35:43 And so my question again is just,
00:35:45 would that be a good test or would that be too accusational?
00:35:48 Would it be too aggressive?
00:35:49 Would it turn them off?
00:35:50 But if you just said, all right,
00:35:51 so you say you have peace with God,
00:35:53 you know, I really hope that that's true.
00:35:55 And I don't know your heart.
00:35:57 You know, man looks at the outward appearance,
00:35:58 God sees the heart.
00:35:59 But here's a good test that I've personally used
00:36:01 and maybe you might find it useful as well.
00:36:03 There's a book of the Bible
00:36:04 that is actually written with the express purpose of the Holy Spirit inspiring the apostle
00:36:10 to give peace to those people who truly belong to God, to give them a sense of assurance,
00:36:17 affirmation, and peace in their security in their relationship with God as their father.
00:36:23 And yet this book of the Bible is written so beautifully and poignantly in the inspiration
00:36:30 of God himself, that if somebody is not a child of God, this book of the Bible oftentimes creates
00:36:37 despair. Would you be willing to read that book of the Bible? And just as you're reading,
00:36:42 just see, does it give you hope? Does it give you peace? Or does it make you really worried?
00:36:49 Would that be a decent test? Yeah, man. I think pointing people back to the Word of God
00:36:55 in general is amazing right god does the work in people's lives you plant seeds god waters them he
00:37:01 does the work and i think one good thing too about even just thinking about the question do you have
00:37:05 peace with god because even if someone replies yes the answer can be well how do you have peace
00:37:09 with god right and then if you have peace with god through x y and z relying on yourself and
00:37:15 your external means you then are actually in slavery right not slavery by christ but uh then
00:37:22 you can point them to to the beauty of the word in first john then you can point them to the law
00:37:26 and say do you really this is who god is this is his nature this is his character you're made in
00:37:31 the image of god so regardless of what you say about yourself you want these great things these
00:37:36 great attributes of god yet you've been deceived you know that's good andrew thank you all right
00:37:42 so go ahead did you want to say something yeah and just one other thing walter martin always say
00:37:46 when someone would say i believe in jesus walter martin always say well i always can interact by
00:37:51 saying which one right that's that's something as well too because every single cult every world
00:37:57 religion they have to have jesus on their team but they all deny that he is jesus christ come
00:38:03 in the flesh second person of the trinity come to die for lost souls so that is something when
00:38:11 you when you get down to it there's always what you would call to a language barrier
00:38:16 so if someone is talking about obtaining peace or believing in god or talking about a higher power
00:38:23 whatever you call it they mean something substantially different than biblically what
00:38:29 we think is christian so you're talking to a mormon many times they're speaking mormonese
00:38:34 where we would be speaking christianese or if you're talking to a scientologist
00:38:38 Scientology's
00:38:40 Hepatology
00:38:41 There's a unique
00:38:45 language barrier when there's certain things
00:38:47 that would
00:38:49 appeal to them and so
00:38:51 one of the ways like Walter Martin would
00:38:53 utilize the gospel in relation to Scientology
00:38:56 Scientology's their
00:38:57 ultimate mission would be to go clear
00:38:59 to go up the bridge to total freedom
00:39:01 so at the very end of Walter Martin's
00:39:03 lecture on Scientology
00:39:05 he says
00:39:06 no one has ever made it clear
00:39:09 in Scientology. The only
00:39:10 people who have made it clear are the ones who have
00:39:12 gone to the foot of the cross
00:39:14 and have been touched by the hands of Jesus of
00:39:16 Nazareth. So he took 0.91
00:39:18 their language and used
00:39:20 it in a way to articulate the gospel
00:39:22 because everyone knows in
00:39:24 Scientology, even the people who are the
00:39:26 OT7s or the, I think it's, 0.99
00:39:28 was it OT9s?
00:39:29 It keeps going up. Yeah, the OT
00:39:31 infinity. All of them 1.00
00:39:33 know that when they got to these certain levels
00:39:35 and they paid hundreds of thousands of dollars they are just as broken just as needy uh hungry
00:39:42 forgotten in need of god but they are given this religious system in its place and uh and so yeah
00:39:49 you always want to figure out what is their language and how do you how do you articulate that
00:39:54 in such a way to where they understand the gospel like there's a guy who is a guru and he would talk
00:40:01 about um understanding and um but it was someone who was who was new age and so i was talking with
00:40:08 someone i said well when i interest the only way when i understand my understanding tells me that
00:40:13 i'm a sinner and i'm in desperate need of a savior and there's nothing good within me and like i just
00:40:19 i have to look outward to christ and so that's a way you can utilize their language and all of a
00:40:26 sudden and they'll get that because the bible says they will because they know god and they're
00:40:30 suppressing the truth and unrighteousness so you have to be called that's there's also an aspect
00:40:35 to a presuppositionalism where we have our pre-commitments they have their pre-commitments
00:40:40 unbeknownst that they're imaging god so we do have someone of a higher ground and advantage point
00:40:45 so that's yeah that's just something where you can utilize that they you know that they know
00:40:50 god they're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness and they know they're sinners
00:40:55 And regardless of whether they believe it or not, the Word of God is a two-edged sword.
00:41:02 And just because someone is holding a broad sword over you and says, I don't believe in that sword, doesn't mean, like, okay.
00:41:08 I think Vodibachia said, I don't believe in that sword.
00:41:10 Okay.
00:41:11 Right.
00:41:13 No, that's good.
00:41:15 I like what you said, you know, Walter Martin saying, you know, if you believe in Jesus, which one?
00:41:21 And it always makes me think of, I know I can't endorse the movie.
00:41:25 It's not really an appropriate movie.
00:41:26 But there was one scene that I just, I can't get out of my head.
00:41:29 I watched it when I was a lot younger.
00:41:31 But Talladega Nights, right?
00:41:33 Jesus, I like my Jesus to wear a tuxedo t-shirt.
00:41:35 It says he's both formal and he likes to party.
00:41:37 I like my Jesus to be on the front row of a Led Zeppelin. 0.98
00:41:41 And it's this blasphemous, ridiculous scene. 0.93
00:41:44 But there's a lot of truth when you think of our culture today 0.94
00:41:47 that just everybody has a different version of Jesus.
00:41:50 Which one?
00:41:51 which one so um okay so all that being said what would you do if you know when because i you know
00:41:58 i get this accusation from time to time what do you do when someone says uh christianity is a cult
00:42:03 yeah what's the difference so what are some clear distinctions that you could equip our listeners
00:42:08 with to say here are some tenets of christianity that are an absolute contradiction to the tenets
00:42:15 of a cult right so one of the things too is that we are in a post-modern culture so words aren't
00:42:21 much about substance and fact as much as they are impact words about how this is about how it makes
00:42:27 you feel so it's an emotional impact word versus something that's intellectually this is how you
00:42:34 are supposed to this is this is how it is so one of the ways is that every cult definitively they
00:42:42 they veer away from they they veer away from some sort of form of their orthodoxy and they always
00:42:48 they always appeal to some form of private esoteric revelation without any sort of external
00:42:55 verification they're the ultimate pinpoint and authority so one of the amazing things is that
00:43:01 you know god's revelation is always consistent in christianity with his character so god is triune
00:43:07 his father son and holy spirit so his very nature is congruent with the standards that he gives
00:43:14 for revelation and truth talking about everything has to be confirmed by two to three independent
00:43:18 lines of testimony and witness so god's very own self-revealing nature is two to three independent
00:43:25 you have two to three independent witnesses love it and so what you end up seeing within
00:43:30 biblical christianity is not just not just myths or some sort of weird abstract vision but we're
00:43:38 talking about historical places uh historical people written over thousands of years that were
00:43:46 as as bodi baca would say this is a god's the revelation of the bible which we would say is
00:43:51 the ultimate standard because every cult is a distortion of that is that it's a reliable
00:43:56 collection of historical documents that was written by eyewitnesses during the a lifetime
00:44:01 of other eyewitnesses who witnessed supernatural events in fulfillment of specific prophecy
00:44:07 so all of that being said one of the definitive characteristics is that the bible is an open book
00:44:15 it's an open it's an open and public record of these events that transpired in the public sphere
00:44:22 and so in that way that would be something that would be alternative we're not saying hey we have
00:44:27 this secret hidden esoteric knowledge this is something that was privately revealed to me
00:44:32 no i i have a relationship with the living god but you know what it's not just because i say so
00:44:37 this is because I have a standard that I appeal to that's an external reliable collection of
00:44:44 historical documents like why do you think of all as much as you know just jumping into the
00:44:49 evidential world as many manuscripts and evidence that we have in regards to the bible why is it the
00:44:55 most attacked historical book on earth as far as any book of history why is it the most scrutinized
00:45:02 the most attacked how come no one holds the writings of plato or socrates to the same
00:45:08 standard of scrutiny that they do to the bible even though we have something with it for century
00:45:12 so yeah there's that aspect and one of the things you also see too is that in with real
00:45:19 christian apologetics and the real christian worldview especially if you just look at the
00:45:24 first century, you would see not this sort of isolation of members, you know, we're going to
00:45:32 isolate you from everyone else and indoctrinate you. No, we are going to go out to the world and
00:45:38 we're going to challenge every single worldview out there and tear down every stronghold and
00:45:43 set up and, you know, and take every thought captive against anything that sets itself against
00:45:47 the knowledge of God. And you see Paul, for example, when he is going to Athens and he is
00:45:53 reasoning with the other worldviews he's going and talking to the stoics the philosophers to
00:45:58 going to the synagogues and engaging them in the public sphere cults don't do that they try and
00:46:04 isolate people they try and appeal towards secret hidden esoteric knowledge and they don't allow
00:46:09 they don't allow questioning they don't allow that and real honestly like real christianity
00:46:16 like it allows for that like bring bring the biggest thoughts like wrestle with this
00:46:20 this is something that would be that would be like that would be a big aspect as well too
00:46:25 and so i think yeah i think and ultimately like the biggest challenge that i honestly at some
00:46:32 point we are going to dedicate an episode to this because when you have someone who's atheist or
00:46:36 agnostic and we get this and i don't know sometimes we sort of make fun of it but i want to do more
00:46:42 than that just because we are limited for time but we consistently get reviews on itunes called
00:46:48 we're another cult talking about cults and it's like wow this is so stunningly original this is
00:46:54 the 20 this is the you know it gets kind of old after the 50th time or however many times we've
00:46:58 gotten reviews like that but the reality is is that for someone who is who is an atheist or
00:47:05 a naturalist what how do you even give an accounting for what is or isn't a cult what
00:47:13 exactly is wrong with my brain fizzing a certain level of knowledge which is just my perception
00:47:19 of the world in which i was born and once and i'm blind pitiless and difference and and yeah like
00:47:28 how how can you how can you give an accounting for like what what's the ethic what ethic am i
00:47:34 violating or what ethic was jim jones violating when he is his brain was fizzing the way that it
00:47:40 was and got 915 other people's brains to fizz and take down this other fizz called potassium
00:47:47 cyanide and killed 915 people in Jonestown, Guyana. Now, I have a basis as a Christian to say, yes,
00:47:53 those people were image bearers of God. The one that says, do not bear false witness. Thou should
00:47:58 not murder. Love does no harm to its neighbor. There's rules in which in the world that God
00:48:06 created and you have to live by that. And if you don't have that standard, well, you're not going
00:48:12 to be able to give an ultimate accounting for that. And I think that's one of the reasons why
00:48:16 most of the quote unquote experts in regards to the world of cults, whereas Rick Allen Ross or
00:48:22 Steve Hassan, while they can give sort of a general explanation of this sociological and
00:48:29 psychological manipulation and sometimes the deprogramming that people have to do they don't
00:48:36 have an ultimate point of reference where they can give an accounting for why that's even an
00:48:41 issue to begin with or why what because the the existence of a counterfeit predicates the
00:48:48 authenticity of an original um for sure so those are just some of my initial thoughts but ultimately
00:48:54 I would argue that the Christian worldview is a public record versus a
00:49:00 private revelation,
00:49:01 which is the difference between every single occult occultic leader.
00:49:05 And then also to argue the impossibility of the contrary,
00:49:09 there's no other worldview that can give a fully holistic explanation for
00:49:14 the world of the cults and the counter and the counterfeits as Walter
00:49:17 Martin would say,
00:49:18 the existence of a counterfeit predicates the authenticity of an original
00:49:22 and no other secularist who approaches that has the ability to do that because they're not giving
00:49:27 uh they're not paying homage to the ultimate authority which is uh the king of kings and
00:49:31 lord of lords jesus christ so yeah dude i got nothing to say jerry bro i want you to drop mic
00:49:38 okay let's drop mic no praise god there's nothing i can't do well guys i really appreciate your time
00:49:44 and i know that you've probably already given me enough any final i'll give you guys the last word
00:49:48 Any final thoughts that you'd like to add?
00:49:51 No, I just think that this topic is incredibly unique.
00:49:56 It's a very unique place that we've been placed in. 0.80
00:49:58 I think especially if you are a Christian, I would say if you don't have it, get Dr. Walter Martin's Kingdom of the Cults. 0.63
00:50:06 I would say just listen to his lectures online. 0.74
00:50:09 And he was really speaking about a lot of these different new cults, new religions, things in regards to UFOs, extrasensory perception.
00:50:20 He was so ahead of its time.
00:50:22 I guess they get Kingdom of the Cults.
00:50:24 Just look, just start listening to his lectures on YouTube, like get equipped, because this is the Kingdom of the Cults is only going to explode given the state of the world right now.
00:50:34 I mean, historically, cults have always exploded during times of uncertainty. And if 2020, that was one thing I thought through, I said, I don't know where this is all headed. But this is just going to be the fault, the nuclear fallout of all this is going to be just a plethora of brand new cult leaders, as you mentioned a long time ago, once a little Jim Jones is like running around.
00:50:59 And as Christians, we need to be able to give an apologetic and give an answer to people.
00:51:07 Otherwise, they may end up face down somewhere else, another jungle in another Jonestown.
00:51:12 So this is serious stuff.
00:51:13 We have the slogan and the teacher about theology hurts people.
00:51:16 It is a serious thing.
00:51:18 You know, outside of just the show, I'm a deacon and I've had to sit on meetings and hearing horrific stories of people who have gone through horrific spiritual abuse.
00:51:28 And, you know, you see that the wherewithal like this is like this is serious. This is a serious game. This is not something to play around with. There's a reason, you know, when you think about the apologetic answer in 1 Peter 3.15, you know, give an answer for everyone the hope that is in need, but with meekness, gentleness and compassion or reverence in the way that it says it and respect is that that's really like that.
00:51:54 that's like the warning that's the warning on a desert the desert eagle has a warning label and
00:51:58 that's really what it is i mean that's you're wielding something that's powerful and you need
00:52:04 to do it with carefulness as well too and there's and that's what the cult leaders do they they
00:52:08 ignore the instructions they wield it in a way uh that the instructions don't say and it harms
00:52:14 people so as christians we have even more of a responsibility to do it in the correct way so
00:52:19 So those are my thoughts.
00:52:20 Anything else you have to say?
00:52:21 No, brother.
00:52:22 That was beautiful.
00:52:24 That's good.
00:52:24 Great.
00:52:25 Great, guys.
00:52:25 Thanks so much for coming on the show.
00:52:27 I really appreciate it.
00:52:28 God bless.
00:52:29 Awesome, man.
00:52:29 God bless you, too.
00:52:30 Thank you, man.
00:52:30 Awesome.
00:52:32 As a special thank you for your gift of any amount,
00:52:35 we'll be happy to send you a free digital book from our store.
00:52:37 To access this offer, visit rightresponseministries.com slash offer.
00:52:43 We highly recommend Pastor Joel's book, Am I Truly Saved?
00:52:46 If you or someone you know has wrestled with doubts about the love of God,
00:52:50 this would be a great resource.
00:52:52 As a reminder, to get this offer, go to rightresponseministries.com
00:52:56 slash offer.
00:52:56 And thank you for your generous support.