Tithing is just the beginning!
The marvelous message of the Gospel of Christ is that one may receive eternal salvation "without money and without price."
The New Testament Scriptures tell us that salvation comes to us as an absolutely free gift. "The gift of God is eternal life" (Romans 6:23). We are "justified freely by His grace" (Romans 3:24). The word freely means without a cause.
The grace of Jesus Christ is the all-pervading doctrine that applies both to the reception of salvation and our continued walk with God. By the grace of Jesus Christ, each of us has become rich. "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9).
The Christian is rich indeed! He has received the wonderful gift of justification by faith and a thousand derivative benefits. All of this comes to him because of the expenditure of the blood of Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross. He is what he is by the grace of God.
It is clear also from the Word of God that the Christian is never put under obligation to do, give, sacrifice, or expend himself in any way in order to be more sure that he has the gift of God which is eternal life. He is invited in many earnest ways to commit himself to the service of Christ and to become a useful instrument in the hands of God. The Word of God, however, is clear that service for Christ is a voluntary proposition on the part of the Christian, and nothing that he does will increase his own guarantee of eternal life. He is saved by grace and kept by the power of God. His eternal life came to him without payment on his part. It is dependent wholly on the work of Christ on the cross.
It is also clear in Scripture that the gifts, the power, the blessing of God in the life of a Christian do not come because of his ability to purchase them with money, because of his giving to God. We have a fascinating vignette in the Book of Acts. It seems that a man called Simon, who was previously involved in sorcery, became a believer in Jesus Christ. He saw the remarkable power of the Apostles through the wonderful working of the Holy Spirit, and he immediately saw the possibilities in the use of such power. (Read Acts 8:18-22)
Quite obviously here, the gifts and the power of God were not a purchasable commodity. Special blessing was hardly available to this man because of his financial offer. Indeed the opposite was true. Peter said to him "For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of inequity" (Acts 8:23). We have no teaching in the New Testament whatsoever that one develops an inside track with God or a greater certainty of salvation because of his giving.
There is another lesson that is very clear from this story. The true leaders of the Church were utterly offended at the suggestion that their favour or the favour of their God could be gained with money. They accused the one who made this offer of terrible sin and said that he was surely under the judgment of God.
We thank the Lord that the Apostles were really members of the untouchables; they were incorruptible people whose infidelity to Jesus Christ was beyond the power of money to buy. Indeed, in their ministries they spoke against the power of money again and again, saying finally, "The love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). They invited Christians to give gladly out of a full heart, but they conducted their own lives on a plane of personal sacrifice. And they maintained utter rectitude as to the reception and the use of money.
They even went further than this. They taught that sacrificial Christian leaders thereby gave evidence of their faithfulness to Jesus Christ. By contrast they said that a characteristic of false teachers was that they were those "supposing that gain is godliness" (1 Timothy 6:5). Peter, when speaking of false teachers, said, "And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you" (2 Peter 2:3).
The Apostle Paul, again leaving us a shining example, was very careful never to accept gifts from the churches for his own personal use. He said, "These hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me" (Acts 20:34). He did this for the purpose of making the Gospel of Jesus Christ totally without charge. The Church of Christ is the richer because of the peerless standard of personal sacrifice that was left for us by the Apostles of Christ.
Happy is the Christian leader who at the end of his life can say with Paul, "I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered unto my necessities and to them that were with me. I have showed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive'" (Acts 20:33-35). The Apostle Paul both preached and practiced the proposition that the love of money is the root of all evil.
What a contrast we see in the cultic practitioner of today! He strongly implies that money contributed to the cause will buy privileges or gifts or powers for the receptive follower. He offers healing for $100. He offers deliverance from accident for life for $1,000. The follower of the cult is often promised that he can escape the many purgatories in this world and the next through the investment of his money.
In the financial structure of the average cult, tithing is but the beginning. Then comes the real pressure. The follower, as the screw is turned, is exploited to the point of economic exhaustion. The stories are legion of wives and children who have been brought to the point of hunger and impoverishment because of the cultic contributions of the head of the family. Enamoured by his new spiritual leader, the head of the house forgets the clear teaching of Scripture, "If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel" (1 Timothy 5:8).
The consequence is that conscienceless religious leaders have provided for themselves massive homes, spacious estates, and large holdings in the commercial world. Some of them even quote as their excuse, "No good thing will He [God] withhold from them that walk uprightly" (Psalms 84:11). What is this but twisting the Scripture to one's own destruction?
The newspapers have carried many stories of shameless financial exploitation by cult leaders. Some argue that they should be treated like a god, encourage lavish financial gifts to be given to him and his family. Others press their followers to triple-tithe for the support of his cult. How else could private jets be purchased and operated for his personal use in the keeping up of his image?
It is fair to say that an almost universal characteristic of the cults is an insatiable financial appetite in the leadership. They cruelly dangle their followers over the fires of hell as punishment for not giving large amounts of money to their cause.
The false religions of the world are characterized by lavish temples, overlaid with gold and studded with diamonds. Most of them stand amidst a sea of poverty which the cults themselves have caused. Their apparent prosperity is nothing more than the shameful result of their cruel exploitation of frightened people who seek their favours with financial gifts.
True Christianity is an illustration of the opposite point of view, the free grace of Jesus Christ. His amazing grace brings amazing peace of mind. True Christianity brings peace; cults do not. For the cultist there is no peace of mind.
(from Know the Marks of Cults - the 12 basic errors of false religion by Dave Breese)
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Enslaving Organizational Structure (Mark #9)
"You belong to me!"
While these are not exactly the words of a grand old hymn, this is a song title that nicely represents the point of view of almost every cult leader. Cults actually bring their followers into psychological and spiritual slavery.
A very interesting description of the believer in Jesus Christ is found in our Lord's statement, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is everyone that is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). We may well sympathize with the response of Nicodemus, the well organized Jewish religionist, when he said, "How can these things be?" Nicodemus was astonished both with the assertion of Jesus Christ about the necessity of the new birth and with this remarkable statement of Christian freedom.
This same theme -- the freedom of the believer in Jesus Christ -- is echoed in many places through the New Testament. "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8:36). "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Corinthians 3:17). "Let every man be fully persuaded [what is right about doubtful things] in his own mind" (Romans 14:5). "Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men" (1 Corinthians 7:23).
So important to the writers of Scripture is the preservation of Christian freedom that we are not only advised that we possess it, but we are carefully warned never to lose it. "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage" (Galations 5:1). The reason we must work to avoid entanglement in the yoke of bondage is "for, brethren, you have been called unto liberty" (Galations 5:13).
The consequent emphasis of the New Testament is that Christian leaders who have power or persuasive ability must be careful never to overly control or dominate the faith of others. No doubt there are and always will be individuals whose physical, mental, or spiritual inferiority make them vulnerable to the dominance of others. The religious leader has a solemn obligation to refuse to take advantage of that vulnerability. He must not use his gifts or talents as the leverage to power. He must avoid like the plague the temptation that will surely come to him to organize followers around himself rather than around Christ.
The Word of God is clear; spiritual leadership is to be leadership of example in simplicity and godly sincerity, the leader is to be an imitator of Jesus Christ and pray that his very life will furnish, before his onlooking flock, an illustration of the Christian life for all to see. When the life of a Christian leader illustrates only arrogance, groundless authoritarianism, and human imposition, he is representing another Christ than the One presented in Holy Scripture.
The promoters of the cults obey no such rules as Scripture lays down for leaders. Indeed, they know that their success is directly dependent upon their ability to trap followers into a permanent entanglement. This association is almost invariably formed with the bonds of fear. The leaders' preaching, teaching, and efforts are dedicated, not to the production of individual competence and freedom on the part of his followers, but to create dependence. The leaders of the cults are working to promote, not liberty, but slavery.
Thus, an almost universal characteristic of the cults is the creation of a monolithic, merciless, and entangling organizational structure. To them the purpose of a religious organization is not that it becomes a living segment of the body of Christ but a personally exploitable syndicate.
Who were the Nicolaitans? What were their deeds and their doctrine? We have only one definite indication as to the nature of this group and that comes to us from the meaning of the word itself. The word Nicolaitan comes from two Greek words nicao and laos which means victory over or subjugation of the people.
The exaggerated distinction between "clergy" and "laity" had begun in the early stages of Christianity. Some were already thinking it spiritually necessary or practical to subjugate the people of God and become masters over them. The super organizers were already appearing in the days of early Christianity. The program of the subjugation of the people had begun! Already the "laymen" were considered exploitable commodities to be mastered by their religious leaders.
We can well imagine the efficient organizers of the churches at Ephesus and Pergamos conversing. "Well, we obviously cannot trust the ignorant men and women who came to our church from the normal pursuits of life to study the Bible for themselves. It is surely our responsibility to interpret God for their lives. After all, that is the responsibility of our exalted leadership."
Power corrupts! This is not only true in the realm of politics, it is tragically true also in the area of religion. We can be very sure of the attitude of God in that He complimented the church at Ephesus for literally hating the deeds of the Nicolaitans, about which He said, "I also hate." The religious ascendancy of a group of spiritual elitists over the mass of the people is a belief that is hated by God. The Lord is emphasizing to us that the subjugation of the people is despised by God.
How quickly do people work to give official doctrinal sanction to activities which are merely personal or organizational inventions. Who can doubt but that many religious organizations of our time are simply efforts to organize people around some central loyalty other than Jesus Christ Himself. The church at Ephesus was warned that it had fallen and must repent because subjugation of the people kills the true work of Christ.
This kind of killing organizational structure is one of the reliable indexes of the cults of our time. The cult demands total commitment by its convert to an entangling organization, enmeshing him in an impossible set of human rules. Like a fly, he moves into the web. Soon comes the spider.
Whatever else the cultic leaders may be, they are super-organizers. It is impossible for a cult to succeed without conserving its gains and enrolling its followers with increasingly demanding obligations to the leader and the organization. The cult is usually represented to the captured devotee as synonymous with the kingdom of God itself.
One of the normal connotations of the word "cultic" is that of passionate devotion to a cause to the point of the irrational. The cult hopes to bring its hapless followers to the place where they think of little else except their involvement with the movement and its human leader. The average cultist is as much a slave to his present religious involvement as he ever was to the sin of his former life. (2 Peter 2:19).
Organizational initiation is followed by peer group pressure until finally the pitiful devotee is terror-stricken at the prospect of dropping out of his suspicious entanglements.
There are large religious groups in the world which preach the doctrine of damnation for all outside their particular organization. When people have repeatedly announced that all others beside the members of their Church are lost for eternity; they are merely exerting pressure for membership in their organizations.
The Christian has been delivered from all such nonsense. He knows that the word loyalty is only applicable in a final sense when applied to our relationship to Jesus Christ Himself. The devotion that Christians have for one another is in loving response to the indwelling Holy Spirit, not submission to an enslaving external organization.
It is a truism that the less truth a movement represents, the more highly it must organize. Truth has its own magnetism producing loyalty. The absence of truth makes necessary the application of the bonds of fear.
A cultic leader may present his wares by saying "Come to Jesus," but his real theme song is "You belong to me." The Christian is well advised to heed the advice of the Apostle Paul, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage" (Galations 5:1).
The only imperative membership which the true Christian recognizes is membership in the body of Christ. While he may well belong to a group which places great emphasis on membership in the local church, being a Christian he places no confidence in this as the basis for his eternal life. The perceptive Christian is a unique kind of an individual in that he is unable to be "organized" in the same sense as others who place life-and-death importance on their organizational involvement. Jesus Christ has set him free, and no one is entitled to take this freedom from him.
Free indeed!
(from Know the Marks of Cults - the 12 Basic Errors of False Religion by Dave Breese)
While these are not exactly the words of a grand old hymn, this is a song title that nicely represents the point of view of almost every cult leader. Cults actually bring their followers into psychological and spiritual slavery.
A very interesting description of the believer in Jesus Christ is found in our Lord's statement, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is everyone that is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). We may well sympathize with the response of Nicodemus, the well organized Jewish religionist, when he said, "How can these things be?" Nicodemus was astonished both with the assertion of Jesus Christ about the necessity of the new birth and with this remarkable statement of Christian freedom.
This same theme -- the freedom of the believer in Jesus Christ -- is echoed in many places through the New Testament. "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8:36). "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Corinthians 3:17). "Let every man be fully persuaded [what is right about doubtful things] in his own mind" (Romans 14:5). "Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men" (1 Corinthians 7:23).
So important to the writers of Scripture is the preservation of Christian freedom that we are not only advised that we possess it, but we are carefully warned never to lose it. "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage" (Galations 5:1). The reason we must work to avoid entanglement in the yoke of bondage is "for, brethren, you have been called unto liberty" (Galations 5:13).
The consequent emphasis of the New Testament is that Christian leaders who have power or persuasive ability must be careful never to overly control or dominate the faith of others. No doubt there are and always will be individuals whose physical, mental, or spiritual inferiority make them vulnerable to the dominance of others. The religious leader has a solemn obligation to refuse to take advantage of that vulnerability. He must not use his gifts or talents as the leverage to power. He must avoid like the plague the temptation that will surely come to him to organize followers around himself rather than around Christ.
The Word of God is clear; spiritual leadership is to be leadership of example in simplicity and godly sincerity, the leader is to be an imitator of Jesus Christ and pray that his very life will furnish, before his onlooking flock, an illustration of the Christian life for all to see. When the life of a Christian leader illustrates only arrogance, groundless authoritarianism, and human imposition, he is representing another Christ than the One presented in Holy Scripture.
The promoters of the cults obey no such rules as Scripture lays down for leaders. Indeed, they know that their success is directly dependent upon their ability to trap followers into a permanent entanglement. This association is almost invariably formed with the bonds of fear. The leaders' preaching, teaching, and efforts are dedicated, not to the production of individual competence and freedom on the part of his followers, but to create dependence. The leaders of the cults are working to promote, not liberty, but slavery.
Thus, an almost universal characteristic of the cults is the creation of a monolithic, merciless, and entangling organizational structure. To them the purpose of a religious organization is not that it becomes a living segment of the body of Christ but a personally exploitable syndicate.
Who were the Nicolaitans? What were their deeds and their doctrine? We have only one definite indication as to the nature of this group and that comes to us from the meaning of the word itself. The word Nicolaitan comes from two Greek words nicao and laos which means victory over or subjugation of the people.
The exaggerated distinction between "clergy" and "laity" had begun in the early stages of Christianity. Some were already thinking it spiritually necessary or practical to subjugate the people of God and become masters over them. The super organizers were already appearing in the days of early Christianity. The program of the subjugation of the people had begun! Already the "laymen" were considered exploitable commodities to be mastered by their religious leaders.
We can well imagine the efficient organizers of the churches at Ephesus and Pergamos conversing. "Well, we obviously cannot trust the ignorant men and women who came to our church from the normal pursuits of life to study the Bible for themselves. It is surely our responsibility to interpret God for their lives. After all, that is the responsibility of our exalted leadership."
Power corrupts! This is not only true in the realm of politics, it is tragically true also in the area of religion. We can be very sure of the attitude of God in that He complimented the church at Ephesus for literally hating the deeds of the Nicolaitans, about which He said, "I also hate." The religious ascendancy of a group of spiritual elitists over the mass of the people is a belief that is hated by God. The Lord is emphasizing to us that the subjugation of the people is despised by God.
How quickly do people work to give official doctrinal sanction to activities which are merely personal or organizational inventions. Who can doubt but that many religious organizations of our time are simply efforts to organize people around some central loyalty other than Jesus Christ Himself. The church at Ephesus was warned that it had fallen and must repent because subjugation of the people kills the true work of Christ.
This kind of killing organizational structure is one of the reliable indexes of the cults of our time. The cult demands total commitment by its convert to an entangling organization, enmeshing him in an impossible set of human rules. Like a fly, he moves into the web. Soon comes the spider.
Whatever else the cultic leaders may be, they are super-organizers. It is impossible for a cult to succeed without conserving its gains and enrolling its followers with increasingly demanding obligations to the leader and the organization. The cult is usually represented to the captured devotee as synonymous with the kingdom of God itself.
One of the normal connotations of the word "cultic" is that of passionate devotion to a cause to the point of the irrational. The cult hopes to bring its hapless followers to the place where they think of little else except their involvement with the movement and its human leader. The average cultist is as much a slave to his present religious involvement as he ever was to the sin of his former life. (2 Peter 2:19).
Organizational initiation is followed by peer group pressure until finally the pitiful devotee is terror-stricken at the prospect of dropping out of his suspicious entanglements.
There are large religious groups in the world which preach the doctrine of damnation for all outside their particular organization. When people have repeatedly announced that all others beside the members of their Church are lost for eternity; they are merely exerting pressure for membership in their organizations.
The Christian has been delivered from all such nonsense. He knows that the word loyalty is only applicable in a final sense when applied to our relationship to Jesus Christ Himself. The devotion that Christians have for one another is in loving response to the indwelling Holy Spirit, not submission to an enslaving external organization.
It is a truism that the less truth a movement represents, the more highly it must organize. Truth has its own magnetism producing loyalty. The absence of truth makes necessary the application of the bonds of fear.
A cultic leader may present his wares by saying "Come to Jesus," but his real theme song is "You belong to me." The Christian is well advised to heed the advice of the Apostle Paul, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage" (Galations 5:1).
The only imperative membership which the true Christian recognizes is membership in the body of Christ. While he may well belong to a group which places great emphasis on membership in the local church, being a Christian he places no confidence in this as the basis for his eternal life. The perceptive Christian is a unique kind of an individual in that he is unable to be "organized" in the same sense as others who place life-and-death importance on their organizational involvement. Jesus Christ has set him free, and no one is entitled to take this freedom from him.
Free indeed!
(from Know the Marks of Cults - the 12 Basic Errors of False Religion by Dave Breese)
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Segmented Biblical Attention (Mark #8)
There is no book like the Bible.
Variation and diversities are not marks of error. But herein lies a potentially serious problem. The temptation of groups of serious conviction is to move ever further from the central pale of reason that C.S. Lewis calls "mere Christianity." Because of their emphasis, they begin declaring that "love is everything," or "history is all-important." They take some important but not critical emphasis of Scripture and move it to the exalted position of an imperative doctrine. They move their test of fellowship away from the person of Jesus Christ to some lesser point. Such a group may have started well, but, for want of proper attention to the whole counsel of God, they drift away from vital Christianity into a misplaced emphasis.
It is easy to see how a religious group can move from the true to the false by small steps of defection from the teaching of Holy Scripture. Too often, however, this special emphasis becomes the critical all-important point. When a theological eccentricity moves to the very center of the attention of a group of Christians, that group, often without sensing it, becomes eccentric and potentially heretical.
This "outward bound" direction must always be avoided by the biblical Christian. When a group develops a theological or doctrinal interpretation that touches only minimally on the proper biblical emphasis and lives for the most part outside of that circle, it becomes a cult.
By this we mean that, from a starting point of Scripture, it has moved away from the teaching of the Word of God so that its central emphasis has become a set of human philosophies, ideas, or revelations that can no longer be justified by the teaching of the Word of God. Its attention to an interesting portion of Scripture has been carried to the point where it has isolated this passage of the Word of God from the corrective modifications found in other portions of the Word. Its segmented biblical attention has cut it off from the body of divine truth.
Virtually every cult in existence today has followed the unwise course of segmented biblical attention out beyond the pale of reason into the production of a destructive heresy.
(Read Acts 19:1-6) The disciples of John the Baptist continued faithfully in their conviction of the truth of the message of this humble forerunner of Jesus Christ.
But herein was their problem. They were so taken with the preaching of John that they neglected his major emphasis: namely, that One was coming after him, who would guide them into all truth. They therefore missed the opportunity to hear the Word of Christ. They missed the chance to believe in Him and become true Christians, sharing in the gift of the Holy Spirit given to the Church on the day of Pentecost. Their own testimony was that they had not even heard of the Holy Spirit.
These people did not come to the place where they shared the life of God that comes to every person who is made a new creature in Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul's question to these disciples, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" was a most appropriate way of asking whether they had become true Christians.
Realizing that they were not indeed believers, the Apostle Paul said unto them "that they should believe on Him who would come after him" [after John the Baptist, that is]; they should receive Jesus Christ. The happy conclusion of this story is they did indeed believe on Jesus Christ, were baptized in His name and received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
We may rejoice that Paul was given of God the opportunity to bring to these sincere seekers after truth the final revelation of God in Jesus Christ. It is highly probable that they would otherwise have formed a religious group around the preaching of John the Baptist which, however sincere, would have prevented people from hearing the message of salvation by the grace of God made possible though Christ alone. Their sincere attention to a segmented, non-final revelation would have therefore been a most damnable thing. Their religious belief and practice would have been merely a cult rather than real and vital Christianity.
The lesson for all of us is very clear. While we may be fascinated with the words of one of the personalities of Scripture and with the emphasis of a given book of the Bible, we must not fail to pay attention to the message of the entire Word of God.
The Bible declares about itself that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the Man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Timothy 3:16-17). It is therefore of great importance that the doctrine by which a Christian orients his faith and his life come from all Scripture. He must remember that the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, was given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and is vital in its entirety to his understanding of the faith.
He remembers also that Revelation is "progressive!" God presented truth in a cumulative fashion, moving from the basic theistic concepts of the Old Testament to the final revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ. Christ brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel (2 Timothy 1:10); and His doctrine was explained to us by His apostles who wrote the letters of the New Testament.
We must also never forget that the proper interpretation of the Bible must be based on text, context, and greater context. The biblical interpreter must ask "What does this verse mean? In what setting is it given to us? How does it relate to the whole Bible?"
The major deficiency of the cults of our time is that they have neglected to base their faith on the Bible as a whole. One group denies the immortality of the soul because of a statement about death in Ecclesiastes 9:5. They ignore the fact that the final light on the subject of immortality was given to us by Jesus Christ. Paul explains that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (see 2 Corinthians 5:8).
Some find a verse in the Bible about God having given to some prophet a vision. They use this as the scriptural base for a notion that all sound religion is therefore conducted on the basis of God revealing Himself in visions and dreams. Such a notion can cause a person to drift away from the Word of God into a spiritual opium den of his own making. Another leader may greatly encourage Christians by his emphasis on a relaxed and positive mental attitude. While this message may be of value, if taken as ultimate truth, it can cause a naive person finally to deny physical reality. No mental attitude can take away the fact of death or deliver us from the necessity of living in the midst of physical dimensions.
The mature Christian will make none of these mistakes. He will avoid the dread pitfalls of spiritual lunacy that come from going off the deep end on the basis of any one verse from the Bible.
It is a grave temptation for any group to find a verse in the Bible about holiness, the kingdom, law, grace, works, faith, or something else and use it for a substitute for the whole counsel of God. Even zealous Christians have frequently fallen into the trap of segmented biblical interpretation, thereby creating a cultic influence in their system of doctrine.
Christian maturity will save us from all of this.
(from Know The Marks of Cults - The 12 basic errors of false religion by Dave Breese)
Variation and diversities are not marks of error. But herein lies a potentially serious problem. The temptation of groups of serious conviction is to move ever further from the central pale of reason that C.S. Lewis calls "mere Christianity." Because of their emphasis, they begin declaring that "love is everything," or "history is all-important." They take some important but not critical emphasis of Scripture and move it to the exalted position of an imperative doctrine. They move their test of fellowship away from the person of Jesus Christ to some lesser point. Such a group may have started well, but, for want of proper attention to the whole counsel of God, they drift away from vital Christianity into a misplaced emphasis.
It is easy to see how a religious group can move from the true to the false by small steps of defection from the teaching of Holy Scripture. Too often, however, this special emphasis becomes the critical all-important point. When a theological eccentricity moves to the very center of the attention of a group of Christians, that group, often without sensing it, becomes eccentric and potentially heretical.
This "outward bound" direction must always be avoided by the biblical Christian. When a group develops a theological or doctrinal interpretation that touches only minimally on the proper biblical emphasis and lives for the most part outside of that circle, it becomes a cult.
By this we mean that, from a starting point of Scripture, it has moved away from the teaching of the Word of God so that its central emphasis has become a set of human philosophies, ideas, or revelations that can no longer be justified by the teaching of the Word of God. Its attention to an interesting portion of Scripture has been carried to the point where it has isolated this passage of the Word of God from the corrective modifications found in other portions of the Word. Its segmented biblical attention has cut it off from the body of divine truth.
Virtually every cult in existence today has followed the unwise course of segmented biblical attention out beyond the pale of reason into the production of a destructive heresy.
(Read Acts 19:1-6) The disciples of John the Baptist continued faithfully in their conviction of the truth of the message of this humble forerunner of Jesus Christ.
But herein was their problem. They were so taken with the preaching of John that they neglected his major emphasis: namely, that One was coming after him, who would guide them into all truth. They therefore missed the opportunity to hear the Word of Christ. They missed the chance to believe in Him and become true Christians, sharing in the gift of the Holy Spirit given to the Church on the day of Pentecost. Their own testimony was that they had not even heard of the Holy Spirit.
These people did not come to the place where they shared the life of God that comes to every person who is made a new creature in Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul's question to these disciples, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" was a most appropriate way of asking whether they had become true Christians.
Realizing that they were not indeed believers, the Apostle Paul said unto them "that they should believe on Him who would come after him" [after John the Baptist, that is]; they should receive Jesus Christ. The happy conclusion of this story is they did indeed believe on Jesus Christ, were baptized in His name and received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
We may rejoice that Paul was given of God the opportunity to bring to these sincere seekers after truth the final revelation of God in Jesus Christ. It is highly probable that they would otherwise have formed a religious group around the preaching of John the Baptist which, however sincere, would have prevented people from hearing the message of salvation by the grace of God made possible though Christ alone. Their sincere attention to a segmented, non-final revelation would have therefore been a most damnable thing. Their religious belief and practice would have been merely a cult rather than real and vital Christianity.
The lesson for all of us is very clear. While we may be fascinated with the words of one of the personalities of Scripture and with the emphasis of a given book of the Bible, we must not fail to pay attention to the message of the entire Word of God.
The Bible declares about itself that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the Man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Timothy 3:16-17). It is therefore of great importance that the doctrine by which a Christian orients his faith and his life come from all Scripture. He must remember that the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, was given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and is vital in its entirety to his understanding of the faith.
He remembers also that Revelation is "progressive!" God presented truth in a cumulative fashion, moving from the basic theistic concepts of the Old Testament to the final revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ. Christ brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel (2 Timothy 1:10); and His doctrine was explained to us by His apostles who wrote the letters of the New Testament.
We must also never forget that the proper interpretation of the Bible must be based on text, context, and greater context. The biblical interpreter must ask "What does this verse mean? In what setting is it given to us? How does it relate to the whole Bible?"
The major deficiency of the cults of our time is that they have neglected to base their faith on the Bible as a whole. One group denies the immortality of the soul because of a statement about death in Ecclesiastes 9:5. They ignore the fact that the final light on the subject of immortality was given to us by Jesus Christ. Paul explains that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (see 2 Corinthians 5:8).
Some find a verse in the Bible about God having given to some prophet a vision. They use this as the scriptural base for a notion that all sound religion is therefore conducted on the basis of God revealing Himself in visions and dreams. Such a notion can cause a person to drift away from the Word of God into a spiritual opium den of his own making. Another leader may greatly encourage Christians by his emphasis on a relaxed and positive mental attitude. While this message may be of value, if taken as ultimate truth, it can cause a naive person finally to deny physical reality. No mental attitude can take away the fact of death or deliver us from the necessity of living in the midst of physical dimensions.
The mature Christian will make none of these mistakes. He will avoid the dread pitfalls of spiritual lunacy that come from going off the deep end on the basis of any one verse from the Bible.
It is a grave temptation for any group to find a verse in the Bible about holiness, the kingdom, law, grace, works, faith, or something else and use it for a substitute for the whole counsel of God. Even zealous Christians have frequently fallen into the trap of segmented biblical interpretation, thereby creating a cultic influence in their system of doctrine.
Christian maturity will save us from all of this.
(from Know The Marks of Cults - The 12 basic errors of false religion by Dave Breese)
Friday, January 16, 2009
Defective Christology (Mark #7)
Who is Jesus Christ?
This is the most important question that any person will ever face. The deepest joys we will ever know in this life and our very hope of eternal life depend on the proper answer to that question. Because this is true, we may be sure that the primary activity of Satan will be to obscure as much as possible the true nature of the person of our blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus.
In all of the history of the Church, the most grievous heresies have been those which have advocated a view of the person of Christ other than that which is taught in the Word of God. Satan knows that an improper understanding of the person and the work of Christ makes salvation impossible.
The attack on the understanding of the nature of Christ began in the early days of the Church. The intellectually disposed Colossians began to be infected by a heretical view called Gnosticism. This doctrinal error taught that a human approached the Godhead through progressive steps of higher and higher angelic beings who bridged the gap between man and God. It taught that Christ was one of these angelic beings who was more than man but less than God. It advocated the worship of these angelic beings and included worshipping Christ as merely a part of the duty of a Christian.
The Apostle Paul, knowing the peril the Colossians were in of turning to a religion other than the faith of Jesus Christ, wrote them a most earnest epistle. He warned. "Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:8-9; 2:18-19).
These people prided themselves in possessing knowledge. Paul told them that knowledge was not enough; they must have "full knowledge" (epignosis). He insisted that this full knowledge was the knowledge of the person of Jesus Christ Himself. The Scripture therefore insists that in worshipping Jesus Christ, we are worshipping God Himself. "He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father" (John 5:23).
Later in the history of the Church there grew up another sub-Christian point of view called Arianism. This was one of the first heresies of the Church, and it was declared so because it denied the true deity of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The advocacy of Arianism by the satanic opponents of Christianity produced great doctrinal clarity in the ranks of the early Christians. These confrontations lead them to the greatly reinforced conviction that one's attitude towards the nature of Jesus Christ is primary to his Christianity. A false view of the Saviour produced a false religion which presented no salvation at all. This conviction lead the Early Church fathers to earnestly contend for the faith. They knew what was at stake. The issue was the survival of Christianity itself.
The central truth of Christianity is therefore related to the question, "What think ye of Christ?" The Christian is commanded to test the spirits of these suspicious alternative messengers. The doctrinal test of those spirits is very clear. (Read 1 John 4:1-3). It is clear then that the test of a true representative of the Gospel has to do with his definition of the person and the work of Jesus Christ. The central doctrine of Christianity is Christology, the doctrine of the nature of the person of Jesus Christ.
Christianity affirms the true deity and true humanity of our blessed Saviour, which deity and humanity is conjoined together in one personality on the basis of the hypostatic union. By this we understand that Jesus Christ was not partly man and partly God on the basis of some percentage or formula. He is true humanity. He is true deity in human form. The characteristic of biblical faith is that it has a proper understanding of the nature of the person of Christ.
There are those today who claim to be Christians who deny the true deity of Christ. Religious liberalism can be judged as heretical on the basis of its denial of the sure deity of the blessed Son of God. Liberalism is not Christianity, it is a heretical, anti-Christian view, being defective in its view of the deity of Christ.
There are religions that deny the true humanity of the Saviour. Christian Science, as an instance, denies the existence of the physical, claiming the essential substance of the universe is mind. If the physical does not exist, then deity did not become true humanity in the person of Christ. This is the doctrine of antichrist, according to Scripture.
The thoughtful Christian will carefully analyze the doctrine of a cult that is being pressed upon him paying special attention to the Christology of that alternative religious message. The message that in effect declares Christ to be the automaton of the Father and not a real person in Himself, is a cult. The message that denies the virgin birth of Christ, holding Him to be merely the natural son of Joseph and Mary, is a cult. An examination of the doctrinal base of any religion in the light of its views on the person and the work of Jesus Christ can be most revealing.
The question, "What think ye of Jesus?" is only answered correctly by the believing Christian. The Christian gladly answers, "Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the living God, God incarnate in the form of human flesh. He is the Son of man, the only Saviour of the world, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who, through His death on the cross, provides redemption for all who believe in Him. He is the One who died for our sins, rose again on the third day who lives to make intercession for us before His Father and who one day will come in His glorious returning to judge the quick and the dead at His appearing in His kingdom. He is Lord and God, and in Him alone we have life, and life more abundantly."
Closely related to the fatal heresy of defective Christology is a denial of the trinity of the Godhead. The only true God is one God, eternally existent in three persons, Father, Son. and Holy Spirit. Each person of the Godhead is co-equal and co-eternal with the others. This view is not held by the Jehovah Witnesses. Many cults are blind as to the nature of God and in their theology deny the deity of Jesus Christ or the deity of the Holy Spirit. An improper faith in the only true God makes impossible any real hope of salvation.
These critical doctrinal problems concerning the nature of the Godhead should come to each Christian as a new reminder of the need for Christian scholarship. For too long we have been influenced by foolish leaders who say, "We don't need doctrine; we just need experience!"
In the same vein is the mindless claim, "We don't preach doctrine, we just preach Christ!" Preachers who talk like this need to move up from their spiritual kindergartens and realize the shameful neglect of their own personal scholarship and the consequent neglect of doctrinal preaching to their people. The cults will have a field day in exploiting experience-orientated saints who have no time for the study of Christian doctrine.
(from Know the Marks of Cults - the 12 Basic Errors of False Religion by Dave Breese)
This is the most important question that any person will ever face. The deepest joys we will ever know in this life and our very hope of eternal life depend on the proper answer to that question. Because this is true, we may be sure that the primary activity of Satan will be to obscure as much as possible the true nature of the person of our blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus.
In all of the history of the Church, the most grievous heresies have been those which have advocated a view of the person of Christ other than that which is taught in the Word of God. Satan knows that an improper understanding of the person and the work of Christ makes salvation impossible.
The attack on the understanding of the nature of Christ began in the early days of the Church. The intellectually disposed Colossians began to be infected by a heretical view called Gnosticism. This doctrinal error taught that a human approached the Godhead through progressive steps of higher and higher angelic beings who bridged the gap between man and God. It taught that Christ was one of these angelic beings who was more than man but less than God. It advocated the worship of these angelic beings and included worshipping Christ as merely a part of the duty of a Christian.
The Apostle Paul, knowing the peril the Colossians were in of turning to a religion other than the faith of Jesus Christ, wrote them a most earnest epistle. He warned. "Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:8-9; 2:18-19).
These people prided themselves in possessing knowledge. Paul told them that knowledge was not enough; they must have "full knowledge" (epignosis). He insisted that this full knowledge was the knowledge of the person of Jesus Christ Himself. The Scripture therefore insists that in worshipping Jesus Christ, we are worshipping God Himself. "He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father" (John 5:23).
Later in the history of the Church there grew up another sub-Christian point of view called Arianism. This was one of the first heresies of the Church, and it was declared so because it denied the true deity of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The advocacy of Arianism by the satanic opponents of Christianity produced great doctrinal clarity in the ranks of the early Christians. These confrontations lead them to the greatly reinforced conviction that one's attitude towards the nature of Jesus Christ is primary to his Christianity. A false view of the Saviour produced a false religion which presented no salvation at all. This conviction lead the Early Church fathers to earnestly contend for the faith. They knew what was at stake. The issue was the survival of Christianity itself.
The central truth of Christianity is therefore related to the question, "What think ye of Christ?" The Christian is commanded to test the spirits of these suspicious alternative messengers. The doctrinal test of those spirits is very clear. (Read 1 John 4:1-3). It is clear then that the test of a true representative of the Gospel has to do with his definition of the person and the work of Jesus Christ. The central doctrine of Christianity is Christology, the doctrine of the nature of the person of Jesus Christ.
Christianity affirms the true deity and true humanity of our blessed Saviour, which deity and humanity is conjoined together in one personality on the basis of the hypostatic union. By this we understand that Jesus Christ was not partly man and partly God on the basis of some percentage or formula. He is true humanity. He is true deity in human form. The characteristic of biblical faith is that it has a proper understanding of the nature of the person of Christ.
There are those today who claim to be Christians who deny the true deity of Christ. Religious liberalism can be judged as heretical on the basis of its denial of the sure deity of the blessed Son of God. Liberalism is not Christianity, it is a heretical, anti-Christian view, being defective in its view of the deity of Christ.
There are religions that deny the true humanity of the Saviour. Christian Science, as an instance, denies the existence of the physical, claiming the essential substance of the universe is mind. If the physical does not exist, then deity did not become true humanity in the person of Christ. This is the doctrine of antichrist, according to Scripture.
The thoughtful Christian will carefully analyze the doctrine of a cult that is being pressed upon him paying special attention to the Christology of that alternative religious message. The message that in effect declares Christ to be the automaton of the Father and not a real person in Himself, is a cult. The message that denies the virgin birth of Christ, holding Him to be merely the natural son of Joseph and Mary, is a cult. An examination of the doctrinal base of any religion in the light of its views on the person and the work of Jesus Christ can be most revealing.
The question, "What think ye of Jesus?" is only answered correctly by the believing Christian. The Christian gladly answers, "Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the living God, God incarnate in the form of human flesh. He is the Son of man, the only Saviour of the world, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who, through His death on the cross, provides redemption for all who believe in Him. He is the One who died for our sins, rose again on the third day who lives to make intercession for us before His Father and who one day will come in His glorious returning to judge the quick and the dead at His appearing in His kingdom. He is Lord and God, and in Him alone we have life, and life more abundantly."
Closely related to the fatal heresy of defective Christology is a denial of the trinity of the Godhead. The only true God is one God, eternally existent in three persons, Father, Son. and Holy Spirit. Each person of the Godhead is co-equal and co-eternal with the others. This view is not held by the Jehovah Witnesses. Many cults are blind as to the nature of God and in their theology deny the deity of Jesus Christ or the deity of the Holy Spirit. An improper faith in the only true God makes impossible any real hope of salvation.
These critical doctrinal problems concerning the nature of the Godhead should come to each Christian as a new reminder of the need for Christian scholarship. For too long we have been influenced by foolish leaders who say, "We don't need doctrine; we just need experience!"
In the same vein is the mindless claim, "We don't preach doctrine, we just preach Christ!" Preachers who talk like this need to move up from their spiritual kindergartens and realize the shameful neglect of their own personal scholarship and the consequent neglect of doctrinal preaching to their people. The cults will have a field day in exploiting experience-orientated saints who have no time for the study of Christian doctrine.
(from Know the Marks of Cults - the 12 Basic Errors of False Religion by Dave Breese)
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
The Claim of Special Discoveries (Mark #6)
"I have found the secret!"
Few people are more fascinating then those who claim to have inside information on a given subject. Who of us as a child has not listened with breathless anticipation to stories told by older people of their experiences? Stories of talking animals or mysterious haunted houses were a part of our youthful pursuit of fantasy.
Children's stories which are known to be fantasy are one thing; fantasies purveyed as religious truth are quite another. There is nothing wrong with listening to a storyteller; the wrong, indeed the insane course, is to fall down at his feet and worship him. Fables that are known to be such are enjoyable little diversions in life. Religious fantasies that are presented as special spiritual discoveries are dangerous.
In the world of religion, many have been conned out of their money, their eternal souls, or both by those who claim special knowledge from sources of information not commonly available. It is illegal for any person to purchase securities on the basis of "inside information" not generally available to the average investor on the street. We could wish that in the world of religion there were such a law. Unfortunately, such a law would be impossible to pass. Even if it were enacted, it would be ignored by millions of people in pursuit of religious fascinations rather than common truth.
The careful teacher of sound doctrine is rarely as electrifying as the mysterious religious promoter who, usually for a price, will let us in on his "secret." Under the spells he casts, we are often tempted to forget that the best things in life are not only free, but they are usually obvious. It is very clear that the humble Christian who will pursue the teaching of the Bible with simplicity and godly sincerity becomes the glad recipient of the abundant provision of God for every need for time and eternity. There can be no greater promise than that we are blessed "with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3).
In the face of this open provision of all things freely given from God, one is amazed to see the large and loyal following that comes to people who report some vision, presence, revelation, or special discovery which has come to them and which they claim to be divine. It would be impossible to have a cult without mysterious, otherwise unavailable inside information.
The Christian must remember that there is no discovery in the entire universe that anyone could possibly have that is superior to his discovery of salvation in Jesus Christ. There is no higher information, no better revelation, no deeper truth -- nothing is greater than the knowledge of Christ. The person who turns from this greatest discovery, this ultimate revelation, to pursue the delusions of a cult leader is a fool. Despite this obvious truth, the cults continue to beguile unstable souls with their false claims to special discoveries. No discovery is more special than Jesus Christ.
The claim to special discoveries and "repeatable-on-demand" revelations from God is the point where the cults tend to move off into the occult. Witchcraft, spiritism, and Satan worship are nothing more than religions that claim to be able to call for the incursion of the metaphysical in the realm of the physical. This is surely one of the reasons why the cults are often but a stopping place where a disturbed soul lingers briefly before dropping totally into the pit of the occult.
Nevertheless, the almost universal base of each cult religion is the purported revelation that one person received. These persons claimed divine authority for a private, unauthenticated religious event. They claim to have seen a vision of a woman on a mountain, heard a voice in a prayer tower, or been visited by an angel who came with golden tablets and giant spectacles. The unsubstantiated and largely preposterous stories are endless. The discovery may have been a hallucination, an outright lie, or even the result of indigestion or a sleepless night. We cannot know, we are without corroborative evidence.
How different is the truth of Christianity? It is not dependent upon claims by private individuals to special discoveries. The fundamental characteristic of the faith of Christ is that it is based on historical fact. Talking of all of the events that centered around the life, work, death, and resurrection of Christ, Luke states that Christ declared Himself to be alive after His passion "by many infallible proofs" (Acts 1:3). There were hundreds and in some cases thousands of witnesses to the open and public facts of the Gospel.
The witnesses to the facts of the Gospel were declared as being alive and responsible to testify of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:6). Nothing is more obvious in the Old and New Testaments than the fact of the public revelation and working of God in the presence of proofs and competent witnesses. The truth of Christianity does not depend on private knowledge or secret, unconfirmable relationships on the part of individuals.
But the growing activity of religious promoters with concocted stories should not come as a surprise to us. The Scripture predicts, "There shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that brought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of..." (2 Peter 2:1-3).
We notice that the heresies being brought in by false teachers are secret and destructive. It would never be possible for these purveyors of their own imaginings to be successful were it not for the foolish inattention on the part of many to the laws of evidence. Again and again Jesus paid respect to the divine laws of evidence by naming those other sources of data that would bear witness to the truth of His Word (John 5:31; John 10:25).
Because of these abundant sources of evidence the Apostle Peter was able to say, "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye witnesses of His majesty" (2 Peter 1:16).
Nevertheless, the deceitful infection of the cultic promoters continues as they beguile unstable souls away from the clear and obvious truth into unprovable mysteries that they themselves cannot explain. It is a fair generalization to say that it is the duty of the true minister of the Gospel to take the mysteries of God and make them plain. The normal direction of the cultic promoter is to take the plain truth of the Word and turn it into as mysterious a message as possible. Many deadly pitfalls lie along the path of the dark and the mysterious.
No Christian is required to believe that Jesus Christ has appeared to anyone since the day of the completion of Holy Scripture. God rests His case on the Bible. This Book should be plainly preached by those who stand in pulpits. It should be clearly taught by those who would expound truth. It should be carefully read by all who would discover the nature of reality. Then there will be no need for special discoveries on the part of anyone. The greatest discovery an individual can make is to experience the joy of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which comes by faith in His person and His work as revealed in Holy Scripture.
The secret is out! The Gospel is available to all. Jesus Christ has come in the flesh and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. Faith in Him brings a discovery that is special indeed and available to all.
(from Know the Marks of Cults - The 12 Basic Errors of False Religion by Dave Breese)
Few people are more fascinating then those who claim to have inside information on a given subject. Who of us as a child has not listened with breathless anticipation to stories told by older people of their experiences? Stories of talking animals or mysterious haunted houses were a part of our youthful pursuit of fantasy.
Children's stories which are known to be fantasy are one thing; fantasies purveyed as religious truth are quite another. There is nothing wrong with listening to a storyteller; the wrong, indeed the insane course, is to fall down at his feet and worship him. Fables that are known to be such are enjoyable little diversions in life. Religious fantasies that are presented as special spiritual discoveries are dangerous.
In the world of religion, many have been conned out of their money, their eternal souls, or both by those who claim special knowledge from sources of information not commonly available. It is illegal for any person to purchase securities on the basis of "inside information" not generally available to the average investor on the street. We could wish that in the world of religion there were such a law. Unfortunately, such a law would be impossible to pass. Even if it were enacted, it would be ignored by millions of people in pursuit of religious fascinations rather than common truth.
The careful teacher of sound doctrine is rarely as electrifying as the mysterious religious promoter who, usually for a price, will let us in on his "secret." Under the spells he casts, we are often tempted to forget that the best things in life are not only free, but they are usually obvious. It is very clear that the humble Christian who will pursue the teaching of the Bible with simplicity and godly sincerity becomes the glad recipient of the abundant provision of God for every need for time and eternity. There can be no greater promise than that we are blessed "with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3).
In the face of this open provision of all things freely given from God, one is amazed to see the large and loyal following that comes to people who report some vision, presence, revelation, or special discovery which has come to them and which they claim to be divine. It would be impossible to have a cult without mysterious, otherwise unavailable inside information.
The Christian must remember that there is no discovery in the entire universe that anyone could possibly have that is superior to his discovery of salvation in Jesus Christ. There is no higher information, no better revelation, no deeper truth -- nothing is greater than the knowledge of Christ. The person who turns from this greatest discovery, this ultimate revelation, to pursue the delusions of a cult leader is a fool. Despite this obvious truth, the cults continue to beguile unstable souls with their false claims to special discoveries. No discovery is more special than Jesus Christ.
The claim to special discoveries and "repeatable-on-demand" revelations from God is the point where the cults tend to move off into the occult. Witchcraft, spiritism, and Satan worship are nothing more than religions that claim to be able to call for the incursion of the metaphysical in the realm of the physical. This is surely one of the reasons why the cults are often but a stopping place where a disturbed soul lingers briefly before dropping totally into the pit of the occult.
Nevertheless, the almost universal base of each cult religion is the purported revelation that one person received. These persons claimed divine authority for a private, unauthenticated religious event. They claim to have seen a vision of a woman on a mountain, heard a voice in a prayer tower, or been visited by an angel who came with golden tablets and giant spectacles. The unsubstantiated and largely preposterous stories are endless. The discovery may have been a hallucination, an outright lie, or even the result of indigestion or a sleepless night. We cannot know, we are without corroborative evidence.
How different is the truth of Christianity? It is not dependent upon claims by private individuals to special discoveries. The fundamental characteristic of the faith of Christ is that it is based on historical fact. Talking of all of the events that centered around the life, work, death, and resurrection of Christ, Luke states that Christ declared Himself to be alive after His passion "by many infallible proofs" (Acts 1:3). There were hundreds and in some cases thousands of witnesses to the open and public facts of the Gospel.
The witnesses to the facts of the Gospel were declared as being alive and responsible to testify of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:6). Nothing is more obvious in the Old and New Testaments than the fact of the public revelation and working of God in the presence of proofs and competent witnesses. The truth of Christianity does not depend on private knowledge or secret, unconfirmable relationships on the part of individuals.
But the growing activity of religious promoters with concocted stories should not come as a surprise to us. The Scripture predicts, "There shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that brought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of..." (2 Peter 2:1-3).
We notice that the heresies being brought in by false teachers are secret and destructive. It would never be possible for these purveyors of their own imaginings to be successful were it not for the foolish inattention on the part of many to the laws of evidence. Again and again Jesus paid respect to the divine laws of evidence by naming those other sources of data that would bear witness to the truth of His Word (John 5:31; John 10:25).
Because of these abundant sources of evidence the Apostle Peter was able to say, "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye witnesses of His majesty" (2 Peter 1:16).
Nevertheless, the deceitful infection of the cultic promoters continues as they beguile unstable souls away from the clear and obvious truth into unprovable mysteries that they themselves cannot explain. It is a fair generalization to say that it is the duty of the true minister of the Gospel to take the mysteries of God and make them plain. The normal direction of the cultic promoter is to take the plain truth of the Word and turn it into as mysterious a message as possible. Many deadly pitfalls lie along the path of the dark and the mysterious.
No Christian is required to believe that Jesus Christ has appeared to anyone since the day of the completion of Holy Scripture. God rests His case on the Bible. This Book should be plainly preached by those who stand in pulpits. It should be clearly taught by those who would expound truth. It should be carefully read by all who would discover the nature of reality. Then there will be no need for special discoveries on the part of anyone. The greatest discovery an individual can make is to experience the joy of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which comes by faith in His person and His work as revealed in Holy Scripture.
The secret is out! The Gospel is available to all. Jesus Christ has come in the flesh and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. Faith in Him brings a discovery that is special indeed and available to all.
(from Know the Marks of Cults - The 12 Basic Errors of False Religion by Dave Breese)
Friday, January 9, 2009
Doctrinal Ambiguity (Mark #5)
If the trumpet give an uncertain sound,
who shall prepare himself for the battle?
The answer to this biblical question is that many strange people will. Response may well come from multitudes of individuals as they move out from the dark haunts of personal failure and confusion. There are increasing multitudes of people living in our generation to whom uncertain sounds seem to be beautiful music. To them uncertainty is a form of certainty and ambiguity satisfies the mind more than anything specific.
It is no wonder then that these types are attracted to the ambiguous doctrines of cult religions. Doctrinal ambiguity is a mark of a cult. One of the very fascinating characteristics of the cults is the interesting and sometimes hilarious changes of doctrine through which they pass. Their doctrines are being continually altered in order to adapt themselves to new situations, arguments, or the whims of their leaders. They know nothing of the command of Scripture, "That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive" (Ephesians 4:14). Scripture is clear that craftily changing doctrine is a cunning device used by those who prey upon the unwary.
The illustrations are many. During and after the days of Mary Baker Eddy, the Christian Science cult republished her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures nearly every year. The annual update made it possible for the glaring contradictions and preposterous doctrines of the past to be adapted to the new demands of the present.
The word "doctrine" has no meaning in the fever swamps of the mind which are inhabited by the cults, for doctrine means a systematic presentation and understanding of truth. The idea of doctrine is therefore virtually unique to organized Christianity.
By contrast what passes for doctrine in the cult is really a sub-rational set of disconnected thoughts and practices that only serve to confuse the mind and the emotions as well. God gave us emotions so that they might be the source of flavour, happiness, joy at the understanding of truth and the fulfilment of duty. Emotions were never intended to be an end in themselves and are totally untrustworthy as the custodians of truth. Any religion, therefore, that deliberately bypasses rational doctrinal understanding and seeks to build upon the emotions will inevitably deceive rather than enlighten.
The use of chants, the raising of hands along with the clanging of cymbals, the sing-song repetition of simple musical structures, the repeated, staccato articulation of any word that is supposed to represent God, joy, or peace -- all of these practices are sub-rational. They are simply calculated to play on the limited strings of the emotional structure, creating what passes as a religious experience but is nothing more than a mindless emotional trauma. Christ declared that we are not heard because of our "much speaking." This is a suggestion that is regularly ignored by the cults, whose adherents are not really speaking to God anyhow.
The illustrations of doctrinal ambiguity from the old and the new cults are endless. Never in the history of the world have there been so many confused and contradictory religious propositions pressed upon people in the guise of truth. The mind reels in confusion at any attempt to understand with any logical comprehension the preaching and doctrinal system of modern-day cults.
This "mindlessness" of the cults is a most useful device. The cult promoters are not truly appealing to the mind but rather are attempting to set the mind aside and to appeal to a set of religious emotions. Devotees say to one another in effect, "Forget what he is saying, can't you feel the vibrations?" Surely we are in divine presence as the guru is speaking to us."
This "divine presence" is always justified by calling it higher knowledge, deeper truth, or the use of some other adjective that excuses it from being the real thing. Converts are not urged to understand; rather it is recommended that they feel. Terms like "self-realization," along with concepts like love, peace, and joy are the expressions in which they traffic. The words of the cults are the products of a corrupted language. The words themselves have no real meaning. They have become emotional triggers connoting to you whatever you want them to mean. The cult promoters have denied the doctrine of objective value as relates to the words they use.
By contrast, our Lord Jesus Christ was careful about the use of His words. The result is that those who heard went away saying that they had never heard anyone who spoke like this man spoke. Christ clearly warned us as to the utter importance of the proper use of words with real meaning, saying, "By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned" (Matthew 12:37).
The Word of God is therefore very careful to avoid ambiguity. The contrast between bewildering, ambiguous cult doctrines and true Christianity is a very marked one. Nothing is clearer than the call in Scripture to sound doctrine. In a thousand ways, the Scriptures of the New Testament commit themselves to a careful exposition of the truth of God.
Indeed, unlike the religions of the world, Christianity commits itself to careful details of all kinds. The Bible is filled with notations of cities, villages, rivers, dates, times, kings, and exact quotes of what many individuals have said. Like no book in all of the world, the Bible is a book of careful historic details.
In addition to this, important theological propositions in the Bible are stated in many ways so that there can be simply no question about the meaning. So clear and broad is the presentation of the facts of the Gospel that Paul was able to say to Timothy, "But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long suffering, charity, patience" (2 Timothy 3:10).
We see then that clarity of belief is one of the characteristics of true Christianity. Jesus said, "I am the light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12).
The Christian who studies the Word of God becomes spiritually mature, a defender of the faith, and able to even teach others. The clear doctrines of Holy Scriptures can be understood to the point of certainty by faithful people as they are transmitted from person to person, place to place, and age to age. Paul wrote, "The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also" (2 Timothy 2:2).
The Word of God clearly warns that "the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth; and shall be turned into fables" (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
Fables, predicted in Scripture, are one of the marks of a cult. One can listen endlessly to cultic representatives on radio and television and never be sure what they are talking about. They pose questions that they do not answer. One of the most mentally frustrating experiences in life is to attempt to decide exactly what a religious promoter meant by what he said. The answer cannot be found even by reading hundreds of pages of his literature. Rather, the reader is lead into an even deeper labyrinth of confusion.
This is the way they plan it. They intend to confuse, not to clarify. Being confused themselves, they only are able to throw dust in the air so that it gets in the eyes of others. It is almost impossible to understand what a Jehovah's Witness believes about God, biblical inspiration, eternity, and many other subjects.
The tendency of the cults is to move away from the objective, categoric truth as taught in Scripture. They hide behind the trees in the endless forest of philosophic discussion. To them the process of discussion is itself the truth. Nothing can be resolved because all things are continually and everlastingly relative. These indeed are people who are "ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of truth" (2 Timothy 3:7).
The message of the Gospel of Christ is continually presented in the Word of God as the profoundly beautiful and simple truth of the Christ who died and rose again in order that we by faith in Him might have everlasting life.
By contrast, the dark night of doctrinal obscurity has settled on many segments of the current religious establishment because of the obfuscations and contradictions of the confused representatives of religion. The individual who seeks after truth in our times does well to head the words of Christ, "If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth because there is no light in him" (John 11:9-10).
The great need in the religious establishment of our time is for the candid preaching of sound doctrine as against the tantalizing sentences of those who never do quite get to the point. Thank God for the faithful Christian expositors of the Scriptures in our time (may their tribe increase!) who can truthfully say, "I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you but have shown you and have taught you publicly, and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:20-21).
Ambiguity is the devil's gospel, whereas clarity is divine.
(from Know the Marks of Cults, the Twelve Basic Errors of False Religion by Dave Bresse)
who shall prepare himself for the battle?
The answer to this biblical question is that many strange people will. Response may well come from multitudes of individuals as they move out from the dark haunts of personal failure and confusion. There are increasing multitudes of people living in our generation to whom uncertain sounds seem to be beautiful music. To them uncertainty is a form of certainty and ambiguity satisfies the mind more than anything specific.
It is no wonder then that these types are attracted to the ambiguous doctrines of cult religions. Doctrinal ambiguity is a mark of a cult. One of the very fascinating characteristics of the cults is the interesting and sometimes hilarious changes of doctrine through which they pass. Their doctrines are being continually altered in order to adapt themselves to new situations, arguments, or the whims of their leaders. They know nothing of the command of Scripture, "That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive" (Ephesians 4:14). Scripture is clear that craftily changing doctrine is a cunning device used by those who prey upon the unwary.
The illustrations are many. During and after the days of Mary Baker Eddy, the Christian Science cult republished her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures nearly every year. The annual update made it possible for the glaring contradictions and preposterous doctrines of the past to be adapted to the new demands of the present.
The word "doctrine" has no meaning in the fever swamps of the mind which are inhabited by the cults, for doctrine means a systematic presentation and understanding of truth. The idea of doctrine is therefore virtually unique to organized Christianity.
By contrast what passes for doctrine in the cult is really a sub-rational set of disconnected thoughts and practices that only serve to confuse the mind and the emotions as well. God gave us emotions so that they might be the source of flavour, happiness, joy at the understanding of truth and the fulfilment of duty. Emotions were never intended to be an end in themselves and are totally untrustworthy as the custodians of truth. Any religion, therefore, that deliberately bypasses rational doctrinal understanding and seeks to build upon the emotions will inevitably deceive rather than enlighten.
The use of chants, the raising of hands along with the clanging of cymbals, the sing-song repetition of simple musical structures, the repeated, staccato articulation of any word that is supposed to represent God, joy, or peace -- all of these practices are sub-rational. They are simply calculated to play on the limited strings of the emotional structure, creating what passes as a religious experience but is nothing more than a mindless emotional trauma. Christ declared that we are not heard because of our "much speaking." This is a suggestion that is regularly ignored by the cults, whose adherents are not really speaking to God anyhow.
The illustrations of doctrinal ambiguity from the old and the new cults are endless. Never in the history of the world have there been so many confused and contradictory religious propositions pressed upon people in the guise of truth. The mind reels in confusion at any attempt to understand with any logical comprehension the preaching and doctrinal system of modern-day cults.
This "mindlessness" of the cults is a most useful device. The cult promoters are not truly appealing to the mind but rather are attempting to set the mind aside and to appeal to a set of religious emotions. Devotees say to one another in effect, "Forget what he is saying, can't you feel the vibrations?" Surely we are in divine presence as the guru is speaking to us."
This "divine presence" is always justified by calling it higher knowledge, deeper truth, or the use of some other adjective that excuses it from being the real thing. Converts are not urged to understand; rather it is recommended that they feel. Terms like "self-realization," along with concepts like love, peace, and joy are the expressions in which they traffic. The words of the cults are the products of a corrupted language. The words themselves have no real meaning. They have become emotional triggers connoting to you whatever you want them to mean. The cult promoters have denied the doctrine of objective value as relates to the words they use.
By contrast, our Lord Jesus Christ was careful about the use of His words. The result is that those who heard went away saying that they had never heard anyone who spoke like this man spoke. Christ clearly warned us as to the utter importance of the proper use of words with real meaning, saying, "By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned" (Matthew 12:37).
The Word of God is therefore very careful to avoid ambiguity. The contrast between bewildering, ambiguous cult doctrines and true Christianity is a very marked one. Nothing is clearer than the call in Scripture to sound doctrine. In a thousand ways, the Scriptures of the New Testament commit themselves to a careful exposition of the truth of God.
Indeed, unlike the religions of the world, Christianity commits itself to careful details of all kinds. The Bible is filled with notations of cities, villages, rivers, dates, times, kings, and exact quotes of what many individuals have said. Like no book in all of the world, the Bible is a book of careful historic details.
In addition to this, important theological propositions in the Bible are stated in many ways so that there can be simply no question about the meaning. So clear and broad is the presentation of the facts of the Gospel that Paul was able to say to Timothy, "But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long suffering, charity, patience" (2 Timothy 3:10).
We see then that clarity of belief is one of the characteristics of true Christianity. Jesus said, "I am the light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12).
The Christian who studies the Word of God becomes spiritually mature, a defender of the faith, and able to even teach others. The clear doctrines of Holy Scriptures can be understood to the point of certainty by faithful people as they are transmitted from person to person, place to place, and age to age. Paul wrote, "The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also" (2 Timothy 2:2).
The Word of God clearly warns that "the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth; and shall be turned into fables" (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
Fables, predicted in Scripture, are one of the marks of a cult. One can listen endlessly to cultic representatives on radio and television and never be sure what they are talking about. They pose questions that they do not answer. One of the most mentally frustrating experiences in life is to attempt to decide exactly what a religious promoter meant by what he said. The answer cannot be found even by reading hundreds of pages of his literature. Rather, the reader is lead into an even deeper labyrinth of confusion.
This is the way they plan it. They intend to confuse, not to clarify. Being confused themselves, they only are able to throw dust in the air so that it gets in the eyes of others. It is almost impossible to understand what a Jehovah's Witness believes about God, biblical inspiration, eternity, and many other subjects.
The tendency of the cults is to move away from the objective, categoric truth as taught in Scripture. They hide behind the trees in the endless forest of philosophic discussion. To them the process of discussion is itself the truth. Nothing can be resolved because all things are continually and everlastingly relative. These indeed are people who are "ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of truth" (2 Timothy 3:7).
The message of the Gospel of Christ is continually presented in the Word of God as the profoundly beautiful and simple truth of the Christ who died and rose again in order that we by faith in Him might have everlasting life.
By contrast, the dark night of doctrinal obscurity has settled on many segments of the current religious establishment because of the obfuscations and contradictions of the confused representatives of religion. The individual who seeks after truth in our times does well to head the words of Christ, "If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth because there is no light in him" (John 11:9-10).
The great need in the religious establishment of our time is for the candid preaching of sound doctrine as against the tantalizing sentences of those who never do quite get to the point. Thank God for the faithful Christian expositors of the Scriptures in our time (may their tribe increase!) who can truthfully say, "I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you but have shown you and have taught you publicly, and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:20-21).
Ambiguity is the devil's gospel, whereas clarity is divine.
(from Know the Marks of Cults, the Twelve Basic Errors of False Religion by Dave Bresse)
Friday, January 2, 2009
Presumptuous Messianic Leadership (Mark #4)
Only Jesus Christ deserves disciples!
This towering fact is ignored by most of the religions in the world today. The Christian message is that Jesus Christ is the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). He alone is our High Priest (Hebrews 4:14). He alone is our Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5). The church is the body of Christ, of which He is the head (Ephesians 1:22-23).
To the Christian, Jesus Christ is all in all (Colossians 3:11). We have a telling example of this in that gracious individual whom God called to be a forerunner of Jesus Christ, John the Baptist. Because of his remarkable ministry, John became the object of great spiritual interest. This spiritual interest produced a following. Many potential followers of John asked questions which implied that they would want to attribute to him some divine qualities, making him their leader. John the Baptist left us a most commendable example by constantly deferring from the praise and applause of the fawning humanity that gathered about him. (See John 3:27-30)
"He must increase -- I must decrease."
How fearful is the contrast of the life and ministry of many religious leaders in our time. The cults are replete with the stated or implied suggestion on the part of leaders as to some unusual divine capability that might well inspire worship on the part of their followers.
One of the marks of a cult is that it elevates the person and the words of a human leader to a messianic level. The predictable characteristic of a member of a cult is that he will soon be quoting his leader as a final authority. A messianic human leader has used the powers of his intelligence or personality and with them imposed his ideas and directives on the ignorant.
The success of this approach is usually predictable, for too many religiously disposed people are not intellectually responsible enough to think for themselves. Their easy mental acquiescence has led them to seek a leader who can give them all of the answers and personalize or objectify their religious need. They want someone to speak to them with authority, even finality.
All too often converts to a religion stand in inordinate awe of the person who brought them into this faith. Many religious persuaders have been unable to withstand the temptation to personally promote themselves so as to retain their exalted image in the minds of their devoted followers. The temptation to change from a simple servant to an exalted messiah can be very strong in the life of a charismatic leader.
It is possible that many cult organizers began as humble people who came to believe their own promotions. They often cleverly continue to promote the image of external humility while concealing a cynical attitude which says "My people need me, and bless them, they can have me -- for a price."
No Christian should make such a mistake. He is aware that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. He knows that from the least to the greatest, each Christian, but for grace, the unmerited favour of Jesus Christ, would be corrupt and lost (1 Corinthians 15:10). The Christian has no final human leader except Jesus Christ. He is warned about this by Christ Himself (Matthew 23:8-11).
The followers of Christ are not masters of one another, but they relate to one another as members of a body. They are to serve one another (Galations 5:13). They are to submit themselves to one another (1 Corinthians 16:16). The Scriptures clearly declare that when they announce themselves as devoted followers of a human leader, they have sunk into carnality (1 Corinthians 3:3-4). (1 Corinthians 7:23 and 1 Corinthians 6:20) It is the duty of a Christian to glorify God and to exercise great discretion in giving honour to men.
The religious leader in our time must take great care to prevent admirers from becoming enamoured of his leadership rather than the leadership of Jesus Christ. In this he is doing no more than following the example of our Lord, who "made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant" (Philippians 2:8). "For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God" (John 12:43).
Another form of presumptuous messianic leadership in the religious scene of our time is the claim of some leaders to their own ability as special intercessors with God. Their followers are asked by them to "believe in my prayers" and to "give me the opportunity to pray for you." There is a general build-up of presumption that the leader, because of his special gifts or deep spirituality, has some unusual powers with which to gain leverage before the throne of God. The claim to special prayer ability by the spiritual leader is a cruel device by which millions of sheeplike followers have been beguiled into servitude. Following this, they have been exploited to a frightening degree. This shameful doctrine is false and foreign to the teaching of the New Testament.
Protestant Christianity was built on the sound biblical doctrine of the priesthood of every believer. The clear teaching of the New Testament is that each person who has been justified by faith in Jesus Christ has access to the Father in prayer and needs no human mediator.
No one has an inside track with God except Jesus Christ! No one has any access at all to the Father without Jesus Christ and in Him we are all freely welcomed to the throne of grace. One of the great promises of the Bible to every believer is found in Paul's words to Timothy, "For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5) (Hebrews 4:16) (Hebrews 10:19-22).
When Paul prayed for believers, he prayed that they themselves would know the personal access that they had to God and the wonderful powers that were available to them by virtue of their personal relationship to the Lord (Ephesians 1:15-19). The great relationship for the Christian is that personal one which he has between himself and his Lord. This relationship continues, made viable by the Holy Spirit who lives within the heart of every believer independent of any human mediator. The Scripture promises to every believer "be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God" (Philippians 4:6).
So each believer is invited to develop a growing personal relationship with his Lord. The message of the New Testament is very clear. The course in the life of the believer must move from dependence on the leadership of humans to independence of that leadership in the direction of a growing personal relationship to the Lord Himself.
The fearful contrast is apparent in the cult scene today as cult leaders labour to produce idolatrous dependence upon themselves. The mark of the cult leader is that he makes himself imperative in the lives of those who have become ensnared in his web. This tragic development is only made possible because of the ignorance on the part of many people as to the teaching of the Word of God. The message of Scripture is that the individual must not commit himself to "infallible" human leaders. Rather he must become a follower of Jesus Christ, who alone is the Head of the church.
The cult leader also strengthens his presumptuous leadership by arrogating to himself the position of being the only repository of divine truth. He frequently talks about "my message, my revelation, my leadership, my people." In doing this, he is pushing the heretical proposition that he has been made the true custodian of some private revelation from God. Concerning this we have the clear word of Scripture that no Scripture is of any private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20).
Paul was careful to remind each Christian that he himself possesses "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption in Jesus Christ. Beyond this, the believer, without the help of any guru, possesses everything else he needs" (1 Corinthians 3:20-23).
Every individual believer possesses divine truth for himself when he holds the Word of God in his hand. The function of true Christian leadership is to bring each child of God to the point of maturity where he can study the Bible for himself and be delivered of his need of perpetual dependence on a human teacher.
Only Jesus Christ deserves disciples.
(from Know the Marks of Cults, the Twelve Basic Errors of False Religion by Dave Breese)
This towering fact is ignored by most of the religions in the world today. The Christian message is that Jesus Christ is the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). He alone is our High Priest (Hebrews 4:14). He alone is our Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5). The church is the body of Christ, of which He is the head (Ephesians 1:22-23).
To the Christian, Jesus Christ is all in all (Colossians 3:11). We have a telling example of this in that gracious individual whom God called to be a forerunner of Jesus Christ, John the Baptist. Because of his remarkable ministry, John became the object of great spiritual interest. This spiritual interest produced a following. Many potential followers of John asked questions which implied that they would want to attribute to him some divine qualities, making him their leader. John the Baptist left us a most commendable example by constantly deferring from the praise and applause of the fawning humanity that gathered about him. (See John 3:27-30)
"He must increase -- I must decrease."
How fearful is the contrast of the life and ministry of many religious leaders in our time. The cults are replete with the stated or implied suggestion on the part of leaders as to some unusual divine capability that might well inspire worship on the part of their followers.
One of the marks of a cult is that it elevates the person and the words of a human leader to a messianic level. The predictable characteristic of a member of a cult is that he will soon be quoting his leader as a final authority. A messianic human leader has used the powers of his intelligence or personality and with them imposed his ideas and directives on the ignorant.
The success of this approach is usually predictable, for too many religiously disposed people are not intellectually responsible enough to think for themselves. Their easy mental acquiescence has led them to seek a leader who can give them all of the answers and personalize or objectify their religious need. They want someone to speak to them with authority, even finality.
All too often converts to a religion stand in inordinate awe of the person who brought them into this faith. Many religious persuaders have been unable to withstand the temptation to personally promote themselves so as to retain their exalted image in the minds of their devoted followers. The temptation to change from a simple servant to an exalted messiah can be very strong in the life of a charismatic leader.
It is possible that many cult organizers began as humble people who came to believe their own promotions. They often cleverly continue to promote the image of external humility while concealing a cynical attitude which says "My people need me, and bless them, they can have me -- for a price."
No Christian should make such a mistake. He is aware that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. He knows that from the least to the greatest, each Christian, but for grace, the unmerited favour of Jesus Christ, would be corrupt and lost (1 Corinthians 15:10). The Christian has no final human leader except Jesus Christ. He is warned about this by Christ Himself (Matthew 23:8-11).
The followers of Christ are not masters of one another, but they relate to one another as members of a body. They are to serve one another (Galations 5:13). They are to submit themselves to one another (1 Corinthians 16:16). The Scriptures clearly declare that when they announce themselves as devoted followers of a human leader, they have sunk into carnality (1 Corinthians 3:3-4). (1 Corinthians 7:23 and 1 Corinthians 6:20) It is the duty of a Christian to glorify God and to exercise great discretion in giving honour to men.
The religious leader in our time must take great care to prevent admirers from becoming enamoured of his leadership rather than the leadership of Jesus Christ. In this he is doing no more than following the example of our Lord, who "made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant" (Philippians 2:8). "For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God" (John 12:43).
Another form of presumptuous messianic leadership in the religious scene of our time is the claim of some leaders to their own ability as special intercessors with God. Their followers are asked by them to "believe in my prayers" and to "give me the opportunity to pray for you." There is a general build-up of presumption that the leader, because of his special gifts or deep spirituality, has some unusual powers with which to gain leverage before the throne of God. The claim to special prayer ability by the spiritual leader is a cruel device by which millions of sheeplike followers have been beguiled into servitude. Following this, they have been exploited to a frightening degree. This shameful doctrine is false and foreign to the teaching of the New Testament.
Protestant Christianity was built on the sound biblical doctrine of the priesthood of every believer. The clear teaching of the New Testament is that each person who has been justified by faith in Jesus Christ has access to the Father in prayer and needs no human mediator.
No one has an inside track with God except Jesus Christ! No one has any access at all to the Father without Jesus Christ and in Him we are all freely welcomed to the throne of grace. One of the great promises of the Bible to every believer is found in Paul's words to Timothy, "For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5) (Hebrews 4:16) (Hebrews 10:19-22).
When Paul prayed for believers, he prayed that they themselves would know the personal access that they had to God and the wonderful powers that were available to them by virtue of their personal relationship to the Lord (Ephesians 1:15-19). The great relationship for the Christian is that personal one which he has between himself and his Lord. This relationship continues, made viable by the Holy Spirit who lives within the heart of every believer independent of any human mediator. The Scripture promises to every believer "be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God" (Philippians 4:6).
So each believer is invited to develop a growing personal relationship with his Lord. The message of the New Testament is very clear. The course in the life of the believer must move from dependence on the leadership of humans to independence of that leadership in the direction of a growing personal relationship to the Lord Himself.
The fearful contrast is apparent in the cult scene today as cult leaders labour to produce idolatrous dependence upon themselves. The mark of the cult leader is that he makes himself imperative in the lives of those who have become ensnared in his web. This tragic development is only made possible because of the ignorance on the part of many people as to the teaching of the Word of God. The message of Scripture is that the individual must not commit himself to "infallible" human leaders. Rather he must become a follower of Jesus Christ, who alone is the Head of the church.
The cult leader also strengthens his presumptuous leadership by arrogating to himself the position of being the only repository of divine truth. He frequently talks about "my message, my revelation, my leadership, my people." In doing this, he is pushing the heretical proposition that he has been made the true custodian of some private revelation from God. Concerning this we have the clear word of Scripture that no Scripture is of any private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20).
Paul was careful to remind each Christian that he himself possesses "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption in Jesus Christ. Beyond this, the believer, without the help of any guru, possesses everything else he needs" (1 Corinthians 3:20-23).
Every individual believer possesses divine truth for himself when he holds the Word of God in his hand. The function of true Christian leadership is to bring each child of God to the point of maturity where he can study the Bible for himself and be delivered of his need of perpetual dependence on a human teacher.
Only Jesus Christ deserves disciples.
(from Know the Marks of Cults, the Twelve Basic Errors of False Religion by Dave Breese)
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