"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)
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