Hey friends, this is Michael Bloem with Youth Apologetics Training. Today we're going to start a new series about signs of a cult. We're going to be looking at the different traits that most cults have in common. Now, as we go through, we're going to look at a bunch of different traits that are found in cult groups. If you find that your church exhibits some of these traits, perhaps it's not time to panic. But it is time to pray and look at your church thoughtfully and through biblical glasses and see if it really measures up. Perhaps it's time to move on to somewhere else. Many of you are listening to me for the first time, and if you are, welcome. I love you guys, and I don't mean to talk about cults in a pejorative, insulting way. So if I come off that way, I apologize. In this series, What I want to do is expose these different traits that cults have in common. There are many well-intentioned, good churches out there that have some of these traits. Does that mean you should leave right away? Not necessarily, but it is time to pray. If you find that your church exhibits some of these traits, if your church is exhibiting most of these traits, it's probably a good time to start praying about where God wants you to be. Some of you are pretty certain that you're in a cult, okay? Again, I say welcome. These various traits will help you realize that it is time to move to somewhere biblical. And in the process of this series, we're going to look at the common definitions of cult. It is an elusive word. There are many different definitions of the word cult, okay? And so, we're going to look at several different people's version of what this is. Again, I don't mean it in a pejorative, insulting way. I'm just trying to give you a feeling of what this is all about, and help you get back in line with the Bible and the essential Christian doctrines that were taught by Jesus and his apostles. So, yeah, in this series, we're going to look at many traits that cults have in common, This is going to be somewhat of an introductory series where we're going to look at many different cults, different groups, some of which I've covered and some of which I haven't covered in series yet to this day. I definitely plan on covering all these cults eventually. But if you're new to the cult research side of apologetics, there is a cult research Christian apologetics. Walter Martin, he was kind of the guy that spearheaded the cult research movement in Christianity. But anyway, if you're new to this, you're going to get somewhat of a nice introduction to many different groups in this series. We're going to talk about all kinds of groups, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormons, Scientology, Christian Science, the Unification Church, many, many different movements. We'll even touch on groups like the Nation of Islam, which is different from just Islam, okay? Believe it or not, they have their own cult splinter groups too. And so, anyway, so what exactly is a cult? There's so many different definitions. Matt Slick from Clerm.org, this is what he says. He says, cults are most often religious groups that use teaching and social structures to exhibit strong and or controlling influence over its members' financial, material, and social circles. The beliefs are typically driven by a single cult leader and a specific set of religious beliefs unique to that group. All right, so, Matt's basically saying, and maybe I should have talked about this first, a cult is generally a group that has split off of an Orthodox-type group that has a set line of teaching. So, most of the groups we're going to talk about today are Christian cults, okay? So, they split off of Orthodox Christianity, And then they start denying the essential doctrines of the Christian faith, and even the secondary essential doctrines of the Christian faith. I've done a series on the essentials, okay? The doctrines that, if you're saved, you believe them, right? You don't believe them to be saved, but if you're saved, you're going to believe Him. All right? The guy on the cross next to Jesus, you know, that thief, robber guy that asked Jesus, hey, will you remember me when you come into your kingdom? And Jesus said, truly, I tell you today, you will be with me in paradise. And then that guy got saved. Look, he didn't believe all the essential doctrines, and he was saved. But, but, as the process of sanctification goes, see, he was justified. As in, if he was to die right at that moment, and he was about to, he was going to go to paradise. He was justified. But there's a process called sanctification that starts at the moment you are justified, and it carries on through the rest of your life. This process of sanctification, part of it is, you're reading your Bible and you're learning about God. These essential doctrines, Pretty much, if you don't believe Him, you're probably not saved. In fact, you're not saved. All right? This guy on the cross, he didn't get a chance to. He was trusting in Christ, which is about as central as you can get. He was trusting in Christ alone for the forgiveness of the sins, and he was saved. But anyway, these cult groups will deny the essentials. They might accept one or two of them, but for the most part, they will attack the central, essential doctrines of the Christian faith, and then they'll go after the secondary essentials, the things that are really important, and if you're saved, you probably should be believing them. Okay? And we'll get into this, okay? If this is a little confusing, we're going to get into this. And so, these cult groups generally start with a Christian foundation, and then they start attacking the essentials. And these secondary essentials, there's usually a single leader that everybody gathers around, and then they split off of Orthodox Christianity, create what is usually referred to as a sect. We'll talk about sects, too. In fact, let's talk about them right now. A sect is kind of like a little splinter group of Christianity that splits off. They don't have huge influence, okay? generally not necessarily a one single leader, although sometimes there is, and they're generally not as far out as you're going to find in a cult. So one very simple way of looking at a sect is it's kind of like kindergarten cult groups, okay? They're not really cult groups, but they've splintered off from the orthodox group, the fundamental group, and have started something new, and they're going in a very bad direction. Cults, on the other hand, it's full-blown. You usually have one single leader, although not always. The Jehovah's Witnesses are examples of a modern-day cult. that no longer have a single leader. They started with a single leader, but now there's this whole hierarchy that exists. We'll get into that in a little bit. And if you want to know more about Jehovah's Witnesses, today I have two full series on the Jehovah's Witnesses. One's on soul sleep, so we're looking at a specific topic, and the other is actually an introduction to the whole subject. And so anyway, these cults will gather around a single human leader, they'll start coming up with their own doctrines, their own special revelations, and they'll start taking their group down a whole new trail, a trail that has not been accepted by any Christians for thousands of years, but yet this group has special new revelation, and sometimes they'll claim that the original apostles believed this, but somehow corruption came in the line somewhere in there. Maybe there was a big falling away or something like that, and now everything's corrupted. Christianity is of the devil, and salvation is through this little cult group. Okay, that's generally how things go, although not always. All right, again, I'm just giving you general signs or traits of a cult. So don't hold hard and fast to any of this stuff. These are just general traits that you find in common in many cult groups, okay? And so you're going to find in many cult groups that the cult will, in a sense, become the mediator between you and God, okay? So you really can't get to God but by through this cult, through this movement. And you're going to find that in common with Mormonism, all right? You cannot get to the highest heaven in Mormonism. They call that the celestial heaven, okay? They believe that heaven is divided into three parts. And anyway, you cannot make it to the highest heaven without being a Mormon. Jehovah's Witnesses, everybody is lost. Everybody, except for them. And only 144,000 of them get to go to heaven. The rest of them just live on paradise on earth, and all of us bad people that reject the crazy doctrines of the Jehovah's Witnesses get annihilated. More about that later. You have the Unification Church, which is a lot more ecumenical, so they don't really... they do stand between you and God, but they have more of an ecumenical stance. But anyway, yeah, many of these groups will try to put themselves in a position where you must be part of them. to be saved. Now, by the way, there are many people who believe that the Catholics are a Christian cult. I kind of waver back and forth because I'll tell you what, guys, as we read through a lot of these traits of a cult, the Catholic Church lines up pretty well with these. If you're a Catholic, look, I don't mean that in any hateful way. I love you guys. I was raised as a Catholic. Most of my family is Catholic. And I think that many Catholics get saved in spite of the official doctrines of the Catholic Church. But when you look at the official doctrines of the Catholic Church, and check out my series on Catholicism, it's pretty good. Okay, when you look at the beliefs of the Catholic Church, they fall outside of Christianity in so many ways. And there is a works-based salvation system in place. And according to many different scriptures in the Bible, that places you outside of grace. If you're trusting in your works for salvation and not in Christ, you're not saved, okay? We don't get saved by doing or observing the sacraments. We don't make it into heaven by acquiring a treasury of merit that springs us out of purgatory. Okay, it's not taught in the scriptures. But anyway, I'm going on. There's going to be a lot of rabbit trails in this series, guys. I apologize, but it is what it is. I mean, this series sets me up for rabbit trails. This is going to be rabbit trail series. Oh boy. All you who are new to Youth Apologetics training, I get caught on a lot of rabbit trails. Oddly enough, I get a lot of comments about it, and people enjoy it. But nonetheless, yeah, this series is going to have a lot of side roads, because there's so many subtopics to talk about. But yeah, Catholicism has many traits that fall into the traits of a cult. Do I think they're a cult, personally? Okay, the verdict is still out. I don't know where to fall on that. They certainly fit all the signs. Or not all the signs. They certainly fit many of the different traits of occult. And friends, I'm just going to say it this way. The Catholic Church has been responsible for the brutal, horrible, painful deaths of so many believers. down through the centuries, okay? And they are leading people to hell in droves, okay? The Catholic Church is not God's church. Again, I believe some Catholics get saved in spite of the church, probably because they're reading their Bible and not listening to their priest, okay? But when they start buying into works-based salvation, when they start believing that, like the Council of Trent said, that if you believe that salvation is by grace through faith and that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast, aka Paul said that, if you believe that, according to the Council of Trent, you are accursed. In other words, Paul himself, according to the Catholic Church, was accursed. That's what the Council of Trent said. Yikes, okay? So if you're part of the Catholic Church, I'm just telling you, don't even pray about it. Get out. Get out. Go find a good Bible-believing, Christ-following, Jesus-loving, sanctified, grace-believing—listen, you are saved by grace. All right, you trust in Christ, you do good works because you are saved, not to be saved. We can have the assurance of our salvation right here and right now. We don't have to live with that constant burning question in our mind, am I even saved? Am I going to hell? Okay, that's about 15 minutes, so I'm gonna stop right there. Tomorrow, we will continue looking at traits of a cult and how you can know you're part of a cult or, well, how to spot a friend or a family member who is potentially part of a cult. And so with that, come out to the website, YouthApologeticsTraining.com. There, guys, you can leave comments and questions and let me know what subjects you would like to hear about in the future. I love hearing from you guys, and I like getting ideas for future series. Now, I've got this growing list of ideas of different series I would like to cover, but at the same time, I like to hear from you guys. And I have many times now, and I've received some really good ideas, so thank you guys. Also, guys, you can catch me on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter. And with that, I love you guys, and I'll see you tomorrow.