"Christian Cults"
Deals with the subject of organizations which are evangelistic in theology but cultic in their organization.
Download or email this sermon It Begins with Men
There is a theological definition of “cults” and a sociological definition of “cults”. The two, at some point, inevitably converge.
Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Cor. 1:12-13)
“I of Paul”, “I of Cephas”, “I of Apollos”, “I of Christ”. Those who are saying “I of Christ” were the ones saying, “We do not have any leadership or need for leadership. Jesus is our Leader full-stop. We do not recognize any pastoral authority.” There were some who were saying that while others were saying, “He’s mine, he’s mine, he’s mine”, making a man a guru.
What a cult does is shift the focus onto a man, sometimes even a dead man. There are cults today – and I mean Evangelical cults – which are more popular now than when their founders were alive.
The Assemblies of God rejected the ideas of people like William Branham when he was around. The ideas of E. W. Kenyon were abhorrent to mainstream Pentecostals. The Manifest Sons/Latter Day Rain deceptions – Restorationism, Kingdom Now, and the rest of it – these things were popularly rejected by the mainline Pentecostal denominations including the Assemblies of God in the 40’s and 50’s. They were seen as cultic. Now these things once seen as cultic and heretical have become increasingly mainstream and there are people today who are Branhamites.
The leader of the cult could be a dead person. These are not cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormon cults, these are cults where people believe the true Gospel. When somebody is saved through one of these groups there is a problem. When a Mormon is saved, no problem: Joseph Smith was a false prophet so we know that the whole Mormon church has gone the way of a lie. When a Jehovah’s Witness gets saved, no problem: Charles Taze Russell was a false prophet so we know the whole Watch Tower Society is finished. But when people are born again through a Christian cult there is a big problem with groups which are theologically “churches” but sociologically “cults”.
Eventually these groups which are theologically “churches” but sociologically cutltic become heretical. Eventually these groups get into apostate doctrine. But in the beginning they begin with the true Gospel.
When somebody is born again through one of these groups the leaders or the leader has a tremendous amount of spiritual and psychological influence and even control over people because they really were born again.
I was born again through “The Children of God”. For the first five years of my Christian life I was involved with groups like that. Another one was “The Church of Bible Understanding”. Another Christian cult is called “The Bible Speaks”, sometimes it is called “Greater Grace”. What makes these things so dangerous and so bad is they preach the true Gospel. You cannot write them off entirely the way the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons can be written off entirely. There is a big problem. The people who have been in these groups and the people who have been saved through these groups are in bondage. They are in spiritual and psychological bondage to these groups.
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Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.