"Christian Cults"
Deals with the subject of organizations which are evangelistic in theology but cultic in their organization.
Download or email this sermon The First Marks of a Cult
Notice the apostles like Paul went against this mentality. Did Paul save you? It is Jesus who saves, it is the Gospel which saves – it is not a church. The Roman Catholic Church claims it is the instrument of salvation, that the sacraments administered by their priests is how people are saved ex opere operato. These groups will preach Christ, but somehow the distinction is not made between the Christ and the cult.
Paul has a go at their first characteristic, something that later in Galatians he calls “a deed of the flesh”. (Gal. 5:19)
“…factions,” (Gal. 5:20)
Sometimes translated “partyism”, perhaps better translated this way as “factions”. The first mark of a cult is what Paul calls “the sin of party spirit”. The sin of party spirit is where the group claims a monopoly on biblical truth. With the party spirit and what will engender the party spirit is some form of Gnosticism, from the Greek word “gnosis” meaning “mystical knowledge”.
The Gnosticism in the Roman Catholic Church is called the sensus plenior – “the fullest sense” of Scripture. Now there is a fuller sense of Scripture, but what they claim is that the pope as an heir of Peter has the infallible insight to define what it is and to determine doctrine on that basis.
In Gnosticism it is not important what the Bible says exegetically, it is important what the leader says about the Bible.
John Wimber’s movement called “The Vineyard Movement” is based on Christian Gnosticism, a heresy in the Early Church. For instance a basic teaching of the Vineyard and the Latter Day Rain Movement and the Kansas City Prophets is Restorationism and what they call “Joel’s Army”.
The run on the cities, they rush on the walls,
Great is the army who carries His word.
This is compared to locusts. In its historical setting this was Nebuchadnezzar’s army, an army God used to judged an unrepentant Judah, but it is also a type of the army of the Antichrist in Revelation. The same locusts in Joel are replayed in Revelation. So whatever this army is in the Last Days it is the army of Antichrist and in Joel 2:20 God says, “I will destroy it. The stench will go up to heaven, I will cast it into the western sea”. The Vineyard Movement teaches that this is them. Anyone desiring to be part of an army God is going to judge and destroy should join the Vineyard Movement; join the Manifest Sons of God or the Latter Day Rain Movement.
It does not matter to them what the Bible says it is, it only matters what the gnosis says it means. “God has shown me.”
Copeland and Hagin both come from Kenyon. Forget about the fact Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished” (Jn. 19:30) and “Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit” (Lk. 23:46), the Kenyonites say, “God has shown me that Satan got the victory on the cross, not Jesus. Jesus was tortured in hell for three days and three nights as one nature with Satan and then this demon cum Jesus was born again in hell and rose from the dead.” It is a different “Jesus” and a different gospel denying the Master who bought them.
The Prosperity preachers? “God has shown me.” These things are all cultic.
But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. (1 Pe. 21:20-21)
And right after this we have the Greek word “parasaxousin” – they put truth next to error. They make the interpretations of things like biblical prophecy a matter of their own interpretation. It is not important what the Bible says, it is important what the leader claims it says.
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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.