November 23, 2024 • 54 mins
Grapple with the intricacies of religious teachings and uncover the truth beneath layers of doctrine. I, your host Dwan, offer an enlightening journey through the maze of cults, false teachings, and the authentic Gospel, challenging listeners to question and verify their beliefs with the rigor of the Bereans from Acts 17:11. This episode promises an intellectual deep-dive into the theological disputes that have long divided scholars and laymen alike, particularly the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ, and the mysterious concept of the Trinity.
Do you want to learn how to study the Bible? Check out the YouTube channel Faithfullyliven youtube.com/@faithfullyliven
Do you want to read about how to live faithfully? Check out the blog http://lyfe102.org
Get a free Road Map to get started learning how to study the Bible https://mailchi.mp/88f9c9405da0/bible-study-road-map
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Fatefully Living, the Podcast, where we
learn how to live for Christ inour daily lives.
I am Dwan, your host, and Iwould like to invite you on a
journey with me to explore andlearn how to be a faithful
follower of Christ.
Hey everyone, welcome toFatefully Living the Podcast,
(00:25):
where we strive to encourage youto live for Christ's Fatefully
by offering guidance on studyingthe Bible, how to understand
the Bible better and how toremain faithful to historic
Christianity in a contemporarysociety.
In today's episode it's areplay of a conversation that I
had with Dwan Vino.
We discussed false teachings,cults and false religions.
(00:48):
So you know, as believers, it'simportant for us to study God's
Word, and studying andunderstanding God's Word helps
us to be discerning, to knowwhat is false and what is true.
There are a number of falseteachings, cults and religions
in our world today and it's goodfor us to be aware of them.
(01:10):
Acts 1711 tells us and thepeople of Berea were more
open-minded than those inThessalonica and they listened
eagerly to Paul's message.
They searched the scripturesday after day to see if Paul and
Silas were teaching the truth.
So you can see the example inActs where the people of Berea
(01:34):
they were open-minded, but theyalso went back and studied the
scriptures for themselves.
So when we read and study God'sWord, we have the Holy Spirit
that is going to guide us andgive us discernment in knowing
what is false and what is true.
Alright, so here is myconversation with Mr Vino.
(01:55):
In this video, I am honored tohave a conversation with Don
Vino about learning to discernfalse teachers, cults and false
religions.
But before we get into theconversation, let me share a
(02:18):
little bit of a bio about MrVino.
Don Vino is co-founder andpresident of Midwest Christian
Outreach Inc.
A National Apologetics Ministryin Mission to New Religious
Movement, based in Wanderlake,illinois, with a branch office
(02:39):
in Quincy, illinois and CapeCoral, florida.
He, along with his wife of 51years in joy, have been involved
in the discernment ministry asmissionaries to cults and new
religious movements since 1987.
He is a frequent guest onvarious radio and television
(02:59):
broadcasts, including the JohnAnkerberg show, as well as being
a staff researcher and writerfor the Midwest Outreach Journal
.
He is co-author of Richard Warand the Indian Gram Secret in
Matter of Basic Principles, billGother and the Christian Life.
(03:20):
Contributing author ofPreserving Evangelical Unity
Welcoming Diversity inNon-Essentials, as well as
articles in the CRI Journal, pfoQuarterly Journal, campus Life
Magazine, journal of theInternational Society of
Christian Apologetics, midwestJournal of Theology, the
(03:45):
Christian Post and otherperiodicals.
He is also co-host of theweekly, unknown webcast on the
Midwest Christian Outreach IncYouTube channel.
He was ordained to the ministryby West Suburban Community
Church of Lombard, illinois, atthe Garden of Gethsemane in
(04:10):
Jerusalem, israel, in March of1997.
Don is a charter member of theInternational Society of
Christian Apologetics and isalso the current president of
Evangelical missions tonon-Christian religions, a
consortium of countercults, lastapologetic ministries and
(04:35):
missions to non-Christians.
Alright, here is myconversation with Don.
Hi, mr Vito, welcome to theshow.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
It's good to be with you.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Alright, so this show .
We are going to be talkingabout false teachings, cults and
then false religions.
But before we get into ourtopic, tell us how you became a
follower of Christ.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Well, it goes back to a young lady that I ended up
marrying.
Actually, I met Joy when I wasthe ripe old age of 15.
I was not a believer.
I had grown up as an atheist.
She had grown up in the churchand I had become a Christian
when she was now 12, but was notwalking closely with the Lord
at the time Still believed, butnot walking closely or she
(05:26):
wouldn't have dated me.
I'm glad she did.
Her parents were praying for me, both faithful believers, and
they accepted me in spite ofkind of who I was.
As a teenager, her grandfatherstarted praying for me.
This is the fun part of thestory.
I didn't know this, you know.
(05:48):
I started praying for me.
He was from Denmark.
He started praying for me notonly that I would become a
believer, but that I wouldbecome a pastor and to that end,
as he prayed, he also startedbuying Bibles and commentaries
and other materials that pastorswould need.
Never knew this, did not knowthis.
We married three years after wemet.
Three years after that we hadour son, and Joy woke up in the
(06:12):
hospital with two big questions.
The first was are they reallygoing to send this child home
with me?
I don't know anything aboutraising children.
The second was what am I goingto teach him?
And so she kind of challengedGod to reveal himself to her,
and he did in some interestingways.
So she recommitted her life toChrist and then came to me and
(06:36):
asked me if I would read somebooks that she had gotten from
her sister.
My inclination was to go no.
But one thing I had learnedafter being with her.
We dated for three years, wewere married for three years.
We'd been together six years.
What I learned pretty early onis she wanted something.
Badly enough.
I was better off just giving inearly, because she's going to
(06:58):
get it anyway.
And so I said, yes, I'll readit.
And I did not think that itwould persuade me, because I,
frankly, had my Christians whocould give a reasonable defense,
for the faith Didn't meanthey're not Christians, they
just, it seemed to me, theybelieved what they believed
because their pastor said it,because their parents said it or
whatever.
(07:20):
To my surprise, as I read thematerial, I started coming to
some conclusions.
One is I couldn't be honest andbe an atheist, because atheism
is a claim to know somethingthat I actually can't know.
I can't know if God doesn'texist.
I can't know that.
Maybe he did exist and doesn'texist now, or maybe he doesn't
(07:40):
exist now but will exist in thefuture.
In other words, I couldn't withany confidence know anything
about God other than I chose notto believe.
So with that I thought I couldbe an agnostic.
It's not a claim to knowanything, it's just saying I
don't know.
You can be an ordinary agnosticor an ordinary agnostic.
(08:01):
An ordinary agnostic says Idon't know if God exists and you
don't either, so leave me alone.
An ordinary agnostic would go Idon't know if God exists, but
I'm open to information, and soI transitioned through each of
those.
In the process, I had to come toterms with certain questions.
Is the Bible fundamentallyreliable?
(08:21):
Because there's a lot ofmaterial out there by a lot of
different religions?
So what makes the Bibledifference in, say, the
Upanishads in Hinduism, or theQuran for Islam, or the Book of
Mormon, for you know the MormonChurch?
And so as I looked at that, Icame to discover that the Bible
(08:46):
we have in our hands is 99.9%accurate to what was originally
penned.
Now, that doesn't mean inspired, it just means accurate.
So I had to take some nextsteps then.
Okay, it's accurate.
But a phone book is accurateand it's initial printing.
So that doesn't mean inspired,it doesn't mean an error, it
(09:07):
doesn't mean it really tells usthat Christianity is true.
So how would I get to that nextstep?
And the next up came as I lookedinto the person, jesus Christ.
He made some pretty interestingclaims.
A claimed that he would bekilled and that he would raise
(09:28):
himself from the dead.
So not only killed.
A lot of people could make thatclaim and all of us eventually
are going to die.
So what makes him different?
Well, he predicted he wouldraise himself from the dead.
And then you have a fairly agood amount of evidence that
Backs up his claim to havingbeen resurrected.
So if he predicted his deathand he predicted his
(09:54):
resurrection, I have a highdegree of confidence that he
knows what he's talking about.
In addition to which, throughouthis ministry, what you find him
doing continually is, whensomeone asks him what he's doing
, he always pointed back to theHebrew scriptures.
He never just gave you hisopinion and he even equated his
(10:19):
word to be equal with the Hebrewscriptures in Matthew 5, for
example, when he Says you haveheard it said that shall not
come at adultery.
Well, he's, of course, quotingthe Hebrew scriptures.
Moses Not shown actuallyadultery.
So they heard it from Moses,who got it from God, or at least
(10:40):
that's how the story goes.
And Jesus believed that.
He said but I say so, now he'sput his word on a level with the
word that was given to Moses.
I say, if you look at it whenone plus in your eye, you've
committed the act.
And for that reason he wasAccused of being blasphemous,
(11:00):
because he placed his word, histeaching, his views on a part
with God.
So he was claiming to be Godand and okay, so he fulfilled
prophecy.
He predicted his death.
He said he would raise himselffrom the dead and did raise
himself from the dead and thendemonstrated he believed in the
(11:23):
inspiration and anerosy ofscripture by pointing back to
him continually.
So I came to the conclusionthat that guy knows what he's
talking about.
I would be better off Believinghim and in him than believing
someone else who denies it, whocan hardly do their taxes.
So that's how I became aChristian.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
All right.
Well, that's a great storythere, how you have to reason
through.
You know the scriptures andwhat Jesus said to come to your
conclusion.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Well, I do, and I have since come to the
realization.
I mean they Jesus was askedwhat is the greatest commandment
.
This is kind of funny becausethe greatest commandment is not
listed as one of thecommandments and as I've done
research on, I have discoveredreally what's going on here.
He said the greatestcommandment is to love the Lord,
(12:23):
your God, with all your heart,with all your soul, with all
your mind, and Love yourneighbor is yourself.
There's a second versecommandment and if you look back
, what you find is in historythis is a contractual agreement,
the Ten Commandments andeverything that follows it,
between the greater power,called the Sousa reign, and the
(12:46):
lesser power, the one who is nowconquered, that would be Israel
, and in that you have kind ofthe title of the article, which
would be, or the title of thecontract, which would be the
greatest commandment, and thenyou have subsets.
You have the first four of theTen Commandments, which are how
do you love the Lord, your God,and then you have the next six
(13:10):
was how do you love yourneighbor as yourself, and then
everything else that follows.
It is how you carry out thoseten, so all of the laws are tied
to.
It's a really interesting kindof a thing.
So Jesus was concerned aboutthat and he pointed back to that
.
Continually Believe theinspiration of Scripture,
(13:32):
prophecies pointed to him.
I Accepted the Lord, I became abeliever, and the next family
gathering, joys grandfathershowed up with a box full of
bibles and commentaries and yeah, ready for the next step and
his prayers being answered.
But joy said she's not gonna bea pastor's wife.
(13:53):
She said Now, some may notunderstand this, but if you go
back to the church of the 1960sand 70s you will.
She said I don't do flannelgraph and I don't play piano.
So so that brings us maybe tothe next Part of my life and how
(14:18):
we got involved with MidwestChristian outreach.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
So how that minute she's?
Trying?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
yeah.
Well, it is the second answerto her grandfather's prayer.
Ultimately, I'm not a pastorreally, and and after I became a
believer I thought, okay, Iwill, because I was in
construction, I will become arich general contractor and
support missionaries.
I never envisioned being one.
(14:43):
That wasn't my goal, but I havealways liked.
I want to know why things work.
That helped me in construction.
It's helped me in everything Ido pretty much, including this
ministry.
And so one day, joy join.
I were avid bowlers.
We both four nights a weekbefore we had kids.
We love bowling.
Well, she joined a women'sbowling league, a scratch league
(15:05):
.
They called it the hot tomatoesand.
She has a.
She had like a 190 somethingaverage.
She's very good bowler, and soshe joined this bowling league
and some job was witnessesjoined the bowling league.
Oh, unusual.
This is a time after the watch,our bottom track society, had
done their final prediction forthe end of the world and the
(15:26):
varmigan for 1975 didn't happen.
And so the watchtower openedthe doors a little bit to let
your people get socially active,because they were losing so
many people.
They lost a million people overthe next few years.
And so these women joined hisbowling league and joy met him
and she loved them.
They were funny, they were goodmothers, they were.
(15:48):
She just liked being with them.
And so she came home she said Iheard what they believe is a
little weird and so I need tofigure it out.
Will you help me now?
Remember, if joy wantssomething really badly, it's
easier to give it early.
She's gonna get it anyway,right?
So I said okay.
So we went to our pastor andtold him what our dilemma was,
(16:12):
and he didn't know any much allhis witnesses and so he brought
out a little track that he gaveto us.
He had a bunch of bible verseson it.
Didn't tell us why they'reimportant.
So it was not really thathelpful.
So joy Went looking for books.
There were not very many at thetime and the ones that were
there were helpful but meanspirited or from former jw's who
(16:35):
were angry former jw's largelyand uh, and then one day, as
we're watching something calledthe john anchorberg show, we
still around, but Uh, he hadfour jw's women on there, former
jw's women.
It was called 100 and 110 yearsof was our service, I think, uh
(16:58):
, and so we had the jones sent.
Now we had a couple of anointedwe had and we were fascinated
by their story.
And it turned out they had anannual conference in new wring,
old Pennsylvania, every year ofxjw's.
And so we went.
It was Fabulous is the onlyword I can really use, because
(17:25):
you walked into a setting ofDenominationalism, just dropped
a lot of theological Argumentsthat we get into over, you know,
tongs not tongs, baptism notbaptism.
All that just dropped it todoor.
Everything focused on oneperson, jesus Christ.
And how do we relate to these?
(17:46):
Who are here, who he is and whythat's important.
So it was.
There was a central themethroughout and so we went home.
We were very encouraged and wehad learned about something
called a telephone ministry.
So what you did is you wouldget a telephone line.
You never answered the phone.
You would record a message justback in a days when your Voice
(18:09):
smell was actually a cassettetape.
You'd record your message onand, and so joy, would write a
script every week and she recordthe message and then we'd start
it Every Saturday would be thenew message and we'd advertise
it.
And over time there were othersaround the country they're
doing the same thing and so weall became connected.
(18:31):
After a while of doing that, werealized if they are because
we're not answering the phone,most of your calls come in after
10 o'clock at night.
The reason most your calls comeafter 10 o'clock at night is
that Jehovah's Witnesses areafraid.
The watch our has spieschecking on them and Tricking
them, and then they will get tofellowship.
So they wait until everybody'sin bed before they sneak down
(18:56):
and make the call.
Amazing.
So After a while we thought youknow what, if they want to talk
to somebody right now, they'velistened to the message.
Now what?
So we talked to several of theothers who were doing that.
We said you know what?
We'll make ours a live line andyou all can refer to our line
at the end and if they want totalk to somebody we'll answer it
24 7.
(19:17):
We got a lot of phone calls at 2or 3 o'clock in the morning
from all over the country.
It was really quite interesting.
And one of them, if I, joy, wasup, it's about 3 in the morning
.
She's talking to the Jehovah'sWitness in New York and I'm
running around getting her theirwas, our Bible, their different
materials.
They can talk to her.
And at one point the lady saidwhat are you doing for Jehovah?
(19:41):
I've never seen you come to mydoor.
And joy says well, I've neverseen you come to my door either,
and I'm up talking to you at 3in the morning.
And she said yeah, that's true.
And so Midwest Christianoutreach kind of grew out of
that help when we startedgetting calls about other groups
(20:04):
and joy said I'll do Jehovah'sWitnesses, you do everybody else
.
And we founded Midwest Christianoutreach in can 1995.
If we was, we thought, justgoing to be a local ministry in
the Chicago area has become aninternational ministry.
At this point it was to bemostly Jehovah's Witnesses and
(20:25):
maybe Mormons.
Now we kind of Deal withanything that comes along,
because what we've discoveredand that's something we'll talk
about a little later on probablyis Whatever group you're
dealing with, they fundamentallyBelieve the same things.
They make your mistakes in thesame place as almost every time,
(20:45):
and so if you know two or threeBible based cults, pretty well
you can talk to about anybody.
If you know kind of Easternmystical religions pretty well,
you can pretty much talk toanybody, and so we focus on
here's the essentials of thefaith.
Learn those well, learn howother people distort them,
(21:08):
because they make your mistakesusually at the same places, and
Then you'll be pretty wellgeared up to talk to virtually
anybody.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
All right, so what we can kind of get into.
You know our topics for todaylearning how, to you know,
discern false teachings, cultsand false religions.
So let's look at falseteachings first, so what would
be characterized, kind of like,as a false teaching?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
well, there's several , and they usually revolve
around the essentials of thefaith.
One is who is Jesus?
In fact, we did our blog thisweek who do you say Jesus is?
And we kind of deal with thatquestion and what you discover
is virtually every religion notall religious, but virtually
(21:54):
every religion Attaches Jesus totheir belief system in some way
.
Okay, and it usually comes tothe point in the discussion of
His humanity and his deity.
It almost always that's whereit breaks down.
So, for example, if you have aJehovah's Witness you're talking
(22:15):
to, they think thatUnderstanding God is something
that we can logically do andexplain.
And so if we can logicallyexplain it and understand it in
rational ways, in Concepts thatwe can understand, that is God.
(22:36):
I Can't understand why Godwould incarnate in the flesh,
number one or how.
So it's the how and whyquestions, always a how and why
questions.
So what they do is they get tothis point of the divinity of
Christ and the humanity ofChrist and they go.
I Can't explain it, therefore.
It isn't true.
So they go for his humanity.
(22:59):
He's just a man.
Right now you start havingproblems of that right and and
you see this happen in everyfalse teaching is Once you deny
a fundamental doctrine ofbiblical faith, you have to
start fixing that doctrinesomewhere down the road.
So he's just a man, he's notGod.
(23:22):
Next thing, he doesn't have asoul.
Because we are a soul, okay,but here's the problem.
If you don't have a soul, thenwhat happens when you die?
Oh, you cease to exist.
Okay.
But if you cease to exist, allright, you just have a body, you
(23:45):
, everything that you are,everything you think, every
aspect of you that exist Existsin your physical body and in
your brain and in your blood.
You cease to exist now becauseyou die.
How do you do a resurrection?
That's a problem.
What's gonna be raised up?
Because there's nothing left.
The you is gone.
So they say oh well, that'seasy.
(24:09):
God just creates a replica thatlooks like you.
He has a copy of your memoriesstored used to be on a
phonograph record, I think.
Now it's in the cloud somewhereand he makes it a copy of his
copy because the originalmemories are gone and he puts
(24:29):
them into the newly createdbeing and calls it you.
That's what they teach andthat's how they go about trying
to fix this issue ofresurrection and we have talked
in fact we talked about this inthe blog this week.
I'll have to send you the linkto that.
You can add it in Because andwe've done that one we also did
(24:49):
one called the in the beginningMichael, because part of this
whole teaching of theirs is thatJesus didn't create everything.
Michael created everything.
God created Michael.
Michael created the cosmos.
Michael then ceased to exist.
God created Jesus as a human onearth, who then was crucified,
(25:11):
not resurrected.
He's dead, forever dead, butGod recreated Michael.
So you have Michael 1.0, jesusMichael 2.0 that replaced the
previous two.
Who's now reigning in heaven?
They call him Jesus, but he'snot, he's Michael.
Oh.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
That's what they teach.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
All right, so who Jesus is.
And then will we another likedoctrine that people would start
.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Well, okay, another doctrine.
Well, the Trinity would beanother one, because they kind
of go hand in hand, right?
I can't understand the Trinity.
Therefore, the Trinity can't betrue, or they'll go another way
and they'll try to createsomething.
It's Trinity like that's wherethe Mormons go, because the
(26:01):
Mormons, they get to the pointof Jesus, humanity and deity and
they Want to affirm somethingthat sounds biblical, and so
they go.
Okay, jesus was born on anotherplanet, near the star base Colab
.
He was a spirit being, andwe're all spirit beings and
we're all born on this planet.
(26:22):
And then he came to earth,where he got a physical body,
where he then could go and earnhis godhood, as all gods and
goddesses have done before him.
And so the Trinity is thefather and the son and the Holy
Spirit, all of which arePhysical beings that were born
(26:43):
on other planets, that becamegods as well, and they are kind
of the gods of this planet, andso we too could become gods or
goddesses on our planet.
So they distort the Trinity,they distort the deity and
humanity of Christ and then makeus gods like all gods before us
(27:05):
.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
That's more confusing than trying to understand the
Trinity itself.
You know all of that.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
It is, it can be, and the question I almost always
ask when people go for the howand why questions is this Do you
believe that God parted the RedSea and the water stood up on
edge?
I Believe that.
How do you do that?
I don't know.
(27:35):
He didn't tell me.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
No.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Do you believe God created everything from nothing.
He spoke and it existed.
Do you believe you did that?
Yeah, I do too.
He didn't tell me how he did it.
Right, there are a lot ofthings that we don't know about
God that he just didn't botherto tell us True.
Yes and even if he tried, wouldwe understand it?
It's so, it seems to me.
(28:00):
It's.
It's the distance between usreally understanding God and
being able to explain it is is aBigger Canyon between us and
God than it would be if I triedto explain to a six-month-old
quantum physics, right?
Yeah, it's just beyond ourcomprehension, it's outside of
(28:22):
our realm of experience.
We don't know anything like God, so we almost have to just take
what he does reveal to us abouthim which is understandable,
and go from there.
So DD of Christ is always theproblem, humanity of Christ,
those two issues.
If you go into Eastern mysticismof some kind, hinduism, for
(28:44):
example, if you ask them ifJesus is God, they go yes, of
course.
But what do they mean?
Well, now we get into somethingthat dr Peter Jones calls one
is versus two ism, and hopefullythis is Makes it simpler.
One ism is that everything isGod, and so God is part of
(29:05):
creation.
The trees are God, the rocksare God, your God, I'm God
Versus to wisdom, which is thatGod is separate from creation.
He created everything andinteracts with it, but he is not
the creation itself.
Right, two different views.
Now, what I when I talk withthose who hold this view.
(29:28):
Most new ages hold this view aswell.
I want to go through and saynow help me understand, just so
we're both talking the samelanguage.
Everything is God the Tablewe're sitting at?
Is God the book you have inyour hand?
Is God the Shells behind you?
Is God the rocks?
Are God the trees of God?
Yes, yes, yes.
(29:48):
And what my cat left in litterbox this morning, is God?
So sort of raising ourselvesand says some godhood, some
grandiose idea?
Aren't we really loweringeverything that exists to the
lowest common denominator?
What my cat left in litter boxthis morning?
Now, they don't really likethat, but that's what they're
(30:10):
doing ultimately.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Right, yeah, right, all right.
So we talked about falseteachings.
Now let's kind of move intocults.
What would be compare to a sixof them in a cult?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Well, we did an article and again, if you like,
I can send a link to this.
It's about Gwen Shamblin.
She was a false teacher who hadinfiltrated the church.
She was in 60, in 30,000churches across 60 denominations
.
She denied to Deeter Christ.
She died in salvation bygraceful and through faithful
and Christ alone.
She basically taught that Godhates fat people and so you're
(30:50):
only get to have it if you loseenough weight.
And no one seemed to catch ituntil someone one day called me
and said did Gwen Shamblinchange her doctrinal statement?
And I said who is Gwen Shamblin?
Because we're a call drivenministry.
If you don't call, if we don'tknow they're out there, we don't
know to look for them.
And so I looked at a websiteand I thought, well, maybe she
(31:12):
just made a mistake, maybe it'sjust a layperson who made a
mistake in writing this out.
And so I I called her, at whichpoint I discovered no, she
meant every word, the way it waswritten, and that she
considered me the false prophetfor believing in that Trinity or
the deed of Christ, and soforth.
So we did an article called waiton workshop a cult question
(31:32):
mark, and we laid out sevencharacteristics of a Cult.
Some groups might have one ortwo, or not, might not be a cult
, but if you have most of them,you probably are in a cult.
The first one will say is thebig cheese.
You have an authoritarian rule.
(31:53):
You have one person or a smallgroup of people, or the only
ones through whom Godcommunicates, and everybody else
has to listen to what they say.
Because you can't understandthe Bible on your own.
The watch, our Bible tracksociety, for example, is very
clear.
The Bible was not written toyou, dwan.
The Bible was only written tothe anointed class, 144,000
(32:18):
elite.
You can't understand it, so youhave to read the watchtower to
understand what God wants you toknow.
And If you read something inthe Bible that conflicts with
the watchtower, that's becauseyou're reading material that you
can't understand.
You got to talk to your elderto get it cleared up.
Wow, can't make your owndecisions.
(32:38):
Authoritarian rule don'tquestion them.
In fact, for the watchtower,your salvation is to pen solely,
solely, on how you treat theanointed class, not dependent on
your faith at all.
Hmm, number two false prophets,prophetic speculation and false
teachings.
So this I'm going to go to apassage of scripture before I
(33:02):
explain it, because you said youwanted to talk about how to
study the Bible.
Well, here's a key, and we'llgive you some more toward the
end when you Want to do that.
In Matthew 7, 15, jesus saysthe following Beware of false
prophets who come to you insheep's clothing but inwardly
(33:24):
are ravenous wolves.
Almost everyone knows thatpassage, but they don't ask
about the context.
There's a context.
There are two definitions to afalse prophet.
They are found in the book ofDeuteronomy, deuteronomy 13 and
Deuteronomy 18.
In one, a false prophet maygive true predictions but give
you a false view of who God is.
(33:45):
In other words, he may beprophetically accurate but he's
teaching falsely on core things.
The second one, in Deuteronomy18, is Someone who claims to be
a prophet and gives just oneprophecy that fails.
One prophecy, one strike,you're out.
Jesus says give him a tea orgive him enough.
(34:08):
So that's your two criteria,that's your definitions.
The Jews understood that becausethey had most of the Torah
memorized, and so when he saidthat, it goes click.
They know what he's talkingabout.
Then he says you will know themby their fruits.
Now here's the question.
I'm not gonna let you answer itbecause they don't want you to
potentially be embarrassed.
(34:29):
What are the fruits?
Almost everybody says well,it's our good works.
Every cult says we have thevery best works.
We are feeding the poor, we aredoing whatever.
We're going house to house Tohelp us witnesses.
We go door to door you don't goto.
We have the best work.
No, that's not what he's talkingabout.
The fruits come from the tree.
(34:52):
What is the tree?
The tree is a false prophet.
So what are the fruits of afalse prophet?
It is their false propheciesand their false teachings, not
their good works.
And he further clarifies thatwhen he says by their fruits
She'll know them.
He talks about the differentkinds of fruits that might come,
and Then he says Many will cometo me in that day and say but
(35:18):
Lord, didn't we, in your name,cast out demons, do marvelous
works?
And he will say to them departfrom me, you workers of iniquity
, for I never knew you.
So the entire passage has to dowith the teachings and and
claims of a false prophet, notwhether they came to your door
(35:39):
carrying a Bible.
There's nothing to do with itright.
So if they made a prophecy thatwas false, or a false prophet in
a case of the wash, our owntruck society, they have made
many of them.
They predicted the end of theworld for 1914, 1915, 1916, 1918
, 1925, 1942, 1975 and beforethe anointing class passed away,
(36:03):
and they failed on every singleone of them.
Yeah, they're false.
Proper organization Three we'rethe bad guys attack the
Christian church Universally.
When you look across all of thecults, every one of them attack
the Christian church, usuallythe Roman Catholic Church,
(36:24):
because they're the biggesttarget and there's certainly
problems with the Roman CatholicChurch, but they set themselves
up as this way.
These groups are false Teachers.
They're the bad guys and youcan tell that because they're
not teaching what we're teaching.
Well, maybe they're notteaching what you're teaching
because what you're teaching iswrong, right, but their
(36:48):
followers don't really get that.
So the church is the bad guys.
Now the problem with this isfor us, in this kind of a
ministry, is If you havesomebody who's what we call a
walkout say they were a Mormonor they were in the unification
church or In the Eurantia bookor something like that Then when
(37:08):
they leave since they both havebeen taught and believe that
this was the only trueorganization.
They leave, either because theydon't believe they can conform
or because they think it's false.
But they've already come tobelieve there's nothing outside
of this organization.
It's true, and so there's noplace to go.
All right, that's the problem.
(37:29):
Christian doctrine number fouris Unreasonable.
They have to have a religionthat makes sense.
I have to be able to explainhow God exists.
I have to be able to explainhow God does stuff.
If I can't understand it withmy brain, then it must be not
true.
Therefore, god has to bereduced to some explainable,
(37:50):
understandable Concept, and youeven have that in false teachers
within the church word faithteachers.
Now you may decide to edit thisout, but I have never been shy
about naming false teachers inthe church Because they're a
travesty to the church.
In addition to Richard Rohr,for example, in the Enneagram I
know you had Marsha on aboutthat oh, kenneth Copeland.
(38:15):
Kenneth Copeland is a falseteacher of the highest priority.
For him to have God and Adam beexact duplicates of each other,
so that you can't tell oneanother apart, and God dependent
on our giving him permission towork in the earth that is a
false teacher.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Oh wow, I didn't know .
He said that I don't listen toKenneth Copeland, so yeah,
you're fortunate.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Yeah, faith is a force in words, of the
containers, of the force, hesays.
And so if you speakfaith-filled words, god is
obligated to give you what it isthat you have commanded to
happen.
Now, this is actuallywitchcraft, using Christian
terminology.
Now some people get irritatedwhen they say this, but think
(39:04):
about it for a second.
Witchcraft is causing theuniverse to conform to your will
by spoken spell and incantation.
Word faith teachers are causingthe universe to conform to
their will by spoken spell andincantation.
It is the same thing, justdifferent language, but it's the
same thing.
(39:28):
Twisting the scriptures, makingblack white and white black.
Some have called it a cultcocktail.
Scripture with a twist.
Oh, they take it out of contextand distort it to make it sound
like it might be credible, butthen when you look at it in
(39:52):
context, it doesn't follow.
What they have said is false.
They have distorted it to theirown, as in.
Peter writes about that, howthat they distort.
Paul's writing says yeah, somethings are alright, so difficult
to understand, but those whoare unlearned and deceived
distort it to their owndestruction.
(40:13):
Scripture twisting has alwayshappened.
Characteristic six look at ourwork salvation by our own
efforts.
Every cult group has a plan ofsalvation that is based
primarily on your ability to doall of the things that the cult
(40:36):
leader had told you God requires.
It's different for differentgroups, but it also comes down
to your ability to do the rightthing.
There is a group within thechurch called Dick, not a cult
per se, a matter of basicprinciples.
Bill Gothart in the ChristianLife is a book we wrote about
this guy, bill Gothart, verypopular.
(40:59):
Two and a half million people gothrough his seminars in the 60s
and 70s, early 80s, and heteaches that grace is God giving
you the power and ability to dohis will joyfully.
Now, grace is God's unmeritedfavor.
That's shorthand.
A longer version is God's is akindly attitude toward the
(41:21):
undeserving.
We're the undeserving.
God has a kindly attitudetoward us anyway.
How cool is that?
He changes that to be Godgiving you the power and ability
to do his will joyfully.
And then what happens is, asyou do his will, your quantity
of grace runs out, and so you goback then and get a refill of
(41:41):
grace to do more of his willjoyfully.
That's Roman Catholicism.
That is really what that isOkay salvation by our own
efforts.
Last one is don't tell me you'resaved.
There's no assurance ofsalvation.
Your salvation is dependent onyou procuring it and keeping it.
You did nothing to become saved.
(42:04):
You can do nothing to staysaved, so I don't, I don't know.
I don't know if you're marriedand have children.
So I'm gonna ask you myquestion a different way when
you were born whenever that waswhat did you contribute to being
born?
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Nothing.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
You didn't do anything, not a thing.
That's true, your mother didthat.
Your father participated alittle bit in advance, but your
mother did the bulk of the work.
Right, you were born.
Completely nothing you did.
What can you do to becomeunborn?
(42:44):
I guess I could kill myself,that's all.
That would just mean you'redead, you're not unborn, you
can't do anything.
I can't be born.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
I can't be unborn.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
You can't be born or unborn on your own.
You can't do that.
So if that's true, with thatearthly mother giving birth to
an earthly child, how much moreGod brings us a new birth.
We are born again.
Our born again does not dependon our ability to be born.
(43:16):
We contribute nothing andbecause we are born again
through Him, we can do nothingto become unborn again.
We can't lose our salvation.
It was an hour to begin with.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Cults miss that every time.
Legalistic groups in a churchmiss that as well.
But if you get out of theseseven, if you get four or five,
you're probably in a cult.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Right, so just kind of thinking about it.
We talked about false teachings, so what would be kind of like
the difference between someonewho holds false teachings in a
cult Would they be like the cultcontains false teachings or not
?
All false teachings are a cult.
(44:04):
I think you went over them.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Right.
Not all who hold falseteachings are in a cult or are a
cult there are some falseteachers operating within the
church.
They're not a cult, they're justfalse teachers and pastors.
Their task is really to guardthe flock against false teachers
.
Too many do not do that.
You might have a teaching thatis a false teaching, but you're
(44:32):
really good on the most of theessentials but, let's say,
confused on some areas.
That happens.
Does that mean you're not aChristian?
No, it doesn't mean that.
Does that mean that you haveimbibed on some false teachings
somewhere along the way and nowyou're invested in holding on to
it?
Perhaps that's the case.
(44:52):
So that's why, for us at least,we make a separation.
We talk about cults which arecultic in behavior and in
teaching, versus those who maybe cultic.
They may be like a cult inbehavior but solid on the
(45:13):
essentials of the faith.
There are certain churches thatare just very legalistic.
So they're cultic in behaviorbut they're Christians.
You have others that may not becultic in behavior but have
false teaching.
So, yeah, they have a problemwith their teaching, but they're
not a cult.
So for us you have to have both.
(45:34):
You have to have culticbehavior and false teachings,
and together that's a cult.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
And then you did give some examples of some cults.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Today we did Jehovah's Witnesses Mormons.
You have Gwen Shamblin Wade onworkshop.
She's recently passed away butthe group is still there.
Once we made a publicannouncement, they went from.
They had over a millionfollowers and they went down to
like 700.
(46:04):
In weeks it was prettyinteresting to watch.
There's over 5,000 cults aroundthe country right now, so some
as far as 12 or 10, you know thegood, the bad and the small we
call them, and so you have somesmall ones and large ones.
(46:24):
Mormons, for example.
They're a big one.
The your rancher book is onefew have heard of.
It's a pretty popular amongvery, very intelligent people
because it's kind of very technosavvy and so, and yet, yeah,
they don't really have a churchbut they have reading groups, so
(46:46):
they read the your range ofbook together.
And Jesus for this planet, yourrancher is the planet earth.
Jesus for this planet is one of176,000 Jesus's throughout the
cosmos, and so it's another kindof an odd group they have a lot
of.
David Koresh was one.
Waco, texas, his group, jimJones, of course, was the cult
(47:11):
and we saw how that went out.
So there's a big variety ofgroups out there.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
And then let's.
I guess we might have alwaysAlways talked about a little bit
false religions.
So would false religion be like?
What would characterize a falsereligion?
Would they be like way holdingto know local doctrines at all?
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Well, you're gonna have a variety Again.
You have a variety of thingsgoing on.
Let's say Hebrew roots movement, for example.
Hebrew roots movement goes allthe way from really solid
evangelicals, let's say adeliceological seminary or
myself.
I think if you don't understandthe Hebrew Aspects of scripture
(47:57):
, you're probably going tomisunderstand large portions of
the text, for example the bookof Acts.
Predominantly.
You have zero Gentiles.
In the first nine chapters ofthe book of Acts it is all
Jewish, about Jews and Jewishstuff and fulfillment of Jewish
prophecy, right.
So if you understand that nowyou can understand what's going
(48:20):
on.
You can start applying it intoyour church life all the way to
the other end of the spectrum ofthe Hebrew roots movement is
that we have to, as Gentiles,change our name to Jewish
sounding names or keeping theSabbath and the 10 commandments,
and live like Jews.
They don't regard Paul asanything other than a usurper
(48:43):
and salvation is by our ownworks.
So In that sense you have alarge group that would be a cult
group or another religion.
Really it's another religion,it's not just a cultist, another
religion On the far end of thespectrum.
So they just sort who Jesus issort of back to that question.
(49:05):
Same with the Hinduism or bootBuddhism.
They are other world religionsthat are false world religions
that thrive on your ability tomake yourself better and Become
one with the all, because inthose religions the creation is
(49:27):
God Right, and so you'll gothrough several incarnations
working your way up to Nirvanain some way.
And so in these false religionsyou have a number of different
kind of beliefs that go withthat.
For example, and and I do Ilike this one because it helps
(49:48):
me explain some other kinds ofthings someone might argue that
morality changes from culture toculture and time to time, and
so their idea by saying that is,morals are not absolute.
Now we're talking about otherworld religions here, and I'm
going to demonstrate two thingsby talking about other world
(50:10):
religions.
That is this what we discoveris we really all have the same
moral values.
Doesn't matter when you live orwhere you live.
What happens is that we workthem out in different ways.
So in America we like beef.
I mean McDonald's.
(50:32):
Under cause truth, trus,zillion soul, right, we are in
love with our beef.
In parts of India they don't eatbeef.
Jane is them.
For example, they were gauze ontheir mouth.
They sweep as they walk.
They don't step on a bug or ahail a bug, and they don't eat
beef.
Now, and for them, that's amoral decision.
(50:53):
For us it's not a moraldecision.
Beef is right.
Here's where it comes into play, where false religions break
down and when we understand thatmorality comes from God and all
of us have the same basic setof moral values, regardless of
where you live.
And it was this.
Here's the reason why don'tJames eat cows, because for them
(51:23):
, the cow is grandmareincarnated and.
In America we don't eat grandmaand in India they don't eat
grandma.
So we both agree that it'smorally wrong to eat grandma.
We actually agree on the moralvalue and just works itself out
differently because they have afalse view of God, a false view
(51:46):
of humans and a false view ofwhat happens after you die.
So by having a false religion,you still have the same moral
values.
You just worked aboutdifferently.
I.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
Like how you put it, we all have it.
You know the same basic morals,right, but we look net.
Things are different are Fawks?
Speaker 2 (52:08):
how we, how we work it out is different, and what is
false.
And one goes on.
We Treat grandma a certain waybecause of the Imago day.
We believe she was created aGod's image.
Right and because she's acreation of God, we treat her as
a creation of God rather thanBelieving that everything is God
(52:29):
and we don't eat grandma wedon't eat the cow because it's
grandma on her reincarnation upThrough the point of Nirvana,
reaching Nirvana.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
So yeah, yeah, so they just they have different
views than More.
Okay, well, to kind of, unlessyou just anything else you want
to add about false religions.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
Well, we could go on all day about them because
there's so many of them, butultimately they really come down
to the same kind of thing.
What do they say about whoJesus is?
What do they say about who manis?
What do they say about thecosmos?
What do they say about how we,as man, interact with the cosmos
and God?
Once you get through that, thenyou have other ways to talk to
(53:19):
them and you know, I'll behonest, I am able to talk to
virtually anybody, usuallybecause I don't have to attack
their views directly.
I Can always talk about thatgroup over there and Everybody's
interested in that group overthere.
They don't want to talk abouttheir group because they're
(53:41):
invested in their group, butthey're really willing to talk
about that group over there, andso I try to talk about things
that they believe, withoutciting their Authorities and
sources, but rather this othergroup over here.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
Well, Mr Vino, thank you for being on the show.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
And it's totally my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
I hope this conversation was helpful to you.
Hopefully in later episodes wecan get into specific aspects of
the different religions andfalse teachings that are in the
world today.
Until next time, remember Godis always good and he's always
faithful.
Thank you for listening to thepodcast.
(54:28):
Do my favorite by following thepodcast and leaving a review to
help spread the word.
I look forward to hearing fromyou.
I.
Welcome to Fatefully Living, the Podcast, where we
learn how to live for Christ inour daily lives.
I am Dwan, your host, and Iwould like to invite you on a
journey with me to explore andlearn how to be a faithful
follower of Christ.
Hey everyone, welcome toFatefully Living the Podcast,
(00:25):
where we strive to encourage youto live for Christ's Fatefully
by offering guidance on studyingthe Bible, how to understand
the Bible better and how toremain faithful to historic
Christianity in a contemporarysociety.
In today's episode it's areplay of a conversation that I
had with Dwan Vino.
We discussed false teachings,cults and false religions.
(00:48):
So you know, as believers, it'simportant for us to study God's
Word, and studying andunderstanding God's Word helps
us to be discerning, to knowwhat is false and what is true.
There are a number of falseteachings, cults and religions
in our world today and it's goodfor us to be aware of them.
(01:10):
Acts 1711 tells us and thepeople of Berea were more
open-minded than those inThessalonica and they listened
eagerly to Paul's message.
They searched the scripturesday after day to see if Paul and
Silas were teaching the truth.
So you can see the example inActs where the people of Berea
(01:34):
they were open-minded, but theyalso went back and studied the
scriptures for themselves.
So when we read and study God'sWord, we have the Holy Spirit
that is going to guide us andgive us discernment in knowing
what is false and what is true.
Alright, so here is myconversation with Mr Vino.
(01:55):
In this video, I am honored tohave a conversation with Don
Vino about learning to discernfalse teachers, cults and false
religions.
But before we get into theconversation, let me share a
(02:18):
little bit of a bio about MrVino.
Don Vino is co-founder andpresident of Midwest Christian
Outreach Inc.
A National Apologetics Ministryin Mission to New Religious
Movement, based in Wanderlake,illinois, with a branch office
(02:39):
in Quincy, illinois and CapeCoral, florida.
He, along with his wife of 51years in joy, have been involved
in the discernment ministry asmissionaries to cults and new
religious movements since 1987.
He is a frequent guest onvarious radio and television
(02:59):
broadcasts, including the JohnAnkerberg show, as well as being
a staff researcher and writerfor the Midwest Outreach Journal
.
He is co-author of Richard Warand the Indian Gram Secret in
Matter of Basic Principles, billGother and the Christian Life.
(03:20):
Contributing author ofPreserving Evangelical Unity
Welcoming Diversity inNon-Essentials, as well as
articles in the CRI Journal, pfoQuarterly Journal, campus Life
Magazine, journal of theInternational Society of
Christian Apologetics, midwestJournal of Theology, the
(03:45):
Christian Post and otherperiodicals.
He is also co-host of theweekly, unknown webcast on the
Midwest Christian Outreach IncYouTube channel.
He was ordained to the ministryby West Suburban Community
Church of Lombard, illinois, atthe Garden of Gethsemane in
(04:10):
Jerusalem, israel, in March of1997.
Don is a charter member of theInternational Society of
Christian Apologetics and isalso the current president of
Evangelical missions tonon-Christian religions, a
consortium of countercults, lastapologetic ministries and
(04:35):
missions to non-Christians.
Alright, here is myconversation with Don.
Hi, mr Vito, welcome to theshow.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
It's good to be with you.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Alright, so this show .
We are going to be talkingabout false teachings, cults and
then false religions.
But before we get into ourtopic, tell us how you became a
follower of Christ.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Well, it goes back to a young lady that I ended up
marrying.
Actually, I met Joy when I wasthe ripe old age of 15.
I was not a believer.
I had grown up as an atheist.
She had grown up in the churchand I had become a Christian
when she was now 12, but was notwalking closely with the Lord
at the time Still believed, butnot walking closely or she
(05:26):
wouldn't have dated me.
I'm glad she did.
Her parents were praying for me, both faithful believers, and
they accepted me in spite ofkind of who I was.
As a teenager, her grandfatherstarted praying for me.
This is the fun part of thestory.
I didn't know this, you know.
(05:48):
I started praying for me.
He was from Denmark.
He started praying for me notonly that I would become a
believer, but that I wouldbecome a pastor and to that end,
as he prayed, he also startedbuying Bibles and commentaries
and other materials that pastorswould need.
Never knew this, did not knowthis.
We married three years after wemet.
Three years after that we hadour son, and Joy woke up in the
(06:12):
hospital with two big questions.
The first was are they reallygoing to send this child home
with me?
I don't know anything aboutraising children.
The second was what am I goingto teach him?
And so she kind of challengedGod to reveal himself to her,
and he did in some interestingways.
So she recommitted her life toChrist and then came to me and
(06:36):
asked me if I would read somebooks that she had gotten from
her sister.
My inclination was to go no.
But one thing I had learnedafter being with her.
We dated for three years, wewere married for three years.
We'd been together six years.
What I learned pretty early onis she wanted something.
Badly enough.
I was better off just giving inearly, because she's going to
(06:58):
get it anyway.
And so I said, yes, I'll readit.
And I did not think that itwould persuade me, because I,
frankly, had my Christians whocould give a reasonable defense,
for the faith Didn't meanthey're not Christians, they
just, it seemed to me, theybelieved what they believed
because their pastor said it,because their parents said it or
whatever.
(07:20):
To my surprise, as I read thematerial, I started coming to
some conclusions.
One is I couldn't be honest andbe an atheist, because atheism
is a claim to know somethingthat I actually can't know.
I can't know if God doesn'texist.
I can't know that.
Maybe he did exist and doesn'texist now, or maybe he doesn't
(07:40):
exist now but will exist in thefuture.
In other words, I couldn't withany confidence know anything
about God other than I chose notto believe.
So with that I thought I couldbe an agnostic.
It's not a claim to knowanything, it's just saying I
don't know.
You can be an ordinary agnosticor an ordinary agnostic.
(08:01):
An ordinary agnostic says Idon't know if God exists and you
don't either, so leave me alone.
An ordinary agnostic would go Idon't know if God exists, but
I'm open to information, and soI transitioned through each of
those.
In the process, I had to come toterms with certain questions.
Is the Bible fundamentallyreliable?
(08:21):
Because there's a lot ofmaterial out there by a lot of
different religions?
So what makes the Bibledifference in, say, the
Upanishads in Hinduism, or theQuran for Islam, or the Book of
Mormon, for you know the MormonChurch?
And so as I looked at that, Icame to discover that the Bible
(08:46):
we have in our hands is 99.9%accurate to what was originally
penned.
Now, that doesn't mean inspired, it just means accurate.
So I had to take some nextsteps then.
Okay, it's accurate.
But a phone book is accurateand it's initial printing.
So that doesn't mean inspired,it doesn't mean an error, it
(09:07):
doesn't mean it really tells usthat Christianity is true.
So how would I get to that nextstep?
And the next up came as I lookedinto the person, jesus Christ.
He made some pretty interestingclaims.
A claimed that he would bekilled and that he would raise
(09:28):
himself from the dead.
So not only killed.
A lot of people could make thatclaim and all of us eventually
are going to die.
So what makes him different?
Well, he predicted he wouldraise himself from the dead.
And then you have a fairly agood amount of evidence that
Backs up his claim to havingbeen resurrected.
So if he predicted his deathand he predicted his
(09:54):
resurrection, I have a highdegree of confidence that he
knows what he's talking about.
In addition to which, throughouthis ministry, what you find him
doing continually is, whensomeone asks him what he's doing
, he always pointed back to theHebrew scriptures.
He never just gave you hisopinion and he even equated his
(10:19):
word to be equal with the Hebrewscriptures in Matthew 5, for
example, when he Says you haveheard it said that shall not
come at adultery.
Well, he's, of course, quotingthe Hebrew scriptures.
Moses Not shown actuallyadultery.
So they heard it from Moses,who got it from God, or at least
(10:40):
that's how the story goes.
And Jesus believed that.
He said but I say so, now he'sput his word on a level with the
word that was given to Moses.
I say, if you look at it whenone plus in your eye, you've
committed the act.
And for that reason he wasAccused of being blasphemous,
(11:00):
because he placed his word, histeaching, his views on a part
with God.
So he was claiming to be Godand and okay, so he fulfilled
prophecy.
He predicted his death.
He said he would raise himselffrom the dead and did raise
himself from the dead and thendemonstrated he believed in the
(11:23):
inspiration and anerosy ofscripture by pointing back to
him continually.
So I came to the conclusionthat that guy knows what he's
talking about.
I would be better off Believinghim and in him than believing
someone else who denies it, whocan hardly do their taxes.
So that's how I became aChristian.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
All right.
Well, that's a great storythere, how you have to reason
through.
You know the scriptures andwhat Jesus said to come to your
conclusion.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Well, I do, and I have since come to the
realization.
I mean they Jesus was askedwhat is the greatest commandment
.
This is kind of funny becausethe greatest commandment is not
listed as one of thecommandments and as I've done
research on, I have discoveredreally what's going on here.
He said the greatestcommandment is to love the Lord,
(12:23):
your God, with all your heart,with all your soul, with all
your mind, and Love yourneighbor is yourself.
There's a second versecommandment and if you look back
, what you find is in historythis is a contractual agreement,
the Ten Commandments andeverything that follows it,
between the greater power,called the Sousa reign, and the
(12:46):
lesser power, the one who is nowconquered, that would be Israel
, and in that you have kind ofthe title of the article, which
would be, or the title of thecontract, which would be the
greatest commandment, and thenyou have subsets.
You have the first four of theTen Commandments, which are how
do you love the Lord, your God,and then you have the next six
(13:10):
was how do you love yourneighbor as yourself, and then
everything else that follows.
It is how you carry out thoseten, so all of the laws are tied
to.
It's a really interesting kindof a thing.
So Jesus was concerned aboutthat and he pointed back to that
.
Continually Believe theinspiration of Scripture,
(13:32):
prophecies pointed to him.
I Accepted the Lord, I became abeliever, and the next family
gathering, joys grandfathershowed up with a box full of
bibles and commentaries and yeah, ready for the next step and
his prayers being answered.
But joy said she's not gonna bea pastor's wife.
(13:53):
She said Now, some may notunderstand this, but if you go
back to the church of the 1960sand 70s you will.
She said I don't do flannelgraph and I don't play piano.
So so that brings us maybe tothe next Part of my life and how
(14:18):
we got involved with MidwestChristian outreach.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
So how that minute she's?
Trying?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
yeah.
Well, it is the second answerto her grandfather's prayer.
Ultimately, I'm not a pastorreally, and and after I became a
believer I thought, okay, Iwill, because I was in
construction, I will become arich general contractor and
support missionaries.
I never envisioned being one.
(14:43):
That wasn't my goal, but I havealways liked.
I want to know why things work.
That helped me in construction.
It's helped me in everything Ido pretty much, including this
ministry.
And so one day, joy join.
I were avid bowlers.
We both four nights a weekbefore we had kids.
We love bowling.
Well, she joined a women'sbowling league, a scratch league
(15:05):
.
They called it the hot tomatoesand.
She has a.
She had like a 190 somethingaverage.
She's very good bowler, and soshe joined this bowling league
and some job was witnessesjoined the bowling league.
Oh, unusual.
This is a time after the watch,our bottom track society, had
done their final prediction forthe end of the world and the
(15:26):
varmigan for 1975 didn't happen.
And so the watchtower openedthe doors a little bit to let
your people get socially active,because they were losing so
many people.
They lost a million people overthe next few years.
And so these women joined hisbowling league and joy met him
and she loved them.
They were funny, they were goodmothers, they were.
(15:48):
She just liked being with them.
And so she came home she said Iheard what they believe is a
little weird and so I need tofigure it out.
Will you help me now?
Remember, if joy wantssomething really badly, it's
easier to give it early.
She's gonna get it anyway,right?
So I said okay.
So we went to our pastor andtold him what our dilemma was,
(16:12):
and he didn't know any much allhis witnesses and so he brought
out a little track that he gaveto us.
He had a bunch of bible verseson it.
Didn't tell us why they'reimportant.
So it was not really thathelpful.
So joy Went looking for books.
There were not very many at thetime and the ones that were
there were helpful but meanspirited or from former jw's who
(16:35):
were angry former jw's largelyand uh, and then one day, as
we're watching something calledthe john anchorberg show, we
still around, but Uh, he hadfour jw's women on there, former
jw's women.
It was called 100 and 110 yearsof was our service, I think, uh
(16:58):
, and so we had the jones sent.
Now we had a couple of anointedwe had and we were fascinated
by their story.
And it turned out they had anannual conference in new wring,
old Pennsylvania, every year ofxjw's.
And so we went.
It was Fabulous is the onlyword I can really use, because
(17:25):
you walked into a setting ofDenominationalism, just dropped
a lot of theological Argumentsthat we get into over, you know,
tongs not tongs, baptism notbaptism.
All that just dropped it todoor.
Everything focused on oneperson, jesus Christ.
And how do we relate to these?
(17:46):
Who are here, who he is and whythat's important.
So it was.
There was a central themethroughout and so we went home.
We were very encouraged and wehad learned about something
called a telephone ministry.
So what you did is you wouldget a telephone line.
You never answered the phone.
You would record a message justback in a days when your Voice
(18:09):
smell was actually a cassettetape.
You'd record your message onand, and so joy, would write a
script every week and she recordthe message and then we'd start
it Every Saturday would be thenew message and we'd advertise
it.
And over time there were othersaround the country they're
doing the same thing and so weall became connected.
(18:31):
After a while of doing that, werealized if they are because
we're not answering the phone,most of your calls come in after
10 o'clock at night.
The reason most your calls comeafter 10 o'clock at night is
that Jehovah's Witnesses areafraid.
The watch our has spieschecking on them and Tricking
them, and then they will get tofellowship.
So they wait until everybody'sin bed before they sneak down
(18:56):
and make the call.
Amazing.
So After a while we thought youknow what, if they want to talk
to somebody right now, they'velistened to the message.
Now what?
So we talked to several of theothers who were doing that.
We said you know what?
We'll make ours a live line andyou all can refer to our line
at the end and if they want totalk to somebody we'll answer it
24 7.
(19:17):
We got a lot of phone calls at 2or 3 o'clock in the morning
from all over the country.
It was really quite interesting.
And one of them, if I, joy, wasup, it's about 3 in the morning
.
She's talking to the Jehovah'sWitness in New York and I'm
running around getting her theirwas, our Bible, their different
materials.
They can talk to her.
And at one point the lady saidwhat are you doing for Jehovah?
(19:41):
I've never seen you come to mydoor.
And joy says well, I've neverseen you come to my door either,
and I'm up talking to you at 3in the morning.
And she said yeah, that's true.
And so Midwest Christianoutreach kind of grew out of
that help when we startedgetting calls about other groups
(20:04):
and joy said I'll do Jehovah'sWitnesses, you do everybody else
.
And we founded Midwest Christianoutreach in can 1995.
If we was, we thought, justgoing to be a local ministry in
the Chicago area has become aninternational ministry.
At this point it was to bemostly Jehovah's Witnesses and
(20:25):
maybe Mormons.
Now we kind of Deal withanything that comes along,
because what we've discoveredand that's something we'll talk
about a little later on probablyis Whatever group you're
dealing with, they fundamentallyBelieve the same things.
They make your mistakes in thesame place as almost every time,
(20:45):
and so if you know two or threeBible based cults, pretty well
you can talk to about anybody.
If you know kind of Easternmystical religions pretty well,
you can pretty much talk toanybody, and so we focus on
here's the essentials of thefaith.
Learn those well, learn howother people distort them,
(21:08):
because they make your mistakesusually at the same places, and
Then you'll be pretty wellgeared up to talk to virtually
anybody.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
All right, so what we can kind of get into.
You know our topics for todaylearning how, to you know,
discern false teachings, cultsand false religions.
So let's look at falseteachings first, so what would
be characterized, kind of like,as a false teaching?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
well, there's several , and they usually revolve
around the essentials of thefaith.
One is who is Jesus?
In fact, we did our blog thisweek who do you say Jesus is?
And we kind of deal with thatquestion and what you discover
is virtually every religion notall religious, but virtually
(21:54):
every religion Attaches Jesus totheir belief system in some way
.
Okay, and it usually comes tothe point in the discussion of
His humanity and his deity.
It almost always that's whereit breaks down.
So, for example, if you have aJehovah's Witness you're talking
(22:15):
to, they think thatUnderstanding God is something
that we can logically do andexplain.
And so if we can logicallyexplain it and understand it in
rational ways, in Concepts thatwe can understand, that is God.
(22:36):
I Can't understand why Godwould incarnate in the flesh,
number one or how.
So it's the how and whyquestions, always a how and why
questions.
So what they do is they get tothis point of the divinity of
Christ and the humanity ofChrist and they go.
I Can't explain it, therefore.
It isn't true.
So they go for his humanity.
(22:59):
He's just a man.
Right now you start havingproblems of that right and and
you see this happen in everyfalse teaching is Once you deny
a fundamental doctrine ofbiblical faith, you have to
start fixing that doctrinesomewhere down the road.
So he's just a man, he's notGod.
(23:22):
Next thing, he doesn't have asoul.
Because we are a soul, okay,but here's the problem.
If you don't have a soul, thenwhat happens when you die?
Oh, you cease to exist.
Okay.
But if you cease to exist, allright, you just have a body, you
(23:45):
, everything that you are,everything you think, every
aspect of you that exist Existsin your physical body and in
your brain and in your blood.
You cease to exist now becauseyou die.
How do you do a resurrection?
That's a problem.
What's gonna be raised up?
Because there's nothing left.
The you is gone.
So they say oh well, that'seasy.
(24:09):
God just creates a replica thatlooks like you.
He has a copy of your memoriesstored used to be on a
phonograph record, I think.
Now it's in the cloud somewhereand he makes it a copy of his
copy because the originalmemories are gone and he puts
(24:29):
them into the newly createdbeing and calls it you.
That's what they teach andthat's how they go about trying
to fix this issue ofresurrection and we have talked
in fact we talked about this inthe blog this week.
I'll have to send you the linkto that.
You can add it in Because andwe've done that one we also did
(24:49):
one called the in the beginningMichael, because part of this
whole teaching of theirs is thatJesus didn't create everything.
Michael created everything.
God created Michael.
Michael created the cosmos.
Michael then ceased to exist.
God created Jesus as a human onearth, who then was crucified,
(25:11):
not resurrected.
He's dead, forever dead, butGod recreated Michael.
So you have Michael 1.0, jesusMichael 2.0 that replaced the
previous two.
Who's now reigning in heaven?
They call him Jesus, but he'snot, he's Michael.
Oh.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
That's what they teach.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
All right, so who Jesus is.
And then will we another likedoctrine that people would start
.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Well, okay, another doctrine.
Well, the Trinity would beanother one, because they kind
of go hand in hand, right?
I can't understand the Trinity.
Therefore, the Trinity can't betrue, or they'll go another way
and they'll try to createsomething.
It's Trinity like that's wherethe Mormons go, because the
(26:01):
Mormons, they get to the pointof Jesus, humanity and deity and
they Want to affirm somethingthat sounds biblical, and so
they go.
Okay, jesus was born on anotherplanet, near the star base Colab
.
He was a spirit being, andwe're all spirit beings and
we're all born on this planet.
(26:22):
And then he came to earth,where he got a physical body,
where he then could go and earnhis godhood, as all gods and
goddesses have done before him.
And so the Trinity is thefather and the son and the Holy
Spirit, all of which arePhysical beings that were born
(26:43):
on other planets, that becamegods as well, and they are kind
of the gods of this planet, andso we too could become gods or
goddesses on our planet.
So they distort the Trinity,they distort the deity and
humanity of Christ and then makeus gods like all gods before us
(27:05):
.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
That's more confusing than trying to understand the
Trinity itself.
You know all of that.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
It is, it can be, and the question I almost always
ask when people go for the howand why questions is this Do you
believe that God parted the RedSea and the water stood up on
edge?
I Believe that.
How do you do that?
I don't know.
(27:35):
He didn't tell me.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
No.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Do you believe God created everything from nothing.
He spoke and it existed.
Do you believe you did that?
Yeah, I do too.
He didn't tell me how he did it.
Right, there are a lot ofthings that we don't know about
God that he just didn't botherto tell us True.
Yes and even if he tried, wouldwe understand it?
It's so, it seems to me.
(28:00):
It's.
It's the distance between usreally understanding God and
being able to explain it is is aBigger Canyon between us and
God than it would be if I triedto explain to a six-month-old
quantum physics, right?
Yeah, it's just beyond ourcomprehension, it's outside of
(28:22):
our realm of experience.
We don't know anything like God, so we almost have to just take
what he does reveal to us abouthim which is understandable,
and go from there.
So DD of Christ is always theproblem, humanity of Christ,
those two issues.
If you go into Eastern mysticismof some kind, hinduism, for
(28:44):
example, if you ask them ifJesus is God, they go yes, of
course.
But what do they mean?
Well, now we get into somethingthat dr Peter Jones calls one
is versus two ism, and hopefullythis is Makes it simpler.
One ism is that everything isGod, and so God is part of
(29:05):
creation.
The trees are God, the rocksare God, your God, I'm God
Versus to wisdom, which is thatGod is separate from creation.
He created everything andinteracts with it, but he is not
the creation itself.
Right, two different views.
Now, what I when I talk withthose who hold this view.
(29:28):
Most new ages hold this view aswell.
I want to go through and saynow help me understand, just so
we're both talking the samelanguage.
Everything is God the Tablewe're sitting at?
Is God the book you have inyour hand?
Is God the Shells behind you?
Is God the rocks?
Are God the trees of God?
Yes, yes, yes.
(29:48):
And what my cat left in litterbox this morning, is God?
So sort of raising ourselvesand says some godhood, some
grandiose idea?
Aren't we really loweringeverything that exists to the
lowest common denominator?
What my cat left in litter boxthis morning?
Now, they don't really likethat, but that's what they're
(30:10):
doing ultimately.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Right, yeah, right, all right.
So we talked about falseteachings.
Now let's kind of move intocults.
What would be compare to a sixof them in a cult?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Well, we did an article and again, if you like,
I can send a link to this.
It's about Gwen Shamblin.
She was a false teacher who hadinfiltrated the church.
She was in 60, in 30,000churches across 60 denominations
.
She denied to Deeter Christ.
She died in salvation bygraceful and through faithful
and Christ alone.
She basically taught that Godhates fat people and so you're
(30:50):
only get to have it if you loseenough weight.
And no one seemed to catch ituntil someone one day called me
and said did Gwen Shamblinchange her doctrinal statement?
And I said who is Gwen Shamblin?
Because we're a call drivenministry.
If you don't call, if we don'tknow they're out there, we don't
know to look for them.
And so I looked at a websiteand I thought, well, maybe she
(31:12):
just made a mistake, maybe it'sjust a layperson who made a
mistake in writing this out.
And so I I called her, at whichpoint I discovered no, she
meant every word, the way it waswritten, and that she
considered me the false prophetfor believing in that Trinity or
the deed of Christ, and soforth.
So we did an article called waiton workshop a cult question
(31:32):
mark, and we laid out sevencharacteristics of a Cult.
Some groups might have one ortwo, or not, might not be a cult
, but if you have most of them,you probably are in a cult.
The first one will say is thebig cheese.
You have an authoritarian rule.
(31:53):
You have one person or a smallgroup of people, or the only
ones through whom Godcommunicates, and everybody else
has to listen to what they say.
Because you can't understandthe Bible on your own.
The watch, our Bible tracksociety, for example, is very
clear.
The Bible was not written toyou, dwan.
The Bible was only written tothe anointed class, 144,000
(32:18):
elite.
You can't understand it, so youhave to read the watchtower to
understand what God wants you toknow.
And If you read something inthe Bible that conflicts with
the watchtower, that's becauseyou're reading material that you
can't understand.
You got to talk to your elderto get it cleared up.
Wow, can't make your owndecisions.
(32:38):
Authoritarian rule don'tquestion them.
In fact, for the watchtower,your salvation is to pen solely,
solely, on how you treat theanointed class, not dependent on
your faith at all.
Hmm, number two false prophets,prophetic speculation and false
teachings.
So this I'm going to go to apassage of scripture before I
(33:02):
explain it, because you said youwanted to talk about how to
study the Bible.
Well, here's a key, and we'llgive you some more toward the
end when you Want to do that.
In Matthew 7, 15, jesus saysthe following Beware of false
prophets who come to you insheep's clothing but inwardly
(33:24):
are ravenous wolves.
Almost everyone knows thatpassage, but they don't ask
about the context.
There's a context.
There are two definitions to afalse prophet.
They are found in the book ofDeuteronomy, deuteronomy 13 and
Deuteronomy 18.
In one, a false prophet maygive true predictions but give
you a false view of who God is.
(33:45):
In other words, he may beprophetically accurate but he's
teaching falsely on core things.
The second one, in Deuteronomy18, is Someone who claims to be
a prophet and gives just oneprophecy that fails.
One prophecy, one strike,you're out.
Jesus says give him a tea orgive him enough.
(34:08):
So that's your two criteria,that's your definitions.
The Jews understood that becausethey had most of the Torah
memorized, and so when he saidthat, it goes click.
They know what he's talkingabout.
Then he says you will know themby their fruits.
Now here's the question.
I'm not gonna let you answer itbecause they don't want you to
potentially be embarrassed.
(34:29):
What are the fruits?
Almost everybody says well,it's our good works.
Every cult says we have thevery best works.
We are feeding the poor, we aredoing whatever.
We're going house to house Tohelp us witnesses.
We go door to door you don't goto.
We have the best work.
No, that's not what he's talkingabout.
The fruits come from the tree.
(34:52):
What is the tree?
The tree is a false prophet.
So what are the fruits of afalse prophet?
It is their false propheciesand their false teachings, not
their good works.
And he further clarifies thatwhen he says by their fruits
She'll know them.
He talks about the differentkinds of fruits that might come,
and Then he says Many will cometo me in that day and say but
(35:18):
Lord, didn't we, in your name,cast out demons, do marvelous
works?
And he will say to them departfrom me, you workers of iniquity
, for I never knew you.
So the entire passage has to dowith the teachings and and
claims of a false prophet, notwhether they came to your door
(35:39):
carrying a Bible.
There's nothing to do with itright.
So if they made a prophecy thatwas false, or a false prophet in
a case of the wash, our owntruck society, they have made
many of them.
They predicted the end of theworld for 1914, 1915, 1916, 1918
, 1925, 1942, 1975 and beforethe anointing class passed away,
(36:03):
and they failed on every singleone of them.
Yeah, they're false.
Proper organization Three we'rethe bad guys attack the
Christian church Universally.
When you look across all of thecults, every one of them attack
the Christian church, usuallythe Roman Catholic Church,
(36:24):
because they're the biggesttarget and there's certainly
problems with the Roman CatholicChurch, but they set themselves
up as this way.
These groups are false Teachers.
They're the bad guys and youcan tell that because they're
not teaching what we're teaching.
Well, maybe they're notteaching what you're teaching
because what you're teaching iswrong, right, but their
(36:48):
followers don't really get that.
So the church is the bad guys.
Now the problem with this isfor us, in this kind of a
ministry, is If you havesomebody who's what we call a
walkout say they were a Mormonor they were in the unification
church or In the Eurantia bookor something like that Then when
(37:08):
they leave since they both havebeen taught and believe that
this was the only trueorganization.
They leave, either because theydon't believe they can conform
or because they think it's false.
But they've already come tobelieve there's nothing outside
of this organization.
It's true, and so there's noplace to go.
All right, that's the problem.
(37:29):
Christian doctrine number fouris Unreasonable.
They have to have a religionthat makes sense.
I have to be able to explainhow God exists.
I have to be able to explainhow God does stuff.
If I can't understand it withmy brain, then it must be not
true.
Therefore, god has to bereduced to some explainable,
(37:50):
understandable Concept, and youeven have that in false teachers
within the church word faithteachers.
Now you may decide to edit thisout, but I have never been shy
about naming false teachers inthe church Because they're a
travesty to the church.
In addition to Richard Rohr,for example, in the Enneagram I
know you had Marsha on aboutthat oh, kenneth Copeland.
(38:15):
Kenneth Copeland is a falseteacher of the highest priority.
For him to have God and Adam beexact duplicates of each other,
so that you can't tell oneanother apart, and God dependent
on our giving him permission towork in the earth that is a
false teacher.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Oh wow, I didn't know .
He said that I don't listen toKenneth Copeland, so yeah,
you're fortunate.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Yeah, faith is a force in words, of the
containers, of the force, hesays.
And so if you speakfaith-filled words, god is
obligated to give you what it isthat you have commanded to
happen.
Now, this is actuallywitchcraft, using Christian
terminology.
Now some people get irritatedwhen they say this, but think
(39:04):
about it for a second.
Witchcraft is causing theuniverse to conform to your will
by spoken spell and incantation.
Word faith teachers are causingthe universe to conform to
their will by spoken spell andincantation.
It is the same thing, justdifferent language, but it's the
same thing.
(39:28):
Twisting the scriptures, makingblack white and white black.
Some have called it a cultcocktail.
Scripture with a twist.
Oh, they take it out of contextand distort it to make it sound
like it might be credible, butthen when you look at it in
(39:52):
context, it doesn't follow.
What they have said is false.
They have distorted it to theirown, as in.
Peter writes about that, howthat they distort.
Paul's writing says yeah, somethings are alright, so difficult
to understand, but those whoare unlearned and deceived
distort it to their owndestruction.
(40:13):
Scripture twisting has alwayshappened.
Characteristic six look at ourwork salvation by our own
efforts.
Every cult group has a plan ofsalvation that is based
primarily on your ability to doall of the things that the cult
(40:36):
leader had told you God requires.
It's different for differentgroups, but it also comes down
to your ability to do the rightthing.
There is a group within thechurch called Dick, not a cult
per se, a matter of basicprinciples.
Bill Gothart in the ChristianLife is a book we wrote about
this guy, bill Gothart, verypopular.
(40:59):
Two and a half million people gothrough his seminars in the 60s
and 70s, early 80s, and heteaches that grace is God giving
you the power and ability to dohis will joyfully.
Now, grace is God's unmeritedfavor.
That's shorthand.
A longer version is God's is akindly attitude toward the
(41:21):
undeserving.
We're the undeserving.
God has a kindly attitudetoward us anyway.
How cool is that?
He changes that to be Godgiving you the power and ability
to do his will joyfully.
And then what happens is, asyou do his will, your quantity
of grace runs out, and so you goback then and get a refill of
(41:41):
grace to do more of his willjoyfully.
That's Roman Catholicism.
That is really what that isOkay salvation by our own
efforts.
Last one is don't tell me you'resaved.
There's no assurance ofsalvation.
Your salvation is dependent onyou procuring it and keeping it.
You did nothing to become saved.
(42:04):
You can do nothing to staysaved, so I don't, I don't know.
I don't know if you're marriedand have children.
So I'm gonna ask you myquestion a different way when
you were born whenever that waswhat did you contribute to being
born?
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Nothing.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
You didn't do anything, not a thing.
That's true, your mother didthat.
Your father participated alittle bit in advance, but your
mother did the bulk of the work.
Right, you were born.
Completely nothing you did.
What can you do to becomeunborn?
(42:44):
I guess I could kill myself,that's all.
That would just mean you'redead, you're not unborn, you
can't do anything.
I can't be born.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
I can't be unborn.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
You can't be born or unborn on your own.
You can't do that.
So if that's true, with thatearthly mother giving birth to
an earthly child, how much moreGod brings us a new birth.
We are born again.
Our born again does not dependon our ability to be born.
(43:16):
We contribute nothing andbecause we are born again
through Him, we can do nothingto become unborn again.
We can't lose our salvation.
It was an hour to begin with.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Cults miss that every time.
Legalistic groups in a churchmiss that as well.
But if you get out of theseseven, if you get four or five,
you're probably in a cult.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Right, so just kind of thinking about it.
We talked about false teachings, so what would be kind of like
the difference between someonewho holds false teachings in a
cult Would they be like the cultcontains false teachings or not
?
All false teachings are a cult.
(44:04):
I think you went over them.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Right.
Not all who hold falseteachings are in a cult or are a
cult there are some falseteachers operating within the
church.
They're not a cult, they're justfalse teachers and pastors.
Their task is really to guardthe flock against false teachers
.
Too many do not do that.
You might have a teaching thatis a false teaching, but you're
(44:32):
really good on the most of theessentials but, let's say,
confused on some areas.
That happens.
Does that mean you're not aChristian?
No, it doesn't mean that.
Does that mean that you haveimbibed on some false teachings
somewhere along the way and nowyou're invested in holding on to
it?
Perhaps that's the case.
(44:52):
So that's why, for us at least,we make a separation.
We talk about cults which arecultic in behavior and in
teaching, versus those who maybe cultic.
They may be like a cult inbehavior but solid on the
(45:13):
essentials of the faith.
There are certain churches thatare just very legalistic.
So they're cultic in behaviorbut they're Christians.
You have others that may not becultic in behavior but have
false teaching.
So, yeah, they have a problemwith their teaching, but they're
not a cult.
So for us you have to have both.
(45:34):
You have to have culticbehavior and false teachings,
and together that's a cult.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
And then you did give some examples of some cults.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Today we did Jehovah's Witnesses Mormons.
You have Gwen Shamblin Wade onworkshop.
She's recently passed away butthe group is still there.
Once we made a publicannouncement, they went from.
They had over a millionfollowers and they went down to
like 700.
(46:04):
In weeks it was prettyinteresting to watch.
There's over 5,000 cults aroundthe country right now, so some
as far as 12 or 10, you know thegood, the bad and the small we
call them, and so you have somesmall ones and large ones.
(46:24):
Mormons, for example.
They're a big one.
The your rancher book is onefew have heard of.
It's a pretty popular amongvery, very intelligent people
because it's kind of very technosavvy and so, and yet, yeah,
they don't really have a churchbut they have reading groups, so
(46:46):
they read the your range ofbook together.
And Jesus for this planet, yourrancher is the planet earth.
Jesus for this planet is one of176,000 Jesus's throughout the
cosmos, and so it's another kindof an odd group they have a lot
of.
David Koresh was one.
Waco, texas, his group, jimJones, of course, was the cult
(47:11):
and we saw how that went out.
So there's a big variety ofgroups out there.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
And then let's.
I guess we might have alwaysAlways talked about a little bit
false religions.
So would false religion be like?
What would characterize a falsereligion?
Would they be like way holdingto know local doctrines at all?
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Well, you're gonna have a variety Again.
You have a variety of thingsgoing on.
Let's say Hebrew roots movement, for example.
Hebrew roots movement goes allthe way from really solid
evangelicals, let's say adeliceological seminary or
myself.
I think if you don't understandthe Hebrew Aspects of scripture
(47:57):
, you're probably going tomisunderstand large portions of
the text, for example the bookof Acts.
Predominantly.
You have zero Gentiles.
In the first nine chapters ofthe book of Acts it is all
Jewish, about Jews and Jewishstuff and fulfillment of Jewish
prophecy, right.
So if you understand that nowyou can understand what's going
(48:20):
on.
You can start applying it intoyour church life all the way to
the other end of the spectrum ofthe Hebrew roots movement is
that we have to, as Gentiles,change our name to Jewish
sounding names or keeping theSabbath and the 10 commandments,
and live like Jews.
They don't regard Paul asanything other than a usurper
(48:43):
and salvation is by our ownworks.
So In that sense you have alarge group that would be a cult
group or another religion.
Really it's another religion,it's not just a cultist, another
religion On the far end of thespectrum.
So they just sort who Jesus issort of back to that question.
(49:05):
Same with the Hinduism or bootBuddhism.
They are other world religionsthat are false world religions
that thrive on your ability tomake yourself better and Become
one with the all, because inthose religions the creation is
(49:27):
God Right, and so you'll gothrough several incarnations
working your way up to Nirvanain some way.
And so in these false religionsyou have a number of different
kind of beliefs that go withthat.
For example, and and I do Ilike this one because it helps
(49:48):
me explain some other kinds ofthings someone might argue that
morality changes from culture toculture and time to time, and
so their idea by saying that is,morals are not absolute.
Now we're talking about otherworld religions here, and I'm
going to demonstrate two thingsby talking about other world
(50:10):
religions.
That is this what we discoveris we really all have the same
moral values.
Doesn't matter when you live orwhere you live.
What happens is that we workthem out in different ways.
So in America we like beef.
I mean McDonald's.
(50:32):
Under cause truth, trus,zillion soul, right, we are in
love with our beef.
In parts of India they don't eatbeef.
Jane is them.
For example, they were gauze ontheir mouth.
They sweep as they walk.
They don't step on a bug or ahail a bug, and they don't eat
beef.
Now, and for them, that's amoral decision.
(50:53):
For us it's not a moraldecision.
Beef is right.
Here's where it comes into play, where false religions break
down and when we understand thatmorality comes from God and all
of us have the same basic setof moral values, regardless of
where you live.
And it was this.
Here's the reason why don'tJames eat cows, because for them
(51:23):
, the cow is grandmareincarnated and.
In America we don't eat grandmaand in India they don't eat
grandma.
So we both agree that it'smorally wrong to eat grandma.
We actually agree on the moralvalue and just works itself out
differently because they have afalse view of God, a false view
(51:46):
of humans and a false view ofwhat happens after you die.
So by having a false religion,you still have the same moral
values.
You just worked aboutdifferently.
I.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
Like how you put it, we all have it.
You know the same basic morals,right, but we look net.
Things are different are Fawks?
Speaker 2 (52:08):
how we, how we work it out is different, and what is
false.
And one goes on.
We Treat grandma a certain waybecause of the Imago day.
We believe she was created aGod's image.
Right and because she's acreation of God, we treat her as
a creation of God rather thanBelieving that everything is God
(52:29):
and we don't eat grandma wedon't eat the cow because it's
grandma on her reincarnation upThrough the point of Nirvana,
reaching Nirvana.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
So yeah, yeah, so they just they have different
views than More.
Okay, well, to kind of, unlessyou just anything else you want
to add about false religions.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
Well, we could go on all day about them because
there's so many of them, butultimately they really come down
to the same kind of thing.
What do they say about whoJesus is?
What do they say about who manis?
What do they say about thecosmos?
What do they say about how we,as man, interact with the cosmos
and God?
Once you get through that, thenyou have other ways to talk to
(53:19):
them and you know, I'll behonest, I am able to talk to
virtually anybody, usuallybecause I don't have to attack
their views directly.
I Can always talk about thatgroup over there and Everybody's
interested in that group overthere.
They don't want to talk abouttheir group because they're
(53:41):
invested in their group, butthey're really willing to talk
about that group over there, andso I try to talk about things
that they believe, withoutciting their Authorities and
sources, but rather this othergroup over here.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
Well, Mr Vino, thank you for being on the show.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
And it's totally my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
I hope this conversation was helpful to you.
Hopefully in later episodes wecan get into specific aspects of
the different religions andfalse teachings that are in the
world today.
Until next time, remember Godis always good and he's always
faithful.
Thank you for listening to thepodcast.
(54:28):
Do my favorite by following thepodcast and leaving a review to
help spread the word.
I look forward to hearing fromyou.
I.
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