How to tell if you are in cult #6
Marks of a Cult

How to tell if you are in cult #6

How to tell if you are in cult #6 treats your doctrine is out of sync with the Bible or going lacking on specific teachings of the Bible. How to tell if you are in cult



R. When the preaching and teaching of the group does not confront and exhort against the specific sins of the people in the group.

Leading a local church is an impossible task actually. On the one hand, you do not have a place where you meet unless somebody pays for it, and on the other hand, those most capable to pay for a building are rich folk laden with rich people’s sins. Therefore if you preach on those sins, you lose your rich people.

I have visited many churches and one thing I see constantly is a certain family or group of families that are well off financially, and they are “in the pastor’s pocket”. The pastor runs to them for friendship and guidance in running the church.

Unfortunately, such pastors “listen” more to these rich people than the common folk in his church. He “plays favorites”. He does this in order to more easily pay for things. The very preaching of the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27) is in itself a “dangerous thing” for pastors to do. Whether they say they teach everything or not, few pastors regularly “step on their members toes” as a practice. But they have to do so if they are going to be true and honest before God. Doing this causes a lot of problems.

This is where faith comes in. Pastors who do preach the whole counsel of God simply trust God that He will provide even if they lose their rich folk or their rich folk get offended by the messages and “dry up” from sacrificing.

Cults and bad churches thrive on favorites and elites among the group though. That is a clear sign of a cult or bad church. How to tell if you are in cult.

Unfortunately, most cults are formed around charismatic personalities that know how to sell themselves to people. They are kind people that on the surface get along with people exceptionally well. They have a skill set that is perfect for church, but that is exactly the problem. People accept the church, their doctrines, their practices on the basis of one person at the head even though he is a thorough liar about it all.

These cult leaders know exceptionally well how to sell things (think used car salesman types) but when it comes down to it, they are expert liars. They sell, they make wonderful promises, but they never had any intention in keeping those promises. They just use them to get people on board with them, and so that the money is coming in.

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S. When the preaching and the teaching of the group does not teach the whole counsel of God, i.e. all the basics of scriptural doctrine. Likewise when the teaching distorts the importance of any doctrine or teaching, even a foundational one, to be out of place, over emphasized.

Here the idea is that one particular doctrine or teaching is constantly emphasized more than it should be. The only doctrines that should constantly be emphasized is evangelism and holiness. But even with those, if they displace other key and important doctrines, it is a cult.

KJV only.

While this is a position, many have made it into a cult. It is not wrong to teach on the authority of God’s word, its inspiration, etc. It is not wrong to recommend a good version of the Bible. It is wrong when this teaching replaces the whole counsel of God, and pulpit time is disproportionate towards idolizing the King James Version instead of the many other good things we have to teach. Tip: Anything that is not specifically mentioned constantly in Scripture, but is constantly mentioned in the pulpit should be closely examined. Scripture mentions Scripture, but Scripture never authorizes one particular version Bible version over others.

In recommending a good version, a pastor can and should talk about the weaknesses of one version over another. But again, deal with it in a sermon and leave the topic for 6 months or so because it is not a constant monthly topic in Scriptures, so don’t make it a element of every sermon like many do.

It would be wise to mention the authority of Scripture, its inspiration, etc. should come up many times in a typical year of preaching, but recommending a particular version shouldn’t be so abundant (say every Sunday). Defending the KJV may be a valid topic for a sermon, but should not be the common topic every Sunday and in every sermon. Should that priority be the need to be born again? When did Christ ever once preach about Bible versions? How often did he bring being born again, eternal life, salvation, redemption, etc into conversations and teachings? Copy Christ’s content, and you’ll be hard put to be held in blame of not preaching the whole counsel of God. See Christ and Paul as the perfect balancing of doctrine and topics. How to tell if you are in cult

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Marks of a Cult

 

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Ritchie Foundational Truths of the Gospel is a basic doctrinal treatise for Assurance, Conversion, Eternal Life, Judgment, Justification, Perfection, Regeneration, Salvation, Sanctification, and Separation.
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