THE ANATOMY OF A CULT

Greetings Pro-Christ people. Take a look at the first collage. Take a good look. These people all have one thing in common...well maybe two things in common. (1) They are all religious (2) They all deny that Jesus is God in the flesh. They all attack the Deity of Jesus. Of course there is nothing new under the sun. L.Ron Hubbard (Scientology/Dianetics), Oprah/Eckart Tolle (new age mumbo-jumbo)...Victor Paul Weirwille (The Way International), Sun Myung Moon (Unification Church), Marshall Applewhite (Heavens Gate), Jim Jones (The People's Church), Charles Taze Russell (Jehovah's Witness), Joseph Smith (Mormonism), David Koresh (Branch Davidians), David Moses Berg (Children of God/The Family), The Nation of Islam/Black Muslims (W.D. Ward/Louis Farrakhan)...are but a few of the people who deny that Jesus was the Christ...and that He was God in the flesh. Many started off believing the truth... but then deviated from the truth...and began to thing they were the direct mouthpiece from God...and were above the rules of morality. They become like the Pharisee....who was PRAYING TO HIMSELF...and thanking himself that he was not like other people.



"That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So...there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one might say, see this, it is new? Already it has existed for ages which were before us." (Ecclesiastes 1:9,10)

"In the beginning was the Word...and the Word was with God...and the Word WAS God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him; and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness; and the darkness did not comprehend it...But as many as received Him to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man...but of God. The Word BECAME FLESH...and DWELT AMONG US...and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:1-5; John 1:12-14)

NOTE: God back and read the John passage and put in the name Jesus where it says the Word. ie. In the beginning was Jesus...and Jesus was with God...and Jesus WAS God.

The ANATOMY OF A CULT is centered around the Deity of Jesus. They always have to take Jesus down a notch and deny who He was...and who He is...GOD IN THE FLESH. Jesus is always less than who His followers say He is. He is either a great teacher...a miracle worker...a lunatic...delusional...merely a human who may have had the christ-spirit...BUT NEVER GOD IN THE FLESH. Even Islam acknowledges that Jesus was a good teacher...but He was a bastard. Some would even include Jesus in the ways to God...but that He is only one of the many roads that leads to the Father. If you want to believe in that resurrection stuff...then that's O.K....but if someone wants to believe in humanism...that we are intrinsically God and can make our own roads to the Father. Jesus is LOWERED TO THE LEVEL of other religious leaders...or even worse...He is an angel...or He was merely human...who elevated Himself to godship...just like you can elevate yourself to godship by what you DO. And if you don't make it the first time...don't worry...you can always try something different the next time you come around in reincarnation.

"Truly, truly, I say to you...he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but CLIMBS UP SOME OTHER WAY...he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters BY THE DOOR is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the DOORKEEPER opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out....Jesus therefore said to them again...truly, truly, I say to you I AM THE DOOR OF THE SHEEP...I AM THE DOOR...IF ANYONE ENTERS THROUGH ME...HE SHALL BE SAVED...AND SHALL GO IN AND OUT, AND FIND PASTURE." (John 10:1-9)

"Thomas said to Him...Lord, we do not know where you are going...HOW DO WE KNOW THE WAY? Jesus said to him...I AM THE WAY...and THE TRUTH...and THE LIFE..NO ONE COMES TO THE FATHER...BUT THROUGH ME. If you had known Me...you would have known My Father also...from now on you know Him and have seen Him." (John 14:5-7)

C.S. Lewis writes in MERE CHRISTIANITY..."yet (and this is strange, significant thing) even His enemies when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit. Still less do unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He is "humble and meek" and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were MERELY A MAN...humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings. I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept that Jesus as a GREAT MORAL TEACHER...but I don't accept HIS CLAIM TO BE GOD. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was MERELY A MAN and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a GREAT MORAL TEACHER. he would either be a LUNATIC--on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the devil of hell. You must MAKE YOUR CHOICE. Either this man WAS and IS...THE SON OF GOD...or else...A MADMAN...or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool... you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon...or YOU CAN FALL AT HIS FEET AND CALL HIM LORD AND GOD. But let us not come with any PATRONISING NONSENSE about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
(C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity Book II: What Christians Believe (The Shocking Alternative)


Another aspect of CULTS...is that they always, always, always...deviate from the D.B.R...NOTHING MORE...NOTHING LESS. That's right....the Death, the Burial, the Resurrection...with nothing added. Cults always...like religion...always...is reaching up to God with their own ways to get to God... while Christianity is God reaching down to man.

Jesus...the Word...God in the flesh...came down in the form of man...lived for 30 years...then for three years ministered the will of God on earth as it is in heaven...became the propitiation/substitute for our sins...to give us access back to the Father...died, was buried, rose again...and went back to the Father.

Cults claimed that Jesus failed in His mission...and that he either did not raise from the dead...merely swooned and did not die...or His followers perpetrated a hoax by stealing the body to look like He did raise from the dead...and then... just so people would not get wise to the hoax...became martyrs for a lie.



"Children...it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen...from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they WERE NOT REALLY OF US...for if they had been of us...they would have remained with us; but they went out...in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the LIAR but the one who DENIES THAT JESUS IS THE CHRIST? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also." (I John 2:18-23)

"Beloved, DO NOT BELIEVE EVERY SPIRIT...but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By THIS you KNOW the Spirit of God: every spirit that CONFESSES THAT JESUS CHRIST HAS COME IN THE FLESH IS FROM GOD; and every spirit that DOES NOT CONFESS JESUS IS NOT FROM GOD; and this is the spirit of the antichrist...of which you have heard that it is coming, and NOW it is already in the world.." (I John 4:1-3)

Jesus is God in the flesh. Deny it...join the antichrists.

FINAL THOUGHTS...FINALLY

"God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways; in these last days has spoken to us in HIS SON whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He MADE THE WORLD. And He (Jesus) is the radiance of His glory and the EXACT REPRESENTATION of His nature, and upholds all things by the WORD OF HIS POWER. When He had made purification of sins (D.B.R.) He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high; having become MUCH BETTER THAN THE ANGELS, as He has inherited a MORE EXCELLENT NAME than they. For to which of the angels did He ever say...Thou art my Son...today I have begotten Thee? And again I will be a Father to Him and He shall be a Son to Me? And when He again brings the first-born into the world, He says...And let all the angels of God WORSHIP HIM." (Hebrews 1:1-6)

NOTE: You can worship yourself...you can worship religions and cults and cult leaders...you can follow Oprah into hell...you can trust your ability to be good...you can stick your head in the cultural sand and ignore the need for salvation...you can follow any road that you want to follow...BUT...in the words of Bob Dylan...you got to serve somebody...it may be the devil...it may be the Lord...but you got to serve somebody.

Love and Non-Cultic Kisses
Rodney "Jesus Came In The Flesh" Boyd