Christian Cults in the Philippines: Identifying False Teachings and Biblical Truth

[Music] how are you doing guys welcome everyone to day two of our apologetics class I

hope you learned something from our past three sessions on apologetic strategies and Different World Views We Begin this

day with session 4 which talks about the different Cults of Christianity and foreign calls here in the Philippines

now the Bible says in Galatians 1 8 but even if we are an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary

to the one we preached to you let him be a curse or anathema now the term called can be derogatory in other Western

countries a person can be directly offended if you will not Define what you mean by this word when I Define the word

quote I am defining it in a theological sense this word actually came from the Latin cultos or cholera which means to

worship Aditi since this is a general definition we want to narrow down its meaning to those who embrace the

unorthodox Christian faith Dr Walter Martin the modern day father of Christian

apologetics defines cult in this way a group of people gathered about a specific person or person's

misinterpretation of the Bible a cult claims to believe the Bible as its Authority but it is the leader who

has the right to interpret it once this happens they are at the mercy of a manipulative and authoritative cult

leader who dictates what to believe what to say what to wear how they should think and live where they should go you

know obviously this is spiritually dangerous and could put somebody's life in peril

I prefer the term of Dr Alan W Gomez where he defined the this code groups uh well uh who doesn't adhere to the

Orthodox talking of the Christian faith as calls of Christianity because there is no such thing as a Christian called

rather there are pseudo-religious groups that break away from the mother group and eventually go against a primary

teaching of their religious host some examples are the codes of Buddhism an example under the cause of Buddhism

could be the high mavata a name of a Buddhist sect codes of Islam we have here the Nation of Islam led by uh

Wallace fired Muhammad in 1930. there is also the quotes of Hinduism an example of that is the Ananda Marga

which is also found here in the Philippines now there are religious goals

Accord is any group that claims to be a Christian but it's not a True Believer is somebody

who Embraces to the Orthodox Christian doctrine a cult remember however will not adhere to the sound doctrines

although he or she continues to call himself a Christian

a God will accept the Bible but will use other books to interpret of course the the scripture

the Bible says in Matthew 7 15 beware of false prophets who come to you in ships clothing but inwardly are ravenous

wolves a number of uh groups have additional literature written by their founder in

order to understand the scriptures Jehovah's Witness for example have studies in the scripture written by

Charles St Russell awake and watched our magazines the children of God have their own Mo

letters well the children of God is founded by Moses David bird and he writes the more letters

also have their own magazine and the pmcc fourth watch those that you can see in the marketplace they have their word

and uh a lot more because you know added to that scripture although reading the Bible references is not wrong some

called literature com you know they claim to be the only way to understand the Bible's teachings on specific topics

this is blatant spiritual arrogance it is as if like we don't have the Holy Spirit to lead us and to teach us and to

guide us in reading the scripture now there are at least four reasons why people join the Cults

one is that spiritual empty and emptiness there are those who are not spiritually satisfied with their

relationship with God and if you don't feed yourself spiritually then you are a candidate to

embrace the teachings of the Court depression is also one and the absence of personal identity

a person who has no Ministry responsibility in their church can be vulnerable

the Cults because they find themselves without sense of purpose for the Lord the charm and magnetism of cult leaders

and the promise of present and future power the quote leaders authoritative voice

and firm exegetical interpretation that's different from the exegetical asymgetical is really more of trying to

incorporate your own interpretation in the scripture rather than drawing out the interpretation from the Bible

and this is very enticing and deceiving and this is what the cult leaders are doing they can also be drawn by the

Utopia or eschatological Promises of these groups another is uh susceptibility produced by

a significant change in life circumstances example um you know new job divorce you know you

have gone through divorce or probably annulment and broken relationships all of those things

any major relational dysfunction in the family work termination or sickness could serve as a starting point to

embrace the cold stitching they probably thought that God is punishing them for the things they do not know sometimes

it is as if like God is trying to um punish them because of their wrong decision or but knowing that probably

it's a way to test their faith to deepen their faith so most if not all of the following

trees can be also observed in a cult what are this uh number one is that they deny the doctrine of the trinity

they usually attack that Trinity Doctrine by labeling it as a pagan Triad or tritheistic teaching but this is not

true since this Doctrine teaches that there is only one God or one Yahweh in three distinct Divine persons the Father

the Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit they forces thought he thought that the doctrine of the Trinity was invented by

the Roman Catholics which is not true to the history of the church the Trinity word may not be found in the scripture

but its concept and principle is deeply thought in its pages they also degrade

Jesus Christ you know it's like pulling him down or dethroning Jesus Christ

many calls degrade Jesus Christ by saying that he is not equal to the father

or you know he's just inferior to the father next to the next to God himself although Jesus said the father is

greater than him this only refers to his Humanity form that's found in John 14 28 the father is greater than I

however there are also many Bible verses that proves he is equal and the same nature with his father you can find this

in John 5 18 wherein John himself said that Jesus Christ was calling God his own father making himself equal with God

and the Greek word for there which is isos equal this is where we also get the word isometric triangle John 10 30 where

in the chest their eye and the father are one the Greek word hen in that particular passage also refers to the

nature of the sun being equal to the father himself Revelations 1 8 it says who is who was and who is to come

the almighty now Jesus Christ is also Almighty so therefore we could say that Christ

himself is equal in his divine nature with the father along with the Holy Spirit

they also dismiss the personality of the Holy Spirit because they personalize the Holy Spirit

by designating him as an impersonal Force the cause of Christianity are weak in

the subject of pneumatology most of the major quote cops did not spend time making an exhaustive study on the Holy

Spirit they believe that the holy spirit is not a person but a force proceeding from God as proposed by the Jehovah's

Witness or a manifestation as argued by the one is Pentecostal code of course this is not true

since in Acts 5 3-4 we can read in that passage wherein Peter said lying to the holy spirit is

actively lying to God so when somebody lied on impersonal Force the table that I'm using right now is an impersonal

Force how can you lie to a table how can you lie to an electricity you can now if you notice in the scripture

especially in the book of Acts there's a lot of things in the book of Acts or passages in the book of Acts that proves

that the holy spirit is actually speaking Acts chapter 13 1-3 proves to us that the Holy Spirit has decision the

Holy Spirit has a personality the Holy Spirit has um you know he is distinct from the father and from the son

now they also add good works to the finished work of Christ we are not saying that good works are not

important but the Bible says good works is just an outcome of our salvation and relationship with God once you are saved

then surely good works will follow but you are not the one doing the good works it's actually God himself who does that

in first Timothy chapter 4 16 it says here In this passage keep a close watch on

yourself and on the teaching persist in this for by so doing you will say both yourself and your hearers

now the problem is that the courts overly rely on Good Works that they spend large amounts of time going door

to door to convert people or doing charity work to earn Heavenly points such as the Jehovah's Witness and the

Roman Catholics and this is not what the Bible says we can earn our salvation

salvation is by grace to Faith salvation is free you can buy

salvation another is that they delude their members with a faulty interpretation of

their founder or leader calls deceive their members by their leaders

claim to sole interpretation of the Bible the leader will try to portray that he

alone knows the interpretation so the courts believe their founder is a sole interpreter of the scripture

without the need for checks and balances the teaching of their spiritual leader is the Supreme Doctrine and cannot be

corrected or contradicted by anyone any kind of comment will almost always be misconstrued as Rebellion leading to

disciplinary action and or excommunication so again beware of this practice

they also deceive people by introducing a so-called Revelation in addition to the Bible the courts believe their

founder is a sole interpreter of the scripture without the need for checks and balances the teaching of their

spiritual leader is the Supreme Doctrine and cannot be corrected or contradicted by anyone

any kind of comment will almost always be misconstrued as Rebellion leading to disciplinary action and or

excommunication so again beware of this practice Cults will almost always introduce the teachings and writings of

their founder as either Revelation from God or explanations of scripture unlike the Evangelical churches members of a

cult are normally discouraged from reading and interpreting the Bible so the religious founder can have a

monopoly of the biblical interpretation this is wrong some materials published by courts are

Watchtower and awake magazines Jehovah's Witnesses you know these are the the literature of the Jehovah's Witnesses we

also have the pasugo of the Iglesia ni Cristo the word magazine of the pmcc Fourth

Watch The Divine principle of the unification Church The Book of Mormon the pearl of great price and the

doctrines and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the Mormons and the great controversy of The

Seventh-Day Adventists now they also believe that religious membership can save them

this practice is common among many calls because they believe they alone has a corner of the truth

they also despise proper grammatical historical interpretation of the scripture the calls despise proper

scholarly interpretation and academic explanation of scripture they will almost always ignore the experts and

Scholars by arguing that if Peter who was a fisherman didn't have to go to a seminary then why is there a need for

for your study they likely do not take into account that the prophets and the apostles were using their own native

languages like Hebrew and coin Greek if we in the in the present age do not study the languages cultures and

practices that existed at the Times the Bible was written then we will surely end up with a faulty interpretation of

attacks if you want to study the French Norwegian Spanish or Chinese or German literatures surely you have to study

their languages but I'm not saying that we cannot fully understand the gospel if we just read it in our own plain

language because John 3 16 is a very plain verse that anybody can actually interpret that God so loved the world

that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life

now they also deny the teaching of a literal Hellfire don't you know that Jesus preached more

on the subject of Hell compared to heaven but still a number of calls do not believe in a little Hellfire or

Eternal condemnation they usually hold the belief of annihilationism like the 70 Adventists

and Jehovah's Witnesses which is the complete destruction of the wicked people as a result of judgment

one of the reasons why this Doctrine came up is due to the reason that they cannot accept the fact that how can a

loving God throw people into Eternal Hellfire condemning them for eternity I had this dilemma before several years

ago but since this is a teaching of the scripture I just have to embrace and accept it this is why it's very

important to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all the people around us now we go to the foreign quotes

number one foreign cult is of course the Watchtower in Bible track Society now their common name was Jehovah's

Witnesses this was founded in 1872 the founder of this religious movement was Charles Taze Russell

he was born in 1852 to 1916. Russell is considered to be the faithful and wise servant or discreet slave in other

version in Matthew 24 45. that dispenses the truth to the flock you know to his members but currently they now believe

it's the governing body set of you know leaders who does this through their magazines and books his former religion

is congregational their membership spans 18.6 million worldwide as of 2021 and they kept on growing due to

door-to-door personalization their extra biblical literatures are awake and watched our magazines they want to

introduce the name Jehovah's Witness starting 1931 was their second president by the name of Judge Joseph Franklin

Rutherford they have um like a number of failed prophecies now and it's two numerous to

actually name them or the especially the year regarding our magadon and the coming of Christ

Frederick France the fourth President of the Watchtower was actually responsible for printing the new world translation

of the Holy Bible which many prominent Christian Scholars comments us a perversion of the original manuscript

it's not faithful to the scripture now the beliefs and practices of the Watchtower in Bible track Society

they believe that the Divine name Jehovah is only reserved to the father alone he is the creator of all

the name Jehovah according to them should not be applied to Jesus Christ but of course for us we believe that

Jesus Christ is also called Yahweh and Jehovah as well Jesus Christ was the first to be created

according to them before everything else the holy spirit is an impersonal and active voice

moving in this world they also believe man is a sinner and that people will be safe if they

acknowledge Jehovah's name and do God's will in the Watchtower in Bible track Society

the 144 000 Jehovah's Witnesses they are labeled as born again they are the only ones who can share in the Heavenly Glory

while the rest of the people will enjoy their life on planet Earth they do not believe in a literal

Hellfire rather they adhere to the doctrine of Soul sleep they believe that the wicked people will

be annihilated in the end they have their own Bible version the

new world translation of the Holy Scripture or Holy Bible they do not believe in saluting the flag

okay participating in politics joining the Army and voting they do not practice uh blood transfusion because for them

they take the passages in The Book of Leviticus very literally that once you eat blood that simply means that you are

not supposed to be transfused by Blood as well so how can we engage with you know the Jehovah's

Fitness people you may ask according to acts 1 8 for whom should Jehovah's Witnesses Witness

doesn't this imply that Jesus is the true Jehovah to whom we bear witness Jesus said in uh acts 1 8 but you will

receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my Witnesses now Jesus Christ was the one

saying this you will be my Witnesses in Jerusalem in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the Earth so in other

words they should have been called Jesus Witnesses not just Jehovah's Witnesses organization number two we have here the

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints now their common name is the Mormon

Church they are usually called Mormon people but they do not want to be called in that name

for them they want to be labeled as Latter-Day Saints or LDS this group was founded in

1830 the founder of this religious group was Joseph Smith Jr well he live 1805 to 1844.

his former religion was Presbyterian their worldwide membership now spans 16.6 million as of 2020. and they are

growing Leaps and Bounds they are they are they also uh put up a number of temples here in the Philippines

now they're extra biblical literatures are the Book of Mormon we have also the darkness and Covenants they also have

world of great price they usually use the King James version of the Bible as uh their own uh version they don't use

the other modern versions available in the market Joseph Smith Jr was born in Sharon

Vermont on December 23 1805. well his parents are Joseph and Lucy Matt Smith and in the spring of 1820 he

had a version or Vision rather of two personages the father and the son instructing him not to join any

sectarian churches or denominational churches since they were all wrong and all their beliefs were Abominations

imagine that all the churches teachings are wrong well uh three years later on September

21 this is uh 1823 he claimed to have seen and spoken with an angel named Moroni the angel had told

the young Smith that he was an inhabitant or rather that there is an inhabitant uh in Central America

who had hidden several Golden Plates that contained the history of his people as well as the entirety of the Gospel he

was instructed to use the two stones those are the urim and thumim to read the reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics

well this is not true but I make believe only these are fiction The Book of Mormon was the result of

this translation many researchers discovered that hundreds of verses from the King James version were lifted Into

the Book of Mormon accusing space of plagiarism now let's go to the beliefs and

practices of the Latter-Day Saints or the or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

they believe in three individual guns the father who is Elohim the son Jesus Christ who is Jehovah and the Holy Ghost

they believe that Jesus is the husband of Mary Martha and Mary Magdalene in other words Jesus is a polygamous person

they believe also in Eternal Marriage in heaven it's like romance of the Gods they

believe that Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer who who became shaytan I mean they are Spirit Brothers could

you imagine that they believe humans can be gods in the future

they believe man is a sinner who spiritually pre-existed even before they were born a reason why

Mormon couple had to have many children because they are they want the spirits to have a human body they believe in

Three Degrees Of Heaven that Celestial Kingdom is for those who have lived under the law that terrestrial kingdom

is for those who have lived without the law and rejected the gospel in this life and the Celestial Kingdom is for those

who have obeyed the gospel or Celestial law and with devotion and obedience to the teachings of the Mormon church so

again They are promoting good works they believe the Bible is only correct as far as it is translated correctly so

therefore if you quote the scripture against them they will say there's something wrong

with the Bible they also don't don't drink coffee or Coca-Cola

they believe that a dead person can still be saved by proxy baptism so therefore if a person is a Mormon he can

actually save a number of dead people in the past like Napoleon Hitler and so and so forth

so how do we engage with the Mormon people well you can uh

inquire as to how the person will experience eternal life So speaking of this after he or she has

explained the significance of Good Works in addition to Faith you can begin explaining passages such as Ephesians 3

to 10 James 2 14-24 and Romans 11 6 in their proper context so again focus on this on

those passages okay so the third is uh the United Pentecostal Church

International Organization three the common names of this group are UPC

one is Pentecostals Jesus only churches and the new issue this religious group began in 1945.

their current superintendent right now is Dr David K Bernard this group originated from the Assemblies of God

and currently their worldwide memberships spans to 5.2 million worldwide as of 2019 and that includes

the Philippines the origins of the one is Pentecostalism movement can be traced back to the early

1900s North American Pentecostal movement between 1913 and 1916 a number of Pentecostal leaders namely Ari

McAllister frankly Edward Glenn a cook and Garfield T Haywood began a uh spreading of the teaching that the

water baptism formula should be in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that's based from Acts 2 38.

rather than Matthew 28 19-20 now this cause Rift tension and division among their Pentecostal or among the

Pentecostal churches the Assemblies of God where the denomination that most uh mostly was

affected by this defection at the time well what they did was to issue a statement of fundamental truth that

accepted the Trinity concept as a result of the modelist doctrine the denomination barred 156 of their 585

ministers as a result of the teachings of this one as ministers various Splinter came

uh they came out actually promoting the one is Pentecostal doctrines the United Pentecostal Church International is one

of the largest and most visible Oneness religious groups today having been created in 1945 by the

merger of the Pentecostal church incorporated and Pentecostal Assemblies of Jesus Christ by the way the UPC

believes Jesus Christ is the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and there's only one person in the godhead so I hope uh

you don't believe that okay so and this organization actually gave birth to the groups of Apollo kiboloi which is the

kingdom of Jesus Christ the name above every name and the group of Wilde Almeida Jesus Miracle Crusade

International and Luis Luis Santos Jesus Christ to God be the glory or friends again

and they have been previously Associated before in this particular Oneness group although apology left the UPC because he

started teaching another form of model stitching now we go to the beliefs and practices

of the United Pentecostal Church International they believe God consists of one

that's one person focusing on Jesus Christ again Jesus Christ for them manifested

in three roles as the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit now the father in the Holy Spirit is actually his divinity

while the son is in his Humanity they believe that the King James version of the Bible is the only acceptable

version that's the only version that they accept they also believe

in at least four requirements to be saved okay so there are four requirements for them to be saved and uh

these are faith in the Oneness of Jesus Christ uh another is repentance and water

baptism are needed for the Forgiveness of one sin unless you are unless you are uh

you are baptized in water especially in Jesus name then you cannot be saved or you are not saved

speaking in tongues it's necessary as well as a sign of Salvation that if you don't speak in tongues then that simply

means you don't have the Holy Spirit In You that's why some people are saying that

they fake they speak in tongues in order for them to tell the people that you know they are saved

well at the same time external holiness they observe external Holiness in order for them to again say that they are also

saved and believers they have long hair and they have white uh clothes so second or very conservative

another is that they believe in heaven and the afterlife which is of course we also believe and they believe in a

literal Hellfire so there are many ways in uh again engaging with those who belong to this

particular court one way is to ask them some probing questions like this one

if water baptism is required for salvation then how can the Gentiles receive the holy spirit before water

baptism implying their salvation in Acts 10 47. because in fact they spoke in tongues even before they were water

baptized implying that they are all they already received the Holy Spirit there are some Christians who classified

the Oneness movement the Roman Catholic Church the Church of Christ the company lights who believe

that water baptism can save you the Lord's recovery who tried to

connect or join uh and the Seventh Adventist as heterodox denominations

this indicates that they believe uh them to be under the list of Christianity yet their beliefs are only a bit apparent

okay so their belief is not really orthodox however most recognized apologetics

Ministries and prominent apologies all over the world agreed to categorize these groups under the category of a

call since they diverged either from the Theology of the trinity or the Oneness or doctrine of redemption

um the like for example the one the seven the Oneness the 70 Adventists the Roman Catholic Church of course they

they um introduce this kind of works system the Lord's recovery of witnessly may claim to embrace Orthodox

traitarianism but they inject the teaching of neo-modalism into trinitarianism it's like you know saying

that Jesus Christ is the father but they also believe that uh in in three persons it's like joining together those two

different documents according to them if these religious groups are to be classified as

Christians then Believers should not be reaching out to them with the gospel but we cannot dispute the fact that there

might be some members in this religious cult groups who have experienced salvation and genuine transformation by

a personal relationship with Jesus Christ we can just say that they are all condemned of course that is very

Judgment of us they can also even have a personal relationship with Christ well that

depends on the person however it is possible that they choose to remain as members of their religious

group owing to several personal reasons some of the key reasons could be they do not want to live is due to relationship

with their family members or friends feeling of condemnation that if they leave they will feel

condemned or persecution so I hope that this information will help us in engaging with the loss

especially those in the Cults and disciple more people for Jesus Christ this concludes session 4 of our

apologetics class foreign [Music]