Rise Of The Cults: Where Did All These Strange

American Religious Sects Come From?

Rise of the Cults
By Larry Wessels

Bible Text: Acts 2:38, John 14:6

Preached on: Thursday, April 7, 2011

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Larry Wessels: Today we're going to be covering just the Rise of the Cults, the subject at
hand. Thank you all for being here. Anyway, as you can see by the cover sheet here for
all of my notes that will cover the topic today, the Rise of the Cults, we basically are
covering the early nineteenth century, moving through the nineteenth century. I really
wanted to put the United Pentecostal Church in here but they didn't really start until the
early twentieth century, so say we are in the wrong century although they were very early
in that century. I was like I had to leave them out. So maybe next century we can get to
the Oneness Pentecostals but basically we have the Rise of the Cults and I'm going to
basically do this because this is detailed historical information, I'm going to pretty much
pull a Jonathan Edwards here. Whenever Jonathan Edwards preached, he had his
manuscripts and everything written out and he would just stand up there and just start
reading everything he had prepared for his sermons and so forth. I felt like he was a
pretty good preacher so I think I'm going to follow his example here just because the
information is so detailed.

So what we're going to do is just start on the first page behind the cover sheet. You're
going to see restorationism. I'll try to keep this within my allotted timeframe because I've
been one time invited to several churches to speak and the reason is I went way beyond
my time and the preacher goes, "I'm not going to invite that guy anymore," although the
people seemed to like my long-windedness but the preachers are always in a hurry to
catch an airplane or whatever they want to do.

Anyway, we're going to start here with restorationism or something called the Restoration
Movement. We'll get into that in more detail here in a moment. Basically because this
topic is the Rise of the Cults, I figured it was important to understand what a cult is to
begin with because a lot of people have different definitions of the word "cult." So for
our purposes, you can see right away at the beginning it says a cult is a counterfeit of the

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true faith of the Bible. Of course, there is another definition I've always liked which is
very short and succinct and that is: a cult is organized heresy. That's about as short as you
can get, organized heresy. I've always liked that definition as well. Basically it's just
groups that diverge from the truth and the essential doctrine of the Bible. And as we go
through here just looking briefly from the points of the characteristics of a cult, the
leaders appear as, point 1, leaders appear as angels of light as mentioned in 2 Corinthians
11:14, meaning messengers of truth and wisdom but really they're not. They just look like
they are. 2. A cult teaches another doctrine about Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Gospel.
That is found in 2 Corinthians 11:14, also Galatians 1:6 through 9. Cults invariably teach
forms of salvation by works yet claim to be teaching God's grace. In fact, they are
denying God's grace and you can find this in Titus 1:16 and also Jude 4. Cults quote the
Bible as an authority but they misinterpret it and add to it and take away from it. You get
this, of course, in Mark 7:7 through 9 and other verses quoted there throughout.

While I was listening to about eight hours of Bible on tape last night, I was listening to
the Old Testament prophets Haggai, Zephaniah, you know, Zechariah and the rest of
them there, Malachi, and when you're listening to those guys on tape, I had the Alexander
Scourby translation of the King James, listening to it for hour after hour, never getting
tired of it. I never get tired of listening to the word of God. It's just something I can do
hour after hour but when you are listening to those guys, it's so different than what you
hear in evangelicalism today or most preachers that are preaching and I'm sort of an
evangelist but I almost feel like I'm in the wrong Testament. I feel like I should be one of
those fiery Old Testament prophets because when you're reading those Old Testament
prophets, they are just blasting away at the false prophets, you might call them cultists or
heretics, false preachers, the guys that aren't doing it God's way, and then you've got the
wrath of God coming out just everywhere.

So I was listening to that kind of stuff for six or seven hours last night, not the whole 10
hours but we get a break every now and then and sometimes people ask me a question
and I have to take off my headphones but anyway, when you get back into dealing with
cults and the things that I as a Christian evangelist do, it's just not very popular and I
really feel close to those Old Testament prophets. Then of course, I can understand when
Jesus is letting the scribes and Pharisees have it in Matthew 23, almost the whole chapter,
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees," and then you get the book of Acts with some of the
things that the apostles said to some of the false prophets and Judaizers, particularly in
Galatians, you know, there is a real similarity there that we are supposed to be exposing
these guys that are bringing across damnable heresies.

So when we get into the cults and read this stuff, really we're just doing the biblical thing
and today so many people get upset, "Oh, you're not being loving. You're not supposed to
get up there and say bad things to people. You know, you should just say positive things."
I once sent a newsletter to this lady who was all excited about me being a Christian
evangelist and so I sent her a newsletter and the next time I saw her, she worked at this
Christian business I was doing some business with, so I went in there to pick up some
business cards and she just immediately turned sour on me and said, "You're so negative.
You're supposed to be positive. You're so negative." And the problem is most of these

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people don't know what the Bible, I mean, if they really had a love for the word of God,
they're going to see it's a different story than we're getting on television or radio. Me
though, I just love the word of God and I want to present it and do it the way God's
people did it, wrote it and got killed for. So I get myself in a lot of trouble when I'm on
campus or out on the highways and byways and streets and stuff, but I don't really worry
about it because to me this is the way they did it in the Bible, New Testament, Old
Testament, and if you know the word of God and you can preach that word of God and
you can share it, well then, you become fearless, especially in prayer and filled with the
Spirit. It's amazing what the Lord will have you saying out there to all these people.

Of course, now we are blessed with over 100 shows right now on the internet. We are on
Yahoo video, Google video, YouTube. I'm debating Muslims who are making comments
now on our shows. It's an exciting thing to have global evangelism. Now I can get the
whole world mad at me instead of just a campus and around town on cable access TV.
Basically when we are dealing with cults and false prophets, this is what the Bible, 33
percent of the New Testament is apologetic in nature. Apologetics comes from the Greek
word "apologia" from Jude 3, he's talking about you are supposed to earnestly contend
for the faith. He uses the Greek word there "apologia," to defend that faith, to wrestle, to
grapple with false prophets.

So I mention all this to get back to this cult thing that you're supposed to expose the
unfruitful works of darkness and if someone is teaching heresy or lies, you're supposed to
expose that. So in this church history lesson, we are basically getting an understanding of
where did a lot of these common American cults come from here in North America and
this basically goes back to what the Bible is telling us to do about dealing with these
people. So this is an important subject to study just because the Bible makes such a big
deal about fighting false religions, false prophets, individuals. You get certain false
prophets that are cursed by God. God actually kills them or God's prophet will actually
curse them and they will die or be eaten by worms or be put blind like Paul cursed that
magician there in the book of Acts and made him blind. You've got this battle, this
spiritual battle going on all the time.

So as we go down this list, cult leaders, number 7, I'm trying to rush through this because
I could easily, I've got a lot of material to read through to give you the real thing and I
can usually stand around talking. I've done that many times after work, as a matter of
fact, at the post office. I'll get preaching to certain people, sometimes I'm out there for
two to three hours preaching to one or two or maybe three or four people, and then when
I get home late from work, my wife says, "What were you doing? Were you out there
preaching in the parking lot again?" I've made the same mistake in fellowshipping. Years
ago when Dayspring used to be at the old American Legion Hall over by the river, they
finally, the elders of the church finally gave me a key to the building because I would
usually be out in the parking lot fellowshipping with some Dayspringer, one or another,
so long that we would be the last ones out there so finally they just gave me the key to the
building so I could lock up. So I love it. I could just talk all day on this stuff.

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But anyway, down here, number 7: cult leaders are usually strongly dominant over their
followers yet the followers are blind to their own bondage. Blind leaders of the blind,
Matthew 15. But you've got all your Scripture references here and everything to cover
these cults, false prophets and stuff and it's an important thing and so what I'm going to
start doing here because this history is so detailed, I'm going to do that Jonathan Edwards
thing, I'm going to start reading pretty much straight from what you have here on your
notes so you can really get a feel for this historical background.

Here sometimes a Christian gets sidetracked into a cult, that can happen. There was a guy
that he was born again but he got sidetracked into Mormonism but he couldn't stay in it
that long because of the Spirit. When I first got born again back in 1981, I almost joined a
Oneness Pentecostal Church. I actually went there. You know, when you're saved and
you're on fire for Jesus and you read your Bible 12 to 16 hours a day like I was, then you
go to one of these Pentecostal churches where they've got the strobe lights and everybody
is dancing and the preacher is screaming and yelling and he's got a handkerchief to wipe
off the sweat because he's so excited, well, I'm excited like that too. I want to join this
thing, you know, I wanted to be like these guys but as soon as I started to get their
doctrinal teachings even though I was still new in the Lord, I started, the Spirit within me
started saying something is wrong here. Something's wrong and I never could, even
though I worked it out with this Oneness Pentecostal preacher to get baptized in the name
of Jesus according to Acts 2:38, I never did it because the Lord himself just confirmed in
my spirit that something is really wrong here and I ended up going to a Christian
bookstore, started getting some books and stuff to research this thing and then it was like
I was so new in Christianity but the Lord plus giving me resources to go to, I was able to
escape that. And of course, another thing I was running into when I first got saved is
Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. It's like they were seeming to be the only people that
wanted to talk about the Bible. I wanted to share the Bible with everybody.

And, of course, it did ruin my Dungeons & Dragons game. I was a dungeon master of a
Dungeons & Dragons game. I got saved and we used to play for 14 hours a week. Twelve
to 14 guys would come over on Friday night at 6 o'clock in the evening and I would run
this dungeon until the next morning, until about 6 to 8 the next morning, and we did this
for months and months, but right in there somewhere I got saved and it was like the next
week after I got saved, it was like, "Guys, I don't really feel like doing it. You know, what
I want to tell y'all about tonight is you ought to see some of these Bible prophecies. You
ought to see..." Anyway, that destroyed my Dungeons & Dragons game. Nobody came
back after the first week and that session only lasted two hours, it didn't last 14 or 12
hours like he usually did, but two hours was about all the last of them could take of end
time Bible prophecy and that was the end of that. But anyway, you see, I can get off on a
million tangents so I've got to stay to this written paperwork.

Okay, down here: what is the Restoration Movement? This is really the basis of where all
these cults and things came from. The modern-day American cults here in the nineteenth
century that we're talking about here, so I'm going to read through this. Basically we have
some confirmation of what is the Restoration Movement from people in the Church of
Christ which is basically coming out of the Campbellism movement. In fact, as I get into

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this, I just wanted to show a couple of books here. These are very popular in Churches of
Christ, Disciples of Christ, the Christian Church, the Stone Campbell movement,
"Memoirs of Alexander Campbell." You can get these all the time, in fact, I still get mail.
These pieces of mail came into my mailbox just over the last couple of months and this is
the Cincinnati Christian University, Cincinnati Bible College, basically they are talking
about the Stone Campbell movement and studying Alexander Campbell. This is modern
day. They still do this today. Alexander Campbell and all the stuff, just to show you that
this thing is still going on and I still get mail-outs from them. And, of course, just like
everything else, I've got over a thousand books in my library right now by all kinds of
different religions: Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Unification Church by Reverend
Moon, Oneness Pentecostals. I've got almost everything so anything I get from them like
these even, I save. You never know when I can use them for something.

But I was looking down here, these are actual Campbellites or Church of Christ people
and they promote this Restoration Movement, as they call it. In fact, in these mail-outs it
talks about the restoration of the ancient Gospel. It talks about the very things that these
guys are telling us what the Restoration Movement is. Lynn Anderson, Minister of
Highland, Church of Christ, Abeline, Texas. The Church of Christ is a big denomination.
That's from their actual publications but that's not really what the Restoration Movement
is but that's what some of their own people think of it. Alan Hyers, Deacon, Getwell
Church of Christ, Memphis, Tennessee, former minister of the church. "You," referring
to Mr. Anderson, "are talking about the Church of Christ as a whole, the Restoration
Movement." This is where the Campbellites themselves define what the Restoration
Movement is. So according to Mr. Hyers, the Association of Garland, and Thomas
Warren, editors of The Spiritual Sword magazine which is a nationwide magazine
published all over the place, published by the Getwell church's elders, the church is the
Restoration Movement. So the Campbellites, the Church of Christ itself claims to be the
Restoration Movement. When you read their literature, they are saying that they have
restored the ancient Gospel and as we get into this historical context, we are going to start
to see by the teachings of Alexander Campbell and those guys that are with him, that
these other cults started springing out of it. I'm going to show you the historical links to
all of that.

Now let's go up here. Who were the leaders of the Restoration Movement? 1. Thomas
Campbell. Thomas Campbell's famous declaration and address stated in no uncertain
terms the principles upon which such restoration should rest. And I'm not going to bother
reading all of the references but the references are all there, we have everything
documented, and they still document it to this day.

2. Alexander Campbell. Alexander Campbell, son of Thomas, became even more prolific
in speaking of the laws of the kingdom as seen in Christianity Restored and the
Millennial Harbinger, which is his main magazine which had a lot of impact on a lot of
things as we'll see later.

3. Barton W. Stone. The men making the plea among them, Barton W Stone, a
Presbyterian. He got in, all these guys came out, well, I don't want to jump the gun.

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You'll see this as we keep going down. I'll just try...I'm not doing a very good job of
Jonathan Edwards but I'm used to just doing a lot of expository, extemporaneous
preaching.

But anyway, pioneer teachers as Walter Scott. So these guys here, these are the four
primary founding fathers of the Restoration Movement, none of whom ever obeyed what
they called the ancient Gospel which was supposedly restored on November 18, 1827
when Walter Scott baptized William Amend. Now, we'll get into what that means as we
get into all this historical information.

Significant dates and events in the Restoration Movement as revealed in Restoration

writings. We refer to nothing here but what can be found in the writings of the
restorationists who claim to speak where the Bible speaks, etc.

1807, Thomas Campbell comes to America and is assigned by the Presbyterian Church
Synod to minister in Western Pennsylvania.

1809, Thomas Campbell is censored by the Presbyterian Synod.

1809, Thomas Campbell forms the "Christian Association of Washington" in

Pennsylvania in promoting Christian union.

1809 again, Thomas Campbell writes declaration address as constitution of this new
Association and it became an embryonic creed of the Restoration Movement.

So these guys are already in 1809 coming over from, I think it's Scotland, they
immigrated here to the United States but right away because they've got heretical
teachings and beliefs, they get in trouble with the Presbyterians and so basically they just
start their own stuff here, as we can see.

1810, Thomas Campbell requests Presbyterian Synod to receive the Christian Association
into Christian and ministerial communion but is refused. You see, already the
Presbyterians are seeing that, well, there is something wrong with these guys' doctrine.
They are not conforming here to what we believe.

1811, Thomas Campbell decides that the Association should assume the character of an
independent church. He finally concluded to take the step. He felt it to be his duty to
organize an independent community thus on May 4, 1811, Campbell assembled his
followers for the purpose of organization.

Next page, 1811 again, organizational meeting held at Brush Run. Thomas Campbell was
appointed as elder. Alexander was licensed to preach, four deacons selected, had
communion service. Alexander preached, Thomas preached, thus there was formally
established a distinct religious community. So they are kicked out of the Presbyterians so
they start their own thing.

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1811, July 4, Thomas Campbell stood on a route in Buffalo Creek and immersed a few
followers and thus became the first to introduce immersion into the movement, then
called the Reformatory Movement. They hadn't called it the Restoration per se yet, but
they are already in that stage. Once they break from the Presbyterians, well, they're kind
of just starting to set up their own way of doing things.

1812, June 12, the Campbell's and the Haydens, seven persons in all, are immersed by
Matthias Luce, a Baptist preacher in Buffalo Creek. This was nearly 15 years before the
practice of "baptism in order to obtain the remission of sins" was supposedly restored by
Walter Scott, November 18, 1827.

1813, the first Church of the Christian Association applies to the Redstone Baptist
Association for union and after much debate, the union was formed. So they are rejected
by the Presbyterians but somehow they are able to link up with the Baptists around there.

1816, Alexander Campbell preaches heresies on the law at Redstone Association.

1820, Alexander Campbell debates with John Walker, a Presbyterian, and defends
Baptists name, doctrine and history. This is from the Campbell/Walker debate.

1823, August, Alexander Campbell learns that the Baptists are on the verge of expelling
him from the Redstone Association. So now all of a sudden he's in trouble again, this
time not with the Presbyterians but with the Baptists. So seeing this happen, what
happens? Brush Run Church dismisses several members with Alexander in order to form
a new church at Wellsburg to escape expulsion by Redstone Association. So what they do
is they form up as something new before they get expelled. It's sort of like, "I quit before
you can fire me." But anyway,

1823 again, October, Alexander Campbell debates with W. L. McCullough and for first
time introduces the theory of "baptism in order to the remission of sins," but is still
identifying himself with the Baptists. And all of your documentation is there.

1827, Walter Scott arranges the "ancient Gospel," and makes experiments with it and
baptizes William Amend on November 18, 1827, and claims to have restored the Gospel.
Now we're getting to the nitty-gritty of it all. Now they are starting to say that, "We have
restored the ancient Gospel the way it was originally preached by the apostles way back
there. The Presbyterians got it wrong, the Baptists got it wrong but all of a sudden we've
learned that by this baptism in order to the remission of sins, that that's actually the
restoration of the true Gospel, the ancient Gospel going back to the New Testament
times."

Okay, so, 1832, union of Campbell's disciples with Barton Stone's Christians. This is
where you get the Disciples of Christ, you get the Christian Church, you've got the
Church of Christ mixed in there and so forth.

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1849, the Missionary Society with Alexander Campbell as president. You get a lot of
infighting going on. I'll talk about that in just a second. I want to make this important
point down at the bottom of the page. None of the four, Thomas Campbell, Alexander
Campbell, Barton Stone, or Walter Scott was ever baptized after Scott's restoration. They
had all claimed to be saved before their immersions, hence all the Restorers were lost
men according to the present day Restoration Movement teaching about water baptism.
What they're saying is in order to be a real Christian, you have to be water baptized by
immersion. That's what they're saying, that's what this baptism in order to the remission
of sins is all about. In order to be a real Christian, to be saved, you've got to get water
baptized in immersion and that's the restoration of the true Gospel. They have
incorporated water baptism right into what they say is the real Gospel.

So I find it interesting though, too, that during all this time one of the main guys that's
involved in this with the Campbell's is Barton Stone. Now, this tells you how messed up
this movement is when Barton Stone is one of the main guys with the Campbell's and
Walter Scott and he doesn't even believe in the deity of Christ yet he is accepted with
these guys. We did a video, we have it loaded on the internet, we've got over 100 videos
on the internet right now but we're just starting to put some Campbellism stuff on there
and it just takes time to upload all these things. I've got like another 400 hours of
television shows to load up. It's going to take a while to get to all my Campbellism stuff
but anyway, we do a show called the Campbellite Doctrine of the Work of the Holy
Spirit. They also don't believe you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, by the way. That's
another thing. They say the only way you get anything is from reading the Bible but there
is no internal working of the Holy Spirit. But while we were doing that video, that two
hour video on the Campbellite doctrine of the Holy Spirit, we bring out all this stuff
about Barton Stone and his difficulty in understanding how could Jesus be God. By the
way, we are getting a lot of hits on our Evidence that Jesus is God with Dr. James White
and more downloads than we know what's going on there, but it's exciting that so many
people on the global internet are taking an interest in knowing that Jesus is God Almighty
in the flesh. But apparently these guys that think they restored the true Gospel, at least
one of them anyway, had trouble with that doctrine.

Okay, as time flies on me, 1860, instrumental music digression.

Then 1906, the Churches of Christ listed separately from Christian Church, Disciples of
Christ.

The twentieth century, there have been continuing controversies in the Restoration
Movement over institutionalism, schools, sponsoring arrangements, orphan homes,
benevolent work, classes, cups, hats and nearly 100 other issues, especially the issue of
divorce and remarriage. You know, these digressions are basically the Campbellites are
fighting with each other because it's all based on works. You've got to get water baptized
in order to be saved but that may not get you through because if you start committing
sins, you can lose that salvation and then you need the law of second pardon to come
through for you. And you've got to keep all these works and if your church has a
missionary society, well, you're not saved, at least that's what some of the other

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Campbellites would say that there is some anti-missionary, that's what we're talking
about. They fight over all kinds of...instrumental music. A lot of them just don't believe,
if you've got a piano in your church, well, you're going to go to hell because this thing is
in here during the worship service. Even pitch pipes, some of them fight over that. If you
even just use a pitch pipe, even though your people are singing a cappella, you cheated
and you used a pitch pipe, you're going to hell.

But anyway, this is what we're dealing with. We're dealing with these guys that started all
this and Alexander Campbell was the head of the Church of Christ basically but
Alexander Campbell went overseas in 1847. Henry Clay of Kentucky who had moderated
the Campbell/Rice debate in 1843, he wrote a letter of recommendation for Campbell to
use for introduction in foreign lands. In the letter, Mr. Clay referred to Campbell as the
head and founder of one of the most important and respectable religious communities in
the United States, Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, volume 2, page 548. And of course, I
have his memoirs right here that they still sell at all these Campbellite churches and
institutions and universities and Abilene Christian University and all that.

Then we go down here, you can basically take my word for it because the time is flying
on me here, that the Campbellites have said and have seen written in Alexander's
memoirs that he has been claimed to be the head because he was so instrumental and he
put out volumes of literature that the Campbellites just really soaked up and this literature
and everything went all over the place.

Okay, going down here, the Reformation is another term for the Restoration Movement,
and according to Alan Hyers, the Restoration Movement is the same as the church as a
whole. Since Alexander Campbell was head of the church, it's true the restorationists do
not like to admit this fact but sometimes they slip up and the truth breaks through. Here's
what others say about Campbell and you've got a list there. I'm not going to bother
reading all that but there is plenty of documentation on all this kind of stuff.

Moving onto the next page, we are looking down here not too far down but Restoration
and Campbellism are one and the same. Why? Restoration doctrine originates with
Campbell. We went into some of those historical dates already earlier.

Okay, now we're getting into some of this here on the baptismal theory taught by the
Restoration Movement. "The Scriptures teach that water baptism is for, in order to obtain
the remission of past sins." They are really jumping on that word "for" and making that
word "for" mean "in order to obtain," and they are jumping on that Greek word, I think
it's ?? depending on how you want to pronounce it in the Greek, and they are forcing that
interpretation in there in order to obtain into that rendering of what that Greek word
means and then they say that's the restoration of the ancient Gospel.

Okay, I'm going to skip a lot of stuff because my time is starting to run out already, but
the Campbellites following the interpretation of their master spirit contend for the word
"for" and I just explained all that so I'm just going to go on down. Sometimes I explain
things before I even read them and know it's right there.

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Campbellite interpretation refuted. I've got your scriptural references for this. I would
delight in just reading out all these verses and just sitting here and reading the word of
God, just showing how it just blows this stuff away. Anyway, you have your references
there. Faith is born of God therefore alive, 1 John 5:4. Faith is born of the Spirit through
the word of God, John 6:63, 1 Thessalonians 1:5. All of your references are there. Faith is
the work of God. Faith is an act of obedience. Faith is an act of trust. Faith is an act of
righteousness. Faith works by love. Faith is God's gift. Faith receives Christ. Through
faith one passes from death to life. Before one is baptized in obedience to Christ, he is a
child of God by obedient faith in Christ Jesus, Galatians 3:26.

Conclusions, although God's law requires perfect obedience, restorationists teach that
men may be saved by less than that, less than what is required. Imperfect law keeping is
no law keeping. Restorationists have an unholy mix of law and grace but in reality have
neither law nor grace. Restorationists frustrate the grace of God and abuse the
righteousness required by law. Restorationism is modern day Phariseeism, Galatian
Judaism. It lowers the standard of God's law, demands, rejects the perfect righteousness
of Christ provided by grace and seeks to establish its own righteousness by corrupt
works. "Get that piano out of here." They think that's going to do something to help their
salvation. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth,
Romans 10:14. The restorationists' plan of salvation in which if you will obey you will be
saved in heaven after this life is, and here are some of the things, this isn't all of them but
these are some of the things you've got to do in order to hold down your salvation maybe:
you hear, believe, repent, confess, baptism, local congregation, Lord's supper on first day,
giving on first day, singing, non-instrumental depending on which one you're dealing
with, prayer, benevolence, Bible study, no creed, Bible name, second law of pardon,
obedience to elders, good morals, no Christians and other denominations, scriptural
marriage if married, whatever the evangelists preach as the word of God. You also have
to keep the laws to the best of your ability. You do not have to be perfect, be sure all your
sins are confess before death and if your life favorably corresponds to the truth, God will
save you after death. This is neither law nor grace but the restorationists' distortion of
both. It does not meet the requirements of the law and it does not receive the free gift of
God's grace. It is no better than the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees and except
your righteousness exceeds it, you will in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven, Matthew
5:20.

And I've always loved this little contrast here so I'll put it in. What man's works can and
cannot do. Works cannot save you. They cannot traditionally justify you. They can't
forgive your sin. You can't receive the Spirit by works. You can't get elected by works,
certainly it didn't work for Esau, that's for sure. Let's see, works can't fulfill the law. You
don't get a call because of your works. You don't get regeneration because of works. You
don't obtain faith because of works and they don't keep you saved, either. So that's just
things they can't do and the Scriptures make it clear that it doesn't work that way. Works
can, though, manifest salvation, demonstratably justify, renounce sin, walk in the Spirit,
assure of election, reveal the light in the law, respond to calling, express new life, profess
faith, keep one's rewards. Everything has its proper God-ordained purpose and good

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works have their necessary use, Titus 3:14. They demonstrate inner love in an outer form,
Galatians 5:6. They are an example for others, 1 Timothy 2:10. They bring a good report,
1 Timothy 5:10. They bring glory to God, and there are verses. To make saviors of good
works is to pervert them and rob the glory due to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Max, I've got about 13 minutes left? Okay, obviously I can't read all this stuff in 13
minutes so I'm going to, take my word for it, it's all documented and when you've got an
hour or two at home to read all this, you can read what I could have said if I had another
hour to be up here.

Campbellism and Mormonism. Now I'm going to start showing you the historical links
from where a lot of these American based cults came from in the Rise of the Cults.
Basically Campbellism and Mormonism, I'm not going to read through all this to save
time but the documentation is there. You had a major player in the Restoration
Movement who was very close to Alexander Campbell and his name was Sidney Rigdon.
You kind of see his name kind of spread throughout there but he was a very good orator,
and he was also a writer, a stenographer, and he worked closely with Alexander
Campbell and Alexander Campbell gave him a lot of good reports as being a good man
and everything. When Alexander Campbell was debating McCullough, Sidney Rigdon
was there taking a lot of the notes from that debate and he just helped generally. You
know, all church organizations usually have some guys in there that really help it along
and do a lot of good things to promote that particular organization in what they're trying
to do and that's what Sidney Rigdon was to Alexander Campbell.

But somewhere along in there, he fell out with the Campbellites and then got involved
with a guy named Joseph Smith Jr. and the documentation is in there but I don't have
time to get into all of it, read all the details here, but he got in with Joseph Smith Jr. and
because he was very good at writing and all those kinds of things, he got with Joseph
Smith, I think it was around 1827, and then lo and behold those two guys come out with
the Book of Mormon in 1830. Historical links and everything are right there. Sidney
Rigdon actually tied a lot of the Restoration Movement doctrine in with the stuff that
Joseph Smith was coming along with and you start seeing a lot of similarities between
what the Mormons are doing, particularly initially with what Sidney Rigdon was doing
over there with Alexander Campbell before he got out of that thing.

I think it's funny, I will read this one thing. Campbell thought the greatest about Sidney
Rigdon but right after he leaves what they called the Reformatory Movement, the
Restoration Movement, Alexander calls Sidney Rigdon: he is one of the greatest rascals
and basest hypocrites imaginable. So from a good report he goes to a lousy report from
Alexander Campbell.

In reading down in here, well, I guess I won't read it all but there was a time where all of
a sudden Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith Jr. are starting to be very successful in Ohio
starting this movement of Mormonism, and Alexander Campbell was so concerned about
it he actually went up there to preach against Mormonism. I guess maybe his conscience
was bothering him because he almost created this monster, Sidney Rigdon, who is

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actually incorporating a lot of the stuff. In fact, Mormonism is a polyglot of a lot of
different religious ideas because also Joseph Smith Jr. was involved in Freemasonry so he
incorporated a lot of the secret Mormon Temple rites that he learned from Freemasonry
into those rites that they still use today in the Mormon temples. Of course, they
incorporated a lot of Restoration Movement doctrine: the water baptism and a lot of their
do's and don'ts were coming right from Sidney Rigdon who brought it over from
Campbellism. So you get a lot of this stuff going on right there.

Moving on here, another thing that Alexander Campbell was responsible for is he started
a magazine called "The Millennial Harbinger" and he really made a big deal about the
Lord is coming, you know, the second coming of the Lord and all this kind of stuff. Now,
how many times have we heard about that already? People make mints off of Bible
prophecy and the Lord is coming soon. I remember back in 1988, there was a guy that
wrote a book that was a bestseller called "88 Reasons Why the Lord Will Return in
1988." He made millions of dollars on that thing and then when it didn't happen, what did
he do in 1989? He came out with another book, "89 Reasons Why Jesus Will Come Back
in 1989." He made another mint but I guess he made so much money after that he
decided, "I'll leave that to other guys to do."

Well, Alexander Campbell was doing this kind of stuff long before you get these modern
day guys who like to make a lot of money off of Bible prophecy. So he's teaching this
Millennial Harbinger stuff and the return of Christ. Well, you've got a guy named
William Miller, a Baptist preacher, picking up on some of this stuff and he starts
predicting the Lord is going to come back in October, I think it was 1843, on a certain
date and he did all this, came out with a book that supposedly showed to the exact date
when the Lord was going to come back in 1843. Well, it didn't happen so then he did like
that guy in the 1980s, he came out with another saying, "Well, I miscalculated something.
Really he's coming back in 1844." So everybody expects 1844. It doesn't happen. There
is something called a great disappointment. It's all in there. All these people that thought
it was going to happen were really disappointed, the great disappointment or whatever,
and they fall away and stuff.

But some of these guys don't want to give up. You've got some of these guys that say,
"Well, maybe he just came back and we just didn't see him. Maybe it was just an invisible
showing up." So you've got this Adventist movement taking place and out of the
Adventist movement you'll see down here on this page under the Millerite movement,
you've got Ellen G. White. She was in with that group that was looking for this 1844 and
it didn't happen, then suddenly with her soon-to-be husband who was also in that
movement, they start coming up with this idea of a closed door doctrine. But basically
she's coming up with these return for Christ, and suddenly she starts to have visions like
she's a prophetess of God and so these followers start looking to her as like she's a
messenger for these last days, and we've got to go with Ellen G. White as the true
prophetess of God. So she starts incorporating a lot of these works righteousness things,
the 10 Commandments, keeping the Sabbath day, dietary laws, you'll go insane if you
wear a wig, all kinds of laws that you need to know about to protect your salvation. If you
get past the judgment, there is going to be another sanctuary judgment that takes place in

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her doctrine. Even after you're dead, you've still got to go through something else. It's a
Seventh-day Adventist like purgatory, I guess, but it's not really like a purgatory but it's
another investigative judgment, as they call it, where I guess Jesus and the apostles check
the records one more time to make sure you're good enough to get in. We'll get into some
of that next week.

Out of that you also get the Jehovah's Witnesses coming along which, well, actually, I
missed it because I have this paper up, and out of that you get Christadelphianism also
who are actually coming out of the Disciples of Christ. And the Millennial thing, they
were touched by some of that Adventist staff of the Millerites and the Adventists, but at
the same time because of Barton W. Stone and some other things going on there, the
Christadelphians have real trouble with the deity of Jesus Christ, that Jesus is God in the
flesh. So you have this guy, John Thomas, starting the Christadelphians but he came out
of that movement and started his own thing and your history is all right for you as he gets
into it, and you can read that for yourself.

So you've got the Christadelphians coming out of that, then you've got the Jehovah's
Witnesses with Charles Taz Russell. He's into this Millennial stuff too that Alexander
Campbell started. Then you've got the Adventists and the Millerites and he starts picking
up on some of their doctrines about the return of Christ, and that's how come the
Jehovah's Witnesses even to this day have had so many false prophecies on the return of
Jesus Christ, prophesying he's going to return, the day of Armageddon is going to be in
1914. "Oh, we're wrong. 1918. Oh, 1925. Oh, 1941." I've got all this documented in my
newsletter on Jehovah's Witnesses. We haven't posted that on the internet yet but it'll be
there on the website as soon we can get set up for that. But the last prophecy I heard they
made was 1975. I've got the original Watchtower and Awake magazines where they are
actually saying that. In 1973 they are predicting 1975 as the last time. Of course they lost
a lot of members when 1976 hit, you know, but then people forget. That's what a false
prophet always depends on, people forgetting about that, and so they get new members
coming in. It's like what P. T. Barnum said, you know, "There is a sucker born every
minute." So they may lose some suckers but then they get some new ones that don't know
the past, don't know the history. Anyway, there are direct links there with the Jehovah's
Witnesses on that.

Now, on the Christian Science and the Unity School as I'm down to just about three or so
minutes, they weren't directly linked to Campbellism, they are coming more from
Theosophy which came from Madame Blavatsky who came over from Eastern Europe.
She was kind of a fraudulent psychic. But you've got your history here for Christian
Science and Unity School but because they were in the nineteenth century and Max has
me covering cults in the nineteenth century, I threw them in here because that's where
they belong.

You've got Mary Baker Eddy coming up with her book and the historical information is
there. It's interesting, both these religious cults, Unity School and Christian Science,
Quimby who was a teacher to Mary Baker Eddy, was also involved with the Fillmore's
who started the Unity School of Christianity. And just for fun down here I put Charles

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Fillmore's Metaphysical Bible Dictionary, it's at the bottom of the page, the last page, and
it just shows you how Christian Science and Unity School and these New Age cults take
Bible terminology and totally twist it into something else just like the Mormons do, the
Jehovah's Witnesses and so forth. This is the same way except in a different type of way,
in a New Age way.

But look down here at the last paragraph. It says the Fillmore's Metaphysical Bible
Dictionary, he defines Moses as "this progressive or drawing out process which works
from within outward." That's from page 461. I had that whole dictionary at home but, you
see, to them Moses is not an actual man or a prophet of God or Charlton Heston, he's in
that movie "The Ten Commandments," he is what he just defined it as, it's a progressive
drawing out process. So when you see Moses, you don't think of an historical figure, you
think of this metaphysical understanding of what that term means.

We look at Jerusalem. Jerusalem is defined as "the city of David which symbolizes the
great nerve center just back of the heart." So when you see Jerusalem, you don't think of
the actual city, you think of that nerve center behind your heart.

Over here, Christ is defined as "the divine idea man." Christ Jesus is the idea that is being
expressed by men. Now, Mary Baker Eddy picked up on this in Christian Science and in
her books and writings, she says Christ is an idea that Mary had one day. So Mary came
up with this idea.

But anyway, my time is up. Max is already out of his seat back there. We'll try to get into
just some of the actual doctrinal teachings of these cults and contrast them to biblical
truth and by learning that you will be armed to deal with anyone basically out there who
has problems in their biblical doctrine, because one thing I found dealing with cults is if
you study a little bit about this and learn how to refute them, you're pretty much good to
go in dealing with, and also just as a good witness for anyone you run into who doesn't
understand the essential Bible doctrines that need to be understood so that people can
understand who the real Jesus is, the real Gospel, and the Holy Spirit.

Moderator: Larry had dealt with the bringing up in the nineteenth century of the cults and
their establishment as they have grown, what we're going to do is just kind of take a little
bit of time away and go back, to go back and see just exactly what some of the doctrines
of these cults are. So, Larry, I will not take any more of your time.

Larry Wessels: As you recall from last week, we got into the Rise of the Cults. We
basically went back to 1823 with Thomas Campbell, Alexander Campbell, Barton W.
Stone and those guys, the restorationists, the restorers, and they basically taught a lot of
works righteousness doctrine, an ancient Gospel restored where you have to have water
baptism and you have to do all these works. And what's funny is a lot of people today and
a lot of apologetics organizations including the ones that are going to be doing our power
points today, don't really touch the Church of Christ or Campbellism, the Disciples of
Christ, they don't touch Roman Catholicism and groups like that simply because their
designation of what's a cult and what is not occult is basically what does the group say

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about Jesus Christ. If they are right about Jesus Christ, then we can't consider them a cult.
You know, so they don't consider Roman Catholicism to be a false religion because, hey,
they believe the Trinity. They believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Of course, then they
ignore the fact that Roman Catholicism teaches a totally different Gospel on all this
works righteousness stuff and the Church of Christ and there are a bunch of other groups
out there that they have a lot of doctrine right as far as the nature of the Godhead, but
then they incorporate all this works righteousness like the Judaizers did in Galatians, and
it ends up just being a different Gospel. Even though they may have the correct doctrine
of the Trinity or the deity of Jesus Christ but if you've got the wrong Gospel, you can
have a lot of things right and you're still just as lost and that's the problem.

So the false prophet situation is throughout the Old Testament and New Testament. In
fact, when you look at the New Testament, almost 33 percent of it is apologetic in nature.
You've got Paul almost the whole book of Colossians dealing with the Gnostic heretics.
You've got Galatians dealing with the Judaizers, you've got to be circumcised in order to
be saved. Throughout 1 John, everywhere you look, they are dealing with false prophets
and false doctrine. You read the whole Gospel or the whole chapter in the Gospel of
Matthew and also in Luke, chapter 4, where Jesus is in the wilderness dealing with the
devil. There you've got a classic case of how to deal with false prophets. You've got the
Lord Jesus battling the devil himself and refuting him with the word of God. "Man does
not live by bread alone but by," and then I usually start preaching that to people when I'm
out on the streets and no one ever knows the rest of the passage. They've just heard, "Man
does not live by bread alone," but they don't know the rest and I say, "but by every word
that proceeds from the mouth of God." You know, this thing here, of course your Bible
may not have a rubber band but anyway, it's knowing the word of God and that's how you
refute false prophets just like the Lord Jesus did in the wilderness against the devil.

The devil is just twisting those passages and Jesus just shot him down with the word of
God time after time, and that's what you have to do as we see in point 2 here: Christians
should contend for the faith, Jude 3, all these verses here. In fact, I got an email from
somebody the other day just asking about verses like this so I sat there and typed it all
and sent it to them to help him in his congregation, that people just don't seem to realize
you're supposed to contend for the faith. You don't just sit there, "Oh, Jesus loves you. He
used to work in a salon and he's a hairdresser." No, Jesus was strong and masculine and
he got out there and he didn't even care if he offended somebody, you know. I remember
that time he got invited by the Pharisees to come in for a meal and then he right away
tells the host, he's sitting at his table, "Well, you didn't wash my feet." I just imagine that
guy, "Man, he's a guest and he is already embarrassing me in front of them." But Jesus
always told it like it was and he didn't really worry about, "Oh, what will people think of
me?" And things of that nature.

But that's what the problem in apologetics and preaching the word now, people are so
scared or worried about offending people that they water everything down. They go with
the Joel Osteen technique so you can have 40,000 people come to your church because
you never say anything negative and you can get along a lot better with people but, you
know, there is a reason why most of the people that wrote the Bible were either killed or

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persecuted. They are saying things that people don't like and it goes back to what
something Jackson said in a sermon a while back about how there is enmity between the
children of the devil and the children of God. There is just this natural enmity and it's just
going to be there and no matter how much you try to compromise, the problem is always
going to be the same. The carnal mind is at enmity with God, Romans 8:7, I think it is.

So as we go into this and I'm not going to go into all these verses but you have all your
biblical references here about understanding the Trinity, the nature of God, knowing that
there is one God, the Father is God, Jesus is God, the Holy Spirit is God. You have a lot
of this on that little tract that you can stick in your Bible. I left them back there. And of
course, Satan attacks the truth of the Trinity.

What is a cult? We got into that before. It's the Latin word "cultus" meaning a group of
followers. Walter Martin who was one of my mentors in this field, he says a cult is a
group of people polarized around someone's interpretation of the Bible. It always claims
to be in accord with the Bible but always ends up denying essential biblical teachings,
particularly the fact that God became man in Jesus Christ. But I really like what Jay
Adams, and I mentioned this last week, Jay Adams says, he says a cult is organized
heresy. Nice, quick and to the point. Of course now, I kind of blame Walter Martin for
one reason a lot of these, as they are called, cult busters or apologist organizations are
skipping some of like Roman Catholicism, Church of Christ and these things, because he
always centered on the deity of Jesus Christ as the main thing. When you read his books
and stuff, and I've read them all, all his stuff, that's where you put the battle line, who is
Jesus Christ and stuff like that. But the problem is then they forget what about the Gospel
and things of that nature, and that's very very important as anyone that reads Galatians
1:6 through 9 would know.

So we have this situation with the cults which we're going to be talking about today. The
doctrines of the cults. Okay, what are the marks of a cult? There is usually a central
authority figure. There are attacks to the orthodox Christian church. Employs semantic
doublethink or semantic doublethink, distorts the Bible, either interpretation or corrupt
text.

You know, as I mentioned last week, we put a lot of our videos on the internet. I was
actually able through one of our videos we did on Buddhism on the internet for some
glitch that occurred and I look at this as the humor of God, a video we did against
Buddhism from a Christian biblical perspective ended up on a Buddhist website in
England. And the reason I find these things out, every couple of weeks I do a Google
search on my name to see where my videos are ending up because they are just spreading
out all over the world and they are ending up in all kinds of weird places. So about every
two weeks I'll do a Google search and just start scanning through page after page to see
where different videos end up and you'd be amazed. The last I saw, there are 10 or 15
websites, most of them Christian, that are getting our videos and just posting them on
their websites, but to have one on a Buddhist website and they are complaining, "Well,
we don't know how this happened. We had the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism by the
Dalai Lama. Truth 1 in video 1. Truth 2. Truth 3. And then for some reason by a Google

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glitch," and they are complaining about it on their website, "our video on Buddhism from
Christian Answers here in Austin, Texas," my associate Steve Morrison and myself, two
Texas evangelist, are in the fourth Noble truth of Buddhism right under the Dalai Lama
on their website. And they are complaining about, "How did this happen? There is some
mystery. We can't get it off." But then as they go on, they say, "Well, do you know what?
We're going to show the world that we're magnanimous here. We can take criticism.
We're open so we're just going to leave it on our site." So I was emailing this to just about
everybody and Max saw it for himself. He actually told me he looked at it and I'm going,
"How many Christian apologists do you know can have a show they did against a certain
religion have their religion posted on their website so all their people can watch it?" I
think, hey, thank you, Lord.

So anyway, you have employs salvation by works. We talked about that. The cults
usually take faith plus works to equal salvation. Of course the Bible is faith equals
salvation plus works. So you are doing your works not to get saved but you're doing your
works because you are already saved. It's like if your dad who you love, tells you to mow
the lawn, you do it because you love your dad and you probably don't want to get a
spanking either. But like Muslims and things, they think they've got to mow the lawn so
they can stay in good graces with their dad, we'll say in this case, and most cults are like
that. You've got to do some kind of work or else you're kicked out of the family. But
when we do our works, it's because we love God and we are in his family. He loves us,
we love him and we do it for that reason, not to get saved.

But the cults always mess that up and these nineteenth century cults coming from a works
righteousness organizations such as Campbellism, as we discussed, naturally started
incorporating a lot of those things into their own religious twistings of how they're going
to function. One time we were doing a talk and hear years ago and someone asked me,
"What's the difference between Christianity and all the other religions?" I just said works.
Works salvation. You know, it's as simple as that. You know, they believe in works
salvation.

Okay, so as we go through here, point 6: how can Christians make a strong defense of the
Gospel of Christ and indeed share it with cultists and others? And of course, A: know
why you believe, what you believe, 2 Timothy 2. You know, workmen need not be
ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. And the only way you're going to be able to
do that is you're going to have to read your Bible, learn it, study it, listen to the excellent
teaching ministry we have here from our elders and, of course, Jackson, and just do your
homework and do it out of love of God.

It's amazing, when I've gone to Jehovah's Witness conventions, Mormon gatherings,
Christian Science reading rooms, the Muslim Students Association Training Center over
here near UT campus, or I'm out on campus preaching or on the streets, it's amazing if
you've done your homework and you love the word of God, you're out there in the middle
of all this controversy and people all around and it's amazing how the Spirit just has his
word just flowing through you. It's almost like the Lord just blesses you and you're not
even realizing how you're just able to spout out all this Scripture out of nowhere and as a

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child of God you sense that power, the anointing of God, you might say, when you are
out there on the battlefront dealing with the cults in public places and so forth. It's an
amazing thing and God will bless you if you do your homework. But if you don't study or
any of that stuff, well, you know, don't expect a blessing either when you're out there
dealing with the cults.

Okay then, down here, B: the Christian apologist, defender of the faith, and of course that
comes from Jude 3. We got into that last week. You know, basically different things you
need to do along these lines. Lead a holy life in the sight of God, there are scriptures
there. Growing in the knowledge of God's word, that's key. All of this. Pray for God's
wisdom. Share with gentleness and reverence. Have a good conscience. Of course a lot of
times it's easy, one of the devils tricks is as you learn all this knowledge of the word of
God, it's easy to get puffed up with pride and think you are a know-it-all and that's one of
the devil's tools that he utilizes to turn, destroy your witness when you're out with people.
What you've got to do is you've got to stay humble, you've got to stay within yourself.
You don't try to tear people up.

When I'm debating these Muslims on YouTube on our show that we've got on there, it's
getting a lot of hits right now called "Satan in Your Nose and Other Muslim Teachings,"
because the Muslims believe that the devil gets in your nose at night and in the morning
you have to suck water up your nose and spew it out so you can wash the devil out of
your nose. And I've been tempted several times because I'm battling the Muslims on that
video we've got on YouTube and also because they allow comments and replies so it's
like you can have posted debates going on. And we've also got another one on Islamic
holy war, Jihad, and the same thing with those guys. But on the Satan in your nose one,
I've been tempted several times from some of the ridiculous stuff that some of these
Muslims are saying to say, "Well, I think you've got Satan in your nose right now to
come up with that argument." But I don't do that. You see, I try to keep it where there is
some respect. You're trying to do what the Scripture says in being a good witness for
Christ with gentleness, patience, long-suffering.

So it's easy in these theological battles to try to zap the other guy or insult him or do
something like that but if you follow the wisdom of the word of God in these things, it's
amazing what can happen in these sorts of things. I think that's another reason why our
video on Buddhism is posted on a Buddhist website, because I think even those guys saw
that when we were doing actually a polemic against them, they realize that our spirit was
the way it's supposed to be in a nice, in a loving type way, not, "Ah, these guys are a
bunch of crazy nuts!" And so they allowed that video to just stay there so all their people
can watch it, and that's just more of just following what the word of God says in the way
you should present the Gospel of Christ to people.

I'm going to run this by real quick just because when we are talking essential doctrine,
things that must be believed in order to be in the household of God, basically I'll just go
through these real fast. Of course this pamphlet is really good, it's got all kinds of neat
things on it like the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, the Creed of Chalcedon, all that
kind of stuff. But anyway, here are the essential doctrines he has listed and this is by an

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arch-Arminian but, you know, I still think he's saved, okay? I don't throw an Arminian in
with the cults. Sometimes that gets me in trouble with some of the ultra-Calvinists but
this is by Norman Giesler, by the way. God's unity, that's an essential doctrine,
understanding the unity of God. God's tri-unity. 3. The human depravity of man. 4.
Christ's virgin birth. 5. Christ's sinlessness. You'd be amazed how many people claim to
be Christians and they believe Jesus sinned and they are going to their regular
denominational churches. Of course if he sinned, then you might as well, you know, eat,
drink and be merry. But anyway, Christ's deity. Christ's humanity. The necessity of God's
grace. The necessity of faith. Christ's atoning death. Christ's bodily resurrection. Christ's
bodily ascension. Christ's intercession. Actually he has more than 13 because there is a
break here. Christ's second coming. Inspiration of Scripture. And method of
interpretation or hermeneutics. In fact, the hermeneutical line is a major area just like we
saw in Matthew 4 and Luke 4 where Jesus is battling the devil himself. Hermeneutics is a
major ploy of the cults, particularly if you're dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses and things
of that nature.

Now with that all established and said, I'll leave out all this stuff I was going to reference
to because there is no time for it. But anyway, we did do a two hour show with this, by
the way. This is actually what I use, it's called "Comparative Religions Overview." In
fact, it's got a five star rating on YouTube but that's only a 10 minute version. They won't
let you do more than 10 minutes on YouTube so what we did is throw in at the bottom of
the video, "Well, go over here to Yahoo video and watch the rest of it." So we're using
YouTube right now as a way to get people to go where you can show the whole shows
that we've got. We've got over 100 shows on the internet right now but I still have 300 or
400 hours to go yet.

So Jackson, while you were out, I told them that I just posted another one of your videos,
the one where you did that thing on Jehovah's Witnesses Bible with Dr. Sam Reed. That's
on there now so when people google your name, they're going to find you analyzing the
Jehovah's Witness Bible. Anyway, let's see. You see, you didn't know he was an
apologist, did you?

Now let's get into our slides and my able helper over there, Max, will lead us into
Mormonism which we found came out of the Campbellism movement of the early
nineteenth century. Sidney Rigdon was a writer and he, no doubt, helped Joseph Smith Jr.
greatly when it came to publishing that book in 1830. There he is, Joseph Smith Jr. 1805-
1844. He was shot to death in a jailhouse in 1844 by a lynch mob. Of course he supplied
some weaponry of his own. He killed one or two people that were trying to lynch him, so
it's sort of like a gunfight, but he got shot and fell out of a window. He was trying to get
out of the window when he got shot and he died there.

But here you have it, founded the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1830,
that's when the Book of Mormon came out. He was out of Palmyra in New York and
their headquarters is in Utah now. You have the Book of Mormon, as I just mentioned.
Published also three other books, Doctrines and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price. You
have also, now this is funny and I've got all this material, by the way, and it's all

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published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, including the Inspired
Version of the Bible. Now, what's really fun about this and I like to show it to people
especially when I do talks on Mormonism and stuff, because this inspired version of the
Bible is nothing more than a King James Bible and it's pretty much just like a King James
Bible except what happened is Joseph Smith simply wrote himself into it in the book of
Genesis. He added himself. He added a couple of verses in Genesis to prophesy his
coming in the latter days. So, "A man will be born of a man named Joseph," or something
like that and so basically all the Inspired Version is is a rewrite of the King James Bible
where Joseph Smith kind of just adds himself in in a couple of places so he can say,
"Look, here I'm prophesied in the Old Testament. See? Now here I am in 1830." So
anyway, that's all the Inspired Version is.

Authoritative teachings of Mormonism, prophets and other general authorities. The

magazine there as you can see is just one of their many publications. The Pearl of Great
Price and Doctrine and Covenants, I particularly like to use the Doctrine and Covenants
book here because this has all of Joseph Smith's direct revelations from God where he
says just like you see in the prophets of the Old Testament saying, "Thus saith the Lord,"
or something like that. Well, that's what's going on in the Doctrines and Covenants with
Joseph Smith Jr. He is simply claiming to say, "Thus saith the Lord. I was told by the
Lord and this is what he said. In order not to be damned," and the word he uses,
"damned" there, just means to be not actually go to eternal hellfire in that sense, in the
Mormon sense but he was using it, not to be damned from being a god of your own
planet is what he's saying. Damned like being stopped from being a god of a planet. You
must have multiple wives and Doctrines and Covenants, section 139, he talks about, "you
must have multiple wives, you must practice polygamy in order to be a god of your own
planet someday, otherwise you'll be damned." But that doesn't mean going to hell, it just
means, hey, you're going to miss out on this. Anyway, I can easily elaborate deeply on
almost every slide but we've got so many, we'll never get to anything.

So let's go to some of their doctrines here. Max, you can go ahead and just line them all
up and I'll just look at what you've got here and I'll just make any comments I feel like as
we go along.

Who is God? According to Mormonism, God the Father was once a man but progressed
to Godhead. Now, if you read, you've probably heard of Brigham Young, he took over
after Joseph Smith was shot to death in that gunfight at the jailhouse when the mob came
to get him, and Brigham Young and I did the research over here at the library at the
University of Texas campus. They've got all of Brigham Young's Journal of Discourses
there, every volume, all his lectures and speeches that he gave to those people that
followed him to Utah after the death of Joseph Smith Jr. and right there in volume 1, page
50, you see, I have it memorized, he says that Adam took one of his celestial wives, Eve,
and they populated this planet which was planet earth, and this is where this doctrine that
they have that Jesus is the spirit brother of the devil, in that Adam had multiple wives,
Eve being one of them according to Brigham Young in volume 1, and they have eternal
sex and the women get pregnant just like they do here and they have what are called spirit
children which then go down to the planet and as they get a body to inhabit and they

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grow up, they worship back to the God who created them in this celestial marriage
situation. So basically Brigham Young right there said that God, who is God according to
Brigham Young, basically as you see here, God the Father has a physical body as does
his wife, the heavenly mother. In this case, Brigham Young is saying, Eve is a heavenly
mother along with these other wives. God in this particular case of this planet according
to Brigham Young, now this isn't taught now by the Mormon church, this was taught then
and like so many false prophet organizations, it is conveniently forgotten about as time
goes on. But in fact what Mormons today just call God the Father Elohim but they don't
call him Adam which is what Brigham Young did. Brigham Young taught that Adam is
the God of this planet and the heavenly mother is Eve. But of course, Mormons today,
"Oh no. No, they never taught that. No, no, no." I've even got it on tape. I've got eight
hours of tapes with Mormon missionaries and people still buy those things. We offer
them through our ministry and people get the CDs. But right there on the thing, they deny
that Brigham Young ever taught that. Of course even when I show them the
documentation, they just say, "Well, we're going to have to go back and ask somebody
about that." But then the next time they come to visit, "Oh, we forgot to ask them about
that," or whatever. So they conveniently just forget what you told them and stuff but the
beauty of it is, you are sowing the seeds of doubt as a Christian, particularly if you know
a lot about these religions.

As an apologist, I know a lot about all these different religions besides just the major
ones like Buddhism or Islam or Hinduism. You know, even these, I found it really works
as a better polemic because if I can smash the foundation of a false prophet with their
own books and their own teachings, a lot of times I've been able to get some of these
people out of these cults because all of a sudden when they see that, and not too many see
it that I get to see, but a few have, and then they are more open to listening to what you
have to say from the word of God. But most of the time they don't see anything or hear
anything. It's the three monkey approach, because they are so convinced that what they're
in is true that you can preach the word of God and a lot of times they have redefined
everything. You ask a Mormon, "Do you believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit?" The
Mormon will say, "Sure." Of course in his mind the Father, if he's following Brigham
Young, is Adam. The Son is Jesus who is the spirit brother of the devil because when
Adam had all these wives, you know, the devil was born to one of the other wives that
Adam procreated up in heaven and that's how they got to be spirit brothers. In one of our
discussions with the Mormon missionaries, I remember one of them saying, "No, we
don't pray to Jesus because he's not the Father. He's just the brother of the devil." But you
see that's what their doctrine will do to them. But if you're just talking to a Mormon on
the street and you don't know what and that's what modern cults do, they redefine all the
terminology.

Now, in fact, let's go to who is Jesus. Max will try to speed me along as I've got 22
minutes left. The Mormon Jesus is a separate God from the Father and nowadays he is
called Elohim. They conveniently forget about Adam. He was created a spirit child by the
Father and mother in heaven, created in the sense that what that means is they had sex
and then she got pregnant and that's how he was created. He is the elder brother of all
men and spirit beings. So this redefinition of terminology is what's going on in these cults

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so when you say Jesus or the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit in Mormonism, in fact I wonder
if we have that on there? His body was created through sexual union between Elohim and
Mary. Jesus was married. His death on the cross does not provide full atonement for all
sin but does provide everyone with resurrection. They really lighten up on hell. There are
different degrees of punishment but you've got to really be a bad guy to end up in a really
bad hell because they have different levels of hell. They believe in eternal progression.
They believe there are more gods than there are grains of sand on a million earths, and
that was taught by one of their progression prophets of their church.

So they just believe in eternal progression and all these planets out here have a different
god. You see, the god they worship is only the god of this planet but they know that
they're going to become a god of their own planet someday if they are good Mormons, so
then they don't have to worry about that anymore. Then they'll go and just get worshiped,
you know, just have eternal sex with their goddess wives. If you were to listen to all those
hours I have with Mormon missionaries, they don't admit to anything unless you already
know. In fact, it's always the case because I already know and I have documentation that
they admit it, but they'll never admit it up until then. What they want you to believe is
they believe like you believe. So they want you to assume that they are believing in the
same God you are believing in so you will accept them. That's the trick, you see.

Who is the Holy Spirit? Very good. Max, that's where we're about to go to. In
Mormonism, the Holy Spirit is different from the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit is not God
but is instead an influence or an electricity like emanation from God. The Holy Spirit is
also called the light of Christ. Now, the Holy Ghost is the third member and it's really
funny, the third is a god but he's a god without a body. You see, now the Mormons are
really hard-pressed, you say, "Wait a minute, all your gods have a body. Adam has one.
Every Mormon god has a body and they have sex, but where did this god come from, this
Holy Ghost and he has no body? What's the deal on that? Why is he left out of this mix?"
They have a really hard time trying to explain that one away but they are stuck because
the Book of Mormon talks about it but there is no elaboration per se that's very helpful on
that so you can usually start getting them in some contradictions in their doctrine and
stuff. But here you have this, but to them the Trinity is three different gods. It's Adam or
Elohim, as they now have redefined him, Jesus as just a different god, the brother of the
devil, he's also a different god, and then the Holy Spirit who is a god but he doesn't have
a body. Why did he get ripped off? I always ask them that.

In Mormonism, how to be saved. The people are resurrected by grace but saved, exalted
to godhood and eternal life by works. Oh, works, where did that come from? Which
include faithfulness to church leaders, Mormon baptism, tithing, ordination, marriage,
and secret temple rituals which basically the secret temple, there's a Mormon temple right
there, Joseph Smith was involved in Freemasonry some before and also as you notice
with that first slide about Joseph Smith, he's from Palmyra, New York and did you know
they still have court records on him for money, glass and treasure digging? He was
convicted in court and put in jail for being basically a con artist. That was his record in
Palmyra, New York before Sydney Rigdon came from the Campbellite movement to
collaborate with him. He was making money off people by saying he could lead them to

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secret treasure buried in the earth. Of course they never found any but that's one reason
he got thrown in jail. People said, "Hey, I paid him money to find treasure and you didn't
come through."

But anyway, next slide here. What happens after death? Eventually nearly everyone goes
to one of three separate heavenly kingdoms with some achieving godhood. Apostates and
murderers go to outer darkness. Now, even if you live in these levels, you see, you guys
according to Mormonism aren't going to go to hell by any means even though you're not
Mormons. Basically you're just not going to get to be a god of your own planet, you're
not going to get all these women to have sex with and create all these people that will
worship you for all eternity. You'll just kind of be living in a place like this because if
you led a good life, it won't be too bad for you. But now for apostates and murderers,
they go to outer darkness and that's where I'm going to end up. It seems like all the cults
consign me to the worst place possible in their theology. So I'm consigned with those but
it's still not as bad as the biblical hell. When you look at the biblical hell, that's bad, but
even then they don't even go close to as bad as that is.

Other beliefs and practices. No alcohol, tobacco, coffee or tea. Every time a Mormon
missionary knocks on my door, I always invite them in and give them a Sprite. They
drink Sprite because there is no caffeine because there is caffeine in coffee and tea and
stuff, so they won't drink a Coke but they will drink a Sprite. So I'll bring them in and I
will sit and get into those doctrine covenants because that's one of my greatest ways to
show Joseph Smith while I've got them there, is a false prophet because he would
prophesy in the Doctrines and Covenants in the name of God but then his things didn't
come true, Deuteronomy 18. He prophesied in the name of God but then things don't
come true and he has something like 64 false prophecies that you can document right out
of the Doctrines and Covenant. But you see, the key to them is there are not many people
like me around that they have to deal with that actually know about that stuff. But I'll tell
you, that Doctrines and Covenants book is very helpful for someone that really wants...
and you saw those other things.

Okay, other beliefs and practices. Secret temple rituals available only to members in good
standing. You see, that's where Mitt Romney, if he's going to go to that temple, he's got
to follow all the stuff we've been talking about. Extensive social network.

Men of African ancestry were not granted full access to Mormon priesthood and
privileges until 1978, and that's because both Joseph Smith Jr. and Brigham Young were
rabid racists. In Mormonism, they actually taught that the reason you have black skin if
you're African-American, let's say, is because in the preexistent life before you got a
body to come on this earth, you were a bad guy and you were part of the rebellion with
Lucifer and that's why you're black and that's what Brigham Young taught and that's what
Joseph Smith Jr. taught. So they are very racist and they also said, "Well, you can't have
the priesthood." But like Mormonism does so often, they change things to fit what's going
on.

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Let's move on. Okay, good, because I'm looking at the clock and we haven't gotten to the
JW's yet so we'll try to fly through this stuff. Jehovah's Witnesses, let's see what we've
got up here. Founder, Charles Taz Russell. There he is. 1852 to 1916. After he died on
Halloween night 1916, then Joseph F. Rutherford took his place and they used to call him
Judge Rutherford even though he was never a judge. And they used to call Charles Taz
Russell a pastor even though he was never a pastor. So it's kind of interesting and neither
one of them had any theological training so that's another interesting thing about it.

It basically began in 1879 when he started publishing his Zion's Watchtower magazine.
And because he came from a wealthy haberdashery family, he was able to use all of his
daddy's money to publish those magazines and get followers and stuff and it just grew to
where it is now because people don't know their Bible so they fall for this kind of stuff.

New World translation of the holy Scriptures. This is a Bible they use. In this book right
here, you can live forever in paradise on earth. Do you know that the most published
book in the world is the Bible? The second most published book in the world is Mao Tse
Tung's little red book. Of course, these statistics are from about 10 years ago so I don't
know if they still publish that or not but at the time, that was number 2. The number 3
book published in the world, this one right here. That's how big and vast their publishing
organization is. And reasoning from the Scriptures and also there is a lot of polemics in
there on how to deal with people like me. There are those magazines.

You have, these things, the New World translation as I said before, if you want to see
how they perverted that and Jackson and me and this Greek scholar are in this video on
the internet, you get it on Google video, but they changed verses like John 1:1, "In the
beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and the Word was God and the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us," verse 14. Well, the Jehovah's Witnesses don't like
that because they don't believe Jesus is God, they just believe he was the Archangel
Michael. Well, we're going to get into that. But they change it in their translation of the
Bible so they change John 1:1 to, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with
God and the Word was a god." Small "g." That's how they changed it in their Bible and
they change all kinds of references that show Jesus to be God in the flesh throughout the
Scripture. They change it on purpose to try to get rid of it. But you know the beauty of it
is and we show it in the video, there are so many references they couldn't catch them all.
They couldn't catch every one of them because the guys that translated their Bible weren't
even Greek scholars. In fact, that was even proven in court. But anyway, what can you
say about cults?

Who is God? They believe God is one person, God called Jehovah. There is no Trinity.
They rabidly deny the Trinity. Jesus is the first thing Jehovah created. So when you go to
I believe it's Colossians 1, is it? He is before all things and all things were made by him
and nothing was made that was not made by him. I think it is Colossians 1:15-17 or
something like that. Well, you see, the Jehovah's Witnesses couldn't stand that so what
they did in that passage is they stuck in the word "other" in their translation. So he is
before all other things. They just kind of slip that little word in there because if it says he

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is before all things, someone might think he's God or the Creator. We can't have that.
We'd better stick the word "other" in there.

Okay, let's move on, Max, as my time diminishes. I've got eight minutes according to my
watch. Who is Jesus? The Jehovah's Witness Jesus is not God. Before he lived on earth,
he was Michael the Archangel. Jehovah made the universe through him and it goes back
to that Colossians passage where they are sticking the word "other" and just saying
Jehovah used Jesus to create everything, but they had to say "other" because Jesus didn't
create Jehovah back there. But anyway. Jehovah made the universe through him. On
earth he was a man who lived a perfect life. After dying on a stake, not a cross, they deny
it. I remember I always think of that passage, they are enemies of the cross of Christ. Paul
was talking about the Jehovah's Witnesses. But anyway, he was resurrected as a spirit. He
is not coming again. He already returned invisibly in 1914 in spirit. Very soon he and the
angels will destroy at Armageddon all non-Jehovah's Witnesses but it still won't be so
bad for you guys because if you're destroyed, they believe in annihilationism so you don't
have to worry about hell or anything. There's no hell according to them so there is a cease
to exist. It will be like before you were born. The impersonal Holy Spirit is not God,
instead the Holy Spirit is an invisible active force from Jehovah. It sounds similar to that
interpretation that the Mormons gave the Holy Spirit.

How to be saved. You have to be baptized as a Jehovah's Witness. Most followers must
earn everlasting life on earth by door to door works. They are working for salvation,
going door to door knocking. I remember one lady came to my door one time and she is
trying to witness to me about Jehovah's Witnesses and I started pulling out more
Jehovah's Witness literature than she had. I was showing her how they prophesied the end
of the world in 1975 and all these false things that they had and she started to shake and
everything. All of a sudden her husband comes up, "What are you doing here? You
shouldn't be talking to this man." I said, "Sir, we're just having a nice Bible conversation.
What's the problem?" And he looked in his book, "Can't you see it says right here you
don't come to this address. You're supposed to stay away from this address."

So I lost my Jehovah's Witness that day but what I like to do sometimes when they go
through the neighborhood and they are skipping my house and I happen to see them out
there, I've got a briefcase full of Jehovah's Witness literature and Mormonism stuff, for
that fact, that's actually geared for cults and I just grab that briefcase and I go running out
there. I've had more Jehovah's Witnesses leave our neighborhoods in record time than
you can believe.

Anyway, getting back to this. Most followers are earning rewards through work, then
we've got salvation and heaven is limited to 144,000 anointed ones. This number has
already been reached and so they are having real difficulty now because they were saying
the 144,000 had to have been around in 1914 when Jesus came around invisibly. You
know, when they do communion, most of the Jehovah's Witnesses don't even participate
in communion because you have to be one of these 144,000 anointed ones, select, and
only those guys get to go to heaven. The rest have to live here in paradise on earth,
according to the third most published book that I was pointing out a while ago.

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(Question.) Well, because they are so works oriented. They get a lot of people voting for
them or whatever but they are the only ones, if they think they're good enough to partake
in the Lord's supper. So the Jehovah's Witnesses and I've been to a lot of Jehovah's
Witness conventions, sometimes I've had up to 100 Jehovah's Witnesses around me out in
the parking lot but that doesn't usually last too long because whenever I get a crowd like
that, usually I call them Watchtower goons, they'll come out of the area where they are
having their convention and they'll see that and they'll come over and try to get all their
people away from me and stuff like that. But still it's kind of fun to be out there.

But these anointed ones live as spirits in heaven so they are the only ones and those are
just people that just think they are righteous enough. The rest don't participate in the
communion at these services. They only do the communion service like once a year and
if they see someone actually partake of the communion, everyone else goes, "Oh, he's one
of the anointed." But you see, most of them are dying off now and so they've now come
up with a new doctrine. They say the rest of the righteous, the great crowd live on earth
and must obey God perfectly for a thousand years or be annihilated, but now they're
starting to come up with some new stuff to try to account for the fact that, "Well, we used
up our 144,000." So they are coming up with some secondary doctrine so they can slip
some extra people in.

With about three minutes to go according to my watch, other beliefs and practices. You
meet in Kingdom Halls instead of churches, active members, and I've been kicked out of
a couple of them. Let's see, active members are encouraged to distribute literature door to
door. Once a year members observe Lord's evening meal, that was the communion I was
just telling you about. They only do that once a year and you have to be righteous enough
to be able to even partake in it, and that just means...

Let's see what else we've got here. Meet in Kingdom Hall, okay, we already had that.
Members are not allowed to observe holidays or birthdays, vote, salute the flag, work in
the military, accept blood transfusions and thousands upon thousands of Jehovah's
Witnesses have died because parents are not allowing their children in need of blood
transfusion to have that blood transfusion. Some of them are dying just like these snake
handlers, sometimes they refuse to have any help after they have been bitten by a snake
because they think God will save them but really what they're doing is they are tempting
God there and then they die anyway. But they refuse blood transfusions, perverting of
course Leviticus 17, I believe it is.

Members believe Armageddon will occur soon and they have had numerous false
prophecies. We've done a newsletter on Jehovah's Witnesses and, of course, our shows
where I document that they predicted the end of the world in 1914, 1918, 1925, 1941.
They thought they had a shot at that because World War II was going on. Then 1975 was
the last really big one where they prophesied the end of the world and they lost something
like 30 percent of their membership in 1976 because they made such a big deal from
1968 to 1975 that the world was going to end in 1975. But you see like most false
prophet organizations, they keep going because like P. T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker

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born every minute." So as some people get wise to them, other people who don't know
any better join up so that's how they keep propagating, especially in Third World
countries right now; they are getting large numbers over there. Not so much here
anymore but over there because that's just the situation.

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