On Cults

How to recognize a cult: religious abuse and attempts to control their people. But "where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom." Amen!

God does not seek to control us, he gives us freedom to make our own choices. He does not micromanage us. He gives us free will.

Watch out for any religious person that seeks to control you etc.

Stories from people regarding cults:

"Our family was in a cult for 10 yrs before realizing we were being spiritually abused. The immorality came with being under false teaching mixed with doctrine. I was starving for those 10 years spiritually and was never satisfied. It catered for a lot of ego personalities wanting to be seen, heard and lifted. But there was a stirring and anger, but esp an emptiness in my soul that not even the saints could rub their spiritual wisdom around the rim of my empty soul with.

Then alcohol became my friend, sexual addiction became my confidante and lust of the eyes, flesh and pride of life became by partners. Suffice to say I escaped that lie and my husband followed a year later.

Now, we're serving the true and living God. A living hope, his faith revealed, his mercy enduring forever, his grace being sufficient for me."

Amen how awesome! :)  Praise God.

"Following the emotions (experience) is Kantism transcendental idealism... it is the ROOT, FOUNDATION, and SUBSTANCE of the charismatic movement.... they came out of Ralph Waldo Emerson's westernized teachings of Kant. passed down through FF Bosworth (founder of the assembly of God) he was the mentor of EW Kenyon the spiritual father of Hagin, Copeland, and it snowballed."

Yep. :(

"When a church isolates itself and judges others outside itself, the cultic spirit is already at work....Matt23:3-4 speaks of such ..these that set up man made rules and try to work their salvation in them, but cant keep what they set up.....when man becomes self Mr" I"...WHICH IS THE MOST SELFISH LETTER that shares in Pride and sin....the enemy is bound to settle his comfort and applies every weakness to its wheels or distortion."

"I was in a similar scenario. My last church pushed the idea of feelings, emotions, and a low regard for theology as a means to being close to God.  They taught that He must speak to you and that we had all blessings of healing and wealth in our hand etc. if only we believed it.  They taught that we had authority to speak good things and blessings into existence. Its called the  "charismatic" movement.  It also creates legalism, spiritual competiveness, works sanctification, and it's an "other" gospel."

(Yep :(  The biggest issue with speaking blessings into existence is God will only bless us if we deserve it.  We can't command that God does certain things for us.  But that is the other problem with the charismatic movement, thinking they can tell God what to do and when to do it.  But God is in charge of us, we are not in charge of him.  Amen.)

On the Prosperity Gospel etc.

"God's place is one of Lordship, not of service." God is our Lord and ruler, worthy of all honor, glory and praise. We do not rule God or tell Him what to do, ever.

When God revealed Himself to man He said that He was their Lord. We do not fully understand this concept of Lord in today's world for some reason. We think of God as a teddy bear now or a spiritual je...anie. But he is very much neither of these things.

"God never came to answer man's questions; He came in order to call people to repentance and to do His will."

God never answered all of Job's questions. His answer was simply "I am God and you are not. End of discussion." lol

Man is subject to God, not God to man.

"In the world of witchcraft, the magical power is subject to the power wielder (the witch or warlock). But in God's Kingdom, the OPPOSITE is true."

This is the danger in the prosperity gospel. It closely resembles witchcraft, where by people try to use black magic to have power over things around them and manipulate things and people.

"Man cannot give orders to God and watch God obey. On the contrary, it is God that gives orders and man obeys."

We cannot tell God what he is going to do for us. He will do whatever he will do, in HIS time, not ours.

When we read the Word of God, we cannot judge it, because we cannot or should not judge God. We need to rather let God's word judge us and correct us.

The Prosperity Gospel, Word of Faith, witchcraft ... they're all based on the idea of God as subject to man's commands.

But if you believe in the sort of God that obeys whatever you say, you have a very faulty concept of God.

God is LORD, not our Jeanie to command. Amen  :)

"Watch man nee is a destructive cult/leader.  I debunked him many years ago.  He has written many books that are really damaging Bible wise to new believers and folks still follow him and base their beliefs from his books-not the Bible.  Many cults use his teachings and the fruits of it are destroying peoples lives." 
Very sad :( 

On cults and sexual abuse:

"I agree that religion, if used in the wrong way, can be very damaging to someone.  But I am not sure I could attribute his sexual abuse as being caused by that church. You either have the ability to abuse within you or you don't. I know many many people who have no affiliation to religion of any kind that do not abuse and some that do.  I think it is a personal thing within you and you need to learn to control that if you discover you have those feelings."

Who knows.  But it does seem to be a trend that people in cults sexually abuse more often.  Whether the sexual abuser becomes that way due to being in the cult, or sexual abusers are simply drawn to cults, because cults give people power, just like sexual abuse seems to.  That is why people sexually abuse, in order to have power over others.  They do it when they themselves feel very powerless.  Only God knows entirely the reasons why though. 

"Often the sexually abusive person is in a position of power so they like power.   They are used to getting people to do what they want etc."

"Yes the irony is they hide their powerlessness behind their apparent position of power and project it onto us in the form of abuse."

More on cults in general:

"Watchman Nee's teachings overemphasize emotions and puts them over God and the Bible.  "The Spirit is stuck" he may say and the "The Spirit flows through the channel of emotions" etc.  Nee becomes this philosophical, mystical cult leader, loaded down with all  kinds of mytaphysical garbage.  Nee said that the Holy Spirit only rides on feeling.  He said he received "revelations" in his, what he calls, "Holy Spirit memory revelations.  This is more metaphysical stupidity and human philosopy-which is man's wisdom -void of god or a demonic cult."