Cults and Culture

90% of Christian faith is just raw courage. Can you even imagine, those who jump to the beat of the music of addiction, political correctness, seduction, which the forces of Satan make so attractive, have faced as they stood up against such forces. Think of Noah, 140 years, building a large ship-boat on dry land when people had never even seen rain. Think of Noah, God having stored male and female of any animal species that he wanted to save along with Noah’s own family in the arc, standing in the doorway of the arc, begging his fellow citizens to escape the ‘wrath’ of God. It was only after the great door of the arc had been closed and sealed by God, that water flowed onto the surface of the Earth, the arc slowly lifted up, the people, even on mountain tops, drowning, that they realized the courage of Noah, realized he was not a nut. Perhaps, a thousand years later, Abraham, drawn-called from ur of the Chaldees, one man, with out a forwarding address, to go 600 miles North, to a promise land God had provided. To free Abraham from idle worship, his father Tyrell(look up), died and was buried just outside present day Damascus, Syria. Abraham moved into a land of cults. 2000 years later, the decedents of Abraham, having been slaves in Egypt for over 400 years, were through a process of God humbling them into wilderness for 40 years, moved into the same area of cults. And so it has been since, the history of one chosen people, the Jews, their relationship with cults. In the fullness of time, “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law” (Galatians 4:4). Jesus, son of God, putting on a tent of human flesh, lived and died a sacrificial death of redemption for us. 2000 years, on this side of the cross, mankind has attempted to find anything and everything to free himself from the claims of the cross. We know that mankind, even those who have never heard the gospel message, have a great desire to worship something or someone grater than themselves. Some carve a figure from a piece of wood, while burning the scrapes of the fire, bow down to the piece of wood, an idle that requires nothing from them. Starting in the 20th century, a ‘new age’ movement, such as Oprah Winfrey and her gang, wants to find some idle message. They could have gone to India and found thousands of Hindu gods and idle worship temples. They could have gone to other Asian nations, and found ‘monkey’ worship temples. Others, power brokers of industry and banking, political hacks, wanting to have their hands close to the treasury of the nation, media moguls, parading out, scan flicks, magazines and lifestyles, sports masters, thinking that a ball or athletic feet or some sort meets their needs... all in a conjured collection of self satisfaction. Wanting the "god" they worship in their image instead of them being in the likeness of God. 

And then, there are the more obvious cults, in a world of broken culture. The one we remember most, the 1978 Jonestown massacre, reverend Jim Jones, self proclaimed disciple of madness, friend of the political demented (Harvey Milk, gay mayor, Jerry Brown, governor, Willy Brown, kingmaker, ect). His cult following of believers, following him to Jonestown, Guiana, 7,000 drinking arsenic in kool-aid, and at the very end, shooting and killing American congressman, Ryn, at the airport, who was investigating the cult. 

Reverend Jones, like today’s Reverend Jackson, and Reverend Sharpden, charlatans, they differ from other radical liberals, such as Oprah, Obama, Pelosi, what they will do IN THEIR OBSESSION WITH MONEY. Once, I sat across the table at lunch from the president of a Christian college… a college to which I had been very finanically generous. He was a fine man, I do believe a saved educator. He told me that he had voted for Obama. I know that I have family members who voted for Obama. These people, Obama voters, supposedly have IQ’s above room temperature. How could any person, Christian or otherwise, vote for a man who promotes abortion (euthanasia, the killing of children), same sex marriage (destruction of the family), ask don’t tell in the military (destruction of a military super power). There are 16,000 school boards in America. Already, they are having to make a decision about mixed bathroom use in their schools, boys going to girl’s bathrooms, etc. 

Beginning with world history, man thinks he is in charge of his life, but he is not. He knows there is a power greater than himself. The Christian believes that such power is the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, sovereign power of Jehovah-God. These cults, new age religions, THINK they want the truth, but they persue the truth just like a theif persues a police officer. The progress of western civilization, indeed, progress, of the world, and everything in it, has been built around this power. So far as we know, there has been no progress-contributions, from the false religions of the Hindus, Buddhists, or Muslims. There were Indian cults-tribes, in North and South America, known for various accomplishments. Some North American Indian braves could ride a pony-horse bare back, full speed, while leaning to the side shooting arrows. Some Indian braves, such accurate hearing, could put an ear to the ground, tell you about a herd of buffalo (number and type) many miles away. God was so offended by the seven cults-sex occupying the promise land, when the children of Israel crossed the Jordan to occupy it, that he instructed them, according to his word, to kill and destroy every one of them and their property. When they refused to do so, entered Mary with them, accepted part of their customs and traditions, they lived to regret it. With our first parents, in the garden of Eden, perfect world, God established his authority (“don’t touch that tree”). Because our first parents choose the spirit of death instead of the spirit of life, we are still victims of our own sinful nature and disobediance, and to the unsaved-those unredeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Subject to the demon power of Satan, his fallen angels of death and dominion, often found in satanic cults. Mass insanity, has never been explicable. We could not understand the selling of fellow human beings before the American civil war, but, it still goes on today, the selling of children into sex slavery, in the Muslim religion, the buying of a wife for one night. 

Oh, the simplicity of the gospel. Sins ruined and Christ's redemption, but, man wants a subsititute, wants to make God in his image. These cults then, now, and always, lead to a broken culture.