Cults Are Invading Russia!!!

I spent my evening at a fund raiser for the Russian arm of the Centers for Apologetics Research (CFAR). We heard about the dozens and dozens of western and eastern cults (many of which were "born" here in the U.S., which the founder, Paul Cardin, called the greatest exporter of error on the planet today) that are flooding the former Soviet Union.

Having come home from Ukraine two months ago, I was truly moved, even to tears, when Mr. Cardin told us about this invasion and then told us that CFAR is the first and ONLY evangelical countercults ministry in the former Soviet Union. And, I spoke with the Russian brother Pasha who heads up the ministry in St. Petersburg who told me that the cults are MORE active in Ukraine than Russia because Ukraine has more freedom (for instance, the Mormons are building their first temple in the former USSR in Kiev, Ukraine's capital city).

Ron Rhodes, noted author, scholar and countercult evangelist, was the keynote speaker who gave us "10 Keys to Witnessing to the Cults," and I want to share them with you here. These keys come from his many years of evangelism to cultists:

1. Don't Assume All Cultists Believe Exactly the Same Thing -- for example, all Jehovah's Witnesses don't agree so instead of telling them what they believe and why you disagree (which I've done), ask them what they believe and THEN dialogue.
2. Know Your Bible -- and, keep taking them back to it over and over again
3. Know that Cultists Are Trained to Answer Your Objections
4. Always Check Their Scripture References -- and NEVER take their interpretation of a passage as true
5. Always Define Your Terms -- because they use the same words we do, but with totally different meanings
6. Ask Strategic Questions -- force them to think (just like Jesus did with His questions)
7. Be Loving -- Arrogence always undermines your right answers, and make sure you love the cultist after God saves them because they'll likely loose all community
8. Demonstrate Jesus' Deity -- know what the Bible teaches on this (e.g., Isa 43:11 --> Titus 2:13-14 = Jesus is Savior and God)
9. Emphasize God's Awesome Gospel of Grace -- in a works-righteousness religious systems where people are earning their salvation, they are often overcome with guilt, frustration & despair, and need to hear of the grace only found in the biblical Gospel
   
10. Give Your Testimony -- and focus on God's specific grace to you
    

As I sat there, my heart was further breaking for the church I went to in Zhitomir, and knowing what I do about the conditions in that church, I know it is just ripe to be decimated by a cult.

Ministries like CFAR, and there aren't ANY in the former USSR but CFAR, need our help. Please, please, please think about supporting them by clicking here.

Witnessing to Mormons (Pt 2)

It is very common today for people to say "All religions are the same" or "All religions are talking about the same thing." Sadly, this is usually made by people who has no clue at all about what religions actually say about themselves.

When anyone says "All religions are the same" there actually has to be things that are the same, and that go beyond lowest common denominators. It doesn't count to say something like "All religions believe in a higher power so they're all the same."

First, all religions don't believe in God, but for religions to be the same their conception of God has to be the same, not to mention how they conceive of human beings, the human problem, the solution to our problem, what happens at death, if ethics exist and where they comes from, and the real kicker, who is Jesus?

This is where Mormonism comes in. LDS are pushing hard to be considered evangelicals (interesting, as they're doing this many who call themselves evangelical, like me, want to abandon being identified by that name), and "many laypeople in the Mormon church insist that the God they worship is the same God worshiped by millions of Christians" (23).

However, while we may have many things in common (e.g., pro-life, pro-heterosexual marriage, etc.) we cannot be considered the same, or even similar, just because we are both pro-life, or both "believe in God," or "believe in Jesus," or "honor the Bible," or seek to spread something called "the gospel."

This is what McKeever and Johnson mean when they write:

"If two people hope to consider themselves of the same faith, they need to agree on their definition of the Almighty God. If they cannot agree on this vital point, they would be deceiving themselves and others to say that their faiths are the same" (23).

There is NOTHING about our conceptions of the Bible, God, Jesus and the gospel that are similar, and these are NOT peripheral issues. This is the heart of Christianity. You disagree with these things, and you can call yourself an evangelical, but doing so is the same as me calling myself an iguana just because we both have superficial similarities (e.g., eyes, skin, nose, finger nails, legs, etc.).

This is critical when talking to Mormons. Make sure from the beginning that LDS realize we are not the same in any meaningful way. We have to start there, or evangelism cannot take place.

In fact, if we're the same, as they insist we are, do they really need to evangelize me then? It seems to me that if they really believed we were the same that they'd just leave Christians alone. They don't because they know we're not the same.

Witnessing To Mormons (Pt 1)

For my personal studies I decided that among other things I'd devote the first six months of the year to a cult and the last six to a world religion. Mormonism is my cult until July 1st, and I just finished reading the truly excellent Mormonism 101. Click here to read why I think it's so good.

In my first installment of witnessing tactics gleaned from Mormonism 101 I give you this famous quote from Brigham Young:

"Take up the Bible, compare the religion of the Latter-day Saints with it, and see if it will stand the test. The doctrine that we preach is the doctrine of the Bible, it is the doctrine the Lord has revealed for the salvation of the children of God, and when men, who have once obeyed it, deny it, they deny it with their eyes wide open, and knowing that they deny the truth and set at naught the counsels of the Almighty" (Discourses of Brigham Young, 126).

Ask the Mormon if they've followed this command from their prophet. Ask them to demonstrate whether what he says here is actually true. Ask them to demonstrate how what they believe about God, Jesus, sin, the gospel and salvation compare with what the Bible says about these critical topics.

If they avoid this, and punt to their "burning in the bosom" or some other supernatural "experience" for proof that Mormonism is truth, should they even be listened to at the outset?

Praying for Non-Christians

Do you pray for specific unbelievers to be saved?

After reading a short section of Augustine's Confession, I was struck with these words that I hope to incorporate into my prayers for unbelievers (if you like, read it in context here ch. 8, para. 12):

"It was pleasing in Your sight to reform my deformity, and by inward stings You didst disturb me so that I was impatient until You were made clear to my inward sight."

I want God to "disturb" the unbelievers I pray for, along with convicting them of "sin, righteousness and judgment" (John 16:8) and putting gospel-sharing believers around them so that He will be made clear to their inward sight, something I think only happens after salvation (cf. Romans 1:18-23, 8:5-8; 1 Corinthians 2:14; Ephesians 4:17-18).

God, the Truly Satisfying

As Augustine expresses his struggles to submit his heart to God in his Confessions, he gives us a truly remarkable picture of God's drawing and wooing of the unbeliever that helps us share the message of the gospel with wisdom.

This is yet another insightful contribution that gives us a great lesson about the unbelieving heart. Here, in chapter VI, paragraph 16, he wrote,

"Woe to the audacious soul which hoped that by forsaking You it would find some better thing! It tossed and turned, upon back and side and belly—but the bed is hard, and You alone give it rest."

These words remind us of his famous opening line: "for You have made us for Yourself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in You (I.1)"

Thanks to Augustine's read of his own heart, it seems we can say that the unbeliever is hoping that he's coming out ahead by rejecting the gospel. In a cost-benefit analysis, the benefits of the gospel (God declaring you not guilty for your sin, God redeeming you from slavery to sin, God's wrath against you being satisfied, the establishing of a friendship with the King of the Universe, etc.) do not outweigh the benefits they're receiving from remaining in unbelief.

Like Augustine, they think they've found something better than God. Something else has come along and promised them the rest that only the gospel truly gives. Something else seems to satisfy them, fulfill them, speak peace and joy to them.

In the end, whatever the "better thing" is, it ultimately is a counterfeit gospel that gives a counterfeit rest as their life is ultimately being controlled by a counterfeit god who does not satisfy, does not fulfill, and does not give joy and peace. That only comes when a person is connected to the God they were created to be connected to, and that connection only comes from the gospel they've traded in.

You can trust that this dynamic is going on, and our job, with insight from God's Spirit, is to patiently take the time to identify this idol in their heart--whether it's intellectual, emotional, etc.--and seek to wisely pull down that stronghold with the mighty weapons of gospel truth (cf. 2 Cor 10:3-5) in a manner that is gentle, loving, kind, respectful and gracious (cf. Eph 4:15, Col 4:5-6, 2 Tim 2:24-25, 1 Pet 3:15).

As an aside, this is much of the same issue to be dealt with in the believer's struggle with the remaining sin in his own heart. What truly satisfies? What gives true joy? Where will I find rest today? In sin, or the Christ revealed in the gospel.

Confronting Their Lord

This is a terribly insightful chapter from Augustine's Confessions. I'm constantly amazed at how insightful he on his own soul, and how eloquent he is. I understand how this is considered a classic of Western literature, let alone Christian literature. I reprint the chapter in its entirety here for your benefit. He said...

"Meanwhile my sins were being multiplied. My mistress was torn from my side as an impediment to my marriage, and my heart which clung to her was torn and wounded till it bled. And she went back to Africa, vowing to You never to know any other man and leaving with me my natural son by her. But I, unhappy as I was, and weaker than a woman, could not bear the delay of the two years that should elapse before I could obtain the bride I sought. And so, since I was not a lover of wedlock so much as a slave of lust, I procured another mistress—not a wife, of course. Thus in bondage to a lasting habit, the disease of my soul might be nursed up and kept in its vigor or even increased until it reached the realm of matrimony. Nor indeed was the wound healed that had been caused by cutting away my former mistress; only it ceased to burn and throb, and began to fester, and was more dangerous because it was less painful" (VI.15).

This is a man in bondage. He had his mistress, if I remember correctly, for over a decade, but his mother arranged a marriage for him to a very young girl--he says, two years too young.

This was not easy as it tore his heart to bleeding to leave his mistress.

He particularly focuses on her vow not to know another man. He is caught by these words because he couldn't make that kind of commitment. He was trapped by his sin, "a slave of lust." So he got another mistress whose company relieved the burning and throbbing of loosing the first.

As he looks back, he understands that a binding sin in a person's life is a disease of the soul that people "nurse" and "keep in vigor" and even "increase."

It is here that our evangelism must confront a person, as we'll see with Augustine. What is lord? What's going to control / rule their heart? This may take awhile, but we must keep this in mind whenever giving the gospel to a person.

Real Objections While Evangelism

Augustine spoke of the steps it took for him to be saved in his Confessions (see an indication of this in Book VI, chap 1 here and my comments on it here).

At the end of chap 11 and at the beginning of chap 12 (see both here) he talks about the real reason why he kept himself from giving his life fully to Christ. He said:

"I delayed my conversion to the Lord; I postponed from day to day the life in thee, but I could not postpone the daily death in myself. I was enamored of a happy life, but I still feared to seek it in its own abode, and so I fled from it while I sought it. I thought I should be miserable if I were deprived of the embraces of a woman, and I never gave a thought to the medicine that thy mercy has provided for the healing of that infirmity, for I had never tried it. As for continence [i.e., self-control], I imagined that it depended on one’s own strength, though I found no such strength in myself."

And...

"I quoted against [Alypius] the examples of men who had been married and still lovers of wisdom, who had pleased God and had been loyal and affectionate to their friends. I fell far short of them in greatness of soul, and, enthralled with the disease of my carnality and its deadly sweetness, I dragged my chain along, fearing to be loosed of it. Thus I rejected the words of him who counseled me wisely, as if the hand that would have loosed the chain only hurt my wound."

Augustine resisted the happiness to be found in Christianity because he was enthralled with the deadly sweetnesses of sexual immorality. This kept him from becoming a Christian after the intellectual hindrances were removed (and, I suspect the reason for his intellectual objections was his love of sexual sin).

Augustine's life reminds us that when doing evangelism there are the dozens of objections a person gives us, and then there are the real ones. Ask God for wisdom to see these through the smoke screens we're so often trying to blow away.

Nothing New in Evangelism

I'm reading Augustine's Confessions, and in chapter 6 he's talking about the steps he went through to come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. Click the post's title to read the quotes in chapter 5, paragraph 7.

First, he says "those men were not to be listened to who would say to me, 'How do you know that those Scriptures were imparted to mankind by the Spirit of the one and most true God?'" I found it interesting that this is the same issue being brought against Christians some 1600 years after Augustine. Nothing is new under the sun.

Also, for those who won't believe it unless they see it, think about this: "O Lord, little by little, with a gentle and most merciful hand, drawing and calming my heart, You persuaded me that, if I took into account the multitude of things I had never seen, nor been present when they were enacted—such as many of the events of secular history; and the numerous reports of places and cities which I had not seen; or such as my relations with many friends, or physicians, or with these men and those—that unless we should believe, we should do nothing at all in this life. Finally, I was impressed with what an unalterable assurance I believed which two people were my parents, though this was impossible for me to know otherwise than by hearsay."

I remember talking to a guy who told me "Until Jesus walks up to me and tells me Himself who He is, I will not believe in Him. It's just blind faith." I responded, "Are you going to get home tonight?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "How do you know?" He paused, and said, "You got me. I have faith that I'll get home tonight, but I don't know." I said, "Right, and your rejection of Christ is like sitting outside your car saying 'I don't know if I'm going to get home, so I'm not getting in.'"

There were at least two problems with this guy. First, he made the distinction between faith and knowledge, and second, he forgot that no one can function without exercising faith. History is impossible without faith. I have faith that places like Antarctica exists, and that the maps are true, even though I've never been there. I have faith that what my friends say about their lives are true, though I wasn't there. I have faith that my burger is beef, and not beef mixed with manure like the movie Fast Food Nation is going to show.

We can't live this life without faith, and we won't live in the next life without faith...in Christ alone, and not myself or any other "savior," to rescue me from God's holy wrath for my sins and usher me into heaven.

Struggling to Believe

This entry from Augustine's Confessions is so helpful in understanding a person's journey to putting their full and complete trust / confidence in Christ, and the message of the Bible, to save them from their sins.

I've edited the full entry, so if you'd like to read the whole thing click here, and scroll down to chapter IV, paragraph 6. Augustine wrote:

"I was also glad that the old Scriptures of the Law and the Prophets were laid before me to be read, not now with an eye to what had seemed absurd in them when formerly I censured Your holy ones for thinking thus, when they actually did not think in that way. ... I found nothing in [Ambrose'] teachings that offended me, though I could not yet know for certain whether what he taught was true. For all this time I restrained my heart from assenting to anything, fearing to fall headlong into error. Instead, by this hanging in suspense, I was being strangled. For my desire was to be as certain of invisible things as I was that seven and three are ten. I was not so deranged as to believe that this could not be comprehended [like so many are today], but my desire was to have other things as clear as this ... But, just as it happens that a man who has tried a bad physician fears to trust himself with a good one, so it was with the health of my soul, which could not be healed except by believing. But lest it should believe falsehoods, it refused to be cured, resisting Your hand, who has prepared for us the medicines of faith and applied them to the maladies of the whole world, and endowed them with such great efficacy."

Think deeply about his experience, and how it relates to those you're trying to see the truth of the gospel.

Alcohol & Hating Truth

In the Confessions, Book VI, chapter 2, Augustine describes the enjoyment of alcohol as a very common barrier to the gospel. While describing his mother's practice of honoring dead saints while drinking wine he commented that her love of wine did not "stimulate her to hate the truth, as it does too many, both male and female." You can read the quote in context by clicking the title of this post above.

His language is so strong, and it even seems he might be shocked by the fact that his mother didn't hate the truth though she loved wine, as if loving wine and hating truth went hand-in-hand in everyone except her. She was an admirable exception to the general rule?

When I think of hindrances to the truth, I think of intellectual or moral barriers (i.e., sex, money, power, etc.), but thanks to Augustine we need to add alcohol to the list of barriers keeping people from embracing the gospel.

As someone who spent many Friday nights out at the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica doing street evangelism, I can concur with Augustine. Alcohol, more often than not, seems to have a deadening effect on the spiritual sensitivities of people whom at other times are quite reasonable. This was true of a guy named Mike who I talked to many times. When he was sober, he'd listen and even came very close to embracing the gospel on night, but when he'd been drinking, he wasn't worth talking to.

Do you have any further insights into what Augustine's saying here? Let me know.

Steps to Victory in Evangelism

Evangelism is often completed in stages, as in the life of Augustine (see Confessions, Book VI, chapter 1).

Augustine's mother Monica (the person the city Santa Monica is named after) is famous for praying that God would save him. When he told her that he had left some false teachings (i.e., the Manicheans), he comments that "though I had not yet grasped the truth, I was rescued from falsehood." She had been assured by God that her son would come to faith, which he says is why she was not "agitated with any violent exultation" upon him leaving that heresy.

This episode illustrates an important principle in evangelism: Victory is not just found when someone embraces the gospel--though, of course, that is the goal we pray and work and reason with them for. Just getting someone to disbelieve a lie that was previously a barrier to their coming to salvation is something to exult over too because it is also proof that God is using you in their life.

So, unless God gives you the kind of insight about the person you're trying to evangelize as He gave St. Monica, thank Him for all of the step-by-step victories He gives before bringing a person all the way to saving faith, just like He did with Augustine.

The True Heart for Evangelism

Spurgeon: "...if sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies; and if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay, and not madly to destroy themselves. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for."

When you encounter the lost--in person, in print, on TV, on radio, etc.--are these your thoughts? Is this your heart? Oh how I want this for myself!!!

If you want to read the whole sermon or find the quote in context, click the title above, and then leave a comment.