Sermon

Week 27: Scientology Provides the "Grift" of Salvation | February 8, 2026 Sunday School

Sermon Podcast—LBC Easton

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  1. Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.

  2. The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist

  3. Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us

  4. or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look

  5. us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this

  6. message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.

  7. Scientology providing the grift of salvation, not the gift of

  8. salvation. There's a reason why I would say

  9. that the term grift, as it is defined in the dictionary, is a

  10. group of methods for obtaining money falsely through the use of

  11. swindles or fraud. And when I think of the Church

  12. of Scientology, grift is exactly what I think of, because there

  13. are many who will give thousands upon thousands, sometimes into

  14. the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  15. To be able to go clear, we'll talk what that means in just a

  16. moment. And then after going clear,

  17. supposedly we'll continue to give money to maintain this

  18. higher plane of living in existence of which they have

  19. found. But yet really the only one who

  20. benefits is the Church of Scientology.

  21. And so I want us to look at that here today.

  22. It has gained prominence through stars like John Travolta, Tom

  23. Cruise, and the late Kirstie Alley.

  24. Sometimes because of this, Scientology is called the Church

  25. of the Stars because it is so ingrained into the Hollywood

  26. would culture. Most recently it's had more

  27. negative publicity. There was an actress named Leah

  28. Remini who was on the TV show King of Queens who left

  29. Scientology and has worked very hard at exposing many of the

  30. secrets, much of the fraud, much of the abuses that have taken

  31. place within the Church of Scientology.

  32. And Scientology is dubious as it is both a religion and a cult.

  33. As I just mentioned. It's a religion because as a

  34. belief system, it is completely of its own.

  35. There is nothing that Scientology can relate to.

  36. There's no other religion. You could say, well, Scientology

  37. is very close to this. It is completely invented from

  38. the mind of 1L Ron Hubbard. But it's also a cult because for

  39. almost 75 years, the 75 years it has been in existence, depending

  40. on when you peg the date of it beginning, whether it was the

  41. writing of Dianetics or whether it was founded as a religion

  42. several years later. But for almost 75 years, it has

  43. only had two leaders, one being its founder, L Ron Hubbard, and

  44. then David Miskevich, who we'll talk about more in a few moments

  45. as well. And if we were to summarize

  46. Scientology in one sentence, it would be this.

  47. Scientology, despite its glitz and glamour, will make you go

  48. bankrupt before it sends you straight to hell.

  49. That's not a great introduction to a religion, is it?

  50. But that's what Scientology will do.

  51. It'll make you go financially bankrupt before it sends you

  52. straight to hell. Well, I do want us to look at

  53. Colossians chapter #2 because I do think there's a passage here

  54. that helps us understand a little bit of the problem of

  55. Scientology. And certainly we're going to

  56. have difficulty getting through this lesson.

  57. This morning I have resigned myself to the thought or the

  58. possibility that we may have to go into next week as well,

  59. because there's some videos I believe you need to see to help

  60. us set the foundation for what we're talking about.

  61. And there's so many very, very strange doctrines that are

  62. attached to this religion, as well as the fact that there are

  63. many, many great abuses that have taken place in this

  64. religion as well. There's no way I can cover them

  65. all, but I do want to give you a good understanding of what it

  66. is. So Colossians chapter 2 verse #6

    Colossians 2 chapter mention

  67. says this, as you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord,

  68. so walkie in him. Boy, that's good for us to

  69. remember, isn't it? Don't just receive him, but then

  70. once you've received Him, walk in His ways.

  71. And it says in verse 7, rooted and build up in Him, established

  72. in the faith as He had been taught, abounding therein with

  73. Thanksgiving. And I love that outline.

  74. First we're rooted, then we're built up, then we're

  75. established, and then we're abounding.

  76. That's the way walking in the Christian life works.

  77. It's first rooted, then built up, then established, and then

  78. what happens? You abound.

  79. And then it says in verse 8, beware lest any man spoil you

  80. through philosophy and vain deceit.

  81. After the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the

  82. world, that word rudiments means a first principle or a first

  83. element, the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ, for

  84. him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily you say, What

  85. does that mean? What means Jesus is God verse

  86. #10 and ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all

  87. principality and power. And I think verse 10 certainly

  88. goes very well with what we have learned in Colossians chapter 3

    Colossians 3 chapter mention

  89. at Christ is all. And then we saw Colossians

    Colossians 3 chapter mention

  90. chapter 3 that Christ is our life.

  91. But look again at verse #8 where it says this just a second,

  92. where lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain

  93. deceit. After the tradition of mem,

  94. after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

  95. I think verse 8 May be the best way for us to be able to explain

  96. what Scientology is all about. Philosophy.

  97. Scientology has it vain deceit trying to trick people

  98. physically trying to trick people and knowing that they are

  99. yes they have it as well the tradition of men.

  100. Scientology has it it may be wrapped up in new age

  101. terminology. It may be wrapped up in L Ron

  102. Hubbard science fiction background, but yet really the

  103. things he's presenting are errors as old as time itself.

  104. And in the rudiments of the world that the idea that there

  105. are some of the basic elements that they are going to teach

  106. you, well, they have that in their eight dynamics and they're

  107. 8 dynamics are again, falsehood as well.

  108. So what's the origin of Scientology?

  109. Well, Scientology was founded by 1.

  110. L Ron Hubbard. He was a science fiction writer

  111. who had no biblical authority, obviously, or divine calling.

  112. He was a science fiction writer who also had a very interesting

  113. history. But I would also suggest that

  114. his interesting history was nowhere as interesting as what

  115. the Church of Scientology has presented.

  116. And like all cult leaders, they have to be able to have a

  117. biography that would cause people to want to follow this

  118. person. L Ron Hubbard does not have the

  119. type of life that people should follow his life.

  120. However, they have carefully cultivated and crafted a

  121. biography over the years to make this man that you see right

  122. here, perhaps the most interesting man that ever lived.

  123. And so we're going to look at why that is here in just a

  124. moment. His teachings originate from

  125. human philosophy. Rather than revealing God's

  126. Word, Scripture warns against doctrines rooted in man's ideas.

  127. As we read here in just a moment, everything that you find

  128. in the Church of Scientology all comes from the mind of 1L Ron

  129. Hubbard. Whether it is the writing of the

  130. book Dianetics or whether it's the teachings that follow.

  131. You will not find any thread of Scripture in that which he

  132. teaches. It is all New Age teaching that

  133. is really rooted, as I mentioned just a moment ago, in Old Age

  134. Error. That's just repackaged purposed

  135. by this gentleman right here. Now, I am going to show you a

  136. little bit of a lengthy video here.

  137. It's about 10 minutes. But I do believe it will help us

  138. set the foundation of who L Ron Hubbard is.

  139. And if, again, listen very carefully to his biography and

  140. some of the things that are being said, because we're going

  141. to find out here in just a few moments that pretty much

  142. everything you're about to hear is false.

  143. So let's go ahead and watch that and then we'll make some

  144. comments. He was born Lafayette Ronald

  145. Hubbard on March 13th, 1911 in Tilda, Nebraska.

  146. He spent his formative years in a rough and tumble Helena, Mt

  147. where he rode barely broken range Bronx at the age of 3 1/2.

  148. As his mother was that rarity of her time.

  149. A thoroughly educated woman, he was also reading well beyond his

  150. years philosophy, science and the pillars of Western

  151. literature, all in an effort to satisfy a rare and abiding

  152. curiosity. As his father was a United

  153. States Naval officer, he was further afforded to then rare

  154. opportunity to travel, Criss crossing America's diverse

  155. communities in the teens of the 20th century.

  156. At the age of 12, he entered the Boy Scouts, first leading his

  157. troop to victory in a regional Scout advancement competition,

  158. then representing Scouting to United States President Calvin

  159. Coolidge. But it was his 21 merit badges

  160. that most distinguished L Ron Hubbard at this juncture of his

  161. life. For just days beyond his 13th

  162. birthday, he became the youngest Eagle Scout in American history.

  163. It was another distinction entirely, however, that set him

  164. on the first leg of his life's course, specifically when an

  165. American naval officer who had studied under Sigmund Freud

  166. introduced young L Ron Hubbard to the theories of

  167. psychoanalysis. Although left with many

  168. unanswered questions, here was the moment when his enduring

  169. interest in unraveling the mysteries of the human mind was

  170. born. His father's naval career

  171. provided the next avenue of inquiry, in particular a Far

  172. East assignment allowing the 16 year old L Ron Hubbard a chance

  173. to visit Asia. It was land still steeped in

  174. mystery and rarely seen by Westerners, yet pursuing very

  175. fundamental questions on the origins of man and the ultimate

  176. source of life. He trekked more than 1/4 of

  177. 1,000,000 miles through India, China, Japan and the Philippines

  178. into many remote cultures and much arcane wisdom, including

  179. Veda Kim's at the root of mankind's oldest beliefs.

  180. It was also through these travels he gained entrance to

  181. forbidden Buddhist llamaseries in China's western hills and

  182. there witnessed wonders beyond any known scientific

  183. explanation. Shortly after his return to the

  184. United States in 1929, he entered George Washington

  185. University as an engineering student.

  186. It was a rigorous curriculum of scientific methodology, the very

  187. tools he needed to examine human thinking with unerring accuracy.

  188. Here, too, was one of America's earliest classes on nuclear

  189. physics, through which he embarked on yet another

  190. investigatory trail, this one to isolate a postulated life source

  191. theoretically detectable in small energy particles.

  192. Yet laboratory experimentation was by no means all that

  193. occupied his university days. Beginning in June of 1932, he

  194. organized the first of several expeditions to remote and

  195. primitive lands, initially a 5000 mile voyage into the

  196. Caribbean where he mingled with the people predating Columbus by

  197. at least 10 centuries. Next came Puerto Rico, where he

  198. not only conducted one of the islands first complete

  199. mineralogical surveys, but also studied yet another ancient

  200. culture deep within the hinterland.

  201. Then, taking his thirst for adventure to the skies, he

  202. became America's 385th licensed glider pilot.

  203. Heralded by newspapers of the day as Flash hovered for his

  204. aerial antics, while as a barnstorming sensation of

  205. powered flight across rural America, he mixed with still

  206. another slice of society. Then, leaving university in the

  207. depths of the Great Depression, he began his career as a

  208. professional author, turning his true to life exploits into high

  209. action tales for magazines of the day, tales of adventure,

  210. tales of intrigue, science fiction, fantasies, westerns,

  211. and even the occasional romance. As an undisputed legend of

  212. American Pulp Fiction, L Ron Hubbard wrote it all.

  213. Indeed, with more than 300 novels and novelettes to his

  214. credit, so prodigious was his output, he was eventually

  215. authoring stories under 15 pen names and so filling whole

  216. magazines with his work. He was also scripting matinee

  217. blockbusters for Hollywood and otherwise leaving an indelible

  218. stamp as an author whose career would span 50 years.

  219. Then just as exploits fueled story ideas, so his stories

  220. funded still more exploration until he was regularly Criss

  221. crossing the country to live extreme adventures and mix with

  222. people as far afield as Native American tribes along the

  223. Alaskan Panhandle. In recognition of discoveries in

  224. the field, he was further honored with a place in the

  225. prestigious and invitation only Explorers Club and so went on to

  226. captain expeditions beneath 3 club flags.

  227. But the real point of such adventures was the fact he was

  228. mixing with life to fathom life. The first decisive breakthrough

  229. came in 1937 when he isolated the single common denominator

  230. between all living things, a dynamic principle of existence.

  231. It was recorded in a manuscript entitled Excalibur and presented

  232. the basis for all future research into the mind and

  233. source of life. But then came an interruption to

  234. that research, the Second World War.

  235. As he had since earned a rare master mariner's license to

  236. captain any vessel in any ocean, he received numerous

  237. recommendations for Commission as a naval officer.

  238. In particular, he was described discreet, loyal, honest, and

  239. without peer in the art of getting things done.

  240. So it was. Lieutenant L Ron Hubbard

  241. commanded warships in both the Atlantic and Pacific.

  242. He was highly decorated for duties under fire and ended his

  243. service in a military hospital where he was treated for wounds

  244. suffered in combat. But that's also where he

  245. embarked on his final Rd. of discovery, working with injured

  246. servicemen who had failed to recover despite intensive

  247. medical care. He began employing all he had

  248. learned through the previous decades, spiritual principles

  249. from the East as well as scientific methodologies from

  250. the West. What he then discovered were

  251. mental factors inhibiting recovery and preventing

  252. medicines from taking effect. And when in fact those mental

  253. blocks were addressed, the medicine began to work and

  254. patients swiftly returned to health.

  255. He then continued refining procedures on people from all

  256. walks of life, actors and writers in Hollywood's film

  257. community, St. gang members whom he treated as a special officer

  258. with the LAPD, even deeply troubled patients at a Georgia

  259. institution. And so it was.

  260. Having developed a workable technology of the mind, he

  261. authored A definitive text on the subject, a work detailing

  262. all underlying theory, discoveries and techniques.

  263. That book was Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health.

  264. Published on May 9th, 1950. It sparked a storm of popular

  265. enthusiasm and immediately hit the New York Times bestseller

  266. list for 26 consecutive weeks. As such, it was the biggest

  267. selling book on the mind ever written and remains so today.

  268. Contained within was the discovery of the reactive mind,

  269. the hidden source of nightmares, unreasonable fears, upsets, and

  270. insecurity. Yet L Ron Hubbard never

  271. considered Dianetics an end to his research, but rather a

  272. stepping stone to the discovery and isolation of that long,

  273. elusive life source. And indeed, the techniques of

  274. Dianetics provided the means by which practitioners soon began

  275. discovering past lives, pressing application and research.

  276. Even further came the accomplishment of what is known

  277. as exteriorization. Demonstrating the spirit was

  278. indeed separable from the body and mind, The Scientology

  279. religion was born. Thereafter, L Ron Hubbard delved

  280. ever deeper into the spiritual nature of man, documenting his

  281. discoveries in thousands of recorded lectures, articles and

  282. books. While to present those

  283. discoveries, he literally circumnavigated the globe.

  284. And so churches of Scientology opened on 4 continents,

  285. headquartered at his long term residence in Southern England.

  286. Through ensuing years, L Ron Hubbard continued advancing the

  287. subject until his passing in 1986.

  288. His legacy comprises 10s of millions of published words and

  289. 3000 recorded lectures, while with over 250 million copies of

  290. his books and lectures in circulation, he has inspired a

  291. movement spanning all continents and all cultures.

  292. So to those who would ask what kind of man could have founded

  293. the only major religion of the 20th century, the answer is

  294. simple enough. A man who lived life from the

  295. top down and the bottom up. A man who would see much wisdom

  296. and great suffering. A man who spent a quarter of a

  297. century bridging the gap between East and West, science and

  298. religion. A man such as L Ron Hubbard.

  299. All right, that video was sponsored by Oscar Mayer.

  300. Because there's a lot of baloney there, all right?

  301. There's no other way to be able to put that.

  302. The main foundation of that was to understand life.

  303. You have to live life. And that's why L Ron Hubbard's

  304. biography has to be so incredibly effusive as far as

  305. how much praise is given to him. But yet, let me just give you a

  306. short list of some of the false claims that were made in that

  307. video. And I do mean that this is a

  308. short list. The video falsely claims L Ron

  309. Hubbard was the youngest Eagle Scout in American history by

  310. joining at age 12 and then becoming the youngest at age 13

  311. with 21 merit badges when younger boys had already earned.

  312. It. Asserts he was a naval officer

  313. who studied under Freud who introduced him to psychoanalysis

  314. when no such officer or contact is documented.

  315. Exaggerates that he traveled 25250 thousand miles across Asia

  316. studying ancient cultures when his teenage trips were only

  317. brief port stops covering a tiny fraction of that distance.

  318. Presents his 1932 Puerto Rican trip as a major expedition to

  319. study ancient cultures when it was actually a short failed

  320. amateur mineral hunt. States that he wrote over 300

  321. novels and novelettes when his published Pulp Fiction totals

  322. only about 140 or 150 works. Asserts he commanded warships in

  323. the Atlantic and Pacific during World War 2 when he only briefly

  324. led to small non combat support vessels and was relieved of both

  325. commands. Portrays him as a heroic combat

  326. veteran with significant wartime action when he had no combat

  327. service, no wounds, and only standard non combat metals.

  328. Said he discovered during World War 2 that mental factors block

  329. physical healing when no wartime records support.

  330. This implies he held a rare near unlimited Master Mariner license

  331. for any vessel on any ocean when his actual 1940 Masters license

  332. was standard commercial credentials with normal

  333. restrictions. States Dianetics.

  334. Auditing naturally led to past life discoveries that birth

  335. scientification when past lives were not even formally part of

  336. Scientology until 1952 to 1954. And that's the short list of the

  337. problems of what is here. The fundamental disconnect is

  338. that to know life and to live life is not to know life.

  339. To know God is to know life. That is what truly understanding

  340. life is all about. And how do we know God?

  341. Well, we know God from His Word, what He has revealed to us in

  342. the 66 books that we have here in the Bible now in 1950, L Ron

  343. Hubbard. Did write the book Dianetics

  344. claiming to explain the true cause of all human problems.

  345. Now I found it interesting as I was looking at some of the

  346. images and putting these slides together.

  347. Why do most of the books really from I believe the 1970s or so

  348. and on have this volcano at the front of Dianetics?

  349. And the reason why is because this is the belief of L Ron

  350. Hubbard that very, very far back in Earths history, there was an

  351. alien named Xenu who brought his people to the Earth to be able

  352. to have them to die and then put H bombs inside all the volcanoes

  353. of the Earth and had them explode to be able to kill his

  354. own people. And that is why there's a

  355. volcano on the front. Now look it up if you don't

  356. believe me, because I'll be honest with you.

  357. It's even coming out of my mouth.

  358. And it sounds as crazy as the planet Kolob with the Mormons.

  359. But it's again this fanciful science fiction writer who has

  360. brought these ideas from his mind.

  361. It is trying to portray them into the culture of Scientology.

  362. He claims that that the true 'cause of all human problems can

  363. be found in this book, Dianetics.

  364. Dianetics teaches that man's issue is mental damage rather

  365. than spiritual sin. Now Scripture identifies the

  366. heart as the real problem, doesn't it?

  367. Jeremiah 17/9. The heart is deep, deceitful

  368. above all things, and desperately wicked.

  369. Who can know it? You don't just find the deep

  370. problems of the heart and then root them out yourself.

  371. The problem is sin, and only Jesus Christ can save us.

  372. And so that's very clear that this is not according to the

  373. word of God. That's just one facet of it that

  374. is different from the word of God.

  375. When Dianetics failed in 1950 as both science and medicine, and

  376. it was on the New York Times bestseller list for some period

  377. of time, but immediately fell out of favor as a self help book

  378. because many of the common authorities of the time said

  379. this is bunk. There is nothing here

  380. whatsoever. And then because of legal issues

  381. as well that he was having from his self help book, it was

  382. easier for him to turn Dianetics into a religion, which came the

  383. Church of Scientology. Because with that religious

  384. exemption placed upon him, there were legal protections that he

  385. had as a nonprofit, including being able to amass large

  386. amounts of funds and not having to pay any taxes on them.

  387. And so Scientology was never what L Ron Hubbard was trying to

  388. found, but he founded it because of the difficulties he was

  389. having with Dianetics in those early years.

  390. Scientology has been marketed since to Hollywood.

  391. Of course, L Ron Hubbard was, I would say, a Barnacle on the

  392. whole of Hollywood. He certainly was not a major

  393. part of Hollywood, but he was part of the Hollywood culture

  394. and seen enough that he realized very quickly that the best way

  395. to be able to have Scientology to grow is to be able to market

  396. to Hollywood elites. Why?

  397. Because those are the cultural tastemakers, if you will.

  398. They are the ones that are out there.

  399. They are the Tom Cruise's. And by the way, when you look at

  400. Tom Cruise's life and some of the extraordinary feats that he

  401. does do, I have to wonder if he's trying to emulate the life

  402. of 1L Ron Hubbard, which, ironically enough, is not

  403. grounded in reality. But to be able to do these

  404. incredible stunts, to be able to pilot aircraft that civilians

  405. shouldn't even be able to pilot, But he has the ability to.

  406. And he does these things, and he credits Scientology for it.

  407. But it does seem like he's trying to scratch an itch that

  408. maybe was placed there by looking at the biography of 1L

  409. Ron Hubbard of many Scientologists come from

  410. Hollywood. And the reason why is now there

  411. is such an undercurrent of Scientologists in Hollywood.

  412. There are many struggling actors, there are many

  413. struggling musicians who find that by going into the Church of

  414. Scientology, they have a support group that can help them,

  415. producers, directors and otherwise can get them into TV

  416. shows, into movies, recording contracts.

  417. And it's almost as if it's the Rotary Club club.

  418. It's almost as if it's the Lions Club for Hollywood for you to

  419. enter in. Maybe just think that there's

  420. really nothing to it. There's just a group of people

  421. that want to do some nice things, some good things.

  422. They're all part of Hollywood. But not realizing how absolutely

  423. sinister the Church of Scientology is now.

  424. Its current leader is 1. David Miscavige.

  425. As soon as L Ron Hubbard passed away in 1986.

  426. Miscavige, who was 25 years old at the time, took the reins of

  427. power through some very Machiavellian type ways to be

  428. able to take control from others who would have been next in

  429. line, but instead has taken over and has been the leader ever

  430. since. He has substantially increased

  431. their financial holdings. Estimates rage that they make

  432. anywhere from some on the low end 150 to $200 million a year

  433. on the high end up to 1/2 a million or rather half a billion

  434. dollars a year comes in. And from what I have seen

  435. personally, I would say would probably be more on the higher

  436. end and that's just calling their liquid assets, not

  437. counting the substantial holdings that they have in real

  438. estate as well in California and Clearwater, FL.

  439. And also my familiarity with Scientology goes back to living

  440. in Tampa as long as I did and seeing Scientology basically

  441. take over downtown Clearwater, FL.

  442. And when that process was taking place in the early 2000s, I

  443. remember in the newspaper, yes, I subscribed to the newspaper

  444. back in the early 2000s in the Saint Pete Times.

  445. They did a great number of exposes on the Church of

  446. Scientology and the Church of Scientology and David Miscavage

  447. is really part of this is very much attached to their image.

  448. They very much do not want the truth of what Scientology is to

  449. come out. And if you were to remove

  450. yourself or to be able to come out of within the Church of

  451. Scientology, particularly if you're in some of those most

  452. inner part groups like the C org, that would be one of them.

  453. Those people will come after you.

  454. They'll come after your family, they'll come after your assets.

  455. They'll come after you in court. They are very vindictive in many

  456. ways when you consider what I would call organized crime.

  457. There are a lot of similarities in the name of religion with the

  458. Church of Scientology with that man in his leader.

  459. He's a very mysterious man. He's only given one interview

  460. since 1986. That interview was on Nightline

  461. in the 90s with one Ted Koppel. Now interestingly enough, he

  462. handled himself so poorly in that interview that he has never

  463. given another interview since. You cannot find this man

  464. speaking other than today on the Church of Scientology YouTube

  465. page or website. That's the only place that you

  466. can hear him now. Interestingly enough, because

  467. it's a cult, he has been set up as a deity.

  468. He has been set up as much as L Ron Hubbard and I would even

  469. argue even more. Doing an inspection of their

  470. YouTube page this week and finding some of the videos that

  471. I was looking for. I found that, well, if you were

  472. to look at the Church of Scientology, this is their

  473. actual YouTube channel. Out of these 12 videos that are

  474. there, you have 123-4567 videos. What are they?

  475. This guy is awesome. This guy is great.

  476. What does it say? He inspires respect.

  477. He sets the example. He feels like a friend.

  478. He welcome to me, says Alice. Inspires real admiration, has

  479. our full support, leads with unwavering purpose.

  480. What you see here is the very actions of a cult lifting up its

  481. leader more than the teachings itself.

  482. And by the way, the teachings itself are pretty bad.

  483. Now, Miscavige also has another issue.

  484. Well, he has many issues, but one would be his wife, Shelly

  485. Miscavige. She has disappeared since 2007.

  486. The Queen Mother, if you will, of Scientology, she disappeared,

  487. quote UN quote, and has never been seen since.

  488. Leah Remini, when she left Scientology, actually put out a

  489. missing persons report for, excuse me, Shelly Miskevich.

  490. She reported it to the Los Angeles Police Department and

  491. within hours the case was closed.

  492. Now, I'm not saying that I know exactly what happened here.

  493. But when you look at the mystery of what takes place, when you

  494. look at the abuses of what takes place, including in a location

  495. that is called the hole, where people in are taken to Los

  496. Angeles if they do not obey the Church of Scientology.

  497. Where you're living in a place that what I have read by all

  498. accounts is worse than prison and run by the Church of

  499. Scientology surrounded by razor wire to make sure people don't

  500. get in and to make sure that people don't get out.

  501. There's a lot here to be said for the Church of Scientology.

  502. Now we're going to look at some of the unique terms that you

  503. find in Scientology. And as a former science fiction

  504. writer, L Ron Hubbard's teachings resemble what he wrote

  505. for a living. Fiction.

  506. What you are hearing is something that you might hear in

  507. Star Wars or Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica, maybe

  508. because this is coming from the mind of one who wrote that type

  509. of fiction for several years. Dianetics teaches that there is

  510. both an analytical mind and you might have heard it and saw it

  511. on that video we saw a few moments ago, but there's also a

  512. reactive mind as well. The analytical mind is what

  513. you're using right now according to Scientology.

  514. You're thinking about what I'm saying.

  515. You're thinking about what's for lunch.

  516. You're thinking about when is it ever going to warm up.

  517. These are the things that you're thinking about right now in your

  518. analytical mind. But the reactive mind is

  519. different. The reactive mind allegedly

  520. stores all painful memories that control behavior.

  521. That can be memories from this life, that can be memories from

  522. a past life, from any of your past lives.

  523. And so you can see the rabbit hole that you can immediately go

  524. down when you are suffering from difficulties, when you're

  525. suffering from issues and you go to the Church of Scientology and

  526. they say you are something in your reactive mind.

  527. And it could be in this life. It could have happened in the

  528. womb. Yes, I said that, right?

  529. It could have been prenatal or it could have happened in a

  530. previous life. And only we can help you.

  531. And guess what? It's going to cost a lot of

  532. money. So how do they help treat these

  533. types of issues? Well, they start with N grams.

  534. And N grams are those traumatic mental recordings that are

  535. stored in the reactive mind. Scientology claims these cause

  536. sickness, fear and immorality. Interestingly enough, you might

  537. have remembered a well. Tom Cruise had several very

  538. famous interviews, one jumping on the couch with Oprah, but

  539. another one on the Today show many years ago where he was

  540. talking about drugs and talking about particularly drugs that

  541. would help with mental conditions and things like that.

  542. And it made very clear that those were not to be taken under

  543. any way, shape or form. Why was he saying that?

  544. He was saying that because he was getting to the point that

  545. really any type of mental issue, yes, any type of mental issue

  546. that someone is dealing with is because of the engrams that they

  547. have stored within them. Again, from this life, from

  548. prenatal life, from a previous life.

  549. This is what they teach and they need to have those end grams be

  550. able to have rise to the surface so that you can eventually go

  551. quote UN quote clear and you can be free of all of those types of

  552. things. But scripture teaches evil

  553. proceeds from where the heart mark 721 through 23 from within

  554. out of the heart of men predicts precede evil thoughts,

  555. adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness,

  556. wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness and evil eye,

  557. blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from

  558. within and defile the man. Scientology teaches at engrams

  559. can be formed again before birth or even while unconscious, and

  560. this removes moral responsibility for the Sinner.

  561. You're not the fault for your own sin.

  562. It was someone else who in a different body, but with your

  563. soul, your theaton soul that was able to do those things and now

  564. you are paying the price. But yet we understand scripture

  565. teaches what personal accountability.

  566. Each of us are accountable for our own actions.

  567. And I just mentioned that word theaton, but that is also

  568. another word that is used theaton your theaton mind or

  569. your theaton life. It's really what your essence is

  570. called. It can be used in many different

  571. ways, but scripture clearly denies reincarnation and teaches

  572. that there is one life and after this what the judgment is

  573. appointed on demand wants to die, but after this the judgment

  574. and grams replace sin as the root of the problem.

  575. So without sin there is nothing to be saved from.

  576. There really is no problems. You have these N grams from your

  577. your feet and spirit and your essence and they have to be

  578. brought out. Now how are these N grams

  579. uncovered? How do Scientologists learn

  580. about their your most self? Well, they get together in what

  581. they would call a form of worship, if you will.

  582. And So what happens when Scientologists come together?

  583. What are some of the things that they do?

  584. We're going to watch video #2 and this is probably the last

  585. video that we're going to show this morning, gentlemen.

  586. We'll go into next week. But why don't we go ahead and

  587. show the second video we can see?

  588. What do those Scientologists do when they gather together?

  589. I could understand how you'd be curious.

  590. I mean, you walk in, you go, what is it?

  591. What is this place? Walking to a Church of

  592. Scientology is very much a new kind of experience.

  593. It's not like a, a church that I was used to walking into.

  594. You know, it's very modern looking, you know, very, very

  595. clean. You know, it was a very friendly

  596. atmosphere. People come in every day, all

  597. the time, just walking in, hey, what is this?

  598. What is this place? I'd like to know.

  599. One of the things that you definitely see is a lot of

  600. displays. We have panels, there's video

  601. displays that are just designed just to answer questions.

  602. It answers every question that they could possibly have about

  603. what is Scientology. They can just literally push the

  604. button, watch that 2 minute display and know exactly what

  605. that concept is. You know, you can come spend 10

  606. minutes, spend 2 hours, grab a coffee, just kind of come as you

  607. are, check it out, walk. Through Scientologists have a

  608. church because it's a a place where we can go to study, to

  609. have Sunday service. We do the same types of things.

  610. We have our Sunday services. We do marriages of naming

  611. ceremonies. We have all kinds of services

  612. that we do as a group, but one thing that's particular about

  613. Scientology is that there's also a personal aspect to it.

  614. You can kind of choose like OK what do I need help with in my

  615. life? The first thing probably most

  616. everyone does is a course. That's actually the theology in

  617. Scientology. That's where you're learning

  618. about the actual philosophy itself, and it is a religious

  619. philosophy, but it's also an applied religious philosophy.

  620. See, go apply it Kind of like a spiritual college.

  621. I have tons of courses on pretty much any subject you really

  622. think of. There are courses on how to

  623. communicate better, how to get along with others, how to handle

  624. negative people, how to raise children.

  625. It's not just a philosophy where you sit and think about it.

  626. It's taking the spiritual nature of man and it's combining it

  627. with something that's really practical.

  628. It has a way of being very, very simple and easy to come across

  629. to the reader and easy to apply, but also extremely powerful.

  630. You come in, you pick and share, you like, you sit down, you

  631. study there. It's really quite simple.

  632. You feel good when you're studying there.

  633. You don't need to be a Scientologist and you can be any

  634. religion really to come check it out.

  635. The whole point is you're yourself in a Church of

  636. Scientology. You're the one doing the

  637. learning. Nobody's preaching to you or

  638. teaching it to you. You're learning it yourself.

  639. Well, here at the church we deliver courses, we deliver

  640. personal counseling called auditing, and we deliver the

  641. purification rundown. The Purification Rundown

  642. actually opens the way to spiritual progress.

  643. It's an all natural regimen which frees one from the harmful

  644. effects of drugs and toxins. Old drugs that you took,

  645. pesticide. You sweat all those things out

  646. of your system and you feel so much more alive, revitalizing.

  647. The simplicity. And the.

  648. Power of it is immeasurable. There's also something called

  649. auditing, which is Scientology counseling, and that is

  650. extremely unique. That is where you actually get

  651. rid of the unwanted emotions and unwanted habits, psychosomatic

  652. illnesses. There's no hypnosis involved in

  653. it. There's no analyzation, no.

  654. One tells you what's wrong with you.

  655. It finds the roots. It finds the cause, what's going

  656. on, and it handles that spiritually for you.

  657. You are giving back yourself. You start to recognize really

  658. who you are, and that's really spiritual enlightenment.

  659. What they use in auditing is an instrument called an E meter,

  660. which really helps a person to locate areas of pain and trauma

  661. that you may not be totally aware of.

  662. Anybody can walk into a Church of Scientology and just write

  663. off reception, get a demonstration of the E meter for

  664. themselves. I mean, literally the person can

  665. walk up and see for themselves how that actually works.

  666. Tools and Scientology are used for you to help you with the

  667. areas of your life that you're having trouble with.

  668. It's a personal experience for an individual and.

  669. It's not lumping everyone into the same ball of wax because we

  670. all know it. We're all different.

  671. Any person that walks in my course room is a totally new

  672. person with their own story, with their own life.

  673. And as you take that journey, you become more and more you.

  674. You become more and more an individual.

  675. After all, that's what we have to offer.

  676. The world is our own unique view.

  677. There's searches in Paris, in London, in New York.

  678. Moscow, Germany. All over Europe, in Madrid, in

  679. Africa. The best way to find out about

  680. something. Is really to?

  681. Look for yourself. It's as simple as opening the

  682. door. You're always welcome.

  683. We'll admit having a sauna in the church on a day like today

  684. would be something that would be nice.

  685. But you can see that everything in the video deals with you.

  686. What do you want? What are you going to become?

  687. You can become a better form of you.

  688. This is what it is really. You are a good person.

  689. You really have no type of sinful habits that need to be.

  690. You need to be safe from no, no. What is the real issue?

  691. The real issue is you need to find the better you.

  692. And we find that in that video, there were several things that

  693. were mentioned, as we saw from the first video, now kind of

  694. distilled in the second video as we see these things being put

  695. into practice that I want to show you quickly.

  696. The 1st is auditing the idea of being audited.

  697. What is that? Well, it's a counseling process

  698. meant to erase those harmful engrams.

  699. Freedom is promised through repeated sessions rather than

  700. forgiveness, because that's what we do need, isn't it?

  701. Forgiveness. Scripture teaches cleansing

  702. comes through the blood of Jesus Christ first.

  703. John 17 But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we

  704. have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus

  705. Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sins.

  706. So how is the auditor able to be able to tell what the end grams

  707. are and how they can be removed? Well, it's through the use of

  708. what you saw a few moments ago as well.

  709. Oh, by the way, this is an auditing session right here.

  710. We saw that on the video, but it's really through the use of

  711. the E meter. The E meter measures skin

  712. response during auditing. Scientology claims it reveals

  713. spiritual and mental problems as you hold what sometimes are

  714. colloquially called the cans. You saw those two things that

  715. they're holding. It measures electrical response,

  716. and as you talk during the auditing session, as that meter

  717. goes up and down, it's supposed to show some areas where there

  718. are harmful engrams that need to be removed.

  719. And we can take a picture or look at an E meter right here.

  720. Now, scientifically, medically, whatever way you want to look at

  721. this, this has been uncovered as really nothing more than bunk.

  722. There is nothing that can be found here that would be helpful

  723. in any way, shape or form. There's no scientific basis for

  724. this. Literally they have to take by

  725. faith that this is actually helping them.

  726. And it's another reminder that this is a faith-based system.

  727. There is nothing here that can be looked at as anything that is

  728. grounded on science. Well, and we look at ourselves,

  729. we believe by faith, but it's also reasonable that we believe

  730. by faith as well because we look around us and we see what God

  731. has done and what God has created and the heavens declare

  732. the glory of God in the firmament show of this

  733. handiwork. That's not really a a leap for

  734. us to be able to realize that faith is what we need to have.

  735. This is unreasonable faith. It's putting your faith in

  736. something that cannot help you in any way, shape or form.

  737. The E meter replaces conviction by the Holy Spirit mechanical

  738. reading substitute for divine truth.

  739. And as you are using the E meter for months and years, it is

  740. hoped that eventually you will go clear.

  741. Going clear is the process of using auditing to completely

  742. eliminate the reactive mind once and for all.

  743. That's the idea is that the reactive mind and all the end

  744. grams that it contains will eventually be taken away

  745. completely and you have finally gone clear.

  746. Now the first clear quote, UN quote was in 1950, Ron Hubbard

  747. presented a student named Sonia Bakani as the world's first

  748. clear during a presentation in Los Angeles.

  749. Again, this was before it became an actual religion.

  750. Interestingly enough, the first real clear was in 1966 because

  751. years later Hubbard officially designated of South African man

  752. named John McMaster as the first true clear under the religion's

  753. evolve criteria. So even his criteria of what it

  754. meant to be clear changed over time, which meant more sessions,

  755. which meant what? More money.

  756. But interestingly enough, he went clear in 1966, but John

  757. McMaster left the organization three years later.

  758. And so think of he's a man that finally made it to the pinnacle.

  759. And three years later he goes, I'm out.

  760. I can't do this anymore. It tells you of the absolute

  761. egregious nature of this both religion and a cult named

  762. Scientology. Well, it is true that I will not

  763. be able to make it through all that I want us to look at here

  764. this week. And so we'll continue our look

  765. at Scientology and finish our look at Scientology by God's

  766. grace next week. I would encourage you if you

  767. want to look at some reading this week if there's something

  768. that would interest you. There is a book called Going

  769. Clear. I read it last year.

  770. That was an expose is an expose on the Church of Scientology is

  771. written by a gentleman named Lawrence Wright.

  772. I would highly recommend it. Leah Remini has several

  773. documentaries. I cannot necessarily recommend

  774. them on the basis of the language that's contained within

  775. them, but understand that as a documentary and as a teaching,

  776. it does give some understanding of what she came through from.

  777. And then also a man named Mike Rinder, who is also very high in

  778. the sea organization, how he came out and is trying to expose

  779. those things. And literally, if you go online

  780. and just type in Tampa Bay Times and then Scientology, you'll

  781. find about 20 years of articles that the Tampa Bay Times used to

  782. be called the Saint Pete Times have written in about

  783. Scientology again, because of of its secondary home base in

  784. Clearwater, FL. And I can tell you, you can go

  785. down the rabbit hole and find some very enlightening articles

  786. there as well. Thank you for listening to the

  787. sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.

  788. If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we

  789. can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at

  790. [email protected]. Or you can visit us this Sunday

  791. at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.

  792. May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.