Lesson 1: God Vs. "Not God" | May 4, 2025 Sunday School

Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.

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

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

or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look

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

Hello, if you were watching online and we are at our Sunday

School hour and I'd invite you to turn your Bibles please to

Genesis chapter #3 this morning as we are in week one of our new

series. I am so excited about this

series. I had to be honest with you.

It seemed like there's a little bit of excitement from you about

this Sunday School series. And you know, when it comes to

Sunday school, Sunday School and excitement aren't 2 terms that

always go together. They ought to go together, but

they don't always go together. I'm a big proponent of Sunday

School. I think it's a wonderful time

for us to be able to be together.

It's not just for the children, it's for the adults as well.

But I'm really looking forward to this series on world religion

and cults. And I think it's important for

us to be broadcasting it online as well.

So for those who are unable to be here to be able to watch as

well. And if you're not able to be

here for a Sunday that you can catch up and stay up with where

we are. We'll make sure that this is

going to be on our podcast as well.

So you can catch it in podcast form if you don't get it on

video. But thankful for all these

opportunities that we're able to do.

And really all these opportunities are free for the

church pay to be able to live stream.

We don't have to pay to podcast. I'm thankful that the word can

go out at no charge. And to be able to let the

ministry of not just liberty, but the ministry of the word to

be able to go out. And I'm really, really thankful

for that. Well, I'm excited about this

series and we're going to be laying some groundwork for the

next few weeks. You say when do we get into the

specific religions or when do we get in the specific cult?

Well, it's going to take a few weeks for us to get there.

And so this isn't a bait and switch.

I'm not trying to trick you or anything like that.

But the idea is we have to kind of really get a base

understanding of what we're talking about.

What are we talking about when we talk about a religion, What

are we talking about? We're talking about a cult.

Where do these come from and why is it important for us to

discuss them? I do want to make something

clear before we begin. When it comes into our teaching,

when it comes to what we're going to discuss about these

things. We're going to attack the

articles of faith of these false teachings.

We're going to attack the authorities of these false

teachings. We're not going to attack the

adherence of these false teachings.

What I mean is this, we're trying to win someone who

happens to be involved in one of these cults.

We're trying to win someone that's involved in one of these

other religions. Does it really do us well to

talk about how stupid they are? So I'm just be, I'm being very

blunt right now. I'm being very blunt about this

and I hope you understand what I'm saying.

What, are we going to attack the articles of faith?

We will because they're heresy. They're straight from the devil.

Are we going to attack the authorities that are propagating

these things? Absolutely, we are.

But there's a lot of people who have just been, well, flat out

duped by a lot of these false teachings.

And we're not attacking these people.

We're trying to lovingly tell them Jesus Christ is the answer.

And we're not going to achieve that by telling them, Hey, what

kind, what a rube are you? I mean, what kind of a simpleton

are you that you would believe something like?

And there's going to be some really crazy things that we're

going to look at in a lot of these different religions and a

lot of these different cults. But we're not going to call them

out in the sense of how simple minded they are.

We're going to call them out to the love of Jesus Christ, which

is what saves the soul, the only thing that saves the soul.

Remember, these world religions and cults are not just other

ways to get to God. There's only one way to get to

God. That's Jesus Christ.

It's Christ alone. Jesus said that.

But at the same time, we're to look at these other types of

religions, faiths, thought processes, however you want to

look at it and realize they really all boil down to one

group, if you will, and that's error.

The truth is the Word of God. Error is, well, everything else.

And that's what we're going to look at this morning in our

series. And you'll see we're in week 1,

the difference between God and not God, God versus not God.

I asked you to go to Genesis chapter #3 because this is

really where a lot of the trouble begins, isn't it?

Well, it's really where all the trouble began, isn't it?

In the Garden of Eden. I know that you are familiar

with this passage, very likely. But I do think that it's good

for us to be able to look at it here in just a moment.

Now, I know that in preaching here at Liberty Baptist Church,

I've said many times that it's important for us to be more

familiar with the truth that it is with error.

You know, if you can't show a bank teller all the different

kinds of counterfeit bills that are out there because they're

constantly changing, but you can show a bank teller what real

money looks like, what it feels like, even what it smells like,

so that they are familiar with the truth.

So by being familiar with the truth, they can spot error.

I still believe that. I think that is the best way for

us to learn and grow about what falsehood is by knowing the

truth. Amen.

But at the same time, we would be remiss to say, you know, it's

not bad for us to understand what some of these other thought

processes are. And one of the reasons why is

because if I meet a Jehovah Witness and I want to help win

them to Jesus Christ, well, I should be able to know a little

bit of the thought process, a little bit of their doctrine.

So I would be able to talk to them in a way that would

resonate with them and help them to understand where their

doctrine differs from the Word of God.

If I talk to a Muslim, they might have regard for Abraham or

for Moses or even for Jesus, but we would show them that perhaps

their regard for them is not what the Bible teaches about

those same characters. And we will be able to, Lord

willing, lovingly be able to show them the truth of the

gospel, Jesus Christ. So there is value and

understanding error as long as we're not swayed by error.

There is value in understanding error as long as we're not

influenced by error. And my desire is for us to give

you this error, but then immediately give you an infusion

of the truth so that you understand this is where it's

wrong. But this is what the Bible says,

and this is where we should stand.

Where does all this come from? Well, our adversary, first Peter

5/8 you know this from our series.

Add to your faith, be sober, be vigilant, because your

adversary, the devil as a roaring lion, walketh about

seeking whom he may devour. That word adversary means an

enemy or foe, one who has enmity at heart.

Now, that word enmity is not one that we use very often.

It's a good King James word, but it's not one necessarily that

rolls off the tongue here in 2025.

But consider what this word enmity means, The quality of

being an enemy, the opposite of friendship, Ill will, hatred,

unfriendly dispositions. It expresses more than aversion

and less than malice, and differs from displeasure in

denoting a fixed or rooted hatred, whereas displeasure is

more transient. Do you hear what the definition

is saying there? Satan hates you.

Satan has no desire to be friends with you whatsoever, and

if his thought processes seem friendly, it's only to be able

to deceive you and to be able to draw you in to his own wicked

devices. Well, let's go and read our

text. We're in Genesis chapter #3

We'll look at this old serpent right here.

Genesis chapter 3 beginning verse one that says, Now the

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the

Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yay

hath God said, A lot of Satan's issues come down to those 4

words, don't they? Yay hath God said, You shall not

eat of the tree or every tree of the garden?

And the woman said, Under the serpent, We may eat of the tree,

or the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the

tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You

shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest ye die.

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die,

for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your

eyes shall be open, and you shall be as gods, knowing good

and evil. When the woman saw that the tree

was good for food, and it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree

to be desired to make one wise, she took it the fruit thereof,

and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did

eat. And the eyes of both of them

were open. They knew they were naked, and

they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

Now drop down to verse #13 because the Lord enters the

picture here, and it says in the Lord God said unto the woman,

What is this that thou has done? And the woman said, The serpent

beguiled me, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the

serpent, Because thou has done this, thou art cursed above all

cattle, and above every beast of the field.

Upon thy belly shalt thou go. Dust shalt thou eat all the days

of thy life. I'll remind you when it says

dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

I don't normally see a snake eating dust.

I don't think that's normally what they say.

But may I remind you where we come from?

We're just of dust, aren't we? And what does Satan do?

He wants to devour you, and he wants to devour me.

And go back to chapter 2, verse 7, and find that we're made of

the dust, of the ground dust. Shall you return to the ground?

Verse 15, I'll put enmity between there and the woman.

There's that word again. And between thy seed and her

seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

In this text we see two very clear things.

First of all, Satan's lies to Eve hath God said, and then you

shall not surely die. It isn't that the way Satan is.

He starts subtly. That's the word that's used in

verse #1 Hey, let me just question the Lord just a little

bit. But then once you get a little

bit deeper, he shows his true intentions.

He bears his teeth. He says, listen, God's

misleading you. God doesn't love you.

In fact, God is doing this because He knows that if you eat

of that fruit, you'll become like him.

He's being territorial, he's jealous, he he doesn't care for

you like he says. And are these lies that he's

still using today about, you know, 7000 years later, they're

still the same type of lies that he's using about the Lord.

So we see first Satan's lies to Eve, but secondly, we see the

enmity that God placed between Satan and mankind.

It says there in verse 15, and I will put enmity between thee and

the woman. So think about this.

At some point there was a friendly relationship between

the serpent and Adam and Eve. I have to believe that because

Eve does not seem startled that the serpent comes talks to her.

Eve does not seem surprised that this takes place, that there was

to some level a friendly relationship.

Of course, Satan certainly had no friendly ideals to have with

Adam and Eve. But at some point there was some

level of commonality or there was some level of relationship,

certainly that have things in common in the sense that, you

know, he was not a bad person. We know we're going to find out

just a second what his origin story is.

But whatever relationship there could have been immediately was

over. It was done.

Why? Because God says you are on

opposing poles. Never the two shall meet.

What Satan wants and what God wants for mankind do not match

up. They're on parallel tracks.

They never connect with one another.

They cannot connect with one other because Satan wants you

destroyed and God wants you to live.

And it's just as simple as that, isn't it?

And so this origin story of Satan, how this all came to be,

helps us understand this issue. So we're going to turn our Bible

to several different places this morning.

Isaiah chapter 14, if you will. Isaiah chapter 14.

Isaiah 14 · chapter mention Isaiah 14 · chapter mention

You might be familiar with some of these passages.

And that's OK because we're really setting the groundwork

for what's to come. Isaiah chapter #14 Blue verse

#12 Isaiah 14, verse 12. Says, How art thou fallen from

Isaiah 14:12

heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning?

How art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the

nation's? For thou has said in thine

heart, I will ascend into heaven.

I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.

I will sit also upon the mountain or the mount of the

congregation in the side of the north.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

I will be like the Most High. You see Satan having an eye

problem here. It's all about I will, I will, I

will. And ironically, I know I've said

this before, but ironically, just the fact that he said I

will become was the admission that he was not right in what he

said. He was admitting he was not God

because God. God didn't have to grow up to

become God, He just always was. And here's Satan saying, Well, I

will become. That is a admission on his part

that he is not and will never be gone.

But yet in his absolute insanity he thinks that he will become

like God himself. Yet thou shall be brought down

to hell, to the sides of the pit.

They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee and

consider thee saying, Is this the man that made the earth to

tremble, that did shake kingdoms, that made the world as

a wilderness and destroyed the cities thereof that open not the

House of his prisoners. I truly believe that when we get

to heaven and we see this scene unfold that we find at the end

of the Book of Revelation that we'll look upon Satan and

realize that's the guy who caused all this trouble.

Like we're thinking of this big old monstrous muscle bound, you

know, mammoth looking character and it's going to be something

like him. He caused all this trouble.

Now listen, we know he's powerful.

We understand that he causes great problems.

But when we are in heavenly splendor and look at him and

kind of do one of these, thank God and look at him, say, why

were we ever worried about him? We just sort of stayed close to

him our whole life and we would have been fine.

And so we see here that there is this issue here that he started

before the fall as this. I will, I will, I will.

Ezekiel chapter 28. So go a few pages further in the

Ezekiel 28 · chapter mention

Old Testament Ezekiel chapter #28 You're gonna find it after

Jeremiah, Ezekiel 28 as we continue this origin story here,

Ezekiel 28, beginning of verse #11.

It says this. Moreover, the word of the Lord

came unto me, saying, Son of Man, take up a lamentation upon

the King of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God,

thou sealest up the sum full of wisdom and perfect in beauty

that has been an Eden, the Garden of God.

Every precious stone was I covering the sardius, the Topaz,

the diamond, the barrel, the Onyx, the Jasper, the sapphire,

the emerald in the carbuncle and gold.

The workmanship of thy tablets and of thy pipes was prepared in

thee in the day that thou thou was created.

Now may I remind you that is also being told to us that Satan

is a creative being. Lucifer, the Angel who ended up

falling. Thou art the anointed cherub

that covereth, and I have set thee so.

Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God.

Thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

Thou was perfect in Thy ways from the day that Thou was

created till iniquity was found in thee by the multitude of that

merchandise. They have filled the midst of

thee with violence, and thou has sinned.

Therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of

God, and I will destroy the O covering cherub from the midst

of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up

because of thy beauty. Thou has corrupted thy wisdom by

reason of Thy brightness. I will cast thee to the ground.

I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.

Thou has defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine

iniquities. By the iniquity of thy traffic,

therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee.

It shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the

earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.

All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished

at thee. Thou shalt be a terror, and

never shalt thou be anymore. I believe Satan, or Lucifer if

you will, was created as an absolutely beautiful angelic

being. You see just how he was made-up

and his components there, but yet he lifted himself up in

pride again. He tried to be able to have his

wisdom exceed that of God and he corrupted his wisdom.

He defiled the sanctuaries. Here's a man who is all about

himself, if you will. Here is 1.

I think maybe better to say the man that to say here is a being

that is all about himself. He has no desire for you.

He has no desire for me other than our complete and utter

downfall. Pastor, I thought we were

talking about world religions and cults.

Why on earth are we spending time in Genesis and Ezekiel and

Isaiah? Wouldn't we be better talking

about all of these other world religions and cults?

And my question to you is, where do you think they came from?

Where do you think their origin derived from?

So these texts bring us to a place of understanding of the

basis of our series. Now, there's a commentator named

Bodie Hodge. And I will tell you that if you

are interested, there's a book that I have used called World

Religions and Cults. And it is not necessarily a book

that is a book of lessons. It's not a a book in that type

of way, but it is a book on, well, world religions and cults,

hence the name that I am using extensively to help in some of

my preparations for the series. And so you're going to hear me

quote him every once in a while, a couple times I think here in

this lesson. And the reason why is because he

just lays these issues out in a very logical but very biblical

way as well. And so Bodie Hodge, the

commentator and writer of that book, World Religions and Cults,

says this. There are really only two

religions in the world, Gods and not gods.

That's really what it boils down to.

There really only two religions in the world, Gods and not gods,

meaning that gods originates with God.

That's the gospel. That's where we get the word of

God. Not gods is well, everything

else. Because where do you think they

came from? Where do you think they

originated from? Again, I'm not trying to be

unkind to those who are in other belief systems.

I'm not trying to say, but to those that that they are

worshipping Satan or they that they understand that Satan is

the originator, Here's just the fact.

If it don't come from God, that's where it comes from.

That's just the bottom line. And so while some others might

think that the origin of their belief system comes from some

other source, really what the heart of man is apart from God.

Well, how did that heart of man get away from God?

Well, it's because Satan has seduced him or her into

believing a lot. Now let's be clear about

something. Religion itself is not the

enemy. I know a lot of times we use

phrases like, you know, I don't have religion, I have a

relationship. And I get that because truly

what we believe boils down to a relationship with Jesus Christ.

But the word religion in and of itself should not necessarily be

the enemy. It's often misused, isn't it?

It's often grossly misused. But the Bible tells us there is

such a thing as pure religion. I preached on this before here

at Liberty James 127 Pure religion and undefiled before

God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows

and their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the

world. So there is such a good thing as

good religion. What does it do?

It looks out for the needs of others and it respects the

holiness of God. Much of what's called religion,

even in Christian religion really doesn't have a lot to do

with that, does it? It's formalities, it's

traditions, it's all of these different things.

So religion in and of itself is not the enemy.

Pure religion is this. I am the way, the truth, and the

life. No man cometh under the Father,

but by me. That's Jesus Christ and John 14

John 14:6

verse 6. So where do all these other

religions come from? Well, they come from man which

is inspired by the Father of lies.

Psalm 118 verse 8. Is better to trust in the Lord

Psalms 118:8

than to put confidence in man. Isaiah chapter 2 verse 22 CC

Isaiah 2:22

from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to

be accounted of? Man is so backwards today that

somehow man has tried to convince himself that he created

God in the 1st place. Now think about that for a

second, that the whole belief system of there being a God with

the invention of mankind. Now I have a quote here from

Charles Darwin from the Descent of Man and it says this.

I know you might be a little bit difficult for you to see, but

I'm going to read it. I'm hoping it will just give you

a little bit of visual stimuli as I read it.

The same high mental faculties which first led man to believe

in unseen spiritual agencies that in fetishism, polytheism,

and ultimately in monotheism, would infallibly lead him, as

long as his reasoning powers remain poorly developed, to

various strange superstitions and customs.

Many of these are terrible to think of, such as the sacrifice

of human being to a love, blood loving God, the trial of

innocent persons by the ordeal of poison, of fire, witchcraft,

etcetera. It is well occasionally to

reflect on these superstitions, for they show us what an

infinite debt of gratitude we owe to the improvement of our

reason to science and to our accumulated knowledge.

Now listen, I have no problem with science if science is

anchored in the truth of who God is.

Science is not the enemy. But much of what is considered

science today believes that God is not.

And so when you start from faulty premise, you get faulty

answers. And this is part of it right

here. The fact that Charles Darwin in

the Descent of Man about 150 years ago said something along

these lines, that man has just invented God because there's so

many things he doesn't understand.

But as we become more enlightened, as we learn more,

as we see more of a science, we will realize that God is not.

And I'll be honest with you, the more I see of science and the

more I see of the heavens and the earth, the more I realized

it didn't just come here by accident.

That we didn't just delude ourselves into there being a

God. It's that a creation has to have

a creator, and that it didn't just get here by accident.

But the world believes that the more you learn, you will outlive

the usefulness for God. But yet I would submit to you

that if you look at it with a true heart and you look at it

with a willing mind that you will realize, and it's had to

come here from somewhere. And is there hard questions?

There are hard questions. Are there some things about it

they're difficult to understand? Well, sure they are because,

well, God is. As we talked about on Wednesday

night, the the, the thought process of Jesus Christ and

salvation is so simple. A child can understand it, but

yet it's so deep that you could live your whole lifetime and

never really scratch the surface of who God is.

So but no, we're not going to out learn God the more we learn.

I mean, you could try, but you will not.

God is not the invention of man's fancy.

God is, well, God. So know this.

All false religions are based on man's opinions as they

inadvertently or sometimes intentionally elevate man's

reason to be greater than God and greater than the 66 books of

his word. All these false religions, these

not God religions come down to this.

We know better than God. Well, who said that?

Well, that was Satan, wasn't it? That he was the one pulling the

strings all the way back in the garden and is still doing so

today. Again, quoting Bodie Hodge, he

says this humanism, the religion of man in its broadest form

would encompass all religions that oppose God.

This word When a religion elevates a book, books, or extra

teachings to be scripture, then they are taking man's opinions

and elevating them to be supersede or be equal to God's

word. When a religion deletes a book

or books, or otherwise subtracts teaching from scripture, then

they are taking man's opinions and elevating to supersede or be

equal from God's word. Listen, if you take away from

this, you say I know better than God.

If you add to this, you were saying I know better than God.

Why do we want to be Bible believers?

Because well, this is everything that we know about God here

within our hands. It's been preserved for us.

It was inspired. We'll get to look at some of

that this morning in second Peter chapter 1 and even more so

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

next week in the 11:00 hour. But when we take away or we add

to it, we are saying, God, I know what you have put here, but

I know a little bit more. Thomas Jefferson who famously

took the Gospels and believed that if he was to cut and paste,

and that was in the days before, you know, using a mouse and

cutting and pasting. But if he was only to take a

Bible and to cut out and paste the religious maxims that would

make a person moral but yet remove all the miracles, that to

him was just unbelievable. There was something that could

not be understood and certainly something that was not true.

He figured if he could take just the the religious teaching, the

Sermon on the Mount, those types of things, and put it in the

book, that would be a much better book than the Gospels.

And my question is, well, you know who died and made Thomas

Jefferson the president? Well, I made the president, but

you understand what I'm saying? I said that on purpose, but you

understand what I'm saying is that he may be present, but he's

not God and that we can't just take away what we don't think is

palatable and we can't add to smooth things over that we don't

necessarily care for because then we've said God, I know what

you said, but I know a little bit more.

Again, that's man's hubris saying I know more and where did

that come from? I will, I will, I will, I will.

And it's a corruption of wisdom is what it's called in Ezekiel

Ezekiel 28 · chapter mention

chapter 28. It's taking the pure wisdom from

God and corrupting it. And it defiles the sanctuary,

defiles true worship because it takes people away from God.

Let's look at 2 examples of this.

Go back to Genesis and go to Genesis Chapter 11.

Genesis 11 · chapter mention

Genesis Chapter 11 again, we can't just jump into religions

Genesis 11 · chapter mention

and cults without laying some groundwork here.

So I hope you understand that as we go through the next few

weeks. But I think this is important

for us. Genesis Chapter 11, I think

Genesis 11 · chapter mention

you'll recognize this. Look at verse one.

And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.

What are we talking about? The tower?

What Babel. That's right, the tower of

Babel. And it came to pass as they

journey from the east that they found a plane in the land of

Shinar, and they dwelt there. They said one to another, go to

let us make brick, burn them thoroughly.

And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.

And they said, go to let us build a city and a tower whose

top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name that's BB

scattered abroad upon the face of the earth.

You say, Pastor, what's the big deal about this?

I mean, come on, It never really says that they wanted to become

like gods. It may not explicitly say the

fact that they were trying to become like God, but here's what

they were trying to do. They were trying to go to

heaven. They were trying to make

themselves a name. And they knew that God had

commanded that they were to scatter and that they were to go

and to repopulate the world. But instead they said, we know

what God has said, but we're going to do our own thing.

How is that not becoming like your own God?

This is what takes place here. And we know this is the case

because God takes a very dim view of what's happening here

with this construction project. And the Lord came down to see

the city and the tower which children, men build it.

And the Lord said, behold, the people is 1.

And they have all one language. And this they begin to do it.

Now nothing will be restrained from them which they have

imagined to do. Go to let us go down, and there

confound their language. They may not understand one

another's speech. So the Lord scattered them

abroad from hence upon the face of all the earth, and they left

off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it

called Babble, because the Lord did their confound the language

of all the earth, and from thence did the Lord scatter them

abroad upon the face of all the earth.

I was recording some of my Liberty Homes a few weeks ago

and those you don't know, Liberty Home is our five minute

devotional that Easton community access television broadcasts in

town and that we are able to put on YouTube.

And we've gotten some good response from it over the last

couple years. Done almost 70 episodes just at

ECAT before the about 100 or so we did, you know, on my phone

here at the church during the pandemic.

But I I talked a few weeks ago about Jesus Christ being the

same yesterday, today and forever that he's unchanging.

And as soon as I was done recording, I usually record 3 or

4 episodes together just so you know the magic of television.

I just changed the shirt in between each one.

That's all it is. But I know it's some of you are

really some of you like I don't care.

But anyway, I just want to think some of you are really wondering

how that works. But that's OK.

I understand. But change shirts in between.

But when I was done, I, I went to the control room and they had

two interns from the high school that were there two really nice

young men that I got a chance to talk to over the course of much

of the year. And one of them said something

like this. You know, Pastor, let me ask you

a question. Let me tell you, there's nothing

that starts getting the mind racing immediately.

Like pastor, let me ask you a question because I don't know

where it's coming from. I don't know what direction it's

coming from, but here it comes like a fastball right down the

middle. Let's get ready.

And so he says, if God never changes, then why was he upset

at the people for building Babble?

But yet we build skyscrapers today.

You know, to me, I don't know about that question.

That's kind of, but you know what?

To him, that was a real question.

He was really curious about this.

If God never changes, why was he mad about that?

But he's not mad about us building skyscrapers today.

I said, you know, it really wasn't about the issue of it

being a building project. It was really about the issue of

the heart, I said, because everything that deals with the

Lord always comes back to the heart.

The issue was not that they were building the issues why they

were building and what they were trying to do.

They were trying to elevate themselves as gods.

And he seemed to be happy with that answer.

Well, it was the truth because that's what the word says here.

What's going on? Man made religion.

We know what God wants, but we have our own way.

We're going to become like Him. We are going to go to His

dwelling place. We are going to take our own

counsel instead of doing what God has commanded us to do.

That's false religion right there in Genesis Chapter 11.

Genesis 11 · chapter mention

Now go to 1st Kings chapter #12 First Kings chapter #12 We're

trying to give your Bibles a workout in the series.

I think that's a good thing. First Kings chapter #12 look at

verse #25 and I know with a lot of these texts that we're not

going to be able to give full explanation, like we're going

through a sermon. But at the same time, I hope

that you understand a little bit of where we're going and how it

all connects. Jeroboam is king.

You remember that Solomon was the king and then Rehoboam took

the throne. And Rehoboam was a fool.

He wanted to make things harder for the people instead of

easier. He took counsel from his young

friends instead of from the wise older men.

And so because that the nation splits in two, there's one

problem. Jeroboam is now the king of the

top 10 tribes, or the when I say top 10, not like the top ten

list, but the northern tribes, if you will.

But there's only one problem. He may have more people, but he

lacks Jerusalem. And everything in the life of

Israel is around Jerusalem in the temple.

So he realizes, well, look at this here.

Verse #25 Then Jeroboam built Shechem in Mount Ephraim and

dwelt therein, and went out from thence and built Penuel.

And Jeroboam said in his heart, now shall the Kingdom return to

the House of David. If these people go up to do

sacrifice in the House of the Lord of Jerusalem, then shall

the heart of this people turn again unto their Lord, even

under the Rioboam, king of Judah.

And they shall kill me and go again to Rioboam king of Judah.

He says, I got to do something. Because the first time they go

back to Passover, back in Judah, they'll remember how good the

times used to be, and they won't want me, they'll want Rio Bohm,

and the Kingdom will be back together again.

And that means I'm dead. So instead of doing the right

thing, what does he do? Well, where?

Until the king took counsel and made two calves of gold, because

that always worked well, right? And said unto them, Is it too

much for you to go up to Jerusalem, the old by gods, O

Israel, which brought the up out of the land of Egypt.

And he set one in Bethel and the other he put he and Dan, those

would be the northern and southernmost parts of his

Kingdom. And this thing, look at this,

became a sin for the people went to worship before the one even

unto Dan. They made a House of high places

and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not

the sons of Levi. What did he do?

He made his own religious system.

He said, hey, remember these calves?

He was hoping they'd be biblically illiterate.

By the way, if you want to get involved in another religion or

cult, we don't know the Bible because that's what happens

here. Hey, remember those calves?

Like, I remember something about calves in Egypt.

I don't remember what it was. I guess it's good.

And they said, you know what, We'll go worship these calves.

We don't have any priests. The priests are down in in Judah

and Jerusalem. What do we do?

Well, we'll just pick anybody. They took the lowest of the

people. And that's not talking about, I

believe, money or social status. I means that it was of low

character people that were yes men.

They, they knew this was wrong, but they were in it because they

were going to get something in return.

And So what did he do? He created his own religious

system. And so we see this throughout

the word of God and it is still continuing today.

So with all that being said, what is a religion?

What is a cult? So we see some background here,

but what is a religion? What is a cult?

Well, let's start with a religion.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a religion is a

system of beliefs and practices, often centered around questions

of existence, morality, and the supernatural, typically

involving worship of a divine being or beings, moral code,

rituals, and often a community of adherence.

Now, again, we're talking about religions in general.

Understand this. We're talking about anything

that calls itself religion. I believe that's probably a

pretty good definition, a pretty good working definition of what

a religion is. There's questions about

existence, about what is moral, the supernatural, codes,

rituals, a community of people coming together.

You're going to find all of these in pretty much any

religion. There's a lot of world

religions. I don't know if you're aware of

this, but there's a lot of religions that are out there

today. For instance, there is, well, we

are thankful for biblical Christianity and I'm very

careful in the way I say biblical Christianity because

we're not talking about counterfeit Christianity.

But there's biblical Christianity, there's Islam,

there's Judaism, there's universal Unitarianism,

Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikism, Shintoism, Witchcraft, Taoism,

the Baha'i faith, the Unification Church.

Some of you are know the Moonies from back in the day say are

that really a thing anymore still around today?

There's still adherence. In fact, it wasn't just, I think

about 5 or 10 years ago that there was a large Conference

Center and camp up in New Hampshire that was for those who

were still part of the Unification Church, Deism,

Satanism, Scientology. You realize that just scratches

the surface. I mean, that's just a very small

sampling of the types of religions that are out there.

Some of them are more organized, some of them are more thought

processes, then they are actual organized religions.

But all of them, I think we could argue a religious systems

in one way or another. Now religions can also be

slaughtered in different categories.

I think most of them could be slaughtered into three different

categories. First of all, there's the

mystical religions. The mystical religions, that's

Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Gnosticism, the Kabbalah, which

is a mystical offshoot of Judaism.

These are more mystical. They're more states of mind than

they are anything else, that there's lots of different paths

even within those belief systems.

They're more mystical religions. Then there's moralistic

religions, which would be Confucianism, Judaism,

Christianity, Islam, Jainism. These are dealing with more of

morals that they are setting down moral laws.

And again, this is Christianity would be, I believe, a

moralistic religion that the Bible tells us who God is, tells

us what holiness is, tells us how we are to be saved, tells us

how to live. But our moralistic religions,

there's also materialistic religions, secular humanism,

Marxism, scientism, atheism, objectivism.

These are more materialistic and they deal more with the here and

the now than they do necessarily the hereafter.

Marxism doesn't really deal with the afterlife, does it?

But I would say this, it's a religion just as much as Islam

is. When you start to study how the

thought processes work and all those different things, those

are religions in and of themselves.

I'm not saying we're going to study all of these ones that

we've just mentioned. I'm just telling you there are a

lot of them that are out there and they come from all kinds of

different angles. So we ask ourselves then what is

a cult? OK, that's a religion.

Then what is a cult? Well, the cult is typically

defined as a religious offshoot of a major world religion that

no longer holds the core tenants of that world religion.

A cult is typically defined as a religious offshoot of a major

world religion that no longer holds to the core tenants of

that world religion. Now again, in his World

Religions and Cult series, Bodie Hodge further explores this

concept by examining groups that claim Christian identity, but

they deviate from foundational doctrines like the Trinity, the

deity of Christ, salvation by grace through faith.

These groups are considered counterfeits of Christianity

because they distort biblical truths.

They might even use a Bible. They might even use some of the

same phrases that we use. But at the same time, you got to

talk to them about exactly what they believe and you start to

realize they deviate quite far from where we are.

I'll be honest with you, if you watch a video from the Church of

Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, if you were

to just watch a general video, they are very sly in the way

they present themselves. They want to be considered

mainline Christians. That's why they're moving away

from the term Mormonism. They don't want to be called

Mormons. They want to be called the

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

You see that on all their materials.

Now Mormonism is being phased out in anything official out of

Salt Lake City, but they want to be considered mainline.

You watch some of their videos, they see mainline.

I mentioned a few weeks ago or maybe a few months ago now, the

back around Christmas time in Times Square, there was this

beautiful video about Jesus Christ and you watched it and

his birth and you thought this is absolutely amazing until you

get to the end and it says that it's from the Church of Jesus

Christ, the Latter Day Saints, that you do not present any of

their beliefs that are different from what we believe is mainline

Christians is biblical Christians.

But yet that's what they want you to do.

They're going to give you a little bit of truth to be able

to allow the hook to set. And that's when they pull and

that's when it's too late. So these cults are versions of

Christianity that deny traditional Christianity.

Walter Martin said this in the Kingdom of Cults, which is

considered a definitive evangelical resource.

He says a cult, as defined from a theological perspective, is a

group of people gathered about a specific person or person's

misrepresentation of a Bible of the Bible.

He emphasized that cults reject orthodox Christian doctrine,

particularly regarding the nature of God and the Gospel.

Scholars like sociologist Roy Wallace and religious studies

expert Jay Gordon Melton distinguish cults from religions

based on these 4 characteristics.

And this isn't in the Bible, but this is just kind of a way that

you can tell what a cult is. First of all, novelty cults are

often new movements. Jehovah Witness, Mormonism,

they've not been around very long, 100 years or so, some even

less than that. Deviation from mainstream

religious norms, meaning that they reject the core tenants of

the Word of God, a level of control over members, the cult.

And we talk about the cults, right, and how there's a cultish

like following in, well, cults. And there's that level of

following, the level of control. And usually there's charismatic

leadership. And we're not talking about a

pastor who enjoys preaching the Word of God or anything like

that. We're talking about someone who

has absolute control over a group.

That is often the case. I will give you one name and for

many of you, it'll settle the matter right there.

Jim Jones, When you think of Jim Jones and he started as a

preacher, that was not a great preacher, but certainly not what

he ended up being. By the time he got to Guyana, he

absolutely morphed into a A. Basically, he says it, you do it

to the point of drink the kool-aid.

You ever heard that phrase drink the kool-aid?

It came from somewhere. It's because that there was

going to be a federal agents coming in and trying to take

care of some very, very dark things that were taking place

there on that compound. And he said this, you die with

me and we'll all be together in celestial realms.

That's disgusting, but that's what we're talking about,

cultish leadership. There's oftentimes A charismatic

leader, a Joseph Smith who was the first leader of Mormonism,

or a Brigham Young. You ever heard Brigham Young

University and you think of maybe football or basketball.

That's a Mormon school that is gathered around the second

leader of Mormonism, Brigham Young Christian cults include

we'll finish up here shortly. Christian cults includes Jehovah

Witnesses, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or

Mormons, Christian Science, Church of Christ, Scientists the

way international 12 tribes. So that's a that's a group that

actually is out in Plymouth. They have a, a store, a deli out

there, some delicious food, but I'm just saying there's some

literature there that is is very much apart from the word of God

and the people's temple, which would have been Jim Jones.

So what's the answer to all this?

Because this could be quite overwhelming.

We just scratched the surface. We just scratched the surface.

This could be overwhelming. What's the answer?

Well, the good news, the answer is our text for this morning

here at church. Second Peter one verse 16

through 21. For we have not followed

cunningly devised fables. We made known unto you the power

and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of

His Majesty. For he received from God the

Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him

from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, and whom

I am well pleased. And this voice which came from

heaven we heard, and we were with Him in the Holy Mount.

We have also a more sure word of prophecy.

Where until you do well, that you take heed as unto a light

that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn of the day

star arise in your hearts. Knowing this first, that no

prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation, For

the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but

holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Consider this quote. Some religions mimic God's Word,

but do not respect God's Word as coming from God.

Only those who stand on God's Word as the absolute authority,

inerrant, inspired, and sufficient in any way will be in

a position to see God's true religion from God's perspective.

God will never be wrong and what He records in His Word, but man

can and will be wrong as he seeks to stand in God's place.

In the end, there's two religions, There's God, and

there's not God. Now that doesn't make us

haughty. It should make us proud.

It should just make us understand we stand for

something, that we believe something and we believe.

If what we believe is true, it's to the exclusion of Satan's

teachings. Consider these verses and we're

done. Galatians 51 Stand fast,

therefore the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.

Be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Psalm 119, verse 160 Thy word is true from the beginning, and

Psalms 119:160

every one of thy righteous judgments endureth forever.

And as we close this morning, I just wanted to say once again,

this is not an attack on any adherent of any type of false

teaching. This is an attack on the one who

it all comes from, which is Satan and the authorities and

the articles of Faith, of which those false doctrines rest.

Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of

Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing

to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us

know by contacting us at [email protected].

Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,

MA. May the Lord bless bless you as

you grow in His Word.