(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Men, tonight I'm going to preach on the book of Jude in conjunction with 2nd Peter chapter 2 on the subject of false prophets, cult leaders, false teachers, and things of that nature. And I'm going to use actually a case study of probably the most famous cult leader of all time in the sense of just being the quintessential evil cult leader and that is Jim Jones. The title of the sermon tonight is Lessons from Jonestown. Go to 2nd Peter chapter 2. We're going to come back to the book of Jude. I'm going to show you how Jim Jones actually fit the bill of 2nd Peter chapter 2 and the book of Jude to a T. Look at 2nd Peter chapter 2 verse 1. The Bible reads, But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. The first point that I want to make about Jim Jones is that he was one who was an infiltrator. He was not a believer in Jesus Christ. He did not believe in Jesus. He did not believe in the Bible. But he was one who crept in unawares, who privily kept in teaching damnable heresies, and that he denied the Lord. He denied Jesus Christ. Now, the other thing I want to point out is that in verse 2 there it says, Many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. Even to this day, Jim Jones is a proverb where people would even criticize all types of Christianity, or they'll criticize fundamental Baptists and say, You're like Jim Jones. You're a cult. You're like Jim Jones. Even someone in our church told me less than a month ago that when they joined our church, they were told by a family member, Don't drink the Kool-Aid, which is a reference to Jim Jones. An independent fundamental Baptist pastor named Dean Miller of yesteryear, he's still around, but he's retired now, he pastored a church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. At one point, he had the words Jim Jones spray painted to the garage door of his home, even though he's a fundamental Baptist. So these type of evil false prophets and cult leaders, they actually cause the way of truth to be evil spoken of. They give Christianity in general a bad name, because people don't take the time to research what these people actually did, what they actually believed. They just think to themselves, Oh yeah, these bad preachers, bad Christian, bad missionary, whatever. Now let's look at Jude. Go to Jude 4, and really what you're going to want to do tonight is to keep a finger in 2 Peter 2 and a finger in Jude. These are what the Bible calls, or I'm sorry, good night, the Bible doesn't call it that. These are what I would call and many people would call parallel passages. Parallel passages are two different chapters that deal with a lot of the same subject matter, even in the same order. So they deal with the same things, and when you put them side by side, you can get a deeper understanding. Sort of like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John provide a lot of parallel passages. 2 Peter 2 and the book of Jude are like that. Look at verse 4, the Bible reads, For there are certain men, crept in unawares, who were before of old, ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, watch this, and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. These are not people who believe in Jesus. These are people who pretend to believe in Jesus, that they might creep in. They're not just a little mixed up or misguided or have a false doctrine. No, no, these are people who deny the Lord Jesus Christ. They only creep in just to destroy, just to be evil, just to pervert and to teach lies. They creep in unawares, but they deny the Lord that bought them. Let's examine Jim Jones and see if this fits. In 1951, Jones began attending meetings and rallies of the Communist Party USA in Indianapolis. He became flustered with harassment he received during the McCarthy hearings, particularly regarding an event he attended with his mother, focusing on Paul Robeson, after which she was harassed by the FBI in front of her co-workers for attending. He also became frustrated with ostracism of open communists in the United States. This frustration, among other things, provoked a seminal moment for Jones in which he asked himself, how can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was infiltrate the church. So this guy is not a Bible-believing Christian at all. He only wants to use church to advance his wicked, death-worshipping, God-hating communist ideology because he was getting too much harassment from law enforcement by being involved with Communist Party USA in the early 50s, so he decides to go into religion. Jones was surprised when a Methodist superintendent helped him get a start in the church, even though he knew Jones to be a communist. In 1952, Jones became a student pastor in Somerset Southside Methodist Church, but claimed that he left the church because its leaders barred him from integrating blacks into the congregation. Around this time, Jones witnessed a faith-healing service at a Seventh-day Baptist church. He observed that it attracted people and their money, and concluded that, with financial resources from such healings, he could help accomplish his social goals. So Jim Jones started out in the 50s and 60s as a faith-healer. He was eventually ordained by the denomination Disciples of Christ, which is a Pentecostal denomination, and he was known for his faith-healing. This was his main thing. He was one of these kind of televangelist faith-healers. He had all kinds of people in his organization that would pretend to be sick, pretend to be injured, and then he would heal them. He would also drug people. Listen to this. There was a lady, for instance, where he drugged this lady. They put a cast on her, and when she woke up, they told her, Oh, you had a horrible accident. You slipped and fell. You broke your leg. Even though there was nothing wrong with this woman's leg, they drugged her, made her unconscious, and then made up the story. Then they bring her up, and Jim Jones saws off the cast, and she gets up, and she can walk, and woo, she's healed. He had people in the crowds, you know, taking notes on people's conversations. He had people calling their homes, getting information about them, and then he would pretend to be a clairvoyant, pretend to know all about their personal lives, all about their ailments, and he would perform a lot of fake healings. This is what caused him to get his initial following, to grow, to get money coming in. He was one of these phony Benny Hinn types. Now, Jones moved away from the Communist Party USA when their members became critical of some of Stalin's policy. So, I mean, this guy's so radical in his communism that the Communist Party USA isn't radical enough, because they're not fully backing Stalin on everything in the USSR. By the early 70s, listen to this, tell me if this sounds like a Bible-believing Christian. Tell me if this sounds like a fundamental Baptist. By the early 70s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as flyaway religion, rejecting the Bible as a tool to oppress women and non-rights, and denouncing a sky god who was no god at all. Jones wrote a booklet titled, The Letter Killeth, criticizing the King James Bible. Jones also began preaching that he was the reincarnation of Gandhi, Father Divine, Jesus, Gautama Buddha, and Vladimir Lenin. Former temple member Hugh Fortson Jr. quoted Jones as saying, What you need to believe in is what you can see. If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father. If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your god, I'll be your god. Now, does this guy sound like a fundamental Baptist? Does this guy sound like an Evangelical Christian at all? But yet, foolish, ignorant people will say, Oh man, you're King James only? You're in a cult. Don't drink the Kool-Aid. You're like Jim Jones. No, no, Jim Jones was a leftist, communist infiltrator that did not believe the Bible at all. He made fun of God as a sky god that can't save you. He made fun of the Bible. Listen to this. In a 1976 phone conversation with John Marr, Jones alternately stated that he was an agnostic and an atheist. Despite the temple's fear that the IRS was investigating its religious tax exemption, because they're looking at it like, Whoa, is this a church? You're against God? You're against the Bible? People's temple? Marceline Jones admitted in a 1977 New York Times interview that Jones was trying to promote Marxism in the United States by mobilizing people through religion, citing Mao Zedong as his inspiration. She stated, Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion. And it slammed the Bible on the table yelling. This is what Jim Jones yelled. He slammed on the Bible and said, I've got to destroy this paper idol. In one sermon, Jones said, you're going to help yourself or you'll get no help. There's only one hope of glory that's within you. Nobody's going to come out of the sky. There's no heaven up there. We'll have to make heaven down here. This is what Jim Jones taught. What's the point? The point is that cult leaders, and obviously Jim Jones is an extreme example. Cult leaders don't believe in Jesus. They don't believe in God. They have other motives. They have other agendas. These people aren't just a little confused or mixed up or a little doctrinally off. I mean, these people are haters of God. They're actually reprobates. If you study 2 Peter 2 and the Book of Jude, they're God-hating, Bible-hating, Jesus-hating reprobates, and they infiltrate religion. They creep in in order to give Christianity a bad name, to corrupt the innocent, to preach lies, to do all kinds of evil. Go back to Jude. If you're there, look at verse number 5. Jude, verse 5, it says, I will, therefore, put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. Now, what he's referring to there is that when Moses led the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, his goal was to bring God's people out of slavery. But the Bible is very clear that there were many people mixed in who were not God's people, who did not believe in the Lord. And this mixed multitude, they went out of Egypt, and they were there, and they caused grief to Moses. They fought against Moses. They rebelled against Moses. And they taught people rebellion against the Lord. And afterward, God destroyed those that believed not. So again, it's a reference to the fact that there are people who pretend to be Christian. They go along with Christianity only in order to creep in and do damage. Look at verse number 6. And the angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness under the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise, also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Now let me break this down to you. Verse 4 says there are certain men crept in unawares. They're not coming in openly, they're coming in unawares. Meaning that they seek to fit in as a Christian, they claim to believe the Bible, they claim to believe in Jesus, but they creep in unawares, okay? As Sodom and Gomorrah gave themselves over to fornication, and went after strange flesh, what does the Bible say in verse 8? Likewise, what does likewise mean? Same way. Likewise. Same way. Likewise, these filthy dreamers, who are the filthy dreamers? The men who crept in unawares, teaching false doctrine. Likewise, also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh. So he's saying, look, Sodom and Gomorrah gave themselves over to fornication, and went after strange flesh. Well, these guys, they defile the flesh in that same way. That's what this says in verse 8. If you read it carefully, if you put together verses 4 through 8, that's the teaching, okay? Now, does this fit it? Go to 2 Peter chapter 2. Let's see if this fits in with Jim Jones. On December 13, 1973, Jones was arrested, and charged with soliciting a man, for you know what, in a movie theater restroom, known for homo activity, near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, and the man was an undercover LAPD vice officer. So at this time, the LAPD had men undercover, hanging around places where sodomites, homos, would hang around, and they would wait for some homo to approach them, for some sodomite to approach them, about committing a lewd act with them, and then they would say, okay, you're under arrest. This is back in this country, it was illegal to be a sodomite. Now look, I didn't say that this happened in, you know, 1973 BC, okay? This is actually 1973 AD. Well into the New Testament, because people are like, oh man, you're trying to go back to the Old Testament, the way you preach against the sodomites. Well, hold on a second. We're talking AD, in the year of our Lord, 1973, in LA, which is not exactly the Bible belt, not exactly the most godly, righteous part of our nation, but even the LAPD was enforcing laws against being a sodomite in 1973 in LA. But then people think we're nuts for our beliefs in 2016 here. Unbelievable. But Jim Jones was a sodomite. He was even arrested and booked and charged for soliciting an undercover cop to be a homo with him. Now while Jones banned, you know, these kind of, any kind of relations among temple members outside of marriage, meaning that from the pulpit he preached that any kind of intimate activity should be kept within marriage. Obviously between a man and a woman, that's the only kind of marriage that was around back then, amen. But he said, you know, even though he preached that, he himself voraciously engaged in relations with both male and female temple members. Jones, however, claimed that he detested engaging in homo activity, but he only did so for the male adherents' own good, purportedly to connect them symbolically with him. So he claimed that he had to engage in all these filthy relationships with both men and women in order to keep them from leaving the church. He had to connect with them and bond with them. So this guy is just a horrific sodomite pervert. He's filled with adultery. He's filled with sodomy. He's filled with fornication, just as the Bible said that these kind of guys are. So the Bible's right about these guys. Look at 2 Peter 2, verse 14, and we'll look at the parallel passage. It says this, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin. Now, that's what this guy was doing. He even fathered children with other women in the church and openly admitted to these things. The guiling, unstable souls and heart, they have exercised with covetous practices, cursed children, which have forsaken the right way and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. Now, let's look at what we just read in these verses. In verse 14, it talked about having eyes full of adultery. This is an insatiable lust for adultery. Then we see at the end of the verse covetous practices. Then we see at the end of verse 15 that they love the wages of unrighteousness. So what's motivating these false prophets? Their motivation is to have all this adultery, to fulfill their lust, and to gain wages of unrighteousness. Basically, money, women, power, prestige. It's all about themselves. That's the motivation for them. It says in verse 16, but was rebuked for his iniquity. The dumb ass speaking with man's voice will add the madness of the prophet. These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever. You can notice the similarity with the book of Jude. Verse 18, for when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. Not only was Jim Jones involved in these type of activities, but his high up leadership, of course, is also indulging in these type of adulterous relationships. And this is not unique to Jim Jones, but other cults, for example, the Latter Day Saints. Mesa, Arizona has the second largest population of Latter Day Saints in the world, second only to Salt Lake City, Utah. Joseph Smith used his position as a cult leader to get access to many wives that were not his wives, they were other people's wives. He indulged in adultery. Brigham Young took it to a whole other level, indulging in adultery. And all of these men's lieutenants, they also indulged in adultery. This is like the modus operandi of cult leaders, that they abuse their power to gratify the lust of their flesh, and also to line their pockets, to gain wealth many times, or just, you know, or whatever money buys, just lavish, luxury, multiple wives, or other men's wives, all this wickedness. We can see it with the Latter Day Satan church, or I'm sorry, Latter Day Saints, and we can also see it with Jim Jones, typical cult leader, modus operandi. It says in verse 19, while they promised them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption, for of whom a man is overcome, of the same as he brought in bondage. So they preached liberty, but they are the slaves to sin. Why? Because they have eyes full of adultery and they cannot cease from sin. What does it mean when you cannot cease from sin? That's addiction. These guys are addicted to adultery. Jim Jones was also addicted to drugs. And so these guys are the servants of sin and the servants of corruption. Let's go back to the book of Jude. We're going back and forth between 2 Peter chapter 2 and Jude. And you know what? These are two of the most interesting chapters in the Bible. I don't have time to preach every verse and really give these chapters due justice. They each need their own sermon. You know, 2 Peter 2, you could get several sermons out of it. Jude, you could get several sermons. These are chapters that should be studied by Christians in 2016 and read over and over again. You should read these over. Familiarize yourself with these chapters. Familiarize yourself with 2 Peter 2 and Jude. Look at the similarities. Learn these so that you'll be able to watch out for the infiltrators, the false teachers, the false prophets that creep in, the ones that are not as obvious as Jim Jones. This guy is pretty obvious, all right? But I'm using him because he provides sort of a caricature of a false teacher. He's sort of such an extreme example. It's so easy to see each attribute in his life. Once we understand that, we'll be able to start spotting these tendencies in other false prophets and so forth. Look, if you would, at Jude 16 as we continue. Same group is being described. These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts. We already saw that in 2 Peter 2. But watch this. And their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage. Now what does that mean, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage? Here's what it's saying. They're going to flatter certain people or lift up certain people. They're going to have certain men's persons in admiration because it provides an advantage to them. Does everybody see that? They have men's persons in admiration because of advantage. So, for example, they might reach out to, you know, rich or influential people or politicians and praise them and lift them up, not because they believe that those people are good people or righteous people or godly people, but it's for their own advantage. Okay, so this would be, let me give you some false prophets that do this today. What about false prophets like Rick Warren who will praise Obama? Not because he believes that Obama's a godly Christian man. You know, Rick Warren's the one who held out the Bible and administered the oath. It's for his own advantage because he gets to be the guy who holds the Bible for him. You know, or men like Billy Graham who would praise Bill Clinton. And even when Bill Clinton is just committing lewdness and obscenity and adultery in the Oval Office, he defends him and says, well, he's a good looking guy, you know. You know, these guys that pal around with rich people and politicians, give them a free pass when they commit wicked sins, praise them, flatter them, try to connect with politicians. You know, that's what false prophets do. They speak these great swelling words and they have men's persons in admiration because of advantage. Meaning that they will flatter and they will cozy up to the rich and the politically powerful for their own advantage instead of just treating all men equally and just, you know, respecting the poor as well as the rich. No, no, no. They want to cozy up to the rich and influential and praise them even when they're wicked. They'll admire them. They'll admire the most wicked people if it gets them an advantage. And we see this all the time with today's TV preachers, cozying up to politics. Look, brother, you're never going to find me praising politicians and wealthy people that are wicked, you know, just because of some advantage. I don't need that advantage. You know, God's going to give me everything I need, but false teachers, they'll hold up wicked people for their own advantage. Let's check this in the life of Jim Jones. He eventually moved the headquarters for his temple. It started out in, it started in Indiana, is where he started his faith healing church. Then he moved it to Northern California, a town called Ukiah, which is north of San Francisco, a real small town. I think at the time it had about 10,000 people in it. Now it's obviously a lot bigger. But eventually he moved from Ukiah to San Francisco, I mean San Francisco, and he, you know, set up the church there on Geary Street in San Francisco, California. So he moved the headquarters for the temple to San Francisco, a major center for radical protest movements at the time. The move led Jones and the temple becoming politically influential in San Francisco politics, culminating in the temple's instrumental role in the mayoral election victory of George Moscone in 1975. Now Jim Jones also got Harvey Milk elected, who became the first open faggot to be elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Oh, whoops, I just say the word faggot. But anyway, you know, this guy Harvey Milk, I went to the post office in Phoenix, they tried to sell me stamps of this guy. Who saw that stamp when it came out? Yeah, a lot of people saw it, right? They had a bunch of stamps of Harvey Milk, commemorating Harvey Milk. This pervert, and basically Jim Jones is the guy who got him elected. Jim Jones was committing election, he's busing in people from his church and other areas and everything to all vote for Harvey Milk. He's campaigning for these guys, Moscone, Milk, these super left-wing politicians. In September of 1977, California Assemblyman Willie Brown served as Master of Ceremonies at large testimonial dinners for Jones, attended by Governor Jerry Brown, Lieutenant Governor Mervyn DiMali. At that dinner, Brown touted Jones as what you should see every day when you look in the mirror in the early morning hours. Don't you just want to look in the mirror and see Jim Jones? And by the way, these people's names might not mean a lot to you. I grew up in California, so I'm kind of familiar with these names, you know, the California Governor, Jerry Brown, you know, these other guys. This is what Brown touted Jones as what you should see every day when you look in the mirror in the early morning hours. A combination of Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, and Chairman Mao. This is a great, great, great governor in California back in 77, huh? Harvey Milk, who spoke at political rallies at the temple, wrote to Jones after a visit to the temple, Rev Jim, it may take me many a day to come down from that high that I reached today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes me up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back for I can never leave. Man, this Harvey Milk really loved Jim Jones. While most of Jones' political allies broke ties after his departure to Guyana, some did not. As a show of support, Willie Brown spoke out against enemies at a rally at the people's temple, which was also attended by Harvey Milk and then Assemblyman Art Agnos. On February 19, 1978, Milk wrote a letter to Jimmy Carter, defending Jones as a man of the highest character, and claimed that temple detractors were trying to damage Rev. Jones' reputation. With apparent bold-faced lies, Moscone's office issued a press release saying that Jones had broken no laws. First Lady Rosalynn Carter, President Jimmy Carter's wife, also personally met with Jones on multiple occasions, corresponded with him about Cuba, and spoke with him at the grand opening of the San Francisco Democratic Party headquarters, where Jones garnered louder applause than Mrs. Carter. Isn't it funny, though, that people try to use Jim Jones as, like, a byword of, like, a conservative Christian? Fundamental Baptist? This guy's a hard left, hanging with all the Democrats and the left-wing types, right? And he's this pro-sodomite, is a sodomite, super left-wing, super liberal, okay? But why is he doing this? Why is he, you know, just so in with all these politicians? Because they're constantly looking the other way when people are accusing him of abusing people, imprisoning people, molesting people. It's just all swept under the rug because all these politicians are protecting him because he's getting him elected. He's got the politicians in his back pocket. You see, he had men's persons in admiration because of advantage, and he spoke great, swelling words to basically promote these guys. Look at verse 17. But, beloved, are you in Jude there? Jude, verse 17. But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. Now, of course, this fits the bill with Jim Jones. He mocked the Word of God, mocked the Lord, mocked Jesus, mocked the King James Bible. He also walked after his own ungodly lusts through adultery and other sins of the flesh. But it says these be they who separate themselves. What does it mean they separate themselves? Well, the fourth point tonight is this. Jim Jones sought to isolate people and break their ties with outsiders. They separate themselves, meaning that they want to take you out of the group and basically get you off by yourself. Now, here's the thing about this. Obviously, there is a separation that is biblical where the Bible says, Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord. But the thing that we need to understand is that the Bible teaches that God wants us to be in the world, but not of the world. So when the Bible talks about us being separate, that's not a physical separation. That's a spiritual separation where we're different. Jesus said, I don't pray for you to take them out of the world, but that you would keep them from the evil, it says in John 17. God does not want us removed from this world. He just wants us kept from the evil. But false teachers, false prophets, and especially cult leaders desire to separate themselves and isolate people off in the middle of nowhere by themselves to get them away from the group. Now, this could happen on a micro level if they would come into a church and basically pull people off into a room somewhere and shut the door and whatever, or taking whole groups of people out into the middle of nowhere, out into the jungle or out into the wilderness, wherever that is. Now, obviously, this is what the Mormon church did, where they would move people out in the middle of nowhere, where they got people to go first to Nauvoo, Illinois, where there's nothing there, just a bunch of mosquitoes and swampy land and a creek and everything. We're gonna build this town, we're gonna build the promised land out in the middle of nowhere. Totally isolated, separate from anybody else, and then Joseph Smith becomes the mayor of the town, and he runs everything, he's the government, he's the leader of the church, everybody is physically isolated out in the middle of nowhere in Nauvoo, Illinois. You know, later, Brigham Young would take that Latter-day Saint colt and take them out to Salt Lake City. You know, back when there wasn't much there, he takes them out west, parks them in the middle of a desert where he can control them and have power over them. Jim Jones went to a place right on the border of Guyana and Venezuela, deep into the jungle, and he isolated everybody there, you know, where he can just control everything and he's got people separated. This is very common with colt leaders. There are a lot of examples of this. Now, let me go ahead and read this for you. Jim Jones had first started building Jonestown, which is that place in Guyana, right on the border with Venezuela, deep in the jungle, not near any major city or anything, formerly known as the People's Temple Agricultural Project, several years before the New West article was published. So here's what's going on. Jim Jones started building this place in Guyana where he wanted to have his own town, Jonestown, where he could isolate people and take them away from civilization and get them completely under his control. What finally caused everybody to move down there, because at first he was just sending certain people down there and they were kind of preparing the way, which is also what Joseph Smith did. He sent certain people ahead to Missouri to get a place ready while he was leading people into Illinois. But he sent these people ahead, but what caused everybody to eventually go down there was that a news publication called The New West put out this really damning article just exposing all of Jim Jones' wickedness. Now, many people had tried to write exposés on Jim Jones in the past, but they got so many threats and so much intimidation and politicians are bringing power down to bear on them that he went a long while just getting away with all of his shenanigans with nobody knowing what was really going on. But then finally this article comes out in a publication called The New West and this really exposed him bad, so he did kind of a mass exodus of just getting everybody down to Guyana where they wouldn't hear about what's in this article and where people wouldn't really find out what was going on. So that's what caused them all to head down there. You say, well, what kind of stuff was going on in this cult that this article brought about? Well, one of the big things was that people were not allowed to leave. So once you join, once you're part of this thing, you can't leave. Now, here's some of the ways that they worked this out. First of all, they would get everybody to sign over all their money. They would get elderly people to sign over their Social Security checks and everything to this people's temple church, and then they would put them in a commune where they're living in a commune with other people. So they don't have any money, they don't have any resources. They're in a commune with other people. And then the way that they stopped them from leaving, and it's bizarre, isn't it, to think that anyone would actually do this? They would have people sign blank pieces of paper. They'd give them a blank piece of paper and have them sign it so that later they could type up whatever type of a statement that they wanted and basically it's just a carte blanche. So they'd sign a paper and then if you leave the church, we'll write some really damning confession and then it'll have your name signed at the bottom of it. Many times they would even have the people sit down and write accusations against themselves. Very common. Where they would have them write up how they're this violent revolutionary and how they were going to kill people and stuff. And then many people, there are multiple examples of people who were told that they had to write an accusation where they actually would confess to being a child molester and children that they had molested. And these people would write that, sign it and give it to the church, and the church said, we're only going to use this if you're disloyal, if you quit, if you leave. Okay, we're only going to use it in that case. We're just going to kind of put it on file. Who in their right mind would do that? But you say, well, why would anyone do that? Well, I read the story of one guy in particular where his wife was really into the church. He's not really into it. He thinks it's weird. He thinks it's crazy. But he loves his wife. Well, the only way he can be with his wife is if he stays in this church because that's the way it works. You know, she's only going to be with a guy that's part of the church because they're not allowed to have any fellowship with outsiders in this cult, Jim Jones cult. So basically, he's going along with it just in order to be with her, okay? Well, he starts having second thoughts. He starts thinking about getting out. And then he's basically given a notice evicting him from his house and, you know, a threat from divorce from his wife. So he's like, okay, I'll stay in. Well, next thing you know, he's signing the bottom of a blank piece of paper. And then next thing you know after that, he's signing papers that say that he molested and did all these horrible things. But the reason he has to keep getting in deeper is because he doesn't want to lose his family. He's already signed the blank piece of paper. Who knows what they're going to put on that. Then they intimidate him into signing other accusations against himself. And he just keeps like the frog in the hot water getting deeper and deeper and deeper into this thing until he just has no way out. You see, these cults, they make it difficult or impossible for you to leave. Now, one cult that's famous for this is Scientology, okay? When people try to leave Scientology, they would be harassed. People sometimes would buy the house across the street from them, set up surveillance equipment 24 hours a day and just film their house 24 hours a day. Then go there, try to provoke them, slash their tires, vandalize their home, you know, tell lies about them. Okay, the Latter Day Saints in the early days practiced this and the fundamental Latter Day Saints up in Arizona, northern Arizona, still do this. They have a thing called blood atonement where people who apostatize and leave the church where they'll kill you if you leave. Now, the modern day Latter Day Saint church says, oh, we don't do that, but it's introduced by Brigham Young, their prophet, and it's still practiced by the fundamental Latter Day Saints up in northern Arizona even to this day. They don't let you out. You know, once you're in, it's hard to extricate yourself from these cults. Now, let's compare that to biblical Christianity. Go to John chapter 6. While you're turning there, I'll continue reading this about Jonestown. Jonestown was promoted as a means to create a socialist paradise and a sanctuary from the media scrutiny in San Francisco. Jones purported to establish Jonestown as a benevolent model communist community stating, I believe we're the purest communists there are. In that regard, like the Latter Day Saints, in that regard, like the restrictive immigration policies of the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, and other communist states, Jones did not permit members to leave Jonestown. And think about it. They're out in the jungle. You know, it's hard to escape. And he, oh, by the way, he held onto everybody's passports too for safekeeping. So how do you get out? You're in the jungle. You don't have a passport. You don't have any money. How do you get out, right? All kinds of threats and all kinds of punishments. And they would, by the way, this Jim Jones church would physically punish people who committed crimes or sins against the church. Anybody who criticized Jim Jones or spoke out against the church would be actually publicly beaten. Grown men, adult men are being given spankings in front of the whole congregation with a microphone held up to their mouth so that if they made any utters of pain, it would just be amplified. And then when they're done, they had to tell Jim Jones, thank you, Father, after being disciplined. That's pretty weird, right? Well, look at Jesus' attitude toward people leaving. Verse 66, from that time, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with them. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, will you go away also? He says, will you also go away? See, Jesus' attitude is like, hey, if you want to leave, don't let the door hit you on your way out. Hey, do you want to leave too? Will you also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou is the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the son of the living God. You see, New Testament Christianity is totally voluntary. It's okay to leave whenever you want. You don't have punishments or penalties for leaving. And by the way, if you leave, there's no physical punishment. There's no blackmail. There's no persecution or slash tires or harassment. But not only that, there's not even a spiritual penalty. As long as you were to leave and go to another Bible-believing church, you're not even going to have any spiritual consequences. It's not like, hey, if you leave Faithful Word Baptist, you're going to hell or something. No, no, no. You can leave and go to other Baptist churches. And you're fine. People who are here want to be here, right? That's because it's not a cult. But let me tell you something. When a church is threatening you if you leave or bad things are going to happen if you leave, that's a sign of a cult right there. That's a scary thing. That's what Jim Jones was like. But not only that, these cults, they will often encourage people to divorce their spouse if their spouse leaves the cult. Now, Mormonism is notorious for this. Mormonism conveniently teaches that divorce is not a sin. Now, they try to put forth an image of being pro-family and family values are a big thing. Back in the 1980s, they had a major TV campaign. I must have seen those commercials. I watch too much TV. I'll confess. When I was a kid, I was that statistic, the seven hours a day or whatever. You know, I watched a lot of TV when I was growing up, and I saw those commercials a million times, you know, from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, all the family values and everything I got. But here's the thing. They pretend like, oh, well, we think that divorce is a last resort. We want to see people work things out. We want marriages to last, yada, yada. But at the end of the day, here's the cold, hard fact. They teach that divorce is not a sin, and that's a fact. They can sit there and say, well, we're going to encourage you not to do it, but at the end of the day, they'll tell you it's not a sin. We believe that divorce is a sin. It's a sin, I said. Look, the Bible says that the Lord God hateth putting away. God hates divorce. It is a sin for you to divorce your wife and marry someone else, okay? That's what the Bible teaches. Is that what the Latter-day Saints teach? No, it's not. Jesus said, whosoever put away his wife and marrieth another commits adultery. He said, except it be for fornication. I've taught on that in many sermons. They teach that divorce for any reason is not a sin, although they'll try to discourage it. But here's the true story, folks. If one person wants to quit the church, the one who stays in divorces their spouse, and the church isn't going to tell them, oh no, don't do that, stay married. No, no, here's what the church teaches, ladies. You can't even get to heaven unless your husband calls you out of the grave. So if you're a woman who's a Latter-day Saint or a Mormon, if you're a Mormon wife and your husband quits the church, you're not going to be saved unless you divorce him and marry someone else. So this is what the church is actually, through their doctrine, encouraging you to do. Look, I've known a lot of Mormons personally, and if you talk to them, it's very clear that either they both have to leave, or if one of them leaves and the other stays, the marriage is going to end. It's going to be over. Now go to 1 Corinthians 7, let's compare that with what the Bible teaches. And by the way, Jim Jones is the same way. One person leaves the church, they're supposed to divorce that person and be with someone else. That's what he was having his people do. We know a Mormon lady who's a friend of ours, an ex-Mormon, but when we first knew her, she was still Mormon. She left the church in the last few years, but she left it with her husband. It was like they both had to make that decision in order to stay married, and they both had to pull out of the church at the same time. And thank God they got out of that cult, the Mormon Church. But here's the thing about, the sad thing about Mormonism, is that people leave the Mormon Church in the droves every day. I mean, their numbers are dropping. They try to lie and beef up their numbers, but they are losing people like crazy right now because of the invention of this thing called the Internet. Because it makes it so easy to expose all the fraud and all the lies and all the hidden cameras that have been brought into those temples of Mormonism and shows them openly worshipping Lucifer and putting all these curses on themselves and doing all this satanic, masonic activity. Because the hidden cameras are there, the YouTube videos are there, the information is just readily available on the Internet to debunk this stuff. They're losing people like crazy. But you know what the sad thing is? The people that are quitting, for the most part, they're not turning to Bible-believing Christianity. They're not getting saved. They're turning to atheism and agnosticism. People are quitting the Mormon Church every day, but most of the time they become atheists because they've had so much demonic garbage put into their mind their whole life and traditional Christianity has been so demonized to them that they just believe, well, if the Mormon Church is false, everything's false. And then they just become an atheist. Now, the one that we know, she did not turn to atheism. She's open to the Gospel. She's receptive to the Gospel. And we're hoping that her and her husband will eventually receive Christ as Savior and come to Bible-believing Christianity and become Baptist. But right now they're kind of up in the air on that. But we talked to her, and she said it's clear. They either had to both leave or both stay in if they want to stay married. And they have kids together and everything else. So that's how a lot of people are kept in these cults. Let's compare that with the Bible. Verse 12 of 1 Corinthians 7 says, But to the rest speak I, not the Lord. If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. So right there the Bible's clear that if you're married to an unsaved wife, you're not supposed to divorce her. And then in verse 13 it says, And the woman which hath a husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. So this is exactly the opposite of what cults teach, where they break up the family and say, Well, hey, if she's not saved, you've got to divorce her. If he's not saved, you've got to divorce him. I've even seen this teaching even in Baptist churches where they said, Well, if your wife doesn't want to serve God, or if your husband doesn't want to serve God, you need to ditch them and find somebody who does. What a wicked teaching. You know, the Bible teaches it's still death do us part. And so right here he says, You stay with the unbelieving spouse. Verse 14, For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Else were your children unclean, but now they're holy. What he's saying is you could be a good influence on your husband. You could be a good influence on your unsaved wife, and you can raise godly children even just with one saved parent. If you stay together, you could still raise godly children. Now, when you get divorced, what happens? The children spend part of their time over here and part of the time over here. Part of the time with a Christian family. Part of the time with a family that's very non-Christian, that's against the things of God, and those children are often going to go the wrong way because they're going to tend toward the permissive one that's letting them do whatever and things like that. Whereas if they're together all the time, that godly mother or godly father can exert a godly influence on a daily basis and keep that child right. And there are many examples in the Bible where only one parent was godly and the other wasn't, and the children turned out right. But look at verse number 15. But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God hath called us to peace. For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? Or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife? So in verse 15 it's saying, look, you can't force them to be with you. I mean, if they depart, let them depart. I mean, they're going to depart. You can't force them to stay. But you should try to stay and retain that marriage because the goal is to try to get that person safe. The goal is to try to get him or her safe and to raise godly children together. But cults tend to destroy marriages, not to bolster marriages and keep them together. You know, even when sometimes my preaching has caused a problem in somebody's marriage, even sometimes recommended to people, maybe that they should go to church somewhere else because their marriage is more important. You know, like, for example, and obviously listen to me. If you're the husband, you need to rule your home. You need to be the leader in your home. You need to decide where you go to church. You're the boss. But I've had conversations with women who've said, you know, I really want to come to church here, but my husband hates you. You know, he hates you. He doesn't want anything to do with you, but I really want to come here, and it's causing this rift in our marriage, and here's what I did for that person. I said, listen, let me recommend you another fundamental Baptist church where you can still grow in the Lord and hear sound preaching and sound doctrine where the pastor is not Stephen Anderson and just remove this conflict because it's important for your marriage that you do what's right. You know, women who said, hey, my husband is forbidding me to go to this church, and not just our church. I was a visiting preacher somewhere, and a lady came up to me, and at the church I was preaching at, she said, my husband forbids me to go to this church, and I'm afraid it's going to destroy my marriage. What do I do? And I told her, I said, you need to obey your husband and not come here. If that's going to destroy your marriage, then don't come here. She said, well, you're the first person that gave me that advice. Everybody else told me to just come to this church anyway because we ought to obey God rather than men. You're the first person who told me to obey my husband and not come because I said to her, you know what, it's possible to serve God without coming to this particular church. You know, if your husband is forbidding you to come and he hates this church, then you need to find another Bible-believing church where you can still hear the gospel and the King James Bible and then go to a church that your husband is not forbidding you to go to. Now, if her husband were just forbidding her from going to any church, then, okay, I can see at that point, you know, we've got to obey God rather than men. You know, if a husband forbade their wife to be baptized or to go to church, obviously we've got to obey God rather than men at that point. But you know what, God did not command you, thou shalt go to Faithful Word Baptist Church or thou shalt go to Verity Baptist Church. See what I'm saying? So, you know, I'm just telling you that's where my heart is. It's not just, well, that's to him, get your butt in Faithful Word. No, no, because your marriage is important and I don't want to destroy people's marriages, I want to help their marriages. And if this church is an impediment to somebody's marriage, then you know what, they should go to somewhere else that's going to help their marriage, obviously within the bounds of still obeying Christ. I'm not saying disobey Christ. I'm not saying forsake church altogether. I'm just saying that in some situations, somebody might have to skip this church in order to get along with their spouse and go to another Bible-believing church. That's okay, that's more important. See what I'm saying? But to a cult, this is just foreign to them. It's just, no, you've got to be here. And they'll tend to destroy marriages, they'll tend to alienate people and isolate them from their family, from their friends and stuff like that. Now obviously, yeah, there's a natural separation that's going to take place when we start serving the Lord. We're going to lose friends, we're going to lose family and things like that. But a cult is one who tries to encourage isolating you and breaking those relationships instead of trying to teach you to try to live at peace with all men, even while obeying Christ. And if you have to break fellowship, so be it, but that's not something that we're just seeking for. We're not just going for that, okay? 2 Thessalonians 3, you don't have to turn there, but in 2 Thessalonians 3 it says, if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man and have no company with him that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. Whereas cults tend to see anybody who quits the church, leaves the church, or has anything against the church to view them as an enemy. Instead of just viewing them as maybe somebody that we don't want to hang around with, they'll just view them as an enemy. The Bible says, no, no, count them not as an enemy, admonish them as a brother. Lastly this, go to John chapter 10, last place we'll turn tonight. Number 5, Jim Jones' motive was to kill and to destroy. That was his motive. So let me do a quick review while you're turning to John chapter 10. Number 1, Jim Jones was a communist infiltrator. He did not believe in the Bible or in Jesus Christ. Number 2, Jim Jones was an adulterer, a pervert, and a sodomite. Number 3, Jim Jones was allied with left wing politicians in order to gain advantages for himself and his cult. Number 4, Jim Jones sought to isolate people and break their ties with the outside world. He brings them out to the middle of nowhere, encourages communal living, instead of people living in their families, he breaks up the family and has communal living. He doesn't allow them to have connections with outsiders. Nobody is allowed to leave. And number 5, Jim Jones' motive was to kill and to destroy. You see, Jim Jones did not just get involved in a situation where he was scared and he didn't know what he was going to do. So it's just, as a last minute, he just decides, hey, we're all going to kill ourselves. And by the way, 918 people died altogether in the Jonestown Massacre. 918 people. Okay, but if you study the subject, if you study Jim Jones, you'll realize this was premeditated years before. It was the goal all along. It's hard to believe, isn't it? He had every intention all along of having a mass suicide with him and his followers. That was his plan for years. He talked about it. He would put it out there. He tried to brainwash his followers that someday we're all going to commit suicide. It's going to be a revolutionary suicide. He was constantly testing the waters and trying to get people used to that idea. He was a sick person. And by the way, communism is a death-worshipping evil system. It always involves the mass murder of people, always. I don't care if it's the Soviet Union, China, North Korea. You can go all the way back to the beginnings of the Bolshevik Revolution, 1917, 1918, and look at it. It always, whether it's Cambodia, whether it's China, whether it's the USSR, just involves a major bloodbath. This ideology is a death-worshipping idea. You can read Mao Zedong as a teenager talking about murdering and killing people. Even as a teenager, he's already meditating on these sick things. And this is the way Jim Jones was. It was all premeditated. Jesus in John chapter 10 talks about false messiahs, false Christs that came before him, claiming to be the messiah. He said in verse 7, Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, On the door of the sheep, all that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door by me. If any man enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture. The thief cometh not but to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. In verse number 8, he talks about the ones who came before him. These are false messiahs. Gamaliel talks about this in Acts chapter 5. He talks about a guy named Theudas who came and had 400 followers. And he lists some false messiahs that had showed up and they were killed and their followers were scattered. Jesus says, All that came before me are thieves and robbers. Then he goes on to say, The thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. See, the false prophets, the false messiahs, the cult leaders, they come to steal your money, steal everything you have, and they want to kill you and destroy you. And, you know, this fits in with the devil's plan. I mean, look where the devil kills people in the Bible where people are demon-possessed and what do they do when they're demon-possessed? Throw themselves in the water, throw themselves into the fire, cut themselves, self-destruct, suicide. That's what the devil desires to kill humanity. Listen to this. November 18, 1978, 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 304 of them children, died of apparent cyanide poisoning mostly in and around the settlement's main pavilion. This resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The FBI later recovered a 45-minute audio recording of the suicide in progress. And who's heard parts of that 45-minute tape? On that tape, Jones tells temple members that the Soviet Union, with whom the temple had been negotiating a potential exodus for months, would not take them after the airstrip murders. What are the airstrip murders? Well, what happened was they're down in Jonestown and people in the US are finally coming down on them for all the abuse, the torture, the holding people hostage against their will. So they sent a congressman down to investigate. He comes and checks it out. There ends up being a fight with a knife. They get out of there. They're going to bring a bad report back to the US about what's going on. They're at the airport. They're getting ready to leave. And a bunch of guys that Jim Jones sent meet them at the airport and start shooting up the place, shot the congressman dead, shot a few other people, and that was actually the first congressman ever to die in the line of duty of being a congressman. He was shot at the airport. They shot him up. And so after that shooting, the Soviet Union said, hey, we don't want you guys. Who would want to go to the Soviet Union voluntarily, you know, in the 70s, right? But anyway. So Jones and, let me pick up where I left off here. They're paranoid at this point. Oh, the US is going to send troops in and whatever now that we've killed this congressman and killed these people. So he basically, Jones and several members argued that the group should commit revolutionary suicide by drinking cyanide-laced, grape-flavored flavor-aid. Not Kool-Aid. It was actually later found to be flavor-aid. Now, there are a lot of film footage of a lot of Kool-Aid down there and of Jim Jones opening a lot of packs of Kool-Aid and everything. But actually, it was the cheaper substitute, flavor-aid, that was actually mixed with the cyanide. All right, just a little interesting fact there. So empty packets of grape flavor-aid found on the scene show that this is what was used to mix the solution along with a sedative. One member, Christine Miller, dissents toward the beginning of the tape. When members apparently cried, Jones counseled, stop these hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialists or communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity. Jones can be heard saying, don't be afraid to die. That death is just stepping over into another plane and that death is a friend. At the end of the tape, Jones concludes, we didn't commit suicide. We committed an act of revolutionary suicide. I think that's still suicide. Protesting the conditions of an inhumane world. According to escaping temple members, children were given the drink first and families were told to lie down together. Mass suicide had been previously discussed in simulated events called white nights on a regular basis. During at least one such prior white night, members drank liquid that Jones falsely told them was poison. So multiple times he told them, you got to drink this poison and they would drink it and it was just a drill. So this was premeditated for a long time. He would create these scenarios where, for example, he had his own son shoot up his house while he's laying on the ground in Guyana and then say, we're under attack and for six days pretend that the whole place is under siege and they're scared and they got guns and they got cutlasses and they're ready to fight. There's no enemy. He shot up his own place. And then he's talking to them. We might have to commit suicide. We might have to commit suicide. So he's building this up. Premeditating this for years, literally. Jones was found dead on a deck chair with a gunshot wound to his head that Guyana's coroner, Cyril Mutu, stated was consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Okay, so here's the conclusion. We've studied some scriptures in 2 Peter 2. We've looked at Jude. We've seen a few other scriptures. And we've looked at a case study of Jim Jones as an example fitting this bill to a T, right? And a little bit of a history lesson for those historically challenged people who think that Jim Jones was a fundamentalist Christian. In reality, he's a liberal, left-wing, Democrat, communist. So what's the conclusion? What's the takeaway from the sermon? You know, what do we take away from this? Why preach on this? How do we apply this to our lives? Here's the conclusion. What are the signs of a cult, okay? Because we looked at this really extreme example and we've read the scripture. So what's the moral to the story? What are the signs of a cult, okay? Here are the signs. Number one, attacking or downplaying the Bible as the final authority. That's a sign of a cult right there. When they wanna try to downplay the Bible as being the authority or attack the Bible, you know, and say, no, no, no, you need the Book of Mormon or you need something else or, oh, the Bible, that's idolatry the way you revere the Bible, that's idolatry. You know, that's a cult because they want you to follow a man instead of following the word of God. So this is something to watch out for because look, every cult isn't gonna be as obvious as Jim Jones. I mean, any idiot should be able to see a Jim Jones from a mile away. No real Bible-believing Christian's ever gonna get sucked in by a guy like Jim Jones. Not even close. But here's what we need to understand. A lot of false prophets and false teachers and cult leaders are gonna be much more subtle than Jim Jones. Much harder to identify than Jim Jones. So we need to watch for these signs. When somebody is attacking or downplaying the Bible as the final authority, that's a bad idea. We need to stay away from that. Number two, leadership committing adultery or perversion. You know, when you see the leadership committing adultery or perversion and it's accepted, it's swept under the rug, that's a sign of a cult right there. Number three, communal living. Everybody living on the same street, the same property, everybody's on a compound, everybody moves into a building, everybody moves into a building, that is the sign of a cult right there. When they're trying to separate themselves physically, isolate you, and get you living communally. The Bible does not teach communal living. The Bible teaches that every man has his own house, his own vine, and his own fig tree. You know, I don't want you moving in with me. I don't even want you living on my street. Why? Because I want to have my own privacy, my own life, my own house, and I want you to have the same thing. We're not all moving into some compound. And they come at you, oh, the world's so wicked, we need to pull out and isolate in a compound. That's not biblical. We're to be in the world, but just not of the world. And look, you see Baptists do this all the time. Here's my fourth point. Communal living was the third point. Moving you to a remote location. This is a cult-like thing to do when we take the church from Phoenix, Arizona, and we're going to move the church to the middle of nowhere. Now, first of all, it's weird when a church moves from one city to another. That's weird enough. Now, I'm not saying they move the church across town. I mean, you know, there's a church in this area that moved from Ahwatukee to Gilbert. I mean, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about where they move the church to another state, okay? But even weirder is when they move you to a remote location, okay? It's not like, hey, we're going from Phoenix to LA. I mean, that would already be weird. Hey, we're going from Phoenix to Albuquerque. That's weird. Let's all move, because that seems like they're trying to get you to break ties so that your only social network is just the church only and you have no family or social ties with anyone else. But, you know, you'll notice that these cult leaders, they take them to a remote location. Now, there's a Baptist cult leader named Joey Faust, and I've preached against this guy before, and I've talked to some people that were his followers and tried to warn them about this guy. This guy's like following the cult handbook to a T. I mean, he's preaching a strange doctrine that nobody's ever heard of, a false, crazy doctrine about how Christians, if they don't live right, are going to spend a thousand years in hell, then have eternal life, okay? Like a Baptist purgatory, okay? And then he moved his church from being outside Dallas, Texas to the middle of nowhere in Missouri where the closest motel is an hour away. That's a pretty small town when there's not even a motel. It's an hour away. Bought a bunch of property and the church members are living on his property, right? So he moves out to the middle of nowhere, buys a big property, church members are living on his property. What does that look like to you? It's a cult. The guy's a cult leader teaching a strange, false doctrine nobody's ever heard of. The guy's wife leaves him. His wife desserts him and he's still pastor, still preaching. In fact, does a series on marriage while his wife is AWOL. Yeah, yeah, I really want to listen to a marriage sermon from a guy whose wife is AWOL. Okay, this guy is just the most textbook, but that goes to show you that even Baptists can sometimes have these infiltrators creep in that are not a normal pastor, but actually a cult leader in the making. Moving you to a remote location, number five, not allowing you to leave or trying to intimidate people not to leave. We, on the other hand, are thinking about installing a revolving door. You know what I mean? Just to get the wrong people out of here. Look, you can leave. Anybody who can't tell the difference, go ahead and leave, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not trying to tell people. Hey, I've heard pastors, they try to intimidate people so much, they tell you, if you switch churches, it's like you're switching wives, they said. Not me. You know what? If you want to switch, if there's a better church in Phoenix, go there. That's what I would do. If I were you, if I were you right now, sitting in this church and I knew of a better church across town, I'd leave Faithful Word and go to that better church. I'm going to take my family to the best church. Life's too short to go to a church that's not, you know, that's not the best church I can find. I'd rather go to the best church possible. You know, but a cult, they don't, whoa, no, you can't leave. You've got to stay here. Number six, cults have an us against them mentality that they are the only true church. That they're the only true church. Everybody else is wrong. Nobody else is saved. We're the only true church. This is, you know, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, founder of the LDS religion, he believed this so strongly that he actually baptized himself because he would not submit to baptism by any church. Later, he changed the story later where him and his buddy baptized each other. But the original story was that he baptized himself. Okay. That's a sign of a cult. And number seven, not encouraging you to say the Bible on your own. Just trust us. Just listen to us. So here are seven signs of a cult that you should watch out for, even amongst Christians, even amongst Baptists. Beware of attacking or downplaying the Bible as the final authority. Leadership that commits adultery or perversion and is swept under the rug. Communal living. Everybody's living on the same street, the same property or in a compound. Number four, moving you to a remote location. Number five, not allowing you to leave. Number six, an us against them mentality that says we're the only true church or there's only three true churches in the whole world or there's only five of us or 10 of us. Or number seven, not encouraging you to study the Bible on your own. Now look, I'm not saying to you that if they have all of these, it's a sign of a cult. I'm saying any one of these, even just one of these seven things is a sign of a cult, even just one. If you have a church telling you we're the only true church and every other church is false, that is a scary thing and that is a cult in the making. Beware of that. I don't teach that. I've never taught that. I believe that, first of all, I believe that there are at least 10 churches in this area, the greater Phoenix area, that you could go to and it's a biblical church. Now I'm not saying that they're as good as our church because I think our church is the best church. That's why I'm here. But I'm saying I could list for you 10 other churches in the greater Phoenix area that if Faithful Word Baptist Church were to disappear tomorrow, you could go to those churches instead if that was the only option and you'd be fine in the sense that they're King James. They believe salvation is by faith. They believe in the eternal security of the believer and they have some kind of a soul-winning program. And I'm not saying there's only 10. I'm saying I could think of 10. You know what I'm saying? And look, I preach against the tongue, blue in the face, this mentality where people live in gigantic cities with millions of people and they claim, oh, there's no good church in my area so I just don't go to church. I preach against that all day long because you know what? There are over 6,000 independent fundamental Baptist churches in this country. Are some of them watered down? Yeah. Are some of them lame? Yeah. Are some of them preaching false doctrine? But you know what? There are plenty of them that are okay, that are fine. It's not like we're the only ones or people that we sent out are the only ones. Now, we might be the only ones that are really taking the sodomites to task the way we need to, but we're not the only true church. And by the way, the vast majority of Baptists agree with us on that issue in their heart, just don't have the guts to say it. I believe it's not unique to us. Even the LAPD agreed with us in the 70s, amen? So we need to beware of any of these cult-like symptoms and stay away from these kind of teachers that exhibit this kind of behavior that's a little more subtle than the extreme case of Jim Jones. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, I pray that these lessons from Jonestown, Lord, would be a reminder of the importance of the teachings of 2 Peter 2 and the book of Jude, Lord. I pray that everybody would go home and study those chapters and understand them and to watch out for preachers and churches that exhibit these characteristics, Lord. Help no one in our church to ever be sucked in by false teachers and false prophets, Lord. Help us to be sober and be vigilant and to know that our adversary, the devil, walketh about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Lord, help us to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them. Help us to understand the evil that is communism, the evil that is socialism, the evils of left-wing ideologies, Lord, that people like Jim Jones preach and believe in and that ruin lives and kill people. Lord, help us to study your word and always make it our final authority. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.