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Matthew Stuckey here from Verity Baptist Church Manila, providing you another video on reasons why we are not a cult. And one big tactic you see from cults is that the person who's leading or running that cult, they make themselves not only the authority at the church or at the organization or function, but they make themselves the authority in people's personal lives outside of that function. What do I mean by that? Well, here at Verity Baptist Church Manila, you know, I preach what the Bible says. I preach as much as I can to lining up with what the Bible says. And you know, we operate as a church as much like the Bible as possible. We do it just like the Bible says. And you know, if we're wrong in any areas, we hope the Lord will lead us to correct our mistakes. We try to line up as much with the Bible as possible. I try to preach what the Bible says. And I do preach hard against sin and I preach certain things. But as I give people advice in sermons, my authority comes to when I'm behind this moment and I'm giving people advice and showing them what the Word of God says. I don't have the authority in their personal homes. Okay. That's what we always preach. That's what I always talk about. Look, you know, here I preach against watching television. I think it's wrong. And I don't think that people ought to watch television. But you know, if people watch television in their free time at home, I don't have the authority to go to their home and then tell them what to do. Okay. I am someone who gets up here and I give people advice, but I don't run people's lives. Now you look at these crazy calls and they basically make themselves the authority in people's personal homes as well. That's wrong. That's not what the Bible teaches. See, I'm supposed to be up here and to teach the Word of God and give advice on what the Bible says. But my authority is here in the church itself. It's not outside of this church. I don't get to run people's personal lives. You know, I might be against, you know, people drinking. I'm against people drinking. I'm against people doing drugs. But you know, people decide to leave this place and to go smoke a cigarette or drink or do drugs and do things that I preached against. That's up to them. That is their choice. Okay. Now obviously as I run the things at this church, if someone comes in here and they're just drinking, well yeah, I have the authority to basically remove them and say, hey, you're not allowed to drink in here. Okay. But if they in their free time decide to drink alcohol, that's their choice. Obviously we don't allow this here in church itself because this is under the authority of myself who's under the authority of the Bible and God. But in people's personal lives though, they're welcome to make the choices they want. Okay. Now there are a few sins that the Bible talks about getting kicked out of church for. But that's very few and far between. All of us are living in sin in some way or another and none of us are perfect. And so people in their personal lives, if they hear a sermon of mine and they just do the exact opposite of what I say or what I advise, that's their choice. I can't do anything about it. It's up to them. And the truth is I don't want to do anything about it. You know, I enjoy preaching. I love the Word of God. I enjoy preaching sermons and seeing what the Bible says. I don't want to just be trying to run people's lives. Okay. I've got my own life to live. I have enough things I need to fix. I don't want to run other people's lives. But when you look at cults, they do run people's lives at their homes. Okay. You look at other obscure religions like the Amish, which most people would not call a cult, but I would call a cult. And look, they literally tell you what to do at your home. If you want to be a part of their church, and that means you're not allowed to have electricity at your home in certain of the Amish communities. And they say things like that, and they run your personal lives. Now, that's wrong because that's outside of what the Bible says. The Bible talks about being kicked out for being a drunkard or being a fornicator, not because you have electricity at your home. And what they're doing is they're running people's personal lives. Now, your authority as a pastor or as an evangelist, it comes when you're behind the pulpit and you're preaching what the Bible says and you're operating the church itself. But you don't have the authority to go outside of this pulpit and run people's lives. But I've seen independent fundamental Baptist churches where they really just try to take over people's lives. And look, that is a tactic of a cult. Look, we don't have the right to just run people's personal lives. I give advice to people on who they should marry, but if somebody decides to leave this place and marry an unbeliever, if they say, well, I'm going to just marry an unbeliever because I want to, that's their choice. I can't do anything about it. If someone decides I'm going to go to the movies, hey, they're welcome to do that. That's their personal choice. We do have free will and people have the right to make the choices that they want to make. But when you look at cults, they try to run people's personal lives. So this empty accusation that we're a cult, in what way are we a cult? We don't try to run people's personal lives like cults do. In fact, we preach against that. We preach that you make your own decisions based on what you believe the Bible says. That is what our authority is, and that's how we run things at Verity Baptist Church. Thank you and God bless.