Cults and Their Effects - Part 2

Oh, an OC alum actually fella named Randy Moon, who's the minister. I don't know if he's still a minister, but he was the one that came in to establish Boston Church in Oklahoma City area. And, the Boston Church is in the process of changing their name changing their corporate name to the International Churches of Christ. Many years ago, in a discussion with, some friends of mine about the Boston Movement, I said, we thought we said that that the day that they could figure out how to change their name, that would be the day that they would totally, divide themselves from our fellowship. And so the official name is the International Churches of Christ.

Now the Boston church, and it's some of you might be saying, what is he talking about? I'm gonna I'm gonna give most of you probably know. Raise your hand if you know what I'm talking about. And Boston Church of Christ, has been, described as a classic Christian aberration. Remember I said there were different kinds of cults?

And I said, one of the kind of cults is Christian aberration. Alright? A kind of an offshoot of Christianity, using Christianity but really being a cult. Well, the Boston movement or the Boston church has been described as a classic Christian aberration or cult by newspapers in Dallas and elsewhere in the country, and is listed as a bona fide cult by religious educators even outside of our brotherhood. When people are studying cults, in religious education classes at university level, and they go through various cults, you know, the Boston movement is a cult that is or excuse me, the Boston movement is a group studied as a bona fide cult by religious teachers in denominational colleges and schools because it has all the earmarks of a cult.

And so tonight, I want to, talk to you and study, with you, the Boston the Boston movement. Boston movement. First of all, I wanna give you a little history of this movement. Now this overhead here may not may not be as clear as it needs to be for people in the back. This is not one of these great overheads that, Wilma has been making.

If you've noticed last couple of weeks, the overheads are crisp and you can see them right from the back row. It's because Wilma has been making these things on her new computer. She's getting to be a real computer whiz out there. She gets she gets to the office at 6 AM to try to figure out figure it out. And she's she did no extra pay.

Just, you know, we get her to play with the computer. But, this this little design here, if those of you in the back can't see, it's it's just a tree. Right? It's just gonna design the tree with roots here. And really this explains the history of the what's called the modern discipleship, modern discipleship movement.

It's called it's been called a lot of names. Originally, it was called the multiplying ministries, and then it was called the hierarchical discipleship movement. And eventually, it was just called it was also called the crossroads movement. I mean, way back in the in the eighties, it was called the crossroads movement. And eventually, we finally it's been called the Boston movement.

There's a reason for that. I'll explain that in a in a minute. This movement, has is not original to the church of Christ. Some people are saying, we started this movement, but this is this is an old movement that did not begin in the churches of Christ. It has its roots in many different places.

For example, you can't see, but the writings of many different people have come together to form this movement. Fellow named Juan Carlos Ortiz, originally in the 70, wrote a book on discipleship and a lot of thoughts about a lot of thoughts were taken from his books. The Maranatha Ministries, which was a kind of a militant campus ministry group. A lot of their ideas went into forming the modern discipleship movement in the churches of Christ. The writings of Watchman Nee, I've read a lot of his books and, if you've read some of his books, especially the normal Christian church or the normal Christian life, he talks a lot about this discipleship and the authority, in the in the Christian church.

Groups like the Navigators and Campus Crusade for Christ in the in the eighties used the systematic discipling, systematic authority, if you wish, to gain disciples. One book that was especially important to the Boston movement, is a book by Ronald Colvin, which is entitled The Master Plan of Evangelism, where he talks about this business of prayer partners and and, discipleship and so on and so forth. And there, of course, the history in the Roman Catholic church where there was a lot of 1 on 1 discipling, spiritual directors, and I'm familiar with that having grown up in that system. Well, you take all of these ideas that coalesce together in the seventies and they begin to form in our brotherhood what is called the discipleship movement. Now these ideas here, which are called the discipleship movement have really been rejected by charismatic, in in in denominations.

We we we overtook, we inherited some old ideas from denominationalism, ideas that they had spit out long ago, because it had caused them so many problems. And we incorporated them into the church, and we have paid the price for having taken those ideas into the church. And, again, this is what this lesson is all about. The beginning of the movement within the church dates back to the early or mid seventies in Gainesville, Florida, at a church called the Gainesville Church of Christ, where a preacher named Chuck Lucas was training young ministers to go on campuses, on college campuses, to try to recruit, try to evangelize. Good idea.

I mean, hey, the the college campuses are the place to go and talk to people about Jesus Christ. And the Crossroads Church was training them in a lot of techniques that were found in these books. Okay? And we'll talk about those techniques also in a minute. In 1977, the Memorial Church of Christ in Houston Houston, Texas was supporting 2 of these young ministers, but they terminated their support of them because they were beginning to use unbiblical methods.

In other words, they were using methods found in Coleman's master plan of evangelism on campus. They were using unbiblical ways to evangelize and to control disciples, and for that reason, they terminated their support. These 2 young ministers, their names were one of them was Roger Lamb and the other one was Kip McKean. Kip McKean in 1979, was being supported by the Crossroads Church. Eventually, it's a long story, but eventually, he became the evangelist for the Boston Church of Christ, and now this church in Boston is the main spokesman for this entire movement.

Chuck Lucas, if you're wondering if any of you know about this, Chuck Lucas is no longer at the Crossroads Church, no longer involved in multiplying ministries. And as an interesting sidelight, the Crossroads Church that originally started all this business has since repented of what it has done and publicly has come to the mainline church of Christ to ask to be reinstated in fellowship. They have rejected all of these ideas that originally came. My wife and I, as a sideline, saw Chuck Lucas when we were just beginning in the ministry. We went to Colorado on not knowing anything about the discipleship movement.

Someone had invited us to go there and we went there, and I saw him preach for one evening, and a mesmerizing speaker, I mean, just, you know, an incredible speaker, but I've never been so frightened in the church in my whole life. That night, after hearing him speak, went back to our room, and I remember us kneeling down in our room and praying, oh, dear God, where what have we stumbled into? Where are we? You know, we didn't even know where we were. Very very dangerous, type of, thinking that was going on.

The Boston Movement is a worldwide movement which operates on purpose, outside of the fellowship and influence of our brotherhood. Don't be so naive, brothers and sisters. They operate outside of our fellowship. They use our name, but they operate outside of our fellowship on purpose. It was, and I believe still is, the fastest growing element within what we refer to as the churches of Christ.

They their plan, their strategy was to be the church of Christ by the year 2 in other words, by the year 2000 when somebody said the church of Christ, their plan was they were referring to them and not us. Of course, since then, they've changed and revised their plan and have called themselves the International Church of Christ. The Boston church, I don't know about this night, but up till maybe a year ago, a year and a half ago, the fastest growing congregation in the USA, London Church of Christ or, you know, the Boston Church of Christ in London was the fastest growing congregation outside the United States of America. Every congregation is now or will feel the influence of this movement from one time to another. This movement and its practices were the main issue in our brotherhood in the eighties.

I mean, that's what we talked about in the eighties, and they continue to alienate many people as we go, on into the nineties. It It has been profiled as a cult on the program 2020. It's been profiled as a cult on the program inside edition. I didn't see the 2020, but I caught the inside edition one. And I mean, there they were talking to people that I knew and saw and so on and so forth, and all of the people who had been injured and damaged by this group.

And there were some Jim Baird, not Jim Baird from Al Baird. Excuse me. Al Baird, one of the elders from Boston, just sitting there as calm as you please answering all these accusations and so on and so forth, to the interviewers on on television. Very dangerous, very dangerous group. Well, I wanna cut to the chase here and and and answer one question that everybody asks all the time.

What's wrong with it? That's always the big thing. You know, what's what's wrong with this thing? You know, if we were talking about adultery, you know, we could go straight to the Bible. Thou shall not commit adultery.

It's simple. What's wrong with it? The Bible said, don't do that. With the Boston movement, it's not that clear. What's wrong with it?

Well, you know, you can't quite put your finger on it. But there are some definite things that are wrong with this book. See, on television, they don't talk about what's wrong with it. They're just interested in, you know, the human lives that have been damaged because of it. Makes a good story.

You know, it's about cults. But from a biblical perspective, what is wrong with these with this group? Well, 33 things wrong with it. Okay? Number 1, your organization is not biblical.

The organization of the Boston Church of Christ is not this biblical. I'll show you how they're organized. They have, first of all, what's called the mother church in Boston. Mother church is the church from which everything comes. You need approval from the Boston church in order to be an evangelist.

We knew people in Montreal who were working and supported by churches in Texas and so on and so forth. They were working as missionaries in Montreal who decided that they wanted to join the Boston movement. Here is a guy who had been a missionary for 15 years, whose father was a preacher, who grew up as a Christian, missionary for 15 years, had planted churches, baptized people, trained other evangelists, and had sent them out into the field. Okay? An experienced missionary, who decides all of a sudden for what reason, I don't know, to go to Boston or to go work for a Boston church in Toronto, Ontario.

And this guy had to go to Boston and be approved by the people in Boston to go work in Toronto. He needed the stamp of approval. He even needed to be rebaptized. And his wife and his children all over again, they would not give the stamp of approval till he went through the entire system. And so the mother church in Boston is the church from which all the authority as far as the workers are concerned comes from.

Then there's a thing called pillar churches. The Boston church in Boston, Massachusetts is a pillar church, but it's a pillar church with a significant role. There are other pillar churches which are congregations who are responsible for sending teams, for sending church planters to specific countries. These pillar churches can take talent from different places and send them to wherever they want to. For example, the San Francisco Church of Christ is responsible for California and for Asia and so on and so forth.

And different key churches are responsible for different areas. You have capital city churches, which are down in the notch of influence in this organization. They're national churches. For example, the church in Oklahoma City is a capital city church. It doesn't have the prestige, the power or the, resources of the pillar churches, and certainly not of the Boston church.

It's a capital city church. It's in charge of the region here in Oklahoma City. Then you have small city churches. Those are kind of countryside churches, and then house churches, what they call house churches. Each congregation divides up, into territories and zones, and each zone has a leader and within each zone, there are house churches.

And each house church has a leader. House churches, are as well as their local and zone leaders overseen by the main congregation. In other words, this capital city church controls these small city churches and controls these house churches over here. Now the main problem with I mean, that's a wonder of organization. That's terrific if you're selling widgets.

You know, if you're distributing t shirts or brooms or cars, you know, you get, you get the the head, the the plant where you make all the production quality control and you have, you know, zones and you've got regional managers and then local supervisors and then department managers and salesmen on the road. It's wonderful if you're like I said, you're selling widgets. But this is the body of the Lord. The new testament has not divided the church up geographically. And so the main problem with this system here of organization is that one church can and does control other churches.

This is exactly the Roman Catholic system to name 1. I mean, I couldn't talk about Presbyterian or whatever, but as being a former Catholic, I understand about Roman Catholicism. This is exactly the system within Roman Catholicism, you know, where you have parishes and diocese and so on and so forth. The problem is that this system of church organization has not been taught in the scriptures. The New Testament pattern, there is no, excuse me, there's no pattern in the New Testament for this higher hierarchical system.

This pyramidic system does not exist in the new testament. History shows that each church in apostolic times, was independent. Each congregation, was admonished to submit to the scriptures, not to one person. In Hebrews, we're admonished to submit to those who are over us in the lord. Yes.

To those plural, who are over us in the lord. And in Acts chapter 20, we find out that those who are over us in the Lord are the elders. And that each congregation had its own elders, but nowhere in the new testament do you see that one elder over here in Ephesus is, responsible for a church over here in, Alexandria or in, Thessalonica. Okay. And so what's wrong with Boston?

Well, the first thing is that its organization is not biblical. Secondly, it's view of authority is not biblical either because it has authority levels. You see, the basis of the entire movement is the concept that Jesus taught us that our job as Christians was to disciple other Christians in exactly the same way that he discipled the apostles. See, that's the Ronald Coleman's book, The Master Plan of Evangelism. That's the thesis.

The thesis is that Jesus discipled the 12 apostles in a certain way, and so therefore, we have to perpetuate that system in every generation. Well, there's a problem with that. This concept permits the introduction of the idea that one person, one Christian can and should have authority over another Christian in order to train him in Christ, just like Jesus had authority over the apostles. In the Boston mold, this has brought forth various levels of authority among individuals. For example, you have and I mean, I didn't I'm not making this stuff up here.

I mean, you know, I'm I didn't create this. This is from their own literature. K. You have, the lead evangelist. The lead evangelist is the boss, Okay.

In the church. In the Boston church, Kip McKean, who's an evangelist, has a lot more authority than Al Barrett. Al Barrett, who's one of the elders on you have a congregation that has 5,000 people. 2 elders. 2 elders.

5,000 people. And Kip McCain has much more authority over the congregation than any one of these elders. The elders go on the talk shows. They do they do the talk shows. You have a a co evangelist.

You have interns, zone leaders. Now I I listed them like this. Okay? Because this is the level. This is how you work your way up.

In the Boston movement, when I have to talk to some of my friends who were in the Boston movement, they were always talking about moving on up, you know, moving up the ladder. And so there was always a lot of, you know, flattery going on. If you could get if your if your buddy was the co evangelist, you had the opportunity to intern with the co evangelist, which put you close to the lead evangelist. And if you were in a zone church, you could work your way up to a capital city church. If you got a shot at being in one of the pillar churches, and then if you could ever get to Mecca, which was the one of the Boston, you know, it was like corporate climbing.

I mean, I've worked for big companies. I've worked for Bristol Myers and Smith and Nephew. I've worked for big companies, and I've seen, you know, the action that goes on with people trying to maneuver their way up the ladder. That's exactly what happens here. House church leaders are higher than counselors, women's counselors.

A discipler is the lowest form. It's not even it's like a lower mid management. You you're in charge of 1 person only, and then the lowly disciple is in charge of nobody. And the way you work up is you're a disciple and then you work your way up to be a discipler. In other words, you disciple somebody else.

And if you do a good job, you're a counselor, you got several people, then you're a a house church leader, work your way up the zone, interning with 1 of the capital city churches. Woah. You become the lead evangelist in the capital city church, then maybe an intern with the pillar church, and then and so on and so forth. Make more money, more prestige, more power. Again, if we're selling widgets, that's great.

But the new testament sees no distinction in the authority between any minister in the church. Christ is the only head in the church. Colossians chapter 1 verse 18. He is the head of the body. There's only one recognized authority in the church, and all Christians must submit one to another.

Ephesians chapter 5 verse 21, submit ye one to another when it comes to submission. And the church must follow the leadership of the elders who have the role of leadership in each local church, Acts chapter 20 verse 28. You see, Jesus' training of the apostles is not the pattern for church life. And why is that? Well, their mission was unique.

They were the eyewitnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, empowered miraculously to make that witness, to empower others to do miracles. They had a very specific task. Ours is not the same task with the same tools. And I ask you another question. If we're gonna follow this pattern of Jesus and his disciples, who's gonna be Jesus?

Yeah. Who's gonna be Jesus? And so there is no authority in the bible that is given to one individual over another individual. We're to submit one to another. We're to love each other, bury each other's burdens, support each other, encourage each other.

And all of us as a corporate group are to submit to our elders who are leading us and pastoring us for our good, for, the purpose of, presenting us fully mature in Christ Jesus. So that if today, the Lord is to come tonight, the elders can stand before the lord and say, lord, I we bring you the flock over which you have given us responsibility. That's the only authority in the church. And as as we know, not one elder, but a group of elders corporately together lead in love and in humility. Not lording it over us, but encouraging us from the word and from their personal life example.

That kind of leadership is biblical. And so what's wrong with the Boston Movement? Their view of authority is not a biblical view. Someone says, the Boston church, when they recruit you, they begin with the power of love, and eventually, they end with the love of power. They get you by loving you at the beginning, but the purpose of the love is to gain power over you.

Remember what I said last weekend? What is the goal of all cults? Control. To control you. And when I watched the TV programs and I saw how they were deprogramming people out, it was always the same story.

They were trying to control where you work, what you said, where you married, what you did, and so on and so forth. Yes. Certainly, we're all working so that our mind is controlled by the words of Christ. Yes. I want my heart and my mind to be in line with the will of Jesus Christ.

Absolutely. I want my heart to be pure. I want my mind to be set on things which are above. Absolutely. But I don't want you to control my mind and I certainly don't wanna control your mind.

I want to direct you to the mind of Christ, not to the mind of Michael Mazzalongo because Michael Mazzalongo is a sinner. Thirdly, the view of Christian relationship is also unbiblical. Oh, I wanna make one other thing here. Which time? Do we have time you have 5 minutes?

One other point. I have 5 minutes till 22. One of the point I wanna make, no evangelist is accepted, as I said, unless he is approved by Boston and trained within the system within the Boston system. That's another authoritative thing that we don't see in the New Testament. The New Testament teaches that the knowledge of the word is what prepares a man for the ministry of the word.

2nd Timothy chapter 3 verse 15 says, from an early age, you have known the holy writings. A knowledge of the word is the first criteria of being a minister of the word. And along with purity of life, it is the only criteria to judge the evangelist's right to preach. If you have if your doctrine is pure and if your life is pure, then you have a right to stand and encourage the brethren in the word. That's what the Bible asks of those who minister the word.

A purity of heart and purity of doctrine. And hopefully, the Lord will provide the ability to speak clearly, to communicate effectively his word. First Timothy chapter 4 verse 12 and verse 14 to 16. Timothy and Titus were never on different levels of authority. Timothy was never over Titus and Titus was never over over over Timothy.

Both of them were encouraged by Paul to do the same thing and to be the same kinds of people. And so I want to remind you of that in the church, it is the purity of doctrine and the purity of heart that qualifies a man to minister the word. Okay. 3rd thing, the view of Christian relationships is also unbiblical. Now the Boston movement always sees people in positions of in between.

One person is always being discipled, and somebody is always discipling somebody else. There is also always a master pupil type of relationship. 1 must be discipled by somebody else. 1 must confess sin to somebody else. 1 must read or have quiet time supervised by someone else.

The new testament teaches that a Christian is a, is a kingly priest. 1st Peter excuse me. 1st Peter chapter, chapter 2 verse 9. Peter says, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. That's who you are as a Christian.

You are a priest and a king, a royal priest before God, and no one is master over you except Christ in an individual sense and the elders in a congregational sense. In Hebrews chapter 13 verse 17, the writer refers to elders again, those who are over us in the lord. Also, they see each person being individually overseen by another person and a small group overseen by home church leaders all the way to the top. And eventually, the evangelist, is the head of the church. The new testament teaches us that we work out our salvation as individuals.

I am not responsible for your salvation. You are responsible for your salvation. Now God provides to the church the word. Right? He provides to the church the Holy Spirit, Acts chapter 2 verse 38.

8. He provides for the church shepherds. He provides for the church evangelists, the teachers. Right? God gives all those things to you to help you work out your salvation in fear and trembling, but it's your salvation.

You have to work out. I'm not responsible for your I'm responsible for my salvation. And as a preacher, part of my salvation is to keep my life pure and my doctrine pure. Okay? And part of your salvation is well, whatever part of your salvation is.

But I'm not in charge of your salvation. I ministered to it, but I'm not responsible for it. In the Boston view of things, they are responsible for your salvation in the end. Now there's some special terms, and so the view of authority my point is the view of authority is not biblical, and the view of Christian relationships is unbiblical because there's always, you know, a high and a low. And in the church, that's not how it works.

Alright. Some special terms that you need to know. House churches. Those are groups who meet in a home that is overseen by a leader, and what it does is it feeds a local church. Now is a house church a biblical idea?

Sure it is. It's a biblical idea for Christians to share their lives for mutual edification and do so in each other's homes. Acts chapter 2 verse 46, they met in each other's homes. And in Romans chapter 16, Paul talks about the churches that met in homes. But it is wrong.

It is unbiblical when this is formed into a unit overseen by 1 person, and this unit overseen by another group. If a church meets in a home that it is an autonomous and independent congregation, not to be ruled by a zone leader or anybody else. If you have a church in your home, well, then you should have some elders overseeing that church. And I figured by the time you get elders, there'll be enough people there that you can move out of your living room and rent yourself, you know, second story somewhere. Another term is discipleship.

For the Boston movement, the the process of discipleship is where one person is molding another person to be a mature Christian. Again, that's a biblical idea. It's biblical to go out and to make other disciples of Christ through preaching and baptizing and teaching. Matthew chapter 28 verse 18 to 20. But it is unbiblical to say that one system for doing it is ordained of God to the exclusion of all else.

You know, those people who wanna run buses. If they said all of a sudden, if you don't have a bus program, boy, your church is not the true church. Well, that's wrong. That's not okay. Every congregation is responsible to preach and to baptize and to teach and to do it with the tools and methods best suited for their circumstances.

Paul preached in synagogues to try to reach those who did not know about Christ. How much chance would we have nowadays to get into the synagogue to preach Christ? Well, we could do it, but how much chance do we do it without getting shot? In those days, you would go to the market, and you would begin to preach in the market. And I remember some of these people that I met in, you know, in Toronto saying, well, that's the New Testament way to do it.

We gotta go out and do it in the market. They would go out shopping centers and preach. The the problem is in those days, that was accepted culturally to go out and to proclaim whatever philosophy or teaching you had in the marketplace was the way you did it. And people would stop and listen and go, yeah, maybe, yes, no, you know. Today, if you go to the market and do that, what do they think?

They think you're a nut. Right? Because that's not the cultural way. Today, if you wanna go to the public market, you go on TV or you go on radio or you go on the newspaper. Right?

You have a rally or whatever, gospel meeting. You see, those things are adapted culturally. Prayer partners or discipleship partners, this is the basis upon which the entire movement is built. It is the basic unit of measurement. The basic unit of relationship with which the whole movement is based.

If you took away this thing here, it would just fall apart. The point where one disciple is placed over another in order to begin discipling him or her, and it works. I mean, imagine if if the elder sat down and said, okay. You're in charge of him. You're in charge of him.

You're in charge of him. You're in charge of him. And the people who are in charge are really in charge of your entire life. Would we have control? You bet we would have control.

You know, this morning, I preached a sermon about church attendance, and I encouraged and exhorted you, kinda, you know, the the sword was a little sharp, you know, it cuts you a little bit and gets you to pay attention and and and be more mindful about church attendance. And and and some listened and some didn't, some are not here obviously. Some said, yeah, I believe I'll start doing that. And that's good. But if we had this system here, your prayer partner would be on you this afternoon and they'd be dragging you here and they'd make you feel guilty.

Well, you know, would we get results? Sure, we would get results, but what would we sacrifice? We sacrifice freedom. See, you're free. You are free to accept the word or to reject the word.

I don't I, for 1, am not ready to give up my freedom. It's right for us to call all men to become disciples of Jesus and help them find out for themselves through study and prayer and teaching and guidance, how they best can serve the Lord. It is wrong when one is discipled into a system where discipling is the end, not the means. Now the Boston movement is based on a man made system of ideas and it makes its teachings on, organization and authority and relationship within the body incorrect. That's the problem.

Someone says, what's wrong with the Boston Movement? They're not organized properly. They abuse authority. That's what's wrong with it. Their concept of how we relate to each other is wrong.

The model in the Bible is we're a body. We're a family. We're not a management system where I'm in charge of you and you're in charge of him. That's wrong. That's a worldly model.

Now why are we frozen into inaction? Why are we seeing helpless in front of this? I'll tell you why, because the results are so spectacular. That's why. This is the pragmatic snare that says the end justifies the means.

The movement as a whole has not been marked out or condemned as dangerous and destructive because in North America, we are trained to measure success by size and results and not necessarily truth. You know, we see that. It baptized 500 people. They must be right. We must be wrong because we we we we measure results.

If they get results, they must be right. In a debate that I've had with some people, I'd say, oh, yeah. Result. Hey. There's 2,000,000,000 communists in China.

Does that mean they're right? There's 700,000,000 Roman Catholic people in this world. Does that mean their doctrine is right? Ours is wrong. Are we you wanna count numbers?

I'll give you numbers. I'll give you plenty of numbers if that's the way you're gonna measure. You see, we hate to argue with size, especially when we haven't matched it. They baptized 500, we baptized 12, you know, it's kinda tough to argue. I'll tell you what they are.

They are the new legalists that promote submission of the human spirit to mortal men in the name of discipleship to Christ. That's who they are. I'm not afraid to say it. They're legalists. They just wanna get you in prison.

It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. That's what Paul said in Galatians 5 verse 1. I, for 1, am not ready to put on a yoke of slavery. I was a religious slave for most of my life.

Brothers and sisters, I'm not going back. I'm free in Christ. I'm not free to be lazy. I'm not free to be worldly. I'm not free to abandon Christ.

I'm not free to give in to my flesh. I'm not free for those things, but I am free from any man lording anything over me in Christ. I'm free from that because I have this, the key to the kingdom. I have it and I'm free. I'm not gonna let anybody put me back into a spiritual prison.

Okay. Last thing, then we're through. How to Boston Proof Your Church? You might think, oh, we're in Choctaw. No danger.

Oh, yeah? Those of you who have children going to college, they're the targets. Those of you who are dissatisfied and maybe wish the church would grow a little faster, and it's not. You're a target. Those of you who are lonely and alienated, you're a target.

Out of Boston Proof, you're a church. First of all, make no apologies in condemning its practice, Galatians chapter 1 verse 69. You know, one of the early mistakes was that the church tried to reconcile differences and refused to accept that this group was ruthless and deceitful in its practices. One of the big mistakes we made back in the late eighties was we refused to accept that these people did not play fair. They lied.

They didn't tell the truth. I remember in Canada pleading with the publisher of a national newspaper, a Christian newspaper, to point out that these people were going into churches and dividing churches and stealing away people and controlling them and destroying lives. Oh, no. No. No.

He said, you know, we've we've got to try to reconcile. And my question was, why are you trying to reconcile? They're not trying to reconcile. Like all cults, it believes that the end justifies the means. In Galatians chapter 1, excuse me, verses 6 to 9, Paul says, I'm amazed that you're so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another.

Only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ, but even though we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed. He said even if an angel or an apostle gives you a different gospel, let him be accursed. We need to mark them and turn away from their group as one that is hurting the cause of Christ and one that has caused great division in the church. I boiled this lesson. I mean, I do 3 lessons on this thing.

I boiled it down to 1 for tonight. That's why we're going a little long here. I've gotta pack it all into one lesson. I could give you lists of churches that have been divided by this group on purpose. On purpose.

They don't care. Secondly, keep evangelism as the main focus of the church. Matthew 28 verses 18 to 20. The only reason that this movement ever got started was because there had been a let down in evangelistic seal in the church and they filled the void with their twisted version of the great commission. Leaders need to renew their commitment to making evangelism the foundational ministry upon which the other works of the church are based in order to keep a proper spiritual tension.

What we're about is not just coming to church listening to be preached. What we're about is not just having our family days or having our, you know, VBS. Those are all good things. What we're about is using all of this to reach out to others to share Christ with them. That's what we're about.

What Boston did was it gave us a wake up call for the last decade to demonstrate that when you go out and preach even a twisted version of the gospel, people will respond. So if you want a Boston proof, the Choctaw Church of Christ, let's keep evangelism as our main focus in everything that we do. And I can tell you that the elders and I are working on keeping evangelism as the main focus. And as the weeks months go by, you will see the plans that we have to do that. And then finally, create an environment of mutual dependence and communication.

Cults thrive on people who are related or, excuse me, who are isolated and frustrated needing something to belong to and someone to understand them. In acts chapter 2 verse 42, the writer describes a fellowship of believers who were codependent, who were open and communicative towards God and each other. They talk to each other. And open and warm and accepting, caring, interested, supportive fellowship is the best deterrent to the wolves coming in and stealing the unsuspecting ones. Remember this morning, those of you who are here, I said, I don't come to church because I'm hurting.

That person who's hurting is a prime target for a cult because they'll sit and they'll listen. They'll listen to you to get your attention. In the end, this movement, like all cults, will collapse upon itself. It will. It'll it'll grow and grow and grow and grow and already the signs are there.

In the last, 6 months well, actually, in the last year, the Boston church no longer publishes its list of baptisms. They used to do that all the time. 1000, 2000 baptisms. They don't do that anymore. You know why?

Because now they lose 1 out of 2 for every 1 for every 2 they baptized, they lose 1. So if they baptized a 1,000, they lose 500 who leave because of this kind of abuse, because of the negative publicity that they have received, because people are are warned. And eventually, this system, like all of these systems, will collapse in upon itself. It will not be able to support itself. But in the meantime, an entire generation of contacts and young people have been destroyed.

So we need to be careful to Boston proof this congregation so that we don't use lose any of our young people or any others who are disenfranchised or discouraged, but that we need to encourage each other. Well, that's the end of the series. It was kind of a short one. We wanted to compact everything into 2 series to enable you to have some understanding about cults and especially about the Boston Movement. And if somebody asks you, you know, what's this Boston Movement?

Don't be afraid to say, it's a cult. It's a cult that grew out of our brotherhood, but it's a cult. It's no longer in fellowship with us. Don't be ashamed or afraid to say that. You're not sinning if you say that.

They say that. They say they have nothing to do with us. Long ago, they've separated away from us. They're not in fellowship with us by choice. So don't be afraid to say it's a call.

Name it for what it is. Well, tonight we've not preached the gospel of Jesus Christ. We've talked about it. We've not preached it. But I wanna remind you that every time that we're together, we have an opportunity to minister to each other.

Sometimes we do it out in the foyer. We give hugs and we talk and, boy, we were really going at it this morning. Couldn't close the building down. And that's great. Sometimes we need something a little more serious.

We need prayer directed towards God on our behalf for particular needs. Tonight, once again, if you have the need especially to confess our Lord