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WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY TO YOU?
Are you encountering a cult?
"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are
ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from
thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit,
but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad
tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and
thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.
Matthew 7:15-20
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there
will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive opinions. They
will even deny the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction on themselves. Even
so, many will follow their licentious ways, and because of these teachers the way of truth
will be maligned. And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their
condemnation, pronounced against them long ago, has not been idle, and their destruction
is not asleep.
For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast
them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the
judgment; and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald
of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly;
and if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to
extinction and made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly; and if he rescued
Lot, a righteous man greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the lawless (for that
righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by
their lawless deeds that he saw and heard), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly
from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,
especially those who indulge their flesh in depraved lust, and who despise authority.
2 Peter 2:1-6
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see
whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this
you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the
flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this
is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is
already in the world. Little children, you are from God, and have conquered them; for the
one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world;
therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God.
Whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us. From
this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
1 John 4:1-6
Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those
who are called, who are beloved in God the Father and kept safe for Jesus Christ:
May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.
Beloved, while eagerly preparing to write to you about the
salvation we share, I find it necessary to write and appeal to you to contend for the
faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain intruders have stolen in
among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who
pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus
Christ.
Now I desire to remind you, though you are fully informed, that
the Lord, who once for all saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed
those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left
their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment
of the great day. Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the
same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an
example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
Yet in the same way these dreamers also defile the flesh, reject
authority, and slander the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael contended with
the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of
slander against him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" But these people slander
whatever they do not understand, and they are destroyed by those things that, like
irrational animals, they know by instinct. Woe to them! For they go the way of Cain, and
abandon themselves to Balaam's error for the sake of gain, and perish in Korah's
rebellion. These are blemishes on your love-feasts, while they feast with you without
fear, feeding themselves. They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; autumn
trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of
their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved forever.
It was also about these that Enoch, in the seventh generation
from Adam, prophesied, saying, "See, the Lord is coming with ten thousands of his
holy ones, to execute judgment on all, and to convict everyone of all the deeds of
ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things
that ungodly sinners have spoken against him." These are grumblers and malcontents;
they indulge their own lusts; they are bombastic in speech, flattering people to their own
advantage.
But you, beloved, must remember the predictions of the apostles
of our Lord Jesus Christ; for they said to you, "In the last time there will be
scoffers, indulging their own ungodly lusts." It is these worldly people, devoid of
the Spirit, who are causing divisions. But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most
holy faith lay in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the
mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on some who are
wavering; save others by snatching them out of the fire; and have mercy on still others
with fear, hating even the tunic defiled by their bodies.
Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you
stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God our
Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all
time and now and forever. Amen.
Jude
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to
live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as
you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and
empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the
universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells
bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and
authority.
Colossians 2: 6-10
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