Have you been in a cult before you got converterted by the Gospel ?

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Mayflower

Puritan Board Junior
I was wondering if there forummembers who have been in a cult before you got converterted by the Gospel ?

Before I embraced the Lord Jesus Christ as my Saviour, Lord & King, i was 4 years involved in the hare krsna movement.

1 Thessalonians 1:9
"For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God"¦"
 
I dabbled with the Hare Krishnas but never joined and I was a member of the Baha'i Faith for a time prior to my conversion. I also attended the Church of Christ for a little while after my conversion which is cult-like as well as another church in Texas which is cult-like. I have many friends who have been sadly influenced by Harold Camping, and some who have seen the error of his ways. Praise God for deliverance for his saints from the dangers of such groups!

[Edited on 11-5-2005 by VirginiaHuguenot]
 
I got into TM for a while back in college. I can still picture my Christian friend's face as he suppressed his laughter when I told him the fruits I was carrying were for the TM initiation ceremony.
 
What a surprise to see this topic! I was born into the krsna movement back in '77 and grew up completely isolated and immersed in it (my first name on my driver's license reads GovindaHari to this day). I was sent off to gurukul at age 5 and was trained up in various ashrams until a pilgrimage to India followed by a culture shock of public high school. I was in quite some darkness for years before coming to Christ. Praise God for showing me his truth in love!

I've always wondered if any of "my kind" ever became reformed Christians. All of my family remains spiritually blind. Today is a blessed day for me to know that the Lord has sown graciously amongst this pagan and idolatrous people.

Mayflower, if you or anyone else would like to discuss the krsnas or experiences with, please do not hesitate to pm me.
 
Great topic

Great idea for a topic, shows God's awesome working in our lives, and gives me great hope for the lost. I was never into organized religions, but I was into trying to go into astral body, new age, crystals etc.

God is good and merciful! :amen:
 
Does 9 years in an "easy-Believism" Dispensational Sect, that so venerates its Leader to the point of tacitly believing historically that his "anointing and office" is without censure or accoutablity, count? Is the "classical Dispensational" gospel really even "The Gospel" - because in it faith precedes regeneration and repentance is not necessary to "come to Christ", but only to grow in sanctification? Also the distinction of a "carnal Christian" (1 Cor 2:10-3:3, Hebrews 5:11-14, etc.)

Check out www.carlstevens.org. Most of what is posted here has been verified by multiple witnesses who where there when these things occurred.

In fact, is so much of Modern Evangelicalism even Biblical Christianity - where God is not feared, and Christ's "Finished Work" and "the believer's positional truth" are taught over and against genuine conviction and holiness?

... had to come out of "sign off" PB status to get this in. It burdens me so!

[Edited on 11-6-2005 by BrianBowman]
 
This is difficult, and embarrassing even to this day to admit ...but shortly after I was converted I fell under the influence of Brother Stair (from Walterboro S.Carolina) the self proclaimed "Last Day Prophet of God."

I wasn't "in" a cult but I can't deny that his radio broadcasts adversely affected me. I simply couldn't, at the time, refute what he was saying...I just didn't have the tools and/or knowledge at that point -and I believe that it cost me in different ways.

Honestly, I am ashamed and sometimes wonder if his teaching doesn't still affect me.
 
After being raised in the United Methodist Church, in my mid 20's I came across the voice of Roy Masters on the radio one night and became influenced by his teachings to the point that I soon began denying the deity of Christ. He made a lot more sense to me at the time than any Christian minister I had ever heard since all I had ever heard was ignorant evangelicals, liberals and Romanists. I never really got into practicing the meditation exercise he teaches though.

After a couple of years of listening, I began to notice contradictions in Masters' teaching and was converted while reading the Dave Hunt books "A Woman Rides the Beast" and particularly, "Occult Invasion".

Later I began listening to Family Radio, but I was never tempted by Camping's rantings on the end of the church age. I listened to Family Radio to hear Lloyd-Jones, Barnhouse, Lutzer, John R. DeWitt, Boice, etc. But of course all of those programs are now gone.

I've also come across Stair on the radio. I think his program literally runs 24-7 on AM, SW and the internet.
 
My folks were into TBN and its earlier variant PTL - you know, Jim Bakker. We listened to lots of Ken - Hagin & Copeland - I don't think my folks were aware that they were "Jesus only" people, but that's just one weird thing we were into. I didn't actually get saved until 7 years ago, and before I did, I checked out some of the stuff already mentioned.
 
As I read the stories in this post, I am reminded most of the grace of God and how He calls us from all manner of false teaching. But His grace can even reach a sinner who sits in the pews of solid bible-teaching churches. I have often said that if we had spiritual 3-D glasses, and could look into the souls of those who sit in our pews on any given Sunday, we would be shocked by what we see.

Give God the glory due His name for rescuing His peole out of divers cults and religiousity.

[Edited on 11-6-2005 by BaptistInCrisis]
 
I was a member, for several years, of the United Pentecostal Church (Oneness Pentecostals). The Lord graciously delivered me (and my family) from modalism and many other serious errors.

Some books that were very influential were:
*Gregg Boyd's "Oneness Pentecostals and the Trinity",
*Walter Martin's "Kingdom of the Cults"
*John MacArturh's "Charismatic Chaos "
*Hank Hanegraaff's "Christianity in Crisis"
**The ministry of Christian Research Institute .

I was sad to hear that Gregg Boyd is now a proponenet of Open Theism.
 
I was baptised a Methodist, dabbled in New Age stuff in my teens until I realized it was stupid.

After that, I became a Randist. I tell people that Ayn Rand led me to Christ. And I mean it. She was the one that got be back on track of seeing reality. As she said, " A is A". She just didn't know why A is A. I found it was because God created A and the laws of identity.

I praise God every day to be delivered from my secular comfort. I think it is a cult of relativism.

Vic
 
oh, it was just a joke. It is no lower than stating Methodist or baptist.

Besides it was just a joke.;):chained::um:

Besides it was something about myself, I used to agree with it.
 
Wow! What a neat thread! (or is it topic?)

Mine is a bit different, I was saved at Age 10, in a IFB Church, and when I was 13, the Pastor of that Church, decided that a lady in the Church was prettier than his wife, and they left together...(you figure it out... :lol: )

Anyhow, seeing that I was very disheartened by the whole thing, and my mom put me into a new school, ran by Pentecostals.. I spent 9 years in that Church, backslid, came back to the Lord. Went to 2 others, before finally figuring out, that Pentecostalism was a bunch of nonsense... (This is better detailed, by reading here) Anyhow, After 20 years of sorting the nuts from the flakes, and being full of doubt and riding the "Holy Ghost" Emotional Roller Coaster, I finally said "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!" and parted ways with the Tongue Babblin' Apostates and came back to the Baptist Faith....

Elsewhere, I was asked If I'm IFB... and honestly, I'm a Christian, I serve Jesus Christ, Lord and Saviour of my Life, First, Secondly, I am a Baptist by Doctrine, and honestly, I'm still sorting out what that means. Alot of the IFB stuff, I find very disconserting and some of it, downright appalling... (Dr. Phil Kidd is a prime example of this...)

Anyways, 'Dat's me rap sheet G money and I'm sticking to it... :banana:- (how Ghetto of me! :D)
:lol:

-Chuck

[Edited on 11-6-2005 by StudentoftheWord]

[Edited on 11-6-2005 by StudentoftheWord]

[Edited on 11-6-2005 by StudentoftheWord]

[Edited on 11-6-2005 by StudentoftheWord]
 
Originally posted by sntijerina
Originally posted by Romans922
Does theonomy count?

:lol:

NO!

But antinomianism & autonomy count.

Amen! . . . and boy has reading works on Theonomy helped "this" former antinomian/autonomous Dispensational get on a path to reconstructing my mind in the Holy Scriptures! I don't understand it all yet and I'm sure the more I learn the clearer the various distinctions will become, but studying the Scriptures from a Theonomic viewpoint (only about 25% of my "study approach", the remainder being Historical/Grammatical study of the Texts and learning the Reformed Creeds) sure has created a holy fear in my heart toward's God's perfect character.
 
I "studied the Bible" with the Jehovah's Witnesses for 3 years, but couldn't officially "join" because I was in the military and the JW's don't allow it. This was overseas in Sicily, Italy.

I spent a great deal of time and energy "witnessing" to people, and the military made me talk to a psychiatrist, a Lutheran minister, and a Catholic priest.
All I ended up doing was confusing the heck out of all the Christians I came in contact with. None of them were prepared to "reason from the Scriptures" with me, and I pray that I did not do damage to their faith.

When I got out of the Navy, I moved back and was witnessed to by several organizations, including Campus Crusades.

The one's who eventually "won me over" was the International Church of Christ. So I left one cult and got into another.

It was not difficult coming to terms with the ICC, but the JW's screwed up my mind for many years. It was very difficult overcoming all of the propoganda.
 
got seduced by the Jehovah's witness :mad: as a teenager. How? My parents foolishly took the material from witneses eventhough they never had any intention of joining. As a result, I stayed home and gobbled up one of their books and believed their foolishness.

It wasn't until I started listening to Hank Hannegraff that their foolish lying idolatrous way of thinking was obliterated out of my mind.
 
While I was never in a cult, I was a part of the PRCE or the RPNA! That must count for something!!!:banana:

Kind regards,

Jerrold Lewis
Pastor- APC
Vancouver
 
Reading all these posts makes so thankful that I was born into a Reformed family, attending a solid Bible-teaching church.

It is a moving remider for me, however, that many of us come from different backgrounds, with very different inputs to our past and present. What we have in common is our goal, the upward call of God, but our paths may be quite different; not according to where we are headed, but according to where we came from.
 
Does attending mainline (apostate or nearly so) churches count? Also, I too spent a year with RPNA (steelites). I thought they were great, so unevangelical and lots of talk about Calvin, Gillespie, Rutherford, covenants etc, until one of them told me that it would be a SIN for me to worship in any other presbyterian body or indeed in any other church but theirs. I left them not long after that.
 
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