Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look
us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this
message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
And if you would open your Bibles, please, to 1st John
chapter #2 this morning as we continue our series looking at
world religions and cults. We'll be taking our leave of
this series next week. And then we'll be off until
after Easter because we have just some different programming
taking place next week. And then after that, we will be
gone. Scotland missing one Sunday as
we go and visit Diane's parents. And then also after that, the
following Sunday, we'll have brother Scott Sandy with us.
He'll be with us during the morning.
He'll be teaching Sunday school and then church.
And then of course, not long after that, we'll be Easter.
And so as soon as Easter is done, we'll be back in our
series and we'll be taking a few more weeks and probably ending
sometime early or mid-May. That'll mean about a year that
we have been in this series in world religions it called.
It's hard to believe that it's been that long.
That's kind of what I'm looking at is our exit strategy, if you
will, and then getting into our next Sunday School series.
But in the meantime, we are in First John Chapter 2 this
morning and we're looking at Universal rather Unitarian
Universalism and the title of the lesson this morning.
It's a long one, but it believes everything and nothing all at
once. You say, pastor, what on earth
does that mean? Well, it just gets down to the
place of trying to find out what exactly, exactly the Unitarians
actually believe. And you say, what is
Unitarianism? Something that's a, that's a
thing. Is it something that is
prevalent? And the answer is in this area,
absolutely. Unitarian Universalism,
particularly in the New England area, is something that you'll
find in many New England cities and towns, including here in
Easton. And they are very peculiar, or
not just in their history, but also what they believe even
today. And really, they're more
remarkable for what they don't believe than what they believe.
And I want us to look at that this morning and have some
understanding because again, your town, even if you don't
live in East and your town very likely has AUU Church, ours
would be Unity Church here in downtown.
Yours has it as well. And we should be familiar with
who they are and what they believe.
And interestingly enough, they go all the way back to the
1600s, actually probably even before that as well, developed
in Europe in the mid 16th century.
And the term Unitarian is different than what we believe
is Trinitarians. What would you say Trinitarian
means? Well, it believes that we
believe in the Trinity, right? The Father and the Son and the
Holy Ghost. The Unitarians believe something
completely different, that Jesus is not the Son of God, or if he
is the Son of God, that he is not God the Son and the Holy
Spirit is more of a life force, if you will, but that truly God
is 1 God and say, well, we believe that as well.
But we also believe that God's expressed in three persons,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Unitarians do not believe
that. Now why would that be wrong?
Well, we're in first John right now chapter #2 so let's go ahead
and just give you a brief debunking, if you will.
Why we believe God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost. And it says in verse #21 It says
in first John chapter 2, verse 21.
I have not written unto you because you know not the truth,
but because you know it. And that no lie is of the truth.
Who is a liar but he that denieth Jesus is the Christ?
That's pretty clear right there, isn't it?
Who is a liar, but he that denyeth that Jesus is the
Christ? He is Antichrist that denyeth
the Father and the Son. Boy, I think that's pretty clear
right there, isn't it? Verse #23 Whosoever denyeth the
Son, the same hath not the Father, but he that
acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.
Let that therefore abide in you which he have heard from the
beginning. If that which he have heard from
the beginning shall remain in you, you shall also continue in
the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that He
had promised us, even eternal life.
It seems very clear right there that when you believe in God,
quote UN quote, I believe in God.
Well, that belief has to be in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
That we can't just say, as the Unitarians do, that we just
believe in one God. Of course we believe in one God,
we're not polytheists, we don't believe in three gods, but yet
we believe that God again is expressed in three persons,
Father, Son and Holy Ghost. There's other verses that
explain that as well. Matthew 28 verse 19 go.
He therefore make disciples unto all nations, baptizing them in
what the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost. 2nd Corinthians 13 verse 14, the grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be
with you all. And that benediction, if you
will, from Paul mentions God the Father, Jesus Christ and the
Holy Ghost. What about Matthew 3 verses 16
and 17? And when Jesus was baptized,
immediately he went up from the water and told the heavens were
open to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a
dove and coming to rest on him. And behold a voice from heaven
said This is my beloved son with whom?
And well, please, what do you see at the baptism of Jesus, the
voice of the Father. Will you hear the voice of the
Father. You see the expression of the
Spirit in the form of a dove Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
You can go to Genesis chapter 1 and we find that Jesus is or
rather the Lord is in conference with himself.
That term us is used there. We saw last week in Isaiah
chapter 6 the same who shall go for us again, the Lord in
conference with himself. When you and I talk to
ourselves. Sometimes that's problematic,
isn't it? When God talks to himself, he's
talking between Father and Son and Holy Ghost.
And so we reject out of hand the idea that the Unitarians would
say that God is not expressed in three persons.
Again, we believe in one God. That is not God the Father who
is 1 God, God the Son who is a second God, God the Holy Spirit
who is 1/3 God. That would make us polytheists,
that they are one God expressed in three persons.
This is what the Bible teaches. This is what we believe.
Now Unitarianism arose during the Protestant Reformation from
the teachings of a man named Michael Cervatus.
So during the time of John Calvin during the time of the
Reformation. In fact, Cervatus sat at the
feet of Calvin for a brief period of time.
However, even for John Calvin, some of his beliefs about
Unitarianism were too much for him and he was considered
Cervatus to be a heretic. But yet even the writings of
which he made during that early 1500 time period ended up
fanning the flames of which later would be a more robust
teaching of Unitarianism from one Faustus Saucinus, who
continued to promote anti trinitarian views of Servatus
and began to develop the system that now is known as
Unitarianism. Some of the other things that he
taught as well. Beyond believing, beyond
teaching against the Trinity, he also promoted an unbiblical view
of Christ's sacrifice. He denied that Jesus was the
substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of mankind.
He taught that men will reconciled to God through piety,
demonstrations of love and obedience to God.
Meaning this it was a works based salvation of which he
taught as a Unitarian. He said Jesus is more of just a
good example for us to follow really, not the Son of God.
And you could see that these are errors that we have seen
repackaged and reformed over and over again in different
religions. And no matter how they're
repackaged, no matter how they're repurposed, guess what?
They're all false. Because Jesus wasn't just a good
example. He didn't go around proclaiming
himself to be a good example. He went around proclaiming
himself to be who he was before Abraham was.
I am very clear, isn't it? Well, that's not just a man
talking about being a good prophet or good example.
That's a man who said, you've seen the father, you've seen me,
you've seen the father. And this is what we have, and
this is what is being taught. And the Unitarians would deny
all of this, including the very idea of original sin.
This is all denied by the Unitarians.
This man Fausta Saucinus back in the early 1600s and as such
around that time Unitarianism starts to spread.
One of the reasons is because it leans heavily.
While it does speak of the Bible, even in those times it
did use the Bible. The Bible was certainly twisted
far beyond recognition. But they did have the idea that
they would use the Bible. But they were entering into
human reasoning that this was a big idea of the Enlightenment,
that sure there is the Bible, but the idea of a Trinity just
isn't reasonable. And so because of that, we don't
believe it. Now if you want to take faith
and put your human reasoning above faith, guess what, You
don't have faith. Faith is a substance of things
helped for the evidence of things not seen.
It says in Hebrews Chapter 11, we understand that we don't
understand the Trinity. Did you catch that?
We understand that we do not understand the Trinity.
We understand what the Bible teaches about the Trinity.
We accept it by faith. But I can tell you that as a
pastor, I have not found over the years a good illustration to
be able to show people who the Trinity is because every time I
try to find one and every time I hear other pastors tell of one,
they all fall woefully short. You're saying you don't believe
in the Trinity. When did I say that?
Of course I believe in the Trinity.
I believe in it by faith. What I'm telling you is this.
Our finite minds have trouble wrapping our heads around what
it is. So what do we do?
We believe in it by faith. The Unitarians say this.
We don't understand it, so we can't believe it.
Can you see much different way of thinking in a way that will
lead them very far away from the faith in the living God?
Well, Unitarianism starts to spread in places like
Transylvania, Poland and England in the 1600s.
But then beyond that, it starts to take root in the new American
colonies, and then beyond that into America itself.
The very first Unitarian church in the United States, you may
have been here before, I've been here several times, is King's
Chapel in Boston. If you've been on the Freedom
Trail, some of you, it's probably been a while since
you've been on the Freedom Trail, unless you had some
guests or visitors in town and they all want to go and walk on
that red brick line throughout Boston.
And if you go on the Freedom Trail, you start in Boston
Common and then you go right around the corner and there is a
cemetery where Paul Revere is from colonial times.
But then beyond it is your next stop, which is King's Chapel.
Now, King's Chapel was an Episcopal Church for some period
of time, but Unitarian thinking ended up going into this church.
And because of that, it actually renounced its Episcopalian ways
and became a Unitarian church and is AUU church even today.
So if you go into King's Chapel, which I have many times, you'll
find a first example in the United States of A a Unitarian
church and now a Unitarian Universalist Church.
It flourished in New England. And as it flourished in New
England, and particularly in the 1800s, it became, words are hard
today. All right, that's not good
because it's only 1015, but it became rolled up into the
transcendental movement, Ralph Waldo Emerson and the like.
And so now it's even throwing off the idea of any pretense of
following the Bible. And now it has just become
literally man's thoughts about who God is.
This will continue all the way up to 19611961 is the inflection
point for the Unitarian movement because at the same time, there
is also a universalist movement that is taking place in this
region, in this area as well, particularly a Universalist
church, a Unitarian church in 1961.
They kind of come to this place. They say, hey, we kind of
believe like you, and you kind of believe like, so why don't we
believe the same thing together? And in the United States, the
Unitarian Universalists are born now.
We are at the place now where even the Unitarian Universalists
don't even look like the Unitarians of the 1500s and the
1600s again. Why?
Because they have thrown off all pretense of believing the Bible.
And literally the Unitarian Universalists believe this.
Whatever you want, you believe, whatever you want, and you can
become part of our congregation. Now, there's some limits to
that, and we'll find out what those limits are here in just a
moment. But I do want us to watch a
short video that comes from the Unitarian Universalist as they
explain in their own words who they are.
And so we're going to go ahead and watch that and then give you
some further explanation. We are Unitarian Universalists.
We are people of many paths who are brave, curious and
compassionate thinkers and doers.
Everyday people are inundated with information, overwhelmed by
demands, and pulled by a culture that seeks to divide us from the
web of life. Unitarian Universalism
reconnects, bringing people together with meaning and
inspiration. We are a house without walls, a
congregation without spiritual limits, and a movement that
calls you to put more faith in yourself, your community and
your beliefs. We are a faith that honors your
mind, your heart, your journey. Simply put, we are a guided path
towards a better you and a better world, grounded in
hundreds of years of thoughtful religious communities.
We are people of many generations.
Ethnicities, genders and sexualities and spiritual
backgrounds. People engaged in making the
world a better place. People focusing on what really
matters, love, justice, integrity and hope.
Unitarian Universalists have different beliefs but shared
values. We are Unitarian Universalists
and at the same time we may also be agnostic, Buddhist,
Christian, Hindu, Humanist, Jewish, Muslim, Pagan, atheist,
believers in God and those who let the great mystery be.
The diversity of beliefs you'll find in a Unitarian Universalist
community is one of our strengths.
We are always learning how to see the world from a different
perspective. What unites us are our core
principles that uphold 7 real world values, believing in the
worthiness of every person, showing compassion and fairness,
accepting others for who they are, growing through a personal
search for truth, leading with democratic spirit, working for
justice, and understanding that everything is interconnected.
Seven days a week, Unitarian Universalists live these
principles by doing. When we gather, we worship,
reflect, and remind ourselves what matters most in life.
Whatever our age, we learn to live with more wisdom, more
awareness, more gratitude, and more soul.
We show our values by showing up to answer the call for social
justice. We have a track record of
standing on the side of love for civil rights, LGBTQ equality,
immigration reform, environmental sustainability,
reproductive justice, racial justice, and more.
Find what it means to live your deepest values out loud.
Join us on this extraordinary adventure of faith.
You say, pastor, that doesn't sound like a religious group,
That sounds like a political group.
And your answer would be you're getting very close to the truth
of what the Unitarian Universalists are all about.
What are the Unitarian Universalists?
Well, Universalist congregations, according to
their own beliefs, affirm and promote 7 principles which we
hold as strong values and moral guides.
We live out these principles within a living tradition of
wisdom and spirituality drawn from sources as diverse as
science, poetry, scripture, and personal experience.
And I would say very heavy on the personal experience.
What are those 7 principles that were mentioned there just a few
moments ago? That was the quote that I just
gave you just now. But what are those 7 principles
of Unitarian of Universal unitarianism #1 the inherent
worth and dignity of every person #2 Justice, equity,
compassion in human relations #3 The acceptance of one another
and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations #4A
free and responsible search for truth and meaning #5 the right
of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our
congregations and in society at large.
Number six, the goal of world community with peace, liberty,
and justice for all. And then #7 respect for the
interdependent web of all existence of which we are apart.
Now, from these principles that you see here, the pluralistic
nature of this religious system is quite obvious.
In general. A Christian could agree with
several of the things that are up there just in general.
But we understand from what we just read that it's not just the
meaning of the words, but it's the meaning behind the meaning
of the words that are truly dangerous.
That when it talks about being worth and inherent dignity of
every person, of course we would agree that there isn't worth and
inherent dignity of every person, but they would not agree
that there's worth and inherent dignity of the unborn.
They wouldn't agree with that. We could go on and on justice,
equity and compassion and human relations.
And well, I would say Micah 68 was way out in front of that
before anything that the Unitarian Universalists had ever
talked about, that we should do justly and love mercy and walk
humbly with thy God. But at the same time, what they
mean by that was, well, those things that were mentioned there
and their political speech at the end of the video, more than
what we would mean by what the Bible says about that.
And on and on and on it goes. So really what the Unitarian
Universalists believe is, well, all of that.
You saw agnostic, Pagan, atheist, Christian, Buddhist,
Muslim, and on and on and on. They believe all of that and
none of it at the same time. How do you gather together and
worship when people don't even agree on who God is?
Or if there is a God, How do you gather together and worship when
people don't even agree what their shared values are?
How do we gather together? Well, we gather together because
we believe in God, we believe in Father, Son, Holy Ghost, and we
believe in this word. And that is really what binds us
together, isn't it? And if we were to get together
and say, well let's talk about something different other than
the Bible today, well that would pretty much be the end of this
assembly, wouldn't it? Because this is what binds us
together is the word of God that shows us Father, Son and Holy
Ghost. But these 7 principles are again
more arbitrary in the sense that it's just kind of things that
they have come up with over time and that they believe.
But I would even suggest you that they don't believe them in
the way that they say that they believe them in.
Now I found this several times of quotes that have explained
what Unitarian Universalist believe.
And this quote's just startling to me.
They say this, our faith is not interested in saving your soul.
We're here to help you unfold the awesome soul you already
have. There is no soul that needs to
be saved. You're inherently good.
They just want you to be able to have a better life.
They want you to unlock a better you.
This is who they are. And the very arbitrariness of
what they believe is not a bug, it's a feature.
They just want you to believe whatever you want to believe and
come together again. There's a limit to that, but
this is what they say. This is what they espouse.
You can believe whatever you want.
You come here, you'll find a warm and welcoming, inviting
place. It really doesn't matter what
you believe, as long as you come and be part of the community.
And there's a part of you that sounds that sounds really good
until you get down to it and you think it doesn't work like that,
does it? In fact, it never works like
that in life and certainly not within the confines of a
so-called church. Now I want to show you a second
video. I think if we can get that
queued up, that I will show you a little bit of how arbitrary
the beliefs of the Unitarian Universalists are.
So we can run that. Let's go ahead and try that.
Amanda Rights. I wish I knew more about
Unitarian Universalism. I've struggled not having a
church and feeling like I want one, but none seem to fit to be
honest. So let me tell you a little bit
about why I love Unitarian Universalism.
And you know, maybe it would fit you, maybe it wouldn't, but
maybe I can give you a little bit of information.
So Unitarian Universalism is non creedal and pluralist, which
means that we don't have a set of beliefs that everyone has to
agree with in order to belong. And we are pluralist.
We pull from all the different worlds, religions and
philosophies and stories and life experiences.
And So what that has meant for me is that I had the room and
have had the room all my life to explore and grow.
And as I had experiences in my life, I had a religion where I
could really change what I believed.
But I stayed in the same religion.
And one example of that is my youngest daughter had cancer and
she developed it as a six month old baby.
And let me tell you, any sort of faith and understandings of the
world and God and all of that, I mean, poof, they were gone in an
instant. And this, this religion gave me
the space to be able to explore those really hard questions and,
and whatever conclusions I came to, there wasn't going to be
someone telling me, no, you have to believe this really rigid
doctrine. Everyone who is in this faith
understands that it is this faith evolves.
And it's also expected that we are going to evolve, that, you
know, our life experiences are going to shape us in different
ways and we're going to change. And I love that there is a deep
moral center of this, this faith-based around treating
other people well and working for justice.
And, and so it is without dogma, but ethics is a huge part of
what we do, ethical living. And I get to do all of this,
both the work on myself and my work out in the world.
I get to do it with a supportive community.
I love these people and I love this faith.
At the very beginning it was mentioned there are no beliefs.
You heard that correct? That there is no belief here
that you can believe whatever you want to believe.
And I want to touch on what she mentioned in the middle.
Of course, anyone who would have to deal with the cancer of a
child, my heart would go out to them.
There's certainly no animosity in my heart towards her or
towards that situation at all. I understand when I say that,
that that is how I feel, but at the same time, to be able to say
through that my faith went out the window and that I was able
to decide what I wanted to believe after that event took
place. That's a dangerous form of
living. What happens is it ends up that
you are the decider of what faith actually is.
In fact, it's just all about what do you want to believe,
what feels right to you. It's a very dangerous place to
be. But then you get from the
beginning to there is no set belief to the middle of, well, I
got to get to the place where I believe what I wanted to
believe. And that belief could also
change over time too. We have a very real set of
ethics. Did you catch that at the end?
Well, where do ethics come from? Those ethics come from what we
believe and for us that comes from the word of God.
So the question I would have to a universal Unitarian
Universalist would be how can you come up with this core of
ethics when everyone can believe what they want to believe in the
1st place? And this is where we start to
get to the place where it really shows that there is a lot of
righteous talk when it comes to Unitarian Universalism.
But at the same time, there is absolutely zero depth because
everyone can believe what they want to believe, but you have to
believe like we believe. So what do you mean you have to
believe like we believe? Well, there's a very real set of
ethics that were mentioned in the first video as well as the
second video. If you don't believe in that
form of ethics, do you believe that you would be welcomed
within their society? Do you think you'd be welcome
within their church? The answer is we know from
experience, we know from testimonies of others that the
answer to that is no. Let me illustrate it to you in
this way. I I go to when I go to the gym,
I go to Planet Fitness. One of the things I love about
Planet Fitness big sign on the wall, no judgement, no judgement
zone, right? That's, that's, we understand
that there's no judgement when you go into the Planet Fitness.
And the whole point of that is, you know, there are people, you
know, like me, who are intimidated.
You go in and you get the meatheads that are going in and
that, you know, they got the, they got the gallon of water,
you know, they're drinking it. You don't have to be a meathead
to do that. But the idea is, you know,
they're going in there, they're they're doing their reps,
they're looking at the, at the mirror while they're doing it,
not because they're trying to make sure the form is right,
just because they look good. You know what I'm saying?
And they're doing all this, they're grunting, they're
yelling, they're doing all these different things.
So Planet Fitness came up with the idea.
What if we had a place that was just, you know, where people
could go and they don't have to worry about being judged because
they are not like those people. And that idea in of itself, I
think it's great to be honest with you.
I enjoy that very much. But they call it a no judgement
zone. But I'll be honest with you,
there's a lot of judgement there.
Say, what are you talking about? Well, what if you are one of
those guys that go in there? You know what happens if you
grunt and you throw down your weights when you're done?
They have something that's called a lunkhead siren.
You said, what's a lunkhead? What's somebody that's like, you
know, you know, acting like a like a dope at the gym.
And if you drop that weight too loud, the siren goes off kind of
like, look at this guy. Look at this guy.
You're telling me there's no judgement.
You're just saying there's no judgement as long as you believe
like we do. But if you don't, we go look at
this guy. Look at this guy.
He's he's yelling, he's grunting.
Look at him. You know, what I'm saying is
let's just be honest about what it is.
I'm not saying that that environment that they built is a
bad one. I think it's a good one.
But you can't call it a no judgment zone because you are
literally pointing out people who don't fit in that and say,
look at this guy, we have the whole place, the lights are
going on and off, the sirens going off.
Because we want you to look at this person and see what a
lunkhead they are. This is what Unitarian
Universalism is. It's hey, you can believe
whatever you want, just as long as you believe the things that
we believe in. You've got to make sure you
believe that women can have abortions whenever they want.
You've got to make sure you believe in immigration reform.
Did you hear that up there? Get not a religion, that's a
political party. You have to make sure that you
believe love is love for everybody.
You have to believe that. So if I was to go to the
Universal Unitarian Universalist congregation in town, if I was
invited and I preached a message about why God believes that,
well, God, why God has in his word that marriage is between
one man and one woman for one lifetime, do you think that
would be received well? Well, we can believe whatever we
want. No, but you can't believe that
this is a no judgment zone. Look at this guy.
You can't believe that. Do you see what's the Unitarian
Universalist? Do you say, pastor?
You would never be invited to be able to be a part of their
church. I have been invited to be part
of their church. In the first few years of the
church was open, I've been invited to several different
events with the Easton Ministerial Association, meaning
every pastor was invited to be able to come and do a
Thanksgiving service or an Easter service or a Transgender
Day of Remembrance service. These are things I've been
invited to over the years. And so I politely declined so
many times that they no longer invite me to be able to come to
those. But I have been invited to go
and to speak along with other ministers in Easton at a
Thanksgiving service at Unity Church.
Say, well, pastor, why wouldn't you do that?
Well, because we don't all agree who we're even giving thanks to.
And if I was to give thanks in a way, you say, well, they, they
have to believe what you believe.
No, they don't, because that arbitrariness only lasts for so
long. And here's really what it comes
down to for the Unitarian Universalists.
Here's what they won't admit but they know is true.
Everyone is welcome, unless they don't like what you believe.
Again, every belief is good. Well, not every belief is good
if you believe like a could we maybe put it this way, a Bible
believing Baptist or a Bible believing Christian in general.
So this is what I've come to the to the understanding of
universals are broad minded, single minded and narrow minded
people all at the same time. He said that doesn't make sense.
It doesn't make sense. But this is who they are.
They're broad minded. We believe everything, but
they're single minded. This is what we believe in
ethics. That also makes narrow minded
because if you don't believe like them, then they have no
regard for you. You can believe in whatever you
want as long as it fits within their parameters of their
ethics. This is why they believe
everything and nothing all at the same time.
Now I have a third video I want to show you as well.
And if you think this is just me saying this, this comes from
their own mouth. The same woman is going to speak
again and she makes very clear Unitarian Universalist is not
for everybody. It's like, whoa, whoa, hold on a
second, I'm going to watch for everybody.
I thought it didn't matter what, but apparently there are some
people who won't be comfortable in a universalist church.
Seems to undercut the entire argument right from the start.
So let's go ahead and show that. Reasons why you would probably
not be happy in a Unitarian Universalist congregation.
Let's go. First of all, if you believe
that there is only one path, one way of understanding what is
most holy and true, you're probably not going to be happy
in AUU church, because we are deliberately pluralist, we pull
wisdom from all the different worlds faiths, and every
individual UU gets to figure out what is most true for them.
If you believe that people are born evil or with a propensity
to evil, and it requires the intervening force of some type
of a deity to get us to act decent, yeah, you're not going
to be happy. In AUU church, we believe in the
inherent worth and dignity of all people.
If you believe that God has created a natural order and that
families should fit this traditional model with certain
gender roles, you're probably not going to be happy in one of
our congregations. If it is important for you to
hear about Jesus every Sunday, there are some exceptions.
We do have what are called some affiliated churches that are
more explicitly progressive Christian, but the vast, vast
majority of you congregations do not identify as Christian in any
way, although there may be Christian individual Christian
members in it. But but so you're probably not
going to hear about that every Sunday.
And also if it's really important to you to hear about
God every Sunday, again, in most of you churches, that may not
happen. Now, I would also say if it if
it's really important to you that you never hear the word
God, you might be able to find some congregations.
But overall, no, we are a big tent religion.
If you believe that spirituality has no connection with the world
of politics, you probably won't be happy in AUU church because
this is a way of us living out our religious values.
UU churches are often full of activists and they are involved
in what many see as progressive causes, the environment,
reproductive justice, LGBTQIA plus issues, voting rights, it
goes on and on. So there's some reasons why you
might not feel comfortable in AUU church.
So what if none of those apply to you and you kind of find all
of this intriguing? Well, feel free to.
You can look at some of my videos.
I have some playlists like AUU one O 1 or ask away.
Ask me some questions. Anybody is welcome unless you
believe in Jesus Christ. And unless, Yeah, I don't think.
See, I had to show you this just so you could make sure that you
felt that way because I didn't want everyone going over to
Unity Church after Sunday school.
You're comfortable there. Unless you believe in God,
unless, unless you believe in the Bible, unless you're a
conservative. I mean, that's very clear.
People talk about, you know, religion and politics.
And we tried to be very careful here.
You know, this is not a political group.
Of course, we believe the Bible and the Bible causes our
politics to go in certain ways. But this is not a political
rally here every Sunday. It just is not.
And that's on purpose because we're dealing with Kingdom
issues that far go beyond those other things that are also
important. But you're talking about not a
Sunday morning service. You're talking about a political
rally of which we are not welcome in.
And again, you say pastors this important.
Almost every town in New England has one of these churches.
The oldest church building in Easton is Unity Church.
This is out here and a lot of the activism that you see that's
out there for these ultra liberal causes is underpinned by
those who are part of the Unitarian Universalist Church.
So yes, it is important for us to understand, although
certainly you are not in the place where you say, well, I
wonder if I should go there. It's not that as much as it's
you need to know that this is out there and you know that
people that live in your community are going to those
churches and that everybody's welcome unless you're sitting in
this church today. And they would pretty much
rather that we don't go over there and mess up that which
they have, although everyone is able to believe whatever they
want. It reminds me of Proverbs 14,
verse 12. There is a way which seemeth
right unto a man, but the end thereof is the way of death.
And that's Unitarian Universalism in a nutshell.
Their tolerance is not for those who believe something, it's only
for those who believe there is no absolute truth.
So in absence, they're only tolerant of those who believe
nothing. Because if you actually believe
something, it may not fit. Well, we, we allow Buddhists to
come in and Muslims. Let me ask you, how many Muslims
do you think with what they believe would be welcome in a
Unitarian Universalist church? The answer would be none.
You say, pastor, could you be a Christian and be in a Unitarian
Universalist church? And my answer to that, well, if
I press the right button there. Oh, OK, I forgot this too.
But so much going on here. All right, This is the inherent
craziness is the only word I can use of their belief.
The seven principles here's #5 the right of conscience to use
the and the use of the democratic process within our
congregations and in society at large.
They say they believe #5 but they don't.
You can believe what you want. You have the freedom of
conscience to believe whatever you want to believe.
They don't believe that themselves.
Because again, if you went as a Bible believing Christian into
their society, if you went as a political conservative of
whatever stripe and decide to go in their society, you would be
ostracized. And that was made very clear in
that video, which is one of many that we could have shown you
here today. But can a unitary universalist
be a Christian? They mentioned that there's
Christians within there. I would submit to you that no
actual follower of Christ could be a Unitarian Universalist,
period. Because of the teachings,
because of the ethics, because it goes exactly opposite to that
which the Bible teaches. They're wrong in so many ways.
I don't have time to go over all these at the extent that I want
to, but they're wrong about sin. Do you remember what she said?
That we weren't born with a sin problem?
Well, that would go against what the Bible says, and that would
go against what what we see with our own eyes.
Nobody has to teach that little baby to say no.
That comes natural. Doesn't now say it.
No, no, no. Nobody does that, and they don't
need to. Why?
Because we understand the inherent sinfulness of mankind.
Salvation. They're wrong about something.
Hey, your soul doesn't need to be saved.
You have an awesome soul and we just want to help you unlock
that which is already within you of creation.
Obviously they would not believe in a literal 6 day creation like
the Bible says. They would believe anything but
that of God himself, that they can't even decide if there is a
God or not, let alone of whether there's the one true God of the
Bible, authority and revelation. I've mentioned this here before
just briefly, but they believe that authority in their beliefs
can come from poetry, it can come from reading, it can come
from the mythologies that come from years past, and it can come
from your own personal experience.
Basically, you find revelation wherever you can find it.
If something seems good to you, something seems authoritative to
you, then just believe it. That's good.
Well, we believe authority comes to us through this word right
here. It is not the final authority of
faith and practice. It is the authority of faith and
practice for us in our life, the very word of God and then
mankind that they believe just in general about man and who we
are. They would say that there's no
accountability because you're basically just a evolutionary
process. You're a cosmic mistake.
And so if nothing else, just do what you want to do, do what
feels right. But we know that the word of God
says something completely different.
A Unitarian Universalist church is, as I just mentioned, odd
minded, single minded and narrow minded people who believe
everything and nothing at the same time.
They believe everything, but they don't believe anything.
But if they do believe something, it's not like you and
it's not like me and it's certainly not like this book.
And so knows a very quick way to explain Unitarian Universalist.
But again, check in your town, see if there is a church like
that. Not because I want you to check
it out, but just see that they are actually much more prevalent
in this area than you could possibly imagine.
And you can find that their influence actually goes far
greater and further than probably we even understand,
particularly when it comes to a lot of these political issues
that are out there today. When it comes to the word of
God, when it comes to being a Bible believing Christian, this
isn't a political rally. It's all about Jesus.
Amen. That's what it needs to be about
and that's what we want to make it about every single Sunday.
Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of
Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing
to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us
know by contacting us at info@mylibertybaptist.org.
Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,
MA. May the Lord bless you as you
grow in His Word.