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 mylibertybaptist.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 so we're going to continue our series as we are looking at
world religions and cults this morning and we're going to move
into a new phase of our series. We've really spent quite a few
weeks looking at some major religions and cults that we have
a lot of interaction with, whether it be Islam or whether
it would be the Mormons or the Jehovah Witnesses or Judaism.
And we're going to move into some more what I would call
obscure world religions and cults.
Not necessarily obscure in the amount of adherence that they
have, because I think of some like Buddhism that we'll look at
that have a great many adherence.
But I would say more obscure in the sense of how much we would
come across it in our daily life and how much we would come
across someone that we would want to be able to witness to
them who are inherent of that group.
And so I really want us to over the next few weeks, week by
week, look at a different group and give you really a family
over view of what that group is all about.
And this morning we're going to look at one that, believe it or
not, you may not realize is actually very close to home and
that is Christian Science. And I've titled this message
Christian Science, neither Christian nor Science.
And you'll find out why that is here in just a moment.
You might be more familiar with Christian Science than you
actually realize. The Christian Science
headquarters is actually found in Boston.
It is right near Symphony Hall in downtown Boston is a large
structure that has a great deal of different things that are
inside. It's a tourist attraction,
believe it or not. There in Boston, you may be
familiar with the Christian Science reading rooms.
I'm not saying you've gone into one, but maybe you are in an
area where you've seen something that says a Christian Science
reading room and it looks empty inside because they usually are.
But you're wondering what is this all about?
There is the Christian Science Monitor.
It's a newspaper that has been published for some time, still
is published today that is well regarded by some circles.
And then you may be familiar with Mary Baker Eddie, and she
is the founder of Christian Science.
And even if you're not familiar with her, she has many
homesteads of places that she lived in the Northeast during
her life in the 1800s. And one of those places, believe
it or not, is actually in Stoughton.
If you are going to a Costco or Jordans or one of those places
over in Avon, if you cross right over the line into Stoughton,
one of the Mary Baker Eddie homesteads is there.
So just right, a few minutes from where we are standing or
sitting here this morning. So what is Christian Science?
As always, I like to be able to show you from the group's own
words to be able to get an understanding of who they are.
We have two videos for you this morning.
And the first is going to deal with those Christian Science
reading rooms and kind of give us a little bit of a start of an
understanding of who Christian Science is.
So if we could, let's go ahead and roll it.
This is where you can find versions of the Bible.
And the Bible obviously has helped many people.
When someone comes into the reading room, we're trying to
help them by sharing products and literature or just some
simple answers that help them go to God.
What a reading room provides is that staff there are.
More than helpful and they. Are providing an an atmosphere
of prayer that no other place offers.
The reading room offers a human face for people who want to ask
questions about Christian Science.
Christian Science is the law of God is the truth, and, and if
you're hungry for that truth wherever you're at and even in
the reading room. You got to get that truth.
Anybody who desires to learn how to heal the way Jesus did can
buy science and health or go to the reading room and study
science and health and learn how to do that.
It is the pastor and it is science and health that we're
emphasizing in our reading room. Then what else is in the reading
room is over 135 years of articles and testimonies of
healing, putting this into practice, showing how it makes a
difference. That is the support that a
reading room gives you. That is the support that a
librarian gives you, that you can just come in and ask all the
questions you have about God, about Christianity, about
Christian Science, and they'll give you an honest and loving
answer. And the staff, they show me a
lot of love and that is what I needed to see and to feel.
So, dear love, draw me into the Christian Science reading Room.
So if we're looking at that, it would seem like there's a lot of
answers to be able to be found at the Christian Science Reading
Room, a lot of it rooted in the word of God.
But then also mentioning as well this book that is called Science
and Health. And at first you read this, you
look at this and say, wow, they must be Christians just like we
are, with perhaps some sort of emphasis on science or some sort
of emphasis on the healing of the body.
But if there was 1 shot or one scene, if you would from what
you just read, that really would hammer home what Christian
Science is all about. It was that shot where there was
in the front of the shot the Bible, and then in the back the
book of Science and Health. And you saw that it was focused
in on the Bible at 1st and then it went out of focus and then
focused on the book in the back. And I would say that's exactly
what Christian Science is. There's a lot of talk about the
Bible. There's a lot of talk about
Christianity, there's a lot of talk about studying the Word of
God and the Word of God being inspired, but yet in the end,
it's really like all cults are not about the Bible.
It's about the one who has interpreted the Bible, has
written something of their own gospel, if you will, and then
that is the book that is emphasized.
We saw that with Jehovah Witnesses and the New World
Translation. We saw that with the Mormons,
with all of the different sacred books they have, and we see that
as well with Christian Science. Be not deceived.
It is neither Christian nor Science.
Now. Christian Science was begun by
Mary Baker Eddie, who pioneered new ideas about spirituality and
health and using the Bible as a hook to be able to draw people
into her line of thinking. She grew up as a
Congregationalist, so she grew up in New England with a fairly
orthodox view of the Bible, but then over time strayed from that
as she got away from the church and got away from biblical
teaching. She claimed that after a fall on
the ice in 1866 which left her with crippling injuries, she
rediscovered the secrets of faith healing from Jesus Christ,
and that those are what she put into the book Science and
Health. Now, interestingly enough, this
accident that took place in 1866, there was a Doctor Who
attended to her supposedly, and this doctor later signed an
affidavit saying that her injuries were not as she had
said that they were originally. So we would even see that this
is founded upon a lie and then built upon lies as time went on.
They say, why would someone even be involved in this?
Why would someone want to get involved in Christian Science
before we even go further here this morning?
And the answer is very simple. And the answer is when a group,
particularly a group like Christian Science, focuses on
healing, there are many people who are desperate for healing.
There are many people who deal with sicknesses, diseases and
other maladies who are just trying to find an answer.
And although we say it here today that the doctors are
practicing and they're practicing on us, you know what
I mean, that they don't often know what they're doing.
That was still true, if not even more so during Eddie, Mary Baker
Eddie's time. There were a lot of people
disillusioned and there were a lot of people looking for
answers and wanted to find those answers in something that still
called itself Christian. And so Mary Baker Eddie came
with this perfect mix of in her mind, the Bible, but then also
what healing was all about. But again, this was all based on
her own lies as well as very, very poor Bible interpretation.
So the result of what she had take place in her life in 1866,
as well as her studies that followed, led to in 1879, the
introduction of a system called Christian Science.
Now the book that we just talked about a few moments ago, the the
Christian Science, what I would call sacred texts, they don't
use that term, but I would use that term.
The science and health with key to the scriptures.
This is their sacred text. This is their Book of Mormon.
This is their Quran. This is the text that they look
to. They do not look to the Bible as
we look to the Bible, by the way, if they did, they wouldn't
believe what they believe, but they look to this book that you
have in front of you. Science and Health as the key it
is, is the pastor, it is the leader.
There is very little structural leadership as we would see it
traditionally, but it's all about making sure that you are
following the tenants that we'll see in just a moment the six
tenants that are found within the book of Science and Health.
Now, interestingly enough, much of her research that is compiled
that was put together to create this book was actually
plagiarized from a doctor in Maine that lived on the same
time, and his name was Doctor Quimby.
Now, referring to this book, Mark Twain once said this.
Mark Twain said of this book, of all the strange and frantic and
incomprehensible and uninterpretable books which the
imagination of man has created, surely this one is a prize
example. Now let's be sure Mark Twain was
not a believer. Mark Twain had no testimony of
knowing Jesus Christ as his savior, but to have Mark Twain
to be able to say this about this book certainly gives us an
understanding of what it is. Now Mary Baker, Eddie, after
writing this book, Founding Christian Science, went on to
find found a college church, a publishing enterprise, as well
as the Christian Science Monitor newspaper.
Now, from the outside, as I mentioned, it would seem to some
that maybe don't know that Christian Science is just
another Christian denomination. Oh, there's Baptists and
Lutherans and Methodists and Pentecostals and Christian
Science, and again, they even mention themselves once again
how they are Christian. Isn't it odd that all of these
cults so desperately want people to believe that they're
Christians? Now, Jehovah Witness would
probably be the exception to that because they believe that
Christians are the apostates. We saw that going all the way
early back to the 1900s. But for the most part, you find
these cultists want to do that. Why?
Because they want to have you set off guard from their
message, meaning that you are just listening to another
Christian talk to them. So why wouldn't you listen?
We're Christians just like you are.
And that's really what the Church of Scientology, Church
Scientology, we're coming that next week.
But Christian Science would have you to believe.
It's just a denomination that puts emphasis on physical
healing. And after all, Jesus did healing
in the Gospels, So what could possibly be wrong with that?
However, this could not be further from the truth.
It's a religious system that redefines who God is, who Jesus
Christ is, who man is, what sin is, and really what reality is.
This is what Christian Science does, and it tries to use the
Bible as a cloak for its many heresies.
And so we want to recognize it for who it was.
Her church founded upon the belief that sickness and death
are not truly real. Now I'm going to run that by you
one more time. Sickness and death are not truly
real because matter itself is unnatural, according to this
view. Illness and suffering or
illusions, Illness, illness. I got water here.
I'm good. You didn't hear that.
That was just your imagination. And it was my imagination as my
lungs on the inside were trying to come out on the outside.
All right, illness and suffering are illusions caused by unbelief
and a misunderstanding of God's true nature.
Christian Science is widely known today for its adherence.
Refusal for medication or medical care.
Now, I do want to stress that they are not required to refuse
medication. They're not required to refuse
medical care. That is not a requirement of the
church. However, it is something that is
heavily suggested and there are many who take them up on that.
Mary Baker Eddie taught that reality having been created by
God and therefore holy good could not include evil such as
poverty, suffering, or death. If God is good, then this evil
obviously is not real because God is the one who created
everything. And if evil is present, then
it's really not present. It's really within your own
mind. You say that they can't actually
believe that they truly do, and we'll look at that in the six
tenants in just a moment. Now here's the sobering issue
for Christian Science, one that they cannot get past.
On December 3rd, 1910, Mary Baker Eddie died.
And I say that not to. I'm not making fun, I'm not
mocking, but I'm just saying. The reality is Mary Baker Eddie
died of pneumonia in December 3rd, 1910, a physical illness
that ended her life. That is reality.
That is not something that is fake or forced.
That is what it is. And that in and of itself should
probably be the end of Christian Science, but yet there are
adherents that still continue with it to this day.
Now I mentioned just a few moments ago that there were six
tenants that are found in this book.
You say 6 tenants, is that like 6 people that live in an
apartment? No, not tenants.
All right, tenants, those are 6 beliefs if you will, 6 tenets
that are the foundation, the core of Christian Science.
Now, some of them even sound, as we have found with the cults,
very reasonable on their surface.
Some of them sound like maybe this is something I could be a
part of if you just listen to it at face value.
But we're going to find that all six crumble with even the
lightest pressure applied to them like a House of Cards
because none of them are based on the word of God.
Now, to be able to help illustrate that, I have another
video I want to show you here in just a moment with several
people talking about Christian Science and their faith in it.
And I think it will help you give some background as we go
into these six tenants. So if we could, let's show that
second video. I'm very grateful for Christian
Science. I've witnessed hundreds,
literally, of healings in my life as a Christian Scientist.
What I love about Christian Science is the way that it
defines God. It's God is not this guy up in
the sky or anything that you can kind of put a box around.
God is love. God is life.
God is truth, mind, soul, principle, spirit.
And defining God that way makes everything so different in our
human experience in the way we go about things.
And so I love that aspect of Christian Science.
I go to church all the time and I love it so much.
Before then, I had, I'd been spiritual, but you know, there
was always something missing and I and I found it when I came to
the Christian Science Church. One of the things I love about
Christian Science is that it, it tells people that they don't
have to go along with what the world or the, or the carnal
thought expects is, has to happen.
You know, you don't have to always pick up the script,
whether it's the, you know, having a disease and having to
go through all the stages of suffering or, or, you know, an
expectation of contagion that we were allowed to say, no, no,
that's not God's plan for me. So I don't have to suffer with
it. I don't have to go through it
and Christian Science really kind of has taught me to to
really pray every day to stay close to God, keep listening.
I really start my days with, dear Father, how can I serve you
today? How can I glorify you today?
To me, Christian Science is a way of life and you live it
daily and it's about your relationship with God and
understanding that you're made in God's image and likeness and
that God loves you dearly. The practicality of Christian
Science is that it's not just to go to church on Sunday
situation, it's how are we living our lives?
How are we thinking? How are we growing in our love
for God and our understanding of our dominion as his expression
and reflection? And that's what makes Christian
Science vital and practical, something we live every day.
I'm really happy that I've had Christian Science in my life and
that I've been able to call practitioners when I had a
challenge and specifically in this instance and in others
where to the medical community, there's nothing they can do
about it. But you're expected to have a
three month healing time and a long wait where Christian
Science and God's help and and God is our father and mother
taking care of us steps in and the healing is instantaneous.
Misses Eddie said that she's the founder of Christian Science,
that actually the healing of sickness is the smallest part of
Christian Science. The the real dogma or creed or
purpose or mission, I would say, of Christian Science is to, in
her words, restore primitive Christianity and it's lost
element of healing. I mean, it is what Jesus was all
about and we're just trying to follow him.
It's amazing to me because at one point in my life I had been
homeless, living on the streets, doing drugs, anything you can
imagine. So now I have one of the most
comfortable existences I could have ever imagined.
I'm the person that I always thought I would have been when I
was young, and I'm more than that now because of Christian
Science and science, health and science and health with Key to
the Scripture by Mary Baker Eddy.
And even though I felt love through all those times, I feel
so much more love now. I feel eternal love all
surrounding me at all times and life has turned out better than
I could have ever imagined. A.
Lot that we could say about what was just taking place.
But if you get nothing else from what we study today, understand
this that Christian Science is the most miserable and failed
line of thinking and religion the world has ever known.
You say, well, how would you say that?
Now understand what I what I mean.
Just a moment. Any line of thinking or theology
that is contrary to the word of God will send someone straight
to hell. I think we all agree with that.
Amen. But I would also say this.
This is a line of thinking that says that sickness is really
just in your mind, that sickness is not part of reality
whatsoever. And so every adherent who has
ever been part of Christian Science has shown what a failure
it is by dying. And so in that thought process,
we're not just talking about their eternal soul, which would
go straight to hell, but also the fact that they are teaching
that really you should be able to overcome these things.
And no one ever has, including the founder.
And that ought to be enough to cause someone to say, I don't
want to be a part of this. But yet everyone looking for
that hope of healing, looking for that hope of something that
Christianity can't offer, something that Jesus was
offering, but it's not available today, has that twisted into
their mind to the place where they believe that Christian
Science can have the answer. So we ask ourselves, what are
these six tenets here this morning?
And these come again from the book of Science and Health with
key to the Scripture, sometimes just called Science and Health
from the Christian Science written by Mary Baker Eddie #1
as adherence of truth, we take the inspired word of the Bible
as our sufficient guide to eternal life.
Now you listen to that, You say, hey, at least they start at #1
right? I mean, that's good.
But you have to always understand when it comes to
these types of tenets or statements from the cults or
from world religions, it's not what they say, but it's often
what's lying beneath what they say.
And it was even alluded to there just a few moments ago on the
video. It sounds good.
It sounds like something that we would agree with, that the word
of God is inspired, but yet when they're using the term
inspiration, they would use the term of inspiration much
differently than we would. They treat inspiration as
someone who's inspired when they create a great work of art,
someone who's inspired when they achieve a great feat.
Well, they were inspired to do those types of things.
And that type of inspiration is a very real thing that we're
inspired within ourselves to write a poem, to be inspired to
write a song, to be inspired to do something great on a football
field or a basketball court. There can be that type of
inspiration. But that is not the kind of
inspiration that the Bible teaches comes from God.
When it comes to the Scriptures, Paul did not just have it well
up within himself to write something really good.
And that's how we got the epistles.
No, no, that's not what it says at all.
In fact, Second Timothy 316, boy, you've heard this a lot
around here, but it barely repeating.
Again, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and it's
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction and righteousness. Because it comes from God, it is
perfect. Because it comes from God.
It is truly inspired. Not as man is inspired.
That's a good one, Ralph, as it is within ourselves.
But no, it's inspired because it comes from God.
They believe it's inspired, but not infallible, but we believe
that is the inspired and infallible word of God, that
when we look at this, this isn't just some thoughts from Moses,
some thoughts from David, some thoughts from Solomon, some
thoughts from Peter, some thoughts from Paul, and they
were good. They're better than most men's
thoughts. No, no, that's not what we're
talking about. These are the very words of God,
and those men were inspired to be able to write that to which
we have and has been preserved for us today.
So we reject #1 and be honest with you #1 was probably the
1:00 we'd be the closest to, but yet we reject that
wholeheartedly because what lies underneath the surface is not
true. If they truly believe that this
book was inspired as God said it, they wouldn't need any other
book. They wouldn't need any other
teaching. So number one is rejected out of
hand #2 we acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God.
We acknowledge His Son, one Christ the Holy Ghost or divine
Comforter and man in God's image and likeness.
Again, this sounds good. Maybe not as good as #1 but
there is something that sounds good about it.
But yet Christian Science teaches that the God of the
Bible is not God. Did some of you catch what one
woman mentioned about God being the heavenly Father and Mother?
Well, you don't find that in the Word of God.
You don't find it anywhere in the Word of God, Father and
Mother of all. They teach that that Godfather
and Mother of all is completely good and holy spiritual, and
that all of God's creation, including the true nature of
every person, is flawless and is the flawless spiritual likeness
of the divine. Meaning that really you are
perfect as well, and that anything that you believe that
is unperfect is really not real and you have to purge your mind
of these unreal thoughts. These are not anything that is
close to reality. They would teach that Jesus is a
great prophet, but they would not teach that Jesus is God.
They have high regard for Jesus in their own mind.
I would say that anything other than calling Jesus who he is, is
not having high regard for him, but within their own thoughts,
they have very high regard for him, but do not believe that He
is God. And so again, we do reject #2
out of hand as well #3 we acknowledge God's forgiveness of
sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding
that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is
punished so long as the belief lasts.
So there's several problems here.
Number one, forgiveness is redefined.
God does not forgive sin just by pardoning guilt.
Sin is forgiven only in their mind, let me say God in their
mind, God is not the partner of guilt.
Sin is not forgiven as it's eliminated.
I'm I'm reading this wrong, I'm sorry.
The the idea is, is that in their mind, forgiveness, as we
would understand through Jesus Christ, the blood of Jesus
Christ is something that is not necessary.
There is no judicial or declarative forgiveness.
The idea that God declares us to be saved, that God declares us
to be forgiven. This is not part really.
The forgiveness is found within you, that you have the sin
removed from you. It's not treated as a moral
offense. It's not rebellion against God.
It's a mistaken belief. It's a false perception and
guilt before God is effectively denied again, evil is declared
unreal. It has no actual existence.
The illusion is just corrected by knowledge.
In fact, I watched another video just a few days ago where there
was a woman who said something along these lines.
We really can't know what sin is.
In fact, she put it this way, it it's a hard call.
It's a hard call to make. And I thought it is a hard call
to make if you're defining what sin, if you are the one that
wants to decide what sin is, well, sure, it's a very hard
call to make. But if we have the word of God
which tells us what sin is and what transgression is, it's
actually pretty simple when we understand what the word of God
says, that is completely different.
Well, the Word of God teaches something much different.
Forgiveness is an act of God, not an act of self.
First, John 19 If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. Evil is not a construct of the
mind. Evil is real.
Isaiah 5 verse 20. Woe unto them.
They call evil good and good evil that put darkness for light
and light for darkness. So we reject #3 as well #4 We
acknowledge Jesus's atonement as the evidence of divine
efficacious love unfolding man's unity with God through Jesus
Christ the way shower. And we acknowledge that man is
saved through Christ, through truth, life and love, as
demonstrated by the Galilean prophet in the healing of the
sick and overcoming sin and death.
Once again, atonement is now redefined.
Jesus death is no longer the payment for sin.
He's the wayfinder. He's just showing us the way.
He was the healer. He brought people healing, and
He will show you the way to bring you healing as well.
Sin is minimized or completely denied.
Again, it is considered an illusion.
So there is really no real need for forgiveness.
And salvation is really just enlightenment.
It is understanding the truth nature of the cosmos is
understanding the true nature of reality.
Salvation is not salvation as the Bible teaches.
Because of that, the cross is merely symbolic.
There was nothing that actually took place there other than,
again, Jesus showing us the way of someone who did something
good. But Christ's suffering is not
necessary for salvation. The blood of Christ is not
necessary for salvation, and he is just reduced to some type of
moral example. Jesus did great things and and
we could do great things too if we follow his wayfinding
example. But yet again, the Bible teaches
much differently. First Corinthians 15, verse 3
Before I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also
received, how that Christ died for our sins according to
scriptures. That ought to end it right
there, shouldn't it? According to the Scriptures
meaning this. It's the whole teaching of the
Word of God that this is what Jesus did, that all of the word
of God leads up to that moment, and then after that moment, the
word of God continues to teach and reiterate that which Jesus
Christ did. Hebrews 922 And almost all
things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding
of blood is no remission. It's very clear that this is not
just something that Jesus did to show us a better way, but rather
that the cross of Christ was necessary.
The blood of Christ was necessary for our salvation.
So we reject #4 as well #5 we acknowledge that the crucifixion
of Jesus and his resurrection served to uplift faith, to
understand eternal life, even the allness of soul, spirit, and
the nothingness of matter. There it is, the nothingness of
matter. It's not really real.
The reality that you see is not real.
The evil that you see is not real.
The sickness that you're feeling is not real.
Now, if you're like me, you wonder how could somebody
believe this? How could somebody possibly even
think that this could be truth? But yet again, as I mentioned
before, perhaps you're sick, perhaps you are searching,
perhaps you are hearing a testimony of somebody.
You go into a reading room and you see all of these books that
have all of these testimonies, supposedly of people who've been
helped and healed. And perhaps you're desperate to
be able to find something that's true.
And by the time you get to some of these thoughts, you're too
far deep and you're too far in. And so you have to accept that's
true because you've accepted everything else before it.
That's true as well. Christian Science says Jesus
death and resurrection primarily help people uplift faith to
understand eternal life. That was really what the death,
burial, resurrection of Christ was about is to help people
uplift them and understand eternal life.
But First Corinthians 15 verses 3:00 and 4:00, and we just read
verse 3, but we'll read it again.
I've delivered unto you first that all that which I've
received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again
the third day, that all of that was spiritually necessary.
You can't take First Corinthians chapter 15, which talks of the
resurrection, that if the resurrection is not the
resurrection as it has been taught, then the gospel all
unravels from what it is. And we know that is not the
case. Christian Science suggests that
understanding matter as unreal helps grasp eternal life as well
as physical healing. But you can go to the beginning
of the Bible, Genesis 11. In the beginning, what did God
create? In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth. But what do we find from that?
It affirms the creation of time, space, and matter, that He
created all those things. And again, God does not lay out
the foundation for the beginning of the word of God for why He
is. It's just the expectation that
you know He is. And that's given to us right at
the beginning, and that he created time, space, and matter.
And if matter was truly nothing, if it was, then the crucifixion
itself would have no real consequences.
But yet Christian Science affirms the historical
crucifixion and resurrection and it denies the reality of matter.
At the same time, this leads to a contradiction.
They rely on physical events historically, but yet teach
matter is unreal. So the question is, which is it?
And again it leaves us wanting number six.
And then finally, and we solemnly promise to watch and
pray for that mind to be in US, which also was in Christ Jesus,
to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, and to be
mercifully just and pure. Now again, this is good.
This is Philippians chapter 2 verse 5.
But the problem is, practically speaking, they don't believe.
They don't believe that this is the way to live.
The New Testament teaches that the mind of Christ is given to
believers through salvation with Christ.
And the Holy Spirit helps us to be able to have the mind of
Christ. They say this is all about your
human effort, that if you continue to do, then you can do
this. Listen on your own.
You can't have the mind of Christ on your own.
You and I, we give into the flesh on your own.
You and I, we live for ourselves.
It is only through salvation that we become new creatures.
And then it's through the help of the Spirit that we
continually become the sanctification of our lives, the
practical sanctification, every day trying to be closer to
Christ. It is not human effort.
It is not enlightened perception.
It is all about the fact that we have Christ in us, the hope of
glory, and he is the one that helps us to be able to be more
like Him on our own. We're in trouble.
So what do they practically believe when we get down to it?
I'll give you these very quickly.
What do they practically believe when it comes to the doctrine of
God? That God is not personal.
He is defined as divine mind, principle, or spirit, and He
does not act in history or relate personally.
That He's just kind of this life force, if you will, but not
really God in the way that the Bible teaches.
But the Bible teaches God's personal, relational acts in
creation and in redemption. What do they teach about the
doctrine of matter? And reality matters?
An illusion. The physical world does not
exist the way that we think it does.
And pain and sickness and even death are errors of the mind.
And again, if they truly believe that it is the most failed
belief system this world has ever seen because every adherent
has died and no one should be part of this group.
But yet they still have those who believe physical healing in
their implication comes from correcting wrong thinking and
never from medical treatment. The doctrine of sin Sin is not
real the way that the Bible teaches about sin.
Sin is ignorance or false belief and there is no reckoning with a
holy God. That is not something that is
part of their belief system. The doctrine of Christ and Jesus
that Jesus was a man who demonstrated the Christ
principle, but he was not Christ.
He was an idea more than a person and Jesus is not God
Incarnate This so that means there's no substitutionary
atonement. The cross is example.
It's not a sacrifice. Again, we reject that out of
him. The doctrine of salvation which
is not on there, that should be the next one right there.
The doctrine of salvation is not salvation as we would know it.
It's just awakening to spiritual truth.
Your eyes have been enlightened. There is no need for repentance.
There is no need for faith. There is no need to turn to
Christ. It's really about you just
learning more about life and understanding.
And you can achieve Christ's healing as he healed.
But again, that is taking the healing and ignoring the message
as we saw from Matthew chapter 4 last week when Jesus was
healing. Christ is healer.
And I do find it interesting that we're looking at this at
the same time. If Christ is healer, why was he
healing? Because he was teaching and
preaching. It authenticated the messenger.
It authenticated the message. That's what healer feeling was
always about. It is not what we see here.
And I'll be honest with you, this is a short list of the
practical beliefs of which they hold an error from the Word of
God. Now, we didn't start with a
text, but we're going to end with a text.
And it's one that we have read before and it does seem to fit
with many of the cults and religions that we look at.
But turn to Galatians chapter #1 and this is where we'll close
this morning. Galatians chapter #1.
The people of Galatia, Galatia was not a church.
It was a region and there were churches that were all
throughout the region and this was a letter that was circulated
to all of those churches. They were dealing with false
doctrine typically or rather specifically the Judaizers,
those who were teaching that there were works that were
needed after salvation. And Paul addresses this head on
and it says in verse 6, I marvel that you are so soon removed
from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another
gospel. You say there's more than one
gospel. Well, look at what it says next
verse. It's really not another but
there's some that will trouble you and would pervert the gospel
of Christ to pervert and it's very real definition to to
change. That's what it is.
It's changing that which is natural and turning it into
something that is unnatural. It's perverting the gospel of
Christ. But the we or an Angel from
heaven preach any other gospel unto you then that which had
preached unto you. Let him be accursed.
We could not accept. I'm not suggesting we should add
to the word of God. You've been here long enough to
know we don't want to do that. But we could in theory say, but
the we, or an Angel from heaven, or Mary Baker, Eddie, preach any
other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you.
Let him be accursed. Let her be accursed.
This is another gospel. Oh, there's everything right
there. All right.
Found it. I put him in the wrong order.
All right. Thank you.
For do I now persuade men or God, or do I seek to please men?
For if I yet please men, I should not be the servant of
Christ. But I certify you, brethren,
that the gospel which was preached of me is not after who?
Not after man, for I neither received it of man, neither was
I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.
And these types of groups like Mary Baker, Eddie will say the
church and they just take Christianity and use it as a
whole, that churches have got away from that which was taught
by the apostles. We heard that certainly with
Jehovah witnesses. We've heard that certainly with
the Mormons, the church again whole, as they would call it,
has gotten away from the truth of Apostolic times.
And it took someone to be able to come and to be able to get
the church back on the right track.
Whether it's Charles Tays Russell or whether it was a
Joseph Smith or a Brigham Young or a Mary Baker Eddie, they were
the ones that are bringing the purity of the gospel back to the
people. But I see right here that really
the gospel really doesn't come after man.
It comes from God. That's where it comes from.
And if we can trace our lineage and we can trace our origin to a
man or a woman, then we don't have much of A gospel.
Now, I'll give you this and we'll be done.
I mentioned to you that Mary Baker Eddie died in 1910 and
she's actually buried in Cambridge.
That's where her body remains today.
Interestingly enough, there was a story, there's people that are
on either side of whether this story is true, and I can't tell
you definitively that it is true, but it's illustrative
either way. Whether it's true or not that
after Mary Baker Eddie died, when they placed her in a
temporary crypt, a temporary vault, there was actually a
telephone line that was strung into the crypt and that was
active there. You talk about 1910, We're not
talking about a lot of telephone lines.
Back then that were available, but back then they were real
wires, you know, because that's the way it worked.
And there was a line supposedly that went right into her crypt
because they were afraid or they were curious if she would come
back to life again. Whether it's true or not, the
fact of the matter is Mary Baker Eddie is still there today.
That Mary Baker Eddie's own teachings may very well have led
to her death dying of pneumonia. Now, people died of pneumonia
certainly a lot more commonly then than they do now.
But the point is this is that she had the knowledge to be able
to bring herself healing, and she hasn't and didn't.
And no one who has ever believed in Christian Science has ever
been able to bring themselves the ultimate healing of being
able to live and not die. It makes you wonder why someone
would actually hold to this line of doctrine.
So I hope it's been a good introduction to you today.
Certainly convoluted in a lot of ways, there's no doubt about it.
But understand that it has very little, if anything, to do with
Christianity other than just borrowing a few of our concepts
and borrowing our Bible, but not truly teaching what the Bible
says about any of those things. By God's grace, next week we're
actually going to look to something that has a very
similar name, but it's completely different, and that
is Scientology. So if you can get a hold of Tom
Cruise, let him know and we'll be teaching on Scientology next
week. All right.
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.