There is a brass serpent cult today within the body of Christ. It needs to be pointed out and cut out--for it is not Christian! Oh, it looks a lot like Christianity, and preaches many of the right things. But when it comes to Jesus the Lord and His salvation, things are turned inside out and upside down!

      They teach that you can get to heaven by only receiving Jesus as Saviour WITHOUT EVER YIELDING TO HIM AS LORD. They are famous for their little tract depicting a saved soul as one still having self on the throne of its heart. This is what they call a "carnal Christian," a "sinning saint," which in reality is no Christian at all!

      They have no understanding of what repentance, faith, and grace are really all about. Some, like Hal Lindsey of the infamous Dallas Theological Seminary in his book The Liberation of Planet Earth, have said that you do not need to repent to get saved because repentance is a work, and we're not saved by works. But we ARE (James 2:24).

      They see grace as unmerited favor, which is what mercy is, then fail to see grace as God's delivering, sin-purging, sanctifying power.

      They do not know that "born again" is a state to be abided in throughout one's life as well as an event that occurs at a specific time. They are blind to this because they do not know that now, the ever present now, is the "day of salvation."

      They understand eternal life to be a "thing" which you possess as your own. They are therefore blind to the fact that Jesus alone is immortal and thus IS the eternal life, the salvation within the "abider in the vine."

      Ultimately, their security is not in Christ but in their false belief about salvation. This is why they get more shook up about the possibility of losing their salvation than in being out of fellowship with Jesus!

      Jesus is not their Lord (by their own admission). Because of this, He is not their God! Salvation is their God! Salvation is their idol. And like all idols, is totally under its "possessor's" control!

      It is also significant to me that the hot house of this cult is a denomination which came into being about 1845 over the issue of slavery (15 years before the civil war). A denomination birthed in bigotry, whose founders didn't keep the "second commandment" to love their (black) neighbors as their own (white) selves! A denomination that to this day shamefully, yet shamelessly, does not want and/or permit blacks to become members in many of its churches!

      It should be no surprise that so many of this denomination's present day "members" not only disobey the second commandment but also the first: to love God as Lord with all their heart, soul, mind and strength!

      In my book, this is the most deadly cult in the world--if for no other reason than the fact that it is so accepted as actually being a part of the true Body of Christ. It's actually nothing but a group of goats within the flock of God's elect!