The reason for this confusion about what the Christian faith is all about is because personality

cults abounds in the Christian church. If you look up the definition of personality cults, you're going to

discover the following. an excessive public admiration for

or devotion to a famous person. That person often presents himself or herself and their views

and their teaching to be contrary to the norm. This is how they attract

attention to themselves, and that's how they become cult leaders. In the Christian world,

we've seen this through the years, and we're seeing it now, those popular personality cult leaders often teach

things either contrary to the Word of God or runs parallel with the Word of God. In either case,

their teaching becomes as acceptable as the gospel truth. Enough said, but the reason for the rise of

these personality cults in the Christian church is that because people are often looking for

answers, and that's nothing wrong with that. But they look for them in a man or a woman. They look for

them in a system. They look for them in a set of teaching. They look for them in a little packaged

formula. They look for them everywhere, except where they're supposed to be looking, and that's the

truth of the Word of God. The Word of God itself has

the answer. And so the clever cult leaders present themselves and their false teaching as the answer

to their questions. That way, the leader actually subtly, sometimes now I'm seeing it not so subtly, is that they have people

place their loyalty to them individually and not to the Lord and his word. Now, beloved, I want you to hear me right on this one.

A true believer, a genuine believer, Bible-believing believer, has his first and foremost loyalty, not to a pastor, not to a priest, not to a denomination, or even a pope.

But their first and foremost loyalty is to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of the church,

and his inspired, infallible word of God. In Matthew 24, Jesus warned again and again,

he said, let no man deceive you. Now the Apostle Paul was absolutely alert.

He was absolutely aware of the insidiousness of that subtle deception. He knew that deception can come to all of us, pastor and congregation, all of us,

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