Strategies to Witness to Cults
By Ed Vasicek
You have to first of all determine if you want to take the time and energy to attempt to confront cultists. Most successful evangelism of cult members occurs when you have a relationship with a person: a relative, co-worker, or a neighbor, etc.. It is also easier to witness to someone born into a cult rather than a convert to a cult. When a person becomes a cult member, they are often cut off from family and friends (or they cut themselves off). Since they pay such a price, any attempt to share the true Gospel is paramount to saying, “All I’ve put into this is lost and in vain.” There is a lot of ego involved, and that impairs the ability to be objective. Cult members are usually slick and think nothing of misleading and deceiving. The end justifies the means if those means are effective.
Matt Slick’s approach to witnessing:
1. Establish a common ground: the need to know the Father.
2. Establish the only way to the Father is through the Jesus of the Bible (John 14:6, Acts 4:12).
3. Demonstrate the importance of having the correct Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible (2 Cor. 11:4)
4. Establish that the Jesus of the Bible is prayed to (Acts 11:59, Rom. 10:13), worshipped (Matt. 14:33, Matt. 28:9, Heb. 1:6), honored as one honors the Father (John 5:29), and called God (John 20:28, Heb. 1:8).
5. Do you pray, worship, and call Jesus God?
6. If the cultist is right, why are you wrong if you do what the Scriptures teach?
7. Present the Gospel.
(from Right Answers for Wrong Beliefs by Matt Slick)
Ed’s Approach to Witnessing to Members in Just About Any Cult
1. Those God chooses believe because they were appointed to eternal life (Acts 13:48)
2. One will not come to the true Jesus unless God draws Him (John 6:65).
3. All those the Father draws do indeed come to Christ (John 6:37)
4. Because God chose true believers, He justifies them (Rom. 8:33)
5. We can do nothing to earn salvation: it is by God’s grace (Eph. 2:8-9)
6. This is how we can KNOW with certainty that we are saved (I John 5:13, I Thes. 1:4-5)
What this does is eliminate ALL plans of salvation that require works or ritual. This approach is contradicts every false belief system there is: Cults, like Mormons & Jehovah Witnesses, Salvation by Sacrament churches, like Catholicism/Orthodoxy, even belief systems that are not cult-like, but off a bit in my opinon (Church of Christ, or many fellow evangelicals, good brothers who are Arminian).
Special Thoughts for Sharing with Jehovah’s Witnesses…
1. God’s name is pronounced Yahweh. Why do you mispronounce it?
2. Jesus resurrected His BODY. JW’s believe it disintegrated. Take them to John 2:19-22. Point out the text says Christ’s body was resurrected. Then ask them who resurrected Christ? When they say, “God,” agree, but say, “And Christ IS God because He said “I will raise it up.” Christ resurrected Himself!
A chain of verses useful to prove the deity of Christ. JW’s believe Christ is a heavenly being, the incarnation of Michael the Archangel. They call Jesus the “Son of God” but do not believe Jesus IS God. Here are some verses that prove this (Note: Jesus is both God and Man. Proving He is man does not disprove that He is God. He is Man, but not ONLY Man. He is God, but not ONLY God. He is both. His humanity had a beginning, but His deity has always been).
1. Isaiah 9:6
2. John 8:58 with Exodus 3:14
3. John 20:28
4. Phil 2:5-8 (see also Is. 45:23, and Is. 40:25 to prove this is speaking of Yahweh, “LORD” in the Old Testament)
5. Zech. 12:8-10; Ask, “Who is the speaker.” The “LORD” (Yahweh/Jehovah) is!
6. Zech. 2:8-9; note here that God is more than one PERSON. He sends Himself.
7. Acts 20:28 (whose blood bought us?)
8. Isaiah 48:12, 15-16—Who is speaking? Who is sending Whom?
9. Hebrews 1:8
10. Isaiah 43:10-11 (Jesus is not some created “god.” Only one savior).
11. Matt. 4:10 with Matt. 28:9 (same Greek word for worship)
12. Rev. 19:13-16
13. I Tim. 6:14-15
14. Heb. 1:3 with Isaiah 46:9 (and Isaiah 42:8)
15. Isaiah 6:5-10 with John 12:38-41 (ask, Who did Isaiah see, according to John? (ans.—Jesus) Who did Isaiah see, according to Isaiah? (ans. Yahweh—LORD). Therefore Jesus is Yahweh.
There are many other verses and lines of reasoning that prove the deity of Christ, but these are a few.
