some – especially for your youth leaders.

Rowland

…..

Are your youth group kids asking questions as a result of the Heaven’s Gate

suicides? Then here’s some material that you could use in a talk addressing

this tragedy and cults in general. It’s from Ron Hutchcraft Ministries.

Mike Atkinson

Youth Specialties

…..

CULT SUICIDES – The Issues Behind the Headlines

The following information provides some intriguing insights on the “Heaven’s

Gate” suicides.

Also included:

THE SPIRITUAL NEEDS THAT CAN LEAD US TO DEATH OR TO LIFE;

and “8 DANGER SIGNS OF A CULT”

*** The Climate for Spiritual Disaster ***

1. A CLIMATE WHERE “ANYTHING COULD BE TRUE”

The Congressman from the Rancho Santa Fe district commented on TV about how

Americans have essentially chosen to scrap traditional beliefs as irrelevant

and outmoded. He said, in light of the “Heaven’s Gate” suicides, that “we

should stop and look where that is taking us.”

Millions of “boomers” and “X-ers” have rejected Jesus Christ without ever

exploring Him because they have pre-judged it to be for “yesterday”.

2. A CLIMATE OF SHAPELESS SPIRITUALITY

Our generation is intrigued with a supernatural where you don’t have to deal

with God – a shapeless “spirituality” that puts you in touch with spiritual

feelings and experiences without confronting the claims of Jesus Christ.

The call of Jesus is based on historically verifiable, objective facts. The

call of “spirituality” is based on subjective experience. Influences such

as extraterrestrial-oriented movies and TV shows, psychic hotlines, and a

New Age eclectic spirituality have opened the “gate”. People are

increasingly fascinated with an extra-terrestrial spirituality, in which our

spiritual searching is diverted from our Creator to some “higher life forms

out there somewhere”.

We are incurably spiritual. There is something inside us that cries out for

a meaning and significance that “earth stuff” just cannot give us. There’s

a reason we are spiritual seekers . The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:11,

“God has set eternity in their hearts”. And speaking of Jesus Christ, the

Bible tells us that “all things were created by Him and for Him” (Colossians

1:16). There is a spiritual longing in the human heart that can only be

satisfied by the One who put it there! Spiritual counterfeits tap into real

spiritual impulses God planted in us to be answered only by our Creator.

THE ILLUSION OF FINDING AN ANSWER

“Those ‘Heaven’s Gate’ people seemed to be at peace. They were happy about

what they were doing!” That is the impression many people have gotten from

watching those video testimonials filmed just before the cult members’

deaths. Did their apparent peace and happiness validate the truth of what

they were committed to? Did their total dedication to their beliefs make

those beliefs valid? They seemingly were sincere, but it is possible to be

sincerely wrong.

Some years ago, America faced a scare over pain reliever capsules that had

been tampered with. A number of innocent victims died from capsules laced

with poison. Each of those victims took that medication with the sincere

expectation that they would be better off because they did. But what they

thought was making them better was actually making them die.

In the true and maybe unsettling words of the Bible, “There is a way that

seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12). A

spiritual “cure” may make its users feel that they are getting better. But

if it is not based on what God says — the One we meet the moment we die

(Hebrews 9:27) — that cure will lead to death. Our sense of “rightness”

and peace does not validate our beliefs. That’s why God gave us His Book,

the Bible, so the way that IS right would be available to all.

THE SPIRITUAL NEEDS THAT CAN LEAD US TO DEATH OR TO LIFE:

For years, cults have appealed to some deep needs that are in every seeking

heart.

1. THE NEED TO CONNECT WITH SOMETHING LARGER

The media tells us that Marshall Applewhite pointed his followers to cosmic

beings. Jesus points us to our Creator’s great plan for our life — with

what we were born to be! He said, “I have come that they might have life,

and have it to the full” (John 10:10).

2. THE NEED FOR PERSONAL SIGNIFICANCE

God planted in us the instinct for “something more”. “Heaven’s Gate”

pointed to a cosmic state “above human”, outside our physical “containers”.

Jesus points us to how we can be sons and daughters of God Himself, right

here on this planet. In fact, God’s Son took on a human “container” — a

body created in the likeness of God (Gen 1:26) — to show us how we can live

a “make a difference” life on earth.

3. THE NEED TO CONQUER THE DARKNESS INSIDE US

According to the media, Marshall Applewhite agonized over his homosexual

feelings — he was reportedly dismissed from a college teaching position

because of a relationship with a male student. We all struggle with the

darkness inside us – whether it is sexual desires, anger, depression,

selfishness, bitterness. “Heaven’s Gate” offered a way to try to master the

“demons” inside, but it often meant medication, isolation, and even

mutilation. Jesus offers, not mutilation or reformation, but transformaion!

He says, “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin . . . if the Son sets you

free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:34, 36). Jesus offers His

sin-mastering power on the inside, not imprisoning control on the outside.

4. THE LONGING FOR “SOMETHING BETTER”

We’re told “Heaven’s Gate” was looking for a space ship. Jesus promises

eternal life. THAT is the “something better” that God has created us for.

But eternity begins when He decides, not when we decide. The only One who

has the right to end your life is the One who gave you your life (Psalm

139:13-16; Psalm 31:15).

Ultimately, our spiritual search, whether we know what to call it or not, is

a search for a SAVIOR. There is something in our soul that cries out for a

Savior who can enable us to be what we could never be, to go where we could

never go. And that is why God’s one and only Son came to our world and gave

His life on a cross. Our darkness, our “sin”, has put a wall between us and

the One we were created by and for. Because we our sins have separated us

from our God (Isaiah 59:2), we are spiritual orphans, looking for our Father

— our Heavenly Father.

We cannot live indefinitely with the “hole in our heart”, so we are easily

led into unsatisfying — and ultimately deadly — substitutes for the real

thing. Those are ways that “seem right” but “lead to death” (Proverbs

14:12). But the only One who can fill that hole in our heart is the One it

was made for.

“God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever

believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). We

deserved the death penalty for running our own lives. But Jesus did what

only the Son of God could do — He became our substitute and paid the death

penalty for the sinning we’ve done. That makes Him the SAVIOR — the

Rescuer our heart has been longing for.

He becomes your Savior when you tell Him you are putting your total trust in

Him to erase your sins from God’s book, to give you a personal relationship

with your Creator, and to take you to heaven when He is ready. At that

moment of personal commitment, He takes up residence in your life to make

you more than you ever dreamed you could be. The wall is gone. You are

spiritually home.

If you want to begin a relationship with Jesus Christ, the One you were made

by and made for, please let us send you information from God’s Word, the

Bible, to help lead you to that relationship. We will send you “Steps to

Peace With God” without obligation. You can contact us at:

Check out: “Yours for Life”

*** EIGHT DANGER SIGNS OF A “SPIRITUAL” GROUP (CULT) ***

In light of the times in which we live, this is a resource for you and those

you care about.

Watch out if a spiritual leader or organization asks you to:

1. Follow one human leader.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the

Father except through Me (John 14:6). Any other leader who says, Follow

me, takes a position only Jesus deserves. John the Baptist said of Jesus,

He must become greater; I must become less (John 3:30). True spiritual

leaders point you to Jesus.

2. Dilute the Bible.

When someone adds to God’s Word, subtracts from it, insists on another book

or teacher in order to ‘understand’ it, alarm bells should go off. All

Scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16). If anyone adds anything to them,

God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes

words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share

in . . . the holy city (Rev. 22:18, 19)

3. Desert your family.

The family was the first institution God created. He has never changed His

directions for spouses: ‘What God has joined together, let man not separate’

(Mark 10:9); for sons and daughters: ‘Honor your father and mother’; for

those with children: ‘Bring them up in the training… of the Lord’ (Eph.

6:1, 4) Jesus calls us to always put Him first, but to respect the family

as He taught.

4. Forget the church.

God entrusted His truth to the Church. He did not leave us the option of

some new thing for some new time or place. Jesus said, ‘I will build My

Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it’ (Matt. 16:18

KJV).

5. “Believe ‘new’ revelations.”

God has spoken in His Word, the Bible, and He warns against adding anything

to it (see # 2). ‘New truth from God’ is not from God.

6. Park your mind.

‘Believe it because we believe it’ is the appeal of a spiritual counterfeit.

Rather than asking us to follow Him mindlessly, Jesus commands us to ‘Love

the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all

your mind’ (Matt. 22:37).

7. Keep our secret.

God’s ‘mysteries’ are ‘open secrets’ in the Bible. God’s truth is not

hiding somewhere for a few spiritually ‘enlightened’ ones to stumble on and

hoard. ‘Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ . . . the One who is at

the Father’s side has made Him known’ (John 1:17, 18).

8. Earn your place.

Spiritual counterfeits will ask you to ‘do good things’ to earn their

‘heaven’. God says eternal life is ‘not by works’ (Eph. 2:9), but “whoever

believes in Him (Jesus) has eternal life” (John 3:16).

It is eternally important to ‘not believe every spirit, but test the spirits

to see whether they are from God’ (1 John 4:1) because…

‘Many false prophets have gone out into the world’ (1 John 4:1)

(Prov. 14:12).=20

All material: