Detecting cult religion is really quite simple. The characteristics of a cult religion revolves around fear-mongering. The naive and fearful who are seduced into cult religions, are uninformed church goers. Anytime a church goer thinks that some character standing in a pulpit speaks for God/Jesus Christ, they have been seduced.
No preacher or pastor speaks for God. God speaks for Himself and you have yet to see God or hear His voice. After all don't you speak for yourself? Should someone pretend to be you and speak for you, would that not be preposterous? The same is true for God.
When those who penned ink on paper and called it "the Bible", they had no real authority from God to do so, but they made the claim that "all scripture is given by inspiration of God" and that "God commanded" and so forth. What overwhelming vanity and ego for those who made such fraudulent claims.
The greatest deception on planet earth is that "God said" something, or "God commanded" something or that "the Bible is the word of God", as if humans had a right to put words in the mouth of God. It is as easy as falling off a log to accept that because someone long ago said something, it is
true, but is it?
You read that God supposedly spoke with some character named Moses out of a burning bush, and yet all that is, is ink on paper and there is no proof that such a thing ever happened. Do we assume "truth" just because we read a myth, a legend, a fiction or a human fabrication? Should you
or I today make the claim that God spoke to us out of a burning bush, would anyone believe it? Not likely. So why believe ancient myths as valid?
Cult preachers are great pretenders. They have an aura of "authority", when in reality they have none. You can be positive if free $money, were not involved, these preacher pretenders would be reduced to common and normal human beings, who have no desire to rule over or control others.
The real motive for churches, preachers and all religions, is free $cash and the love of power and control, which equates to super vanity and ego of the overlords.
In reality the self-appointed "lords" in the pulpits are driven by extreme self-importance, all the while the simple minded in the pews tremble in false fear of these religious clowns. Jesus came to set the captives free, and if you are captive to a church lord, the only way you will ever be free, is to exit and exit now and forever from the cult, because it is a cult.
All religious cults thrive on FEAR, but God is LOVE and He does not exist by compelling fear. Tithing, Sabbath keeping, Feast days and such are all man-made concepts, which give religious overlords false power over the gullible.
Why quote "the Bible" as if God is the author? Men penned the so called bible and it is the greatest source of fear-mongering on planet earth. There is NO FEAR in love and if God is love then God does not compel humans on the basis of fear. God compels humans on the basis of LOVE, COMPASSION MERCY, EMPATHY and HUMILITY.
Proof that your preacher is a fraud, is that he compels you to comply to the false doctrine of tithing and other legalistic nonsense.
Van Robison