Sects and the Bible

I had a conversation with a couple ladies today, on the way home from church, who offered me some of their literature.  They are part of a group that calls themselves Christian, while they deny basic tenants that Christians, in general hold, and which started in the US not long ago (as religions go).  They have a surprisingly strong presence here, and a good chunk of money.
I talked about false prophecy and methods of Biblical interpretation, and they toted some party lines, but also some creative defenses of their materials. One of my goals in the conversation was to find out if there was a chance they would listen to reason, or if they were beyond listening to contrary viewpoints.  Unfortunately for that goal, one of the characteristics of people in this area in Congo, which I have had pointed out to me by several Congolese, is the habit of agreeing to your face, then acting as they please.  So several times I got things like, "yes, that was a false prophecy, I see." followed by a roundabout defense of the the prophecy as just.
In one attempt to cut to the chase, I grabbed some of their material, and skimmed for heretical interpretations.  I have looked through there material several times, and it seems like it doesn't ever take long before I found something wacky. But I didn't find anything immediately (under the pressure of the conversation, probably), so we went back to the Bible, prophecy, and Jesus.
The short version of that conversation is that both women turned out to be strongly convinced that they are in the True church, and nothing I said was allowed to inject the slightest perceptible doubt.
But I had some doubt myself, that perhaps their church had gotten less wacky since I last looked at their materials, since I didn't immediately find something in that booklet.  So tonight I took a more leisurely gander at it, and boy, I was not disappointed.  One short article took you through Ezekiel, Daniel, 2Kings, and a couple other books to prove exactly how, why, and when the Judgment day would begin (when it would end was in another article). There were, of course, the confusions about who exactly Jesus is, but I won't bore you with the details.
The thing that struck me, again, was how reasonable and logical much of the writing is.  Take lots of correctly interpreted scripture, throw in one wacky interpretation, and everything that follows sounds right, but isn't. The above trip through Daniel, etc. started with a statement of Jesus, which is clearly in the future tense.  But for some reason they interpret his comment to refer to a period that started 600 years earlier. hmm... They kind of glossed over that part.
Like one of the last things they said, of 1Tim 2:3-4: "This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth," in the ESV. Leaving aside the meaning of "all people" here, this verse was quoted to demonstrate that accurate/precise knowledge was necessary for salvation. They are saved because they come to the knowledge of the truth (their French version said "exact knowledge," though that may be their own translation, as the two French versions I have here don't have "exact").  No, actually, salvation and knowledge here are two independent items desired by God. Whether there is any other relationship between them is not mentioned here (not that it couldn't be demonstrated elsewhere, just not here). They sound logical, but their logic is flawed.
As I reflected on this later, I realized that, for a number of these concerns, most people would probably just glaze over them.  These ladies had pretty good French, and probably sound much better in Swahili.  Most people would probably look up to them, and not really question what they say, if it sounds reasonable.  Most people here have a hard enough time reading the Bible for themselves, that they probably welcome an educated person who makes sense, and who will tell them what the Bible means. Most people would not be able to get past the language, much less the logic and content embedded in the language. Which brought me back to the urgency of our task.  People in America who fall prey to these influences are somewhat responsible for their own demise.  They could read the Bible for themselves, if they wanted.  They could go to church and learn from others, fairly easily (without crossing language or cultural barriers, anyway).  But people here generally have to read the Bible in a second or third language, and it isn't easy for them like it is for me (and you?).  When did you last read Shakespeare for fun, much less something in French or Spanish?  We need to get the church here solid defense against heresy.  We need to get her a foundation that she can build on, that will withstand tests in time.  We need to get her the Bible, in languages that her people can easily understand. And we need to do that sooner, rather than later.