The Cosmic Christ of the New Age W/Steven Bancarz, Pt. 2

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Cultish - Congressmen William D. Upshaw Pt. 3

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Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to cultish entering the kingdom of the cults. My name is Jeremiah Roberts.

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I'm one of the co -hosts here I'm here with Andrew the super sleuth of the show. What's moving and shaking with you, man?

00:12

All things are moving and shaking right now. This is that last episode was phenomenal and I'm excited to be here with Stephen bankards.

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What's up, man? Good to be with you. Yep Moving shaking and in some in some glory realms of the post

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Right shenanigans, I thought for a minute I was like I was like I saw like some some reflection like some wetness of my palms and I was like lord

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Lord, is that you? This is some of the glory oil, but I realized it was just sweat and I was just I don't know man

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I'm hoping that I open that we get this next conversation is spirit -led enough tour Maybe we'll get some light jewelry manifesting.

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Maybe I'll get like a gold girl by the end of this, you know The holy the glory grill the glory grill

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But um, but yeah, so it's funny because it feels like you know, we always kind of make jokes, you know

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Because it's like, you know, you are Pentecost, but you always feels like we always have this like lingo You sort of like built together.

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Yeah, we have fun So we I feel like I'm allowed to make those jokes because I've I attend an

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AOG Church Yeah, or at least like the Canadian branch the PAOC. Yeah, I'm not a Pentecostal myself, but I'm a charismatic and There's some things

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I have Pentecostal leanings, right? So it's like when I make these jokes, I'm thinking like I'm almost kind of allowed to you know

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The best the best part my best the last time we were here No, it was two episodes when we were talking about Kanye West and oh boy

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What a trip that's been since we talked about him, right? Well, you know, maybe there'll be a 2021 episode at some point

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We'll see we'll see where it goes. But um, you know, I think remember that it was raining It's like every single time you come here.

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It's like some crazy something crazy happens with the weather. That's so true, dude Yeah, and so last time

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I just remember is so funny because I was listening to the episode I kept on listening to the first five minutes over and over again

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Not because there's something wrong with the audio because the very beginning of course, it was raining outside We had to wait for the rain to stop because it was like you could hear it on the studio

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And of course the first thing he said like we actually brought the ladder rain It's the new wine

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Laughing like so hard just because that just that's just how we were all over here, right? We had the former rain in the early church and here we are

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In the ladder rain. Yeah Oh, yeah, so what we're talking about today is is the aspect of Christ consciousness and it's just it's one that's more important aspects because you know, we've

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I feel like in many ways just the way the culture is headed is that especially the future of culture

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I think there's gonna be a lot more aspects of the New Age in the world the occult that it's just I feel like that's

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Just where we're headed because that's that's really where their cultures headed We're in the car and you said something really interesting almost in a sense a while back

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It was kind of like there's the new atheism. There's the Christopher Hitchens the Lawrence Krauss's of the world But almost in a sense you were saying that it like the

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New Age is sort of now the new new atheism That's sort of a push to the wayside from your perspective that really

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I've never thought about it in that light. Tell me about that real quickly Yeah, I think I think new atheism has been dead for maybe like 10 years like a decade at least half a decade seven eight years when you're talking about people like Daniel Dennett or Richard Dawkins or Lawrence Krauss or Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris These people used to fill up massive halls and do talks just about how

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God doesn't exist and It's like are they even real like what do they do people even care anymore like I'm what's

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Richard Dawkins than the last five years like nobody knows But for a while like his book the

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God delusion, which has been repudiated by fellow atheist philosophers like Michael Ruse who said he's embarrassed to Read a book like this and to call it to say that it came from an atheist.

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He said this is embarrassing He said we may use this I mean those that was a

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Christian philosopher said that he actually uses this as an example of how to not do Philosophical arguments and like his introductory philosophy class for first -year students

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Wow So his main argument presented on page I think 152 or 153 of the God illusion every single main argument of his is a logical fallacy

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It commits a logical fallacy and same with Sam Harris like there was this under and Hitchens They're like these people are very good political commentators and they have good rhetoric

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But they're theologically and philosophically inept literally and so people just kind of tuned out, you know

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People are sick of seeing Hitchens get spanked around on a stage by Frank Turek and William Lane Craig right over and over and over again, and now you have this wave of Resurgence and rebirth of like pagan spirituality in the

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West where now what people are tuning are tuning into is Richard Rohr and Super Soul Sunday with Oprah Winfrey yeah, and Joe Rogan who

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I mean him talking about the pineal gland and DMT and he recently did some podcast episodes with someone who wrote a book with a forward by Graham Hancock Graham Graham Hancock is a champion of ancient astronaut theory and he wrote fingerprints of the gods

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Which is this idea that like modern modern archaeology. There's so many anomalies We have to almost he doesn't do it in his book, but he's lending to the idea we have to instantiate, you know, either supernatural causation or extraterrestrial causation, but Pushing this book that you know in the first and second centuries.

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There is this idea that you know psychedelics would be used to make contact with the divine and to increase well -being and Even even and even saying that this is even saying that this is what the first century

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Christians did So they would use verses about not using the Lord's Supper and coming under strict appointment judgment and talking about the

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Lord's Supper in the sense where they would even interpret that that the Lord's table was in fact some sort of Psychedelic that they were consuming.

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So even like passages when Paul talks about being caught up in the third heaven That's they would go there. So the point being is that you know,

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I remember listening a couple weeks ago I was like when we up to Nashville, Tennessee for a conference and I was listening to that episode just for a little bit and I was like wow

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So in many ways the reason why I mentioned Joe Rogan and not that necessarily we're promoting on him but we're the fact is that he's got the really the biggest platform really in the world and in many ways how in Athens Greece How the philosophers of the world would come to the area because they share their thoughts and philosophies on the world in many ways

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The Joe Rogan experience has become like I said before like a digital area I guess where people like Russell Brand and people like the people you're just mentioning

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They can come over there and they can share that and now people, you know People who are young and they hear that and they're they're impressionable and they're like, oh, what is that?

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What is DMT? What is micro dosing? Let me figure that out. Well, even his logo. It's him with the third eye, right?

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Right illuminate which references the pineal gland, right and he would probably be the first one to say. Yeah. I mean, it's a joke

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It's meant to be funny. But yeah, he's a big promoter of Dimethyltryptamine right and DMT and this is an ancient

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Psychedelic psychoactive compound found within the ayahuasca brew, which was this liquid mixture made by boiling plants and they would be there be certain like Fluids that would be extracted from the plants and they would contain dimethyltryptamine, which is the most powerful

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Hallucinogenic compound in the world and this is the most the largest podcast I think it's a hundred million downloads plus a month, right?

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And so, you know like you said Russell Brand you talked about Jim Carrey Ellen DeGeneres promoting, you know

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Transcendental meditation the clip we heard at the beginning was Oprah Winfrey who Forbes says is one of the most influential women in the last 50 years

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She's probably top five actually, you know I mean and then the one who is actually who they were quoting from who says that our true self is

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Christ or Buddha or the Shekinah that was Marianne Williamson who took it running things running for the

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Democratic Party, she was a candidate remember that yeah for the Democratic Party and she's doing interviews with like Bill Maher and You know mainstream news stations.

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I'm like, oh my gosh This is a new age teacher that I used to listen to and her whole work is based on A Course in Miracles Which is apparent which was apparently channeled by the

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Christ Spirit It was apparently channeled by Jesus and here she is a six -time New York Times best -selling author

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You know friends with Oprah been on her show multiple times Oprah loves her running for President of the

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United States and like so when I say that new ageism is the new atheism, you know

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It's what is occupying the the interest the peak interest. Yeah of the culture right now

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At least that's what we're seeing like with that podcast Joe Rogan can't stop talking about it.

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Yeah on Instagram Oh, man, this this book about psychedelics and you know the way they related to their gods and to their deities

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Through the use of psychedelics and it's used by first century Christians. It's like this is what I was

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Studying and teaching. Yeah as a new ager and so we're talking about the most pervasive

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Threat to the church right now. I do think it's new ages Yeah and I just want even one of the sites too is that I think that for any of you who are listening in especially you

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Know if your moms or especially if your parents and you're like, why is this matter? like you need to realize with a cold especially the culture right now, even with social media and The whole premise in fact,

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I saw a documentary recently It was called I think it's called the social dilemma And it was just talking about the nature of what the nature of social mean and how it's polarized us

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But one of the aspects of social media is that they want to keep users engaged So they almost have an algorithm to where what is it?

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What do you need to get? What is it that we can do to keep you on your phone so if you're recently searching this one thing when you put 13 pieces of content sort of in the pipeline to keep you on your

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Phone and so when you look at it even like a website like tik -tok The way that it works is just to keep the younger

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People glued onto their phone in the sense that it's just so much content gets so overwhelming, but you can easily get

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You know two to three to five million followers There's 13 to 15 to 18 year old kids who have these now these gargantuous followings way

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Way larger than even Instagram you can get a very short amount of time but the reason why I'm bringing that up when you talk about This the infiltration of the new age is because almost every single person has a phone and if you're listening to this thing

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I mean, it's up to you whether you know using your discretion whether or not you want to have Whether you want to have your kids have a phone

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But you know you think about that someone a kid listens to Joe Rogan And he's very interested in the aspect of psychedelics and maybe to going on these

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DMT trips and starts talking with entities He started a tik -tok account and say he has three to eat all of a sudden

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He amasses three to five million followers Then you have all of these kids who are impressionable who now start looking into that so in many ways

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There's nothing new under the Sun and this has been so much. This has been so predominant

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This has always been throughout history But now you have it where that information can be shared in such a fast amount of time

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Like wildfire and again, we're not demonizing technology technology is neutral. It's only an extension of who the person is

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So, I mean we have a cultist Instagram account We even have a cultist tik -tok believe it or not and we have our social media and we're using it to get our show out

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But this is just a show that just given the current Demographics of our culture, but also the social media aspect of it.

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It's just it's just a perfect Recipe for really a wildfire of New Age and occultism

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It's really a tidal wave that I see already infiltrating the church, but it's almost like pulling back and it's coming back again

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Yeah, the more secular things get and not only do I think that New ageism has replaced new atheism.

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I think new ageism or sorry new atheism birthed a resurgence of new ageism

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Because people realized the meaninglessness the futility the emptiness of Naturalistic atheistic

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Nihilism. Mm -hmm, and they're like, I don't want that for my life. There's no fulfillment in that way I'm a relatively evolved primate that you know through blind processes of natural selection random mutation

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Happened to evolve from primordial soup that got hit with a lightning bolt for no right purpose

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It's like that doesn't offer you anything all of a sudden, you know Well, you're God by nature and you're a spiritual being writing a human experience and you incarnated here on Purpose to grow and evolve and learn the laws of love and wisdom and your individual

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It's really just a reflection of God and of the one infinite consciousness of the source right of intelligent infinity and here you are you have meaning and purpose now and you can enrich yourself through these pagan practices and Experience other worlds and altered states

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Wow that that that's what I was thinking too is the sense that it's replaced it but in the end the the same goal is blind pitiless indifference an

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Impersonal being right versus atheism, which there is no deity No personal being all to this new ageism where there's no personal being there's an impersonal soup full of blind pitiless

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Indifference if you get down to the meat and potatoes of things, right and this acts as the ontological

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Grounding of everything in creation and that's how we talked about the last episode I would really encourage people to listen that one if they haven't

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Where we talked about we're talking about Christ consciousness this doctrine the staple doctrine in New Age spirituality and we laid a foundation of how what they believe

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God is they believe God is an impersonal force that Acts as the anchor point of everything in reality this field of consciousness

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And everything emerges out of this field of consciousness the field of consciousness permeates everything Gives rise to everything and this field of consciousness is our true self, right?

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right, and so our egoic self our individual sense of personhood is You know just kind of an illusion.

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It's transient But what's primary is the supremacy of consciousness the universal self that we ultimately all are

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We're ultimately all this field or emanations of this field and the field is our true identity

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Brahman is our true identity right life force or Universal consciousness is who we ultimately are and we addressed that very thoroughly in the first episode

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I went through two quotes by Deepak Chopra Just qualifying in Jesus as someone who walked through this path of being born as like an individual mind

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You know realizing Everything is ultimately God by nature God is all all is

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God he graduated from ego consciousness had a shift in consciousness to God consciousness now

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Where I've apprehended that I'm divine and all things are divine and that's when he became Christ That's when he was

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Christ it and we can become Christ too If we exhibit God consciousness in the same way that Jesus did so that's what

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Marianne Williamson is getting at with that quote By Oprah Winfrey, I want to read another quote here

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Just to qualify what we're talking about before we kind of Address it Oprah has said and she identifies as a

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Christian. She still calls herself a Christian She says I thought Jesus came died on the cross that Jesus being here was about his death

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When it really was about him coming to show us how to do it how to be To show us the

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Christ consciousness he had and that that consciousness Abides with us all

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Eckhart Tolle In his book a new earth. He has a new earth and a power of now, which have both been plugged by Oprah heavily

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He has said Jesus speaks in a new earth This is page 46 and we'll have the primary quotes available through some means

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There's some blog or something for people Jesus speaks of the innermost I am the essence of identity of every man and woman every life form

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He speaks of the life that you and I are Some Christian mystics have called it the

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Christ within Buddhists call it your Buddha nature for Hindus. It's the Atman the indwelling

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God Here's a quote by Levi Dowling back in 1907 in a book called the

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Aquarian gospel of Jesus the Christ Edward was not always King and Lincoln was not always president and Jesus not always

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Christ Jesus won his Christ ship by a strenuous life like you talked about like severity to the body

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Deprivation of desire and senses where you're no longer being pulled into the ego to ego desire you consciousness

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And you can access and rest in this deeper dimension of your being right whereby you achieve an exhibit

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God consciousness Eckhart Tolle in the power of now Christ is your

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God essence of yourself as it is sometimes called and the easy capitalizes s there to the

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God essence of the self that is Christ Christ refers to your indwelling divinity regardless of whether you are conscious of it or not

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Thus the man Jesus became Christ a vehicle for pure consciousness

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Marianne Williamson who we heard at the beginning quoted by Oprah or with Oprah She says

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Jesus was a human being who while on earth completely self -actualized and fulfilled in all ways the potential glory

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That lies within us all he became one with the essence and Christ spirit that is in all of us

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To say there is quote only one begotten son doesn't mean that someone else was it and we're not it means we're all it

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There's only one of us here Jesus actualized the Christ mind and then was given the power to help the rest of us reach that place within ourselves

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She says in another book that was an article she did with belief net an interview She did with belief net and her book reflections on the principles of A Course in Miracles Page 32.

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She says accepting the Christ is merely a shift in self perception The book

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A Course in Miracles and the training manual on page 87 is he Jesus the

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Christ? Oh, yes along with you And here's one more from Neil Donald Walsh in his book series called conversations with God Which has sold tens of millions of copies one of the best -selling book series of all time

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Neil Donald Walsh Many have been Christed not just Jesus of Nazareth You can be

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Christed too. He also says elsewhere that you are quite literally the Word of God made flesh, right?

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So we're all God by nature. We're all intrinsically divine. Jesus was a man who realized he's intrinsically divine

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He started to live from God consciousness. And so Christ is a reference to that state of consciousness.

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He had yeah He exhibited Christ consciousness as a man and were to exhibit Christ consciousness in the same way that he did

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Yeah and the same way the reason why we're bringing this up is really this is just a very small sampling of just kind of an overview from certain notable

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You might call them gurus or just people that are people of influence who have who are propagating a certain worldview about Christ and so again when we come down to We're gonna give an answer about how to respond to that and how to refute that but Again, we've come to defining terms and we can all you guys can give your thoughts in this but there and we talked about this with Marsha Montenegro on our episodes on the

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Enneagram is that there's a Distinction we saw this with Richard Rohr. He met there.

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There's a distinction made between Jesus and Christ Right and so for us as from a

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Christian perspective or a Christian worldview or biblical perspective We see Jesus Christ as the

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God -man the individual person who is the whose God become flesh Fully God and fully man.

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And so we see that as and also as someone who's distinct from Creation who became you know,

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God became a man so what what the New Age would do though is that they see

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Jesus as the person what they see with what they say

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Christ they would see Christ as The universal consciousness and so now essentially when we're talked about the ego and and the universal consciousness and in other words,

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Jesus would be the ego and That was his personhood. But eventually he devolved his personhood and became

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Christ essentially realized his ultimate Christ consciousness and now realize his universe

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He is the universal consciousness, right? Right. And so since the universal consciousness, it's his fun is innermost identity he exhibited

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God consciousness, right? So God consciousness refers to the state of realizing you are that universal consciousness, right?

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And so Christ consciousness is a synonym for for God consciousness It's a reference to the God consciousness

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Jesus had right but you said it perfectly Well that you know It is a matter of defining terms and New Age teachers if you read the book

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A Course in Miracles Which has sold millions of copies. You're gonna see the word Holy Spirit used hundreds of times

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Jesus hundreds of times the father hundreds of times It's redefining terms.

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How do we define? What characteristics are we ascribing to the Holy Spirit and to Jesus and so forth?

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I'd like to get your comments on that before we go into Yeah, refuting Christ consciousness. Yeah. I mean the

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Bible gives us Very warnings about people who use these words but mean different things

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I'm Corinthians 11 verse 4 that there be many people who come to you They preach a different Jesus a different gospel and you'll accept a different spirit

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I know well, you need to be warned about those things and I find it funny too that if So so Jesus was without sin always and if I'm trying to think on terms of ego sin or The separation between what truth and knowledge is in terms of New Age terms

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Well, Jesus will always was without sin. There is no point to which he ever achieved something that he wasn't that's right, right?

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So he would have been Christ Solely in those terms if I'm trying to think in a New Age principle always there was nothing he was never without I think it's

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Hebrews 13 8 Jesus the same yesterday today and forever. Yes. Yes. I mean even in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 8

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It's God talking to the Son while he's bringing the firstborn into the world.

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He says this this is God talking to the Son but of the Son he says This is the father talking to Jesus your throne

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Oh God is forever and ever the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness therefore

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God your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions prior to his incarnation while it's

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Happening. The father is already calling Jesus the Christ. Yeah before he would have been

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Christ. Yes Yeah, and there's he was Christed during his earthly ministry and that's really the first Place that we could refute

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Christ consciousness is that they turn Christ or Christos in the Greek from a person 100 % of the time it refers to a person to a state of mind

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Right a state a state of consciousness, right? So this word is used 538 times in the

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New Testament and it refers to Jesus Every single time now, there's you know times in the Gospels where the world they'll speculate it could see the

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Christ, right? But there's still a definite article in front of Christ, which it's not is he a

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Christ? Is he one of many say see V is he the Messiah right?

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Is he the Savior and Jesus said that he was So when I'm thinking of verses like this

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This is a good one. First Corinthians 15 verses 3 to 6 which exemplifies this perfectly where Christ is

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Specifically identified as a he over and over and over again in Scripture for I delivered to you as a first importance

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But I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures if Christ references our innermost

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Divine nature, how can an innermost divine nature die? We just read that by Eckhart Tolle.

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Hmm Christ refers to your innermost I am Identity, but Christ died

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Mm -hmm, if it if if your I am innermost identity can die, it's not

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God or divine Right when we talk about Christ died, we're talking about a person whose humanity died, right?

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It can't be a state of consciousness or an inward nature Yes, right we have to be talking about someone who has flesh and Christ is clearly referencing a person not a state of mind or an inward nature or something, right?

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You can't ascribe death to deity. Mm -hmm So that he was buried that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures that he appeared to Cephas Cephas then says well that he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time

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Most of whom are alive though. Some have fallen asleep. Hmm. So can a state of mind or an inward nature of deity

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Die be buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea Raised from the dead leaving an empty tomb in its place and then appeared of 500 people

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How can the state of mind appear something immaterial? Yeah You're talking nonsense at this point, it's clearly referencing a person for while we were still sinners at the right time

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Christ died for the ungodly But God showed his life for us and we were sinners Christ died for us

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Romans 5 8 to 9 Jesus asked Peter who do you say that I am

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Peter answered him you are the Christ the Christ Mark 8 29 the anointed one not an anointed one the

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Messiah love it the Savior the Redeemer not a redeemer So when you look at the way

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Christos is used in the New Testament, the first thing I would say is You know 538 times

26:08

Christos is used in the New Testament every single time. It's referencing Jesus of Nazareth a hundred percent of the time if Christos referred to our

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I am It's a universal consciousness and our some either an eight a divine nature we have implicit within us or It refers to a state of enlightened consciousness

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Why don't we have a single time out of five hundred and thirty eight that it means anything anything except Jesus of Nazareth?

26:39

When we expect to at least see one verse out of five hundred and thirty eight That can at least be manipulated and twisted to mean

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Christ consciousness, right right nothing Right. So really I mean we so when you come down to defining terms

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Is that ultimately Christ comes comes from the word Christos, which means anointed one which is based and just basic Historic Christianity and all the different manuscripts, but and again, we talked about defining terms

27:07

When how they'll take a term whether it's a cult or in this case the New Age cult That will take a term but give it their own meaning.

27:16

Mm -hmm. Is there any Historical Basis whatsoever in history to take the term

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Christ in equating it with some level of Awakening to this sort of cosmic

27:33

Consciousness, right. Is there is there any is there anything relate? Is there anything whatsoever in regards to history of that being used?

27:40

No, I mean you can trace this lineage right back to I mean we have the Apostle John trained and ordained polycarp for ministry

27:47

For example polycarp was a disciple of John John was an eyewitness of Jesus We have polycarps writings or at least some of them.

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He holds to all the essentials of the Christian faith He's talking about Christ as a person over and over again You want to look at Irenaeus or?

28:02

Tertullian or Justin Martyr any of like the church fathers whom we have quite a bit of writings from if you actually read them

28:08

It's interesting to actually see like people will say oh, well, you know the disciples, you know the church

28:15

Constantine perverted it over time Right, he used to teach we were all

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God. He used to teach Gnosticism. He used to teach in reincarnation But then at the Council of Nicaea You know now all of a sudden you have the omission of all of these truths about the deity of man and so forth

28:33

I believe James White just did a really awesome sermon Yep on this very topic which people should listen to for like manuscript evidence and so forth but just from the anti -nicene fathers the fathers who came before the

28:43

The Council of Nicaea we can recreate 99 .7 % of the New Testament just from their quotations

28:49

Yeah, right They held everything you and I do today and we can prove it, right? So we can trace our beliefs right back to the time of the eyewitnesses and those who

28:56

I were eyewitnesses to the eyewitnesses We have a chain of custody Yeah going from what we believe now we can trace it throughout history back to the eyewitnesses themselves this other idea

29:06

You can't find it anywhere Coming from the eyewitnesses or those who knew them

29:11

Yeah, and just just I'll let you jump in real quick Andrew But this is good to point out too We talked in the first episode about kind of like the pseudoscience

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Where a lot of times what new age people will do is they'll have I or just thought will have very much a pseudo history

29:25

Where everything has been run by the Illuminati the free the Freemasons the Knights Templar the controllers

29:32

Whatever you want to call these people who are secretly running things behind, but it's always this very Vague and arbitrary these claims

29:39

So again, one of them is like the knowledge the aspect of like, you know, Constantine and Nicaea who they're the ones who secretly

29:45

You know conspired in order to use the Bible and these stories as the ways to control the masses, right?

29:51

And well, it's interesting from two perspectives because again when you look at the first century What happened is because Christians were being killed so much

29:58

It was really the end James White talked about this in a sermon on the reliability of the New Testament They were just saying we're being killed left and right like let's just go go go go go

30:08

Like just make transcripts transcripts trying to get those manuscripts out there So by the time these conspiratorial things happened that there were manuscripts all over The known world at that time.

30:20

They're there and they're in Egypt. They're all across the Ethiopia Ethiopia, they're all across the world

30:25

So the idea of trying to go and find all these places and not only the manuscripts

30:31

But you also have the fact that within the first or second century nearly the entire New Testament Could be quoted just from the church fathers because they preached from it so much you have that aspect

30:41

So the idea of this grand conspiratorial aspect, you know falls apart So again, you just need to be aware that there's this there's this always this conspiratorial pseudo history that gets carried along But when it comes down to actually digging true claims

30:57

Historically, there's really there's typically no basic except because they always appeal to the secret So they'll do the same thing to but the vague and secret that you don't know.

31:06

That's right Feel in the blanks be a private revelation. That's right. There's there's one thing I want to hit on to in terms of historical reliability of who we can have on who

31:13

Jesus is shouldn't we if we want to understand who Jesus is go to the Christians in The Christian texts and the text that he actually authorized

31:19

Right, like if we have Jesus appealing to text he repealed he repealed he appeals to the Old Testament all of the time Right, we have the promise of the

31:26

Messiah historically prior to even the New Testament We can go right back into the fall when the seat of the from the seat of the woman

31:33

He will crush the serpent's head and the serpent will bruise his heel the first promise of the gospel from there We can also go to Genesis 49 10 the scepter will not depart from Judah nor the staff come from between his feet until Shiloh comes and The allegiance of the nations is his and then from there

31:47

Isaiah 9 6 we can see for unto us a child is born unto Us a son is given and the government will be upon his shoulders

31:53

Single person right and he will be called the wonderful counselor mighty God everlasting father prince of peace

31:59

So we have this mystery that's being proclaimed all throughout the Old Testament as we can see even in Amos 3 7 it states

32:04

For the Lord God does nothing in secret without revealing his secret to the servants his prophets, right?

32:10

So what is that mystery? What is the secret? well We actually are told it in Colossians one of the best books against the

32:15

Gnostic heresies where it says that Paul speaking he says of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make

32:24

The Word of God fully known one the mystery hidden for ages and generations But now revealed to his saints to them

32:31

God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles the pagan nations are the riches of the glory of this mystery

32:37

Which is Christ in you the hope of glory single -figure person the Christ Historically claimed prior from the

32:44

Old Testament the mystery now revealed through the person of Jesus who is the Messiah Right and talking about like the perversion of text as well

32:53

How the Roman authorities wouldn't have known which text would have become canon? There was letters going around all over the place from all kinds of Christians and non -christians

33:02

They didn't know which books are to be collected and put under one cover hundreds of years later and called the

33:09

New Testament So this idea that oh, yeah the Roman authorities, you know, they knew which letters were in Scripture, right?

33:16

You know, they wouldn't took them all and you know that they started perverting them It's like they didn't know which letters were gonna be part of canon

33:22

Then which ones weren't there were other like the Didache for example was never part of Scripture But right they didn't know that the

33:27

Didache was not gonna be in Scripture or be insecure They didn't even know Scripture was gonna be a thing All head all you had was 27 different independent letters getting passed around and circulated around by this blasphemous cult

33:38

Right this I did it's it's very ad hoc and like Jerry said you can kind of fill in the blanks with whatever

33:43

You believe about what Jesus what they need to do though Is that what they have to say is

33:49

Dost God say that right? Did God really say is Scripture really inspired is what the

33:55

Bible say about Jesus and who he is really actually true What they first have to do is what Satan said did

34:00

God really say that and guess what you will be just like God, right? It's the same twist. Yeah, so one thing

34:05

I'll real quickly. Is that Roger? we're gonna jump into a lot of the scripture Pat the Bible verses that they will appeal to and so again the reason why we're calling it the

34:14

New Age cult I think it's a good definition because when you look at the definition of cold that I think is the best and the fairest one it's just because you know

34:23

Walter Martin used it is really any group or Organization center out a certain person or groups misinterpretation of the

34:29

Bible where they always will use Christian terminology But they ultimately deny that Jesus Christ is

34:35

God in human flesh The New Age does that and like very specifically and again, they're known for it's or on some level appealing to the

34:43

Bible, which is always interesting because there's You think about it? Okay, so the

34:49

Bible is lost and it's been destroyed has been corrupted as part of this conspiratorial You know by the

34:54

Illuminati the Knights Templar the Freemasons like you just throw in every single secret society in Constantine They're the ones who put this whole

35:03

Conspiratorial thing together to control everyone, but I'm gonna go ahead and quote from it to prove my point, right?

35:08

Yeah, right But there's just enough truth left in it and just the right places to prove that Jesus taught what

35:14

I want him to taught And I think that the most that like I couldn't believe I read this I could I got saved right and and I was reading through the

35:21

Gospels and so we looked at their abuse of or misuse of the word Christos which always refers to a

35:27

Singular person right and they're using it to refer to like a state of mind or an inward nature some kind of state of inward deity

35:35

Which can't die in a tomb and can't be buried in a tomb and so forth

35:41

How about this Jesus warned specifically against those who say I am

35:46

Christ in Matthew 24 This is kind of there's two like jugular vein arguments that I like to appeal to because they're just so strong Jesus tells us specifically

35:56

The people come to him Jesus tell us when will these things be Matthew 24 saying verse 3 and what will the sign of your what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age and Jesus answered them see that no one leaves you astray

36:09

For many will come in my name saying I am the Christ and they will lead many astray

36:16

He goes on to say in verse 23 and 24 Then if anyone says to you look here is the

36:21

Christ or there he is Do not believe it for false Christ and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders as to lead astray if possible

36:30

Even the elect so even if we want to say Matthew 24 was fulfilled and as a reference to the destruction of the temple

36:36

Still relevant. It's still relevant incredible. It's not like there became a bunch of Christ after the destruction of the temple, right?

36:42

His point is there's don't they're gonna say this to lead you astray from there being only one Christ So it's still a marker of deception whether it's referencing the destruction of the

36:52

Jewish temple There wasn't like this influx of infinite amounts of Christ now that the Jewish temple got destroyed that makes no sense, right?

36:59

So I am Christ is what deceivers will say in the end of the age according to Jesus to lead many astray

37:05

Mm -hmm, and I am Christ is what Marianne Williamson is saying Deepak Chopra saying

37:10

Akra Tola is saying I was on call with one of the most influential people One of the most influential

37:16

New Agers in the last 10 years on social media Yeah, I was a call with him. He looked at me in the face.

37:21

It's like Stephen. I am Christ I'm Christ and I was laughing.

37:27

I was like this sounds like bold, but I mean I was like I understand why you're saying it. I kind of believe that too, but I am

37:34

Christ Jesus warns against those who say I am Christ, right? So Jesus own theology his own eschatology

37:44

Precludes the doctrine of Christ consciousness So I would take people in the new age to like Matthew 24 like Jesus says

37:50

I am Christ It's gonna be a tailmark sign. Mm -hmm. Those who try to deceive people and that's what all these new age They're telling you you're

37:56

Christ. Well, isn't it interesting too? I mean if you think about challenging their presuppositions is that if we have to wake up to the idea that we are

38:05

Christ and just this is just my thought in it and you can just give me your thoughts in this is that if we just have to What get rid of our ego deny our ego deny ourselves and waken up to the fact that we all are

38:16

Christ to our Christ Consciousness. Well, what do you do with a passage where on one hand?

38:22

You're trying to appeal to that but then you see a verse where it says there's going to there's false Christ So now there's true

38:27

Christ and false Christ. So one of the big aspects of the New Age is they always talk about how dualism This is a terrible thing

38:33

But now all of a sudden if you adopt the fact that we all are Christ We just have to awaken to it. What the heck is a false

38:39

Christ? How do you differentiate between the two? Like all of a sudden if you admit that that's any level of legitimacy now, you have sort of this weird

38:48

Dichotomy slash dualism right where all of a sudden it just seems that falls apart. Does that make sense?

38:53

what I think is what they could appeal to or try to claim is essentially that there was some form of great apostasy just like the

39:00

LDS right and The Bible's only correct insofar as it's translated correctly or that the Bible is missing many plain and precious exactly

39:06

But what that does though is makes you number one again question God's Word elevate your standard over God's standard

39:12

And now you can't actually appeal to the Bible to actually protect yourself from the deception of the devil, right?

39:17

Yeah, and but there's so many places where you have proof texts that Clearly negate New Age doctrine where they're not trying to go out of their way to negate

39:27

New Age doctrine It's just they're saying these things in passing It's like hidden as some like peripheral statement made and a part of some bigger conversation

39:35

It's like nobody's gonna put that in there on the off chance that 1900 years later

39:40

Helena Blavatsky is gonna bring Eastern mysticism over to the Western world and mother the New Age movement, which didn't exist then

39:47

It's the same lie right happen all throughout time. Yeah Yeah One last thing I'll say and we'll jump into the the actual script the verses that when you that the

39:55

New Agers will take out a context and twist But just one last thing regards to a passage that came to mind as far as refuting the idea of Christ consciousness that cried that Jesus was this individual who eventually

40:08

Became the Christ who achieved his this ultimate Christ consciousness would be

40:13

Philippians 2 verse 5 through 11 Which which on when you thought talk about historically was known like many scholars say it was actually

40:21

Paul was paraphrasing a hymn that was sung in the first century So this is really in many ways documentation of first century

40:29

Christians and what they're in Doctrine and adherence of Christ in worship was and I'll talk about that real quickly, too

40:36

Is that it just says I have this attitude in yourselves Which was also in Christ Jesus who as he already existed in the form of God did not?

40:47

Considered equality with God something to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a bondservant being born in the likeness of men and being found in the

40:55

Appearance as a man he humbled himself By becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross

41:02

For this reason also God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow of Those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth and that every tongue will confess that Jesus is

41:18

Lord to the glory Of the Father so I just want to make one thing at that Garcia Sproul describes the incarnation the way

41:24

I love it He talks about subtraction by addition. Love it. So what this does it takes?

41:30

The claim of Jesus adhering to this Christ consciousness and it turns it on its head

41:37

It says that Christ was inherently divine first and then he took on flesh and that was actually a subtraction that was humbling himself to be like one of us and while still while giving up in many ways the

41:53

Sort of the divine attributes of God, but still obtaining that nature That's right He is able to now identify with us and be a high priest and one other aspect to in regards one my favorite

42:03

Aspects of Christ divinity is in the high priestly prayer in John 17 Which he talks about the glory he talks about the glory that he shared with the

42:12

Father before the foundation of the world What does God say in Isaiah 42 way that he will not share his glory with another and here is

42:19

Jesus Claiming that he shared the glory With the

42:25

Father or if we want to you kind of want to speak in the New Age what if you want to somewhat speak in their native tongue is that he shared in the glory of the divine as A person so there wasn't this time even before the foundation of the world never stopped

42:40

Yeah, so there's this never this time where all of a sudden he wasn't divine but then tapped into this universal divine consciousness

42:46

There was never a moment at which he wasn't Christ. Yep it calls him Christ prior to incarnation and says humanity came after his

42:55

Christ hood and the New Age wants to reverse the order and say humanity came not before Deity everything's deity, but it came humanity came before Christ hood.

43:06

Yeah I know he was Jesus was called Christ in Philippians He like he said before He ever had any it took on any flesh before he could even have underwent any process of enlightenment or growth and wisdom and so forth

43:18

I want to hit before we go into a couple proof text. There's three arguments when I cover real quick. Sure about Just to hammer through them just to encompass

43:29

Refutations, that was a good one. That's really good. It was beautiful brother. So that reverses the order that's Philippians 2

43:34

That's another argument. You see how Jesus was called Christ before his humanity He didn't undergo through a process of enlightenment to become

43:40

Christ like like we just read Levi Dowling in 1907 the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the

43:46

Christ. He said Jesus wasn't always Christ He became it. No, it says he from eternity past Christ Jesus counted equality with God not a thing to be grasped.

43:56

But here's my favorite argument This is my kind of my go -to for Christ consciousness Matthew 11 11

44:02

Jesus tells us that John the Baptist is the greatest man who has ever been born of woman and John the

44:09

Baptist denies twice that he's the Christ So if John the Baptist is the greatest man ever

44:15

According to Jesus Christ the greatest man ever is John the Baptist and he says I am NOT the

44:20

Christ How is Deepak Chopra Christ, right? How is Marianne? Well, how are you?

44:25

How's Marianne Williamson Christ? How am I Christ if the greatest man ever and people would even say by their own admission like, you know

44:32

You know for thousands of years prior to the birth and death of Jesus people were exhibiting God consciousness all over the world, especially the

44:39

Eastern world Jesus says greater than all those who are born of whom is John the Baptist, right? and John the

44:44

Baptist says this about himself and This is the testimony of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him.

44:50

Who are you? He confessed and did not deny but confessed. I am NOT the

44:56

Christ and John 328 he says you yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am

45:01

NOT the Christ, but I have been sent before him So if the greatest man ever was not

45:07

Christ, we're not Christ, that's right No, not only was he not the Christ, but he wasn't a Christ as well.

45:13

He wasn't a Christ He's like I came to I don't even I'm not even worthy untied this guy's sandals the one who is the

45:20

Christ I can't even untie his sandals, right? Why what am I doing baptizing you Jesus? What was necessary to fulfill all righteousness?

45:26

Right and another point too, which I like is in Genesis 3 this echo

45:31

You mentioned this earlier this echo. This is a repackaging of the same lie. The first lie is Satan never told to man

45:38

Satan comes to Eve in the garden God says creates a garden of Eden you know says eat from all the Fruit of every tree except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil what it actually means is secondary the point is

45:49

He's telling them. There's one thing you can't do partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and Satan comes to Eve and says did it

45:59

God actually say you shall not eat any Of any tree in the garden and the woman said the serpent we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden

46:06

But God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden Neither shall you touch it lest you die

46:12

But the serpent said to the woman you will not surely die For God knows when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like not like God knowing good and evil so the first sin ever pursued by Mankind was the pursuit of self divinity and Satan's first lie was that through obtaining hidden wisdom hidden knowledge

46:34

They could become as God so today's New Age teachers tell you that through obtaining wisdom of self and knowledge of self

46:41

You can become Christ instead of knowledge of good and evil its Knowledge of our true nature or the nature of reality knowledge of the self

46:51

Same lie told the only difference is that God is now replaced with God consciousness, right and knowledge of good and evil is replaced with knowledge of the self

46:59

Yep, but it's it's satanic philosophy. It is it's Luciferian philosophy going back to Genesis 3 and that needs to have raised some alarm bells and People listening or even

47:10

Christians who were entertaining the teachings of Richard Rohr. Mm -hmm or who are talking about the Christ consciousness that exists out there and you know, the ether somewhere and acts as like the the the ontological wellspring of everything in creation

47:23

Rob Bell talks about this stuff to that Christ is not Jesus Christ is out there Christ is the divine which exists in and as all things and Jesus became

47:32

Christ and hey You can become Christ to Christ wasn't Jesus last name That's what they'll say right like Christ refers to the divine within all things

47:44

Through knowledge of the self you can access right come Christ Just like Satan told which at the same at the same time

47:51

It's not surprising to see someone like Rob Bell in many ways was a long a while back nearly a decade ago in many ways was

47:58

Questioning the authority of scripture in many particular areas and you know He had his book love wins, which was in many ways advocating for you introducing the idea of Universalism and making it look very hip and cool and now

48:13

I mean now he's got a spot on the Oprah spiritual network or Whatever her show is there and he's made many appearances there doesn't he have his own show on it?

48:21

Not sure. I'm sure but I know he's made appearances on Oprah It's kind of yeah been sort of one of those Spiritual people that Oprah looks up to and again given this is what

48:29

Oprah's saying And a lot of similar people and she's had people on like Richard Rohr as well, too That's very it's not surprising that he would advocate something as well as this too

48:38

So again, you just need to be aware of to recap You need to just be aware of the language barrier be aware when they're talking about the ego or something about the cosmic

48:48

Christ or they talk about Christ being in all when they're coming from a new age perspective That's the view that they're holding that Christ is this impersonal

48:58

Pantheistic divine consciousness that you have to tap into so as far as this the verses that that come along and I remember

49:06

Listing one of our first premier episodes of cultish we were talking about the Jesus of the New Age and in it

49:12

I believe we had a quote an audio quote from Deepak Chopra where he was talking about that exact verse

49:19

And I think you talked about in the third Jesus where he talked about Luke 17 20 through 21

49:25

And this is where Jesus says neither shall they neither shall they say lo here or lo there for you for behold

49:32

The kingdom of God is within you Of course, you know you talk about context the priest said if you take the presupposition that we all are one and That ultimately the divine is within you just have to waken up to it and abandon the ego

49:48

That's right. This first definitely has that allure of the appeal, right? But again, we want to talk about good contextual analysis in context

49:56

What is the entirety of that passage mean not one verse that's isolated because this is what a cultist will do They'll take something in isolation and they'll just tweak it just a little bit

50:05

But if you think about it, there's just when you think about chemistry There's a lot of different formulas that if you change the compounds just a little bit it can turn into something

50:15

That's very useful into something that's deadly So you want to think of that in regards to the aspect of the context of scripture?

50:23

So, how would we answer like this? I mean you probably would see this, you know your page gets pretty lively and active of different people especially given the history of where your page originated at and Probably if we went on the street, especially now in the upcoming year

50:35

We'll probably hear this if you went to some New Age festival or if you're just on the street evangelizing How do we answer this right the kingdom of God is within you?

50:44

The first thing I would say is that Jesus never said this The first thing I would say is that the

50:50

Greek word Antos Can refer to within also among or in the midst of the majority of Bible translations and the best

50:59

Bible translations Agreed upon by virtually all scholars You're gonna have NASB and ESV in your top five at the very least right and all of them

51:08

Say the kingdom of God is in the midst of you or the kingdom of God is among you Christian standard version new revised standard version

51:16

NIV new living translation, you know, you name it. So they have to start off that I would say you have to appeal to minority

51:24

Minority translations that scholars like most scholars are agreement. That's not how that verse is to be translated

51:30

So already they're pigeonholing a very select minority Bible translations and a minority

51:36

Scholarship position on that but I would say we have to look at his target audience it says that he was being demanded of the

51:42

Pharisees what would be the science of the end of the age and Jesus says specifically to the

51:49

Pharisees the his target audience. Here's what he has said about them elsewhere he calls them blind and Fools, which you could say about someone who is intrinsically divine

52:00

They're just operating an ego consciousness or ignorant of their divine nature, but he says they're full of dead man's bones

52:09

Matthew 23 verse 27. So how can someone who is Divine by nature be spiritually dead at the same time

52:17

It says it says that they're a serpent or sorry a generation of serpents and vipers He calls them hypocrites.

52:23

He says that they're damned to hell that their spiritual father is the devil. Yep, and that they're children of hell

52:29

He says they're children of hell in Matthew 23 Verse 15. So how can you be full of death and full of God's kingdom at the same time?

52:40

How can you be full and indwelt with the kingdom of God at the same time? Be a child of hell whose spiritual father is the devil and be on your way to hell

52:51

I think the fact that Jesus is talking not to his disciples, but to the Pharisees is Proof that he never intended this to be a claim about the ontology

53:01

Right of man or the spiritual condition that dwells intrinsically within man because he had the most the worst

53:07

Description about man state and any person's the inscription were Jesus to the Pharisees They're void of all spiritual life.

53:14

They're void of the kingdom of God and he told them over and over and over So he wasn't trying to tell him he wasn't trying to say the kingdom of God Dwells intrinsically and dormantly within the same people who are spiritually dead children of hell.

53:27

I Wanted also point this is that's excellent I think one of the things you mentioned earlier about how they'll take the word the word within it's again.

53:36

We're talking about That's an English. That's a that's an English translation from which originally would have more than likely been in Greek Quentin Greek and so one of the aspects again

53:47

We talked about what New Age will do with the pseudoscience pseudo history pseudo health, but also a pseudo language

53:55

There's a pseudo aspect of how they deal with language. So they claim on the etymology.

54:00

Yes Yeah So what they'll do is that they'll claim to kind of have insight into all these ancient languages or all these ancient insights

54:07

But a lot of times what they'll do is that they will While they claim to have me tapped in all these ancient sources they kind of their focal points is the

54:17

English is the English translation of those ancient languages and in fact in American gospel the second one

54:24

That what's the second one called again? Christ crucified so what I really like what

54:29

Brandon Kimmer did is he kind of showed some good examples of that? Do you remember the part where he talks about and I might even

54:35

Richard Rohr or where he talked about atonement? But they changed he's like no that actually means at one mint

54:41

Right, and it's a we changed that and he made some English pronunciation and made it something completely different Yeah, well it has it has a meaning similar to that in the

54:51

New Testament So it refers to reconciliation as more of that connotation Uh -huh, but in the

54:57

Old Testament it refers to like a covering right or a placation, right? Right, and so he wants to base his entire definition of atonement not on the

55:06

Bible as a whole in context But he wants to pigeonhole like one variation of just a

55:11

Greek word, right? Right, so he's gonna he's gonna isolate that out of the context of all these messianic promises

55:19

Aside from the Levitical sacrifice system, which was entirely meant to point toward Jesus Mm -hmm, and to to expiate our sin right and placate the wrath of God and just make everything about Reconciliation apart from cleansing of sin and propitiating

55:36

God's wrath which was the purpose of the Sacrifices of the Old Testament and he wants to isolate it from like messianic prophecies

55:43

Like I've a Isaiah 53 right right the iniquity of us all was laid upon him and pleased the will of Yahweh to crush him

55:49

Right, so he wants to deny the idea that Jesus is our penal substitute right and just say right some vague thing about Atonement being you know a reconciliation between the divine and man

56:01

But let's forget the fact that this word historically to those people Would have been in the context of the

56:09

Levitical sacrificial systems, right and the fact that in Leviticus 17 Or maybe 19 talks about how the life in the blood is a life of the animals in the blood

56:20

Yeah, the life makes atonement percent life offers as a covering for sin because the soul who sins

56:27

Shall die and the wages of sin is death, right? But that's an example where they it is this pseudo etymology and they sound like, you know, they're wise it talks about Endless debates about words people who are just you know

56:39

Reprobate in mind who will twist words to their own destruction instead of just looking at allowing the

56:45

Bible to define the Bible That's right Allowing the context to tell us how the word is meant to be interpreted rather than just pigeonholing it, right?

56:53

And I think another good verse So sorry, we're looking at the kingdom of God is within you We talked about how you know

56:58

The Greek word Ento has a various meanings and the best and the majority of Bible translations don't say it was within you

57:05

We've looked at how the ones who he said this to he specifically said you're devoid of the kingdom of God You're children of hell.

57:12

You're spiritually dead. I would also say the entire Bible is premised on The idea that the kingdom of God does not dwell intrinsically within us including the

57:23

Old Testament That which Jesus affirmed so we're looking at Colossians 1 verse 21

57:30

The natural man the man who's not regenerate man who's not born again who has not believed on the gospel with a repentant faith and Trusted in Jesus as the sacrifice and risen

57:41

Lord for human sin. You're alienated from God Ephesians 418 alienated from the life of God Jude 19 devoid of the

57:50

Spirit of God. You're devoid of the indwelling spirit Isaiah 59 to you're separated separated from God Ephesians 5 8 says that they themselves are darkness

58:01

Matthew 4 16 says they're dwelling in darkness John 8 12 they walk in darkness

58:07

John 12 46. They remain in darkness Luke 179 They live in darkness in the shadow of death

58:14

Psalm 9 20 says they're mere men Isaiah 31 verse 3 says they're not

58:21

God so they want to they want to take that verse and Alienate it from dozens of verses that specifically tell us that ontologically man is separated from God Relationally man is separated from God You can't be alienated from God and alienated from the life of God and devoid of the

58:38

Spirit But filled with the indwelling spirit and filled with the indwelling kingdom at the same time. It makes absolutely no sense

58:46

So that's how I would deal with with that verse the kingdom of God. Okay is within you. Okay?

58:51

Yeah, so one of the other verses we'll talk about just real quickly is before we wrap things up here And this has come a lot not just in the

58:58

New Age, but also this has come up in Mormonism this has been one of the proof texts I remember like learning this that more in the very first time as I was learning evangelism to the

59:06

Mormons is when Jesus in John 10 31 through 36

59:12

Jesus says isn't all written in your law Year gods if he called if he called them gods to whom the

59:20

Word of God came the scripture cannot be broken Do you say of whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world?

59:25

You're blaspheming because I said I am the Son of God, but they focus in on the fact that Jesus said ye are gods

59:33

So what they will do is that they immediately assume against assumption. They see that he's saying

59:39

You all are gods or essentially like you all are Christ is essentially What is what they would interpret that what he was saying you're all divine.

59:47

Yes, you are all divine. That's the proof Heck that's where they go and many times you'll hear new age gurus talking about that It's a lot of times they don't they'll do like very rapid -fire teaching

59:56

They'll throw that out there and jump on to the next thing and and then in many ways It doesn't give you a chance to really critically think through or examine that in context

01:00:04

We should probably look at it says is it not written in your law? Where was it written? He's quoting from Psalm 82 6 and it's very clear.

01:00:12

He's referencing judges in Israel Not all of mankind Right. It says

01:00:18

God has taken his place in the divine counsel in the midst of the gods He holds judgment. How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?

01:00:27

Give justice to the weak and the fatherless maintain the right of the afflicted the destitute Rescue the weak and the needy deliver them from the hand of the wicked

01:00:35

They meaning these gods we'll talk about why they're called gods they have neither knowledge nor understanding

01:00:41

They walk about in darkness all the foundations of the earth are shaken. So they can't be called God because they're enlightened beings

01:00:48

Or because they've become illuminated right because they have no knowledge or understanding I said you are

01:00:53

God's sons of the Most High all of you. Nevertheless, you shall die like men and fall like any prince

01:01:00

Arise O God judge the earth for you shall inherit all the nations So the first thing we need to ask is who is this verse

01:01:07

Referencing who's it speaking about verses 2 3 & 4 tell us that these gods quote -unquote

01:01:13

Elohim in the Hebrew They need to start restoring justice on earth judge justly give justice to the weak maintain the right of the afflicted

01:01:22

We don't have the ability to do this We don't the average person does not have the ability to maintain another person's rights these are the this is the job of magistrates

01:01:31

Kings Offices of government and so forth, but in particular he's not referencing all judges magistrates and Kings He's referencing those whom are set over the people of God those quote to whom the

01:01:45

Word of God came Which was not to every nation, but which was to Israel Yahweh's portion God rebukes judges in similar ways all throughout the

01:01:54

Old Testament Saying things like do you judge children of man uprightly? No in your hearts you devise wrongs your hands deal out violent violence on the earth

01:02:02

That's Psalm 58 and again The average person does not have the ability to perform these kinds of actions to judge the wicked judgely and to rest

01:02:10

Restore the needs of the fatherless. These are positions of authority But only those to whom the

01:02:16

Word of God came. That's right judges in Israel. So here's the question Why are they called God's and this was really interesting

01:02:22

Mike Heiser takes a different interpretation of this verse. He believes, right? There's a Heavenly host there's divine counsel

01:02:28

God set over the nations and he chose Israel as his portion and allotted The nation's to other members of the

01:02:35

Divine Council and they became wicked and rebellious and started soliciting worship and so forth He could we probably own me on why that interpretations, but this one is like a mainstream

01:02:45

Scholarly interpretation. This was this is the mainstream one here. Why are they called Elohim? Why are these judges called

01:02:51

Elohim? This word is used two thousand six hundred eighty one times in Scripture It's used over two thousand times to refer to God But it's also used to refer to refer to human judges put in God's place to carry out and represent his will in the earth so in Exodus 18

01:03:09

Moses elected judges to handle disputes among the people he couldn't do it anymore He was doing it all by himself. I think his grandfather was like man.

01:03:16

You got to have somebody do this for you Yeah, so he elected these judges and these judges were called Elohim in Exodus 21 verse 6

01:03:23

It says but if the slave plainly says I love my master my wife and my children I will not go out free then his master shall bring him to Elohim to God and he shall bring him to the door of the doorpost

01:03:37

So God's gonna bring him to the door of the doorpost No, he's referencing the judges of Exodus 18

01:03:44

Right. So this word Elohim It's actually translated to judges in the King James and New King James the

01:03:49

Christian Standard Bible So that verse wouldn't say God that bring to God bring him to the judges Exodus 22 verse 8 exist 22 verse 9 and in Exodus 22 verse 28 are other examples

01:04:01

Where these human judges very clearly caught human judges are called Elohim For every here's verse 9 exodus 22 verse 9 for every breach of trust whether it is for an ox for a donkey for a sheep

01:04:14

For a cloak or for any kind of lost thing of which one says this is it the case of both parties shall come before Elohim the one whom

01:04:22

Elohim condemns shall pay double to his neighbor. So what we're talking about here are human judges operating in the place of God being his moral representatives

01:04:37

Over his people. Mm -hmm. So this is a mytho poetic reference to the quasi divine role of Being a judge in Israel, and I know you guys are really resistant to reform theology, but I'm gonna quote

01:04:49

Calvin here I'm gonna quote Calvin here real quickly. I don't know if I can handle this. I know

01:04:55

Scripture gives the name of God's to those on whom God has conferred an honorable office The passage which

01:05:01

Christ quotes is in Psalm 82 6 I have said you are gods and all of you are children of the

01:05:07

Most High where God expostulates with the kings and judges of the earth who tyrannically abuse their authority and power for their own sinful passions for oppressing the poor and for every evil action

01:05:17

So already this is a reference to human judges acting in Yahweh's place in Israel a select time a

01:05:26

Select people if you're not a judge in Israel, this verse does not apply to you

01:05:33

So the question is why is Jesus bringing up this verse in the first place and I think it's because he's trying to deflect

01:05:39

The charge of blasphemy. Yep. All right, they're saying you're saying you're the Son of God That's utter blasphemy and he's like, wait a minute

01:05:46

You know He says in John 5 a few chapters earlier the father judges No one but give has given all judgment to the

01:05:52

Son and John 8 16 He says yet if even I do judge my judgment is true for it's not I alone who judge

01:05:58

But I am the father who sent me So he claimed to be given the position of judge by the father and says that when he is judging

01:06:05

It's both him and the father judging So if he's saying if judges in Israel human judges can be called

01:06:11

Elohim for merely representing his moral will among the people how much can

01:06:17

I the one whom God consecrated and Sent into the world the one to whom all authority in heaven on earth

01:06:23

Yeah, all authority in heaven and earth has been given by the father How much more can I be called God's son if even human judges could be called

01:06:31

Elohim in one sense? So he's making an argument from lesser to greater to deflect their charges of Blasphemy and obviously he could not be possibly saying that we are all gods

01:06:43

We are all divine by nature because the only people who claim this about themselves in Scripture were issued the capital punishment

01:06:50

Capital punishment by Yahweh himself whether we're talking about the king of Tyre And the prince of Tyre in Ezekiel 28, which we read in the first episode the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14

01:07:03

King Herod in Acts 12 Where they say the voice of a God and not a man and he takes the glory for himself and God kills him on the spot

01:07:11

The Antichrist or the son of perdition mentioned in 2nd Thessalonians 2 verses 2 to 4 however you want to parse that These are the only people who claim and try and wear deity for themselves

01:07:21

And they're all issued the penalty of capital punishment and hellfire by Yahweh himself

01:07:29

So when it comes to turn over, so when it comes to Jesus said we're gods you are gods

01:07:34

Jesus quotation marks You are gods. Okay. First of all, he's referring to judges in Israel.

01:07:40

Not all mankind They're called Elohim not because they're divine by nature because they're Yahweh's moral representatives among his people which you aren't

01:07:48

He's saying this to deflect charges of blasphemy because they're saying you're blasphemous saying you're the son of God he's not doing it to Convince them that they're intrinsically divine.

01:07:58

It's convincing them about his deity not their deity It's a complete opposite and lastly the entire you know

01:08:08

Context of the Old Testament which Jesus referred to as the Word of God so the scripture can't be broken That's right long history of biblical precedence of those who claim to be

01:08:17

God And try to wear deity for themselves even Nebuchadnezzar It's the the worst sin you can possibly do in God's eyes.

01:08:25

He sends people to kill them immediately so the biblical precedent for those who think they're God is Capital punishment at the hand of Yahweh himself.

01:08:32

Clearly. He doesn't want us thinking we're ontologically divine Hmm. I love it, dude. I love it

01:08:38

Yeah, so I mean that that's that's a really good summary. In fact Well, we might even maybe we'll try and post some stuff to in our social media

01:08:46

And again, the reason why I brought this up to you is just to kind of really lay a foundation again the aspect of Christ conscious is is up in central because ultimately when you want to confront the

01:08:56

New Age you have to do it with Focusing in on who the work in person of Jesus is and it's very because the one thing there's nothing else that can counter

01:09:05

The New Age except the power that is in the name of Jesus and in fact, you know There's there's what

01:09:11

I always get fascinated to is all that all the testimonies of people who aren't even Christian who end up, you know in in bad circumstances because they're toying around with stuff that God says don't do and they end up being demonically oppressed whether it's an alien abduction or they're doing some sort of Lisa Lucid dreaming or gets out of control and they call to the name of Jesus and it stops

01:09:31

There's tons of tons of documentation of that. And so really when it comes down to it

01:09:37

I think our heart behind this is especially and this is towards the end of the year, you know, we really see a Big focal point sort of shifting with cultish and we're still gonna be focusing in on the world of cults but definitely this area of friend spirituality is sort of the anomalous in a sense like the new atheism in Very well, you get to kind of live like an atheist

01:09:58

But do you get to also you know have your cake and eat it too as you say you get to have it you get To have it both ways in a sentence and in many ways.

01:10:04

That's the appeal. But yeah, I just You know, I just think at the same time, you know, we just we have to have a heart for You know the people who are there because I mean you were there

01:10:14

Well, you know what the same time with the Bible says that you know, no one seeks. There's none righteous. No one who seeks after God There was a sense when you're in the

01:10:21

New Age where you did have You were made in the image of God He had Jesus filled whole and you were in some level to the best of your ability in the pursuit of what you saw as truth

01:10:33

But at the same time because we put the very in the very beginning your only point of reference was yourself

01:10:38

So it was both you and other people you saw who were very high up who ultimately had a level of just broken as they couldn't really

01:10:47

Shadow or hide once they got behind closed doors and that's a huge thing because ultimately I think

01:10:52

Walter Martin appropriately called it a spiritual Narcotic where it kind of gives you that fulfillment for a little bit, but ultimately it doesn't it doesn't last it doesn't fulfill and And that's really our heart is to reach out to people who are in the

01:11:05

New Age. Like I said, I mean You like I said, we got a crazy tomorrow recording this on Monday, November 2nd, so tomorrow will be a very interesting day but regardless of what happens,

01:11:17

I plan on being here and continuing and pushing through and Thankfully, we've been blessed to have this audience

01:11:24

So that's really our heart if we want to be able to continue to help you all have an Apollo to create an apologetic to Give an answer for this because regardless it's this is coming to your doorstep

01:11:36

Or the front or your phone door simple digitally or physically whether you like it or not And you have to be able to have an answer for it.

01:11:43

So that that's just my heart behind it Yeah, any other thoughts real quickly before we wrap up here? Yeah, this is the zeitgeist, right?

01:11:49

This is the spirit of the age and you can't escape reality. You can't escape your sin.

01:11:54

You can't escape any situation the only way The only scapegoat that we have is to place your ego place your burdens

01:12:02

Place your sin on the one who is the eternal God who took on Flesh was obedient to God in the form of a servant right even to the obedience of death on a cross

01:12:14

So that we could have peace with God That's it. Like we can't we can't escape our ego.

01:12:19

We can't escape our burdens But there's one who showed us what true selflessness means which was God himself in order for us to have peace with God Yeah, yeah, and I would say like Jesus says things like I came that they may have life

01:12:32

And life more abundantly. Amen. And he says, you know, whoever drinks of the water I will give them will never thirst again and whoever believes on me as it is written out of his belly

01:12:42

Will flow rivers of living water Jesus says, you know, I am the way the truth in life.

01:12:48

I am the vine. I am the bread of life I am the door like he's the door to satisfaction

01:12:54

He's the door the door to soul satisfaction and spiritual satisfaction Most importantly, he's the

01:13:02

Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world If John the Baptist, you know says

01:13:08

I'm not Christ, but Jesus is the greatest man ever We should pay attention to what John the Baptist says about Jesus when he says

01:13:14

Jesus and Jesus shows up on the scene The first words John has to say about Jesus are not behold the one who exhibits

01:13:23

God consciousness Right behold Christ consciousness in the flesh Behold the guru.

01:13:29

He says behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world All right. So our problem is we have a loving

01:13:36

God a holy God. Yes. He wants relationship with us Yes, he wants reconciliation with us, but he's too holy.

01:13:42

He requires a penalty to be paid for sin He can't blink at sin. He's a just judge righteousness and fat and justice is the foundation of his throne

01:13:48

He laid our sin upon Jesus Jesus paid our price in our place as our representative as our substitute right the record of offenses that stood against you and me was nailed to the cross and done away with right and now

01:14:01

In God right in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge Mm -hmm, right and we can have fellowship with God by the

01:14:08

Spirit of God Through having that apply up atonement Jesus made for our sins applied through repentance and faith

01:14:14

So like you said, I was broken. I was longing. I didn't know for what and I didn't know it was

01:14:20

I was longing for Jesus till I encountered Jesus. Mm -hmm. I was like, why was I making it so complicated? Yeah, I'm so philosophical the simplicity of that's in Christ Paul talks about over and over, you know

01:14:31

I'm afraid people have beseeched you and taking you away from the simplicity. That's in Christ Jesus is

01:14:36

Lord the Jesus of the New Testament is Lord and it's as simple as that Jesus says unless you become like a child you cannot enter the kingdom of God the child doesn't know anything about higher consciousness

01:14:47

That's right. Right. So if a child can't understand the gospel, it's not the gospel. Wow. I love it, dude

01:14:53

That's good. Yes. I wish there was a mic you could drop or just like I would say well, that's that's both

01:15:00

I will take that fresh fire to the bank. Yes There is a there's the

01:15:07

Bible actually talks about banks Did you ever um Pharaoh's daughter went to the bank of the Nile and withdrew a little profit?

01:15:17

That's like the best dad joke ever, dude I'll take that fresh fire new wine to the bank of the new prophet

01:15:30

So we're just we're just being we're just kind of shooting from the hip here it's being funnier so no one Please don't don't isolate that don't quote us on this somewhere.

01:15:38

Oh boy. But uh, yeah So thank you all for listening to this and I hope this episode blesses you and we're thankful again so much for this past year

01:15:47

Being able to continue to continue to get out content So if you like this episode, please share it with your friends and definitely check out

01:15:53

Stevens book It's a second coming of the New Age. You can also check out his YouTube channel website reasons for Jesus calm

01:16:03

Calm org. No just calm and definitely check that out And so yeah And also if you were blessed by a show and you want to support us you can go to the coldest show calm

01:16:12

You can go to the donate tab donate one time or monthly We're so grateful for all of you who have supported us for being part of the cultist crew