Ligonier False Teaching Quiz (part 3)

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Seasoned Members Class (part 4)

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for this opportunity we have to be gathered together in this building, called according to your purpose,
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Father, today as we worship you. I pray that it would be in its spirit and in truth, and as we look to what the world so often holds to, many of our friends and neighbors,
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I pray that you would not only grant us fervency in desiring to reach them, but equip us, enable us, encourage us as we seek to reach out and proclaim the truths of the gospel to the lost.
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Father, I pray that you bless our time in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, good morning. Good morning. We do, as is my want,
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W -O -N -T, and I guess W -A -N -T, too. We have a quiz this morning.
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Give a few there, a few there. Thank you. So, I thought, because I have one week, and by the way, what
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I've been doing is picking a few chapters. This morning, I actually remembered to bring it. This is from Ligonier, and you can see,
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I said it was an ugly little brown book, and it really is, kind of just plain, kind of looks like, you know, just a regular brown paper cover, and it says,
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A Field Guide on False Teaching, and it has, you know, some things that we're to cover in the fall, in the evenings, like Mormonism and other things, but there were a few chapters that I thought we're not going to cover, and I thought they were very interesting, including this morning's about New Age spirituality, because we talk about New Age stuff from time to time, but we don't really dig into it, and I found several things interesting this morning, and I hope you will, too.
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Number one, true or false, relatively few Americans hold New Age beliefs. It is false, and according to the
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Ligonier survey here, they said that it's estimated that one in three Americans hold some form of New Age beliefs, one in three.
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That's a lot. I mean, it's not quite the same as, you know, New England with their Catholicism, because, you know, when we go out in Massachusetts, we find, what, 80 -90 % are
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Catholics, but one in three, as you're traveling around the country, hold some form of New Age beliefs, and I dare say in California, it's a little higher.
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Let's see, I like what I wrote here, so I'm going to read it.
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In many ways, it surrounds us so much that we are a bit numb to it.
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Our culture is filled with New Age teaching, and we'll see that reflected in some of the other things we look at this morning.
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Number two, which of the following is not part of the New Age system of belief? A, Hinduism, B, Buddhism, C, science fiction,
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D, astrology, or E, all of the above are part of the system. I'm sorry?
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Well, of course, the longest answer is always the right one. All the above are part of the system. You guys are good test takers.
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People who believe in New Age or who push New Age thinking want you, they say, to become all that you could possibly be.
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It sounds like an old army commercial, be all that you can be. They want you to reach your full potential through an eclectic mix of concepts and practices drawn from Eastern mysticism,
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Hinduism, Buddhism, metaphysics, naturalism, astrology, occultism, and science fiction.
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I thought some people might go for the science fiction one. What do you think of science fiction in that context?
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What do you think of? Yeah, the force. This is Star Wars. That's why I said in number one, it surrounds us, right?
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I mean, this New Age teaching, it's in everything, and it really is. If you listen for it, you hear it very frequently.
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But let's talk about some of the other, I'm not going to dig into Eastern mysticism a lot or Hinduism or Buddhism, but what is metaphysics?
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We know what physics is, you know, when an object that's in motion stays in motion, right?
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What is metaphysics, Brian? Above or beyond physics.
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I was going to say, you know, it's a meta that goes in motion and stays in motion. But let's see.
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It's defined this way. The branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality.
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So, above physics, right? I mean, it's kind of the things that we don't fully understand,
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I guess, is one way to think about it. You know, things that are beyond our immediate senses.
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The first principles of being, identity, and change, space and time.
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Okay, naturalism, another aspect of this. Naturalism is something that we can identify with because we run into it all the time.
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If somebody says, I'm a naturalist, what are they really saying? That they believe in herbs, spices?
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No, no, no. What is naturalism? That this is all there is.
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So if we just think about it this way, if we say supernatural, we understand right away what we're talking about.
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So if we just say, I only believe in the natural, then we're basically, we're saying that we don't believe in any kind of supernatural being.
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We don't believe in God, essentially. Which is really a key of this whole
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New Age system. They also believe in astrology, which we understand from, what, opening the newspaper.
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Do we get newspapers anymore? Does anybody follow astrology anymore now that, I mean, is that one good reason that newspapers should be dead, so that nobody reads their horoscope for the day?
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But astrology is a pseudoscience, I like this definition, a pseudoscience that claims to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial, that means earthly, events by studying the movements and relative positions of celestial objects.
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You look at the stars, and they tell you what's going to be happening in your life.
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Astrology has been dated to at least the second millennium BC, and has its roots in calendar systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications.
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So the forces out there are talking to us via the stars.
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And then occultism, which is supernatural or mystical or magical beliefs, practices or phenomenon, and that sounds like a contradiction, right?
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I said they believe in naturalism, but then they also believe in occultism. Why isn't that a contradiction?
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Well, right, I mean, he said, John said different people, and that's true in the sense that New Age is kind of eclectic, much like some of our
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Christian friends. You can take a scoop of this and a scoop of that and you can have different ideas. But it's also because if you just deny the supernatural, that is to say naturalism, and yet you still believe in occultism, you can say then that you are spiritual, but you don't believe in God.
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You believe in something that we can't see, but you don't believe in the God of the
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Bible. Let's put it that way. Number three, true or false monism, which is a term
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I'm not really familiar with. How many of you are familiar with monism? That's what
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I thought. Monism, a theory, is part of New Age belief.
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Monism. Somebody's been hitting the pipe early.
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Okay. By the way, that's true. The part about monism.
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Monism is part of New Age belief. What is monism? A theory or doctrine that denies the existence of a distinction or duality in some sphere, such as that between matter and mind or God and the world.
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Translation, please. Monism is this idea that everything is one.
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Everything is one. We are at one with the universe. It is part of Buddhism.
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Okay, number four, pantheism. Pantheism is too old to be part of the
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New Age system. I mean, pantheism is really, really old. Number four, true or false, pantheism is too old to be part of the
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New Age system. I mean, it's New Age.
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When we define what New Age means, you're going to figure out that that is obviously false. Pantheism identifies
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God with the universe or regards the universe as a manifestation of God. Again, similar to monism, the universe as a manifestation of God.
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But if we just put it this way, that pantheism says that everything is divine.
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Everything is divine. Now, again, what does that sound like? To me, it sounds like Star Wars again.
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You know, the force is in everything. And the force is this, you know, this, yeah, the midichlorians.
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I mean, it surrounds us. It's in everything. And our goal is to harness the force in Star Wars jargon.
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And we're going to get to, this is where the rubber meets the road, number five. New Agers say that we are in the age of Aquarius.
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How many of you are old enough to remember that song? This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius.
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I always thought it was just a song, kind of meaningless. But it's actually, number five is true, by the way.
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New Agers say we are in the age of Aquarius. I mean,
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I learned a lot of stuff just reading this little thing here. They say, New Agers say that roughly every 2 ,100 years, there's a shifting of our age, right?
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And it's based on, again, the stars. And they say that, astrologists say that sometime in the 20th century, during the 1900s, we went from being in the age of Pisces to the age of Aquarius.
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Fascinating. The Beatles popularized New Age beliefs after their visit to India in 1965.
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Woodstock was advertised as an Aquarian exposition, three days of peace and love.
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Aquarian, not aquarium, but Aquarian. Here's the point.
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Here's why I say this is where the rubber meets the road, this whole idea of the age of Aquarius. Well, I don't want to get too,
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I'll keep moving and we'll get into it more. But I think ultimately, here's what we're going to find out. That New Age teaching, the idea that everything is divine, but then again, there is no
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God, leaves us with a real hole. And what do you suppose that hole is?
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How about what makes something right and what makes it wrong?
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Where does our morality come from? If everything is divine, and yet there is no single standard, then what?
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We live in the age of, I would say, the age of judges. Everyone does what is right in his own eyes.
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And who's to say what's right or what's wrong? And does that pretty much define our world?
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Don't we live in a world where everybody gets to decide what is right and what is wrong? So when they're singing about we live in the age of Aquarius, I think in many ways it's true.
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We live in a time where everybody decides what is right and what is wrong. They have their own morality and they won't listen to any idea about a
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God. You can have that if you want to, but I'm spiritual and I don't need him. Number six, true or false,
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Oprah Winfrey is a liberal Christian. Why do you say that,
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Brian? She's not a Christian at all. Okay, she's not a Christian at all. I thought maybe, you know, but Brian's too sharp for that.
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I wrote, she may be many things, but she's not a Christian. She's a devotee of the
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New Age movement. Other notable, Shirley MacLaine, who really is even old by my standards.
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I think she's in her 80s or something. She wrote a book, Out on a Limb, and that kind of led to more popularity of New Age.
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Deepak Chopra, who's been sliced and diced on Larry King Live.
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A man named, how many have ever heard of Eckhart Tolle or Eckhart Tolle? Is it
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Tolle? Because I'm like, I don't know who he is. But he, according to the
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New York Times, this was in 2008, so a little dated. The most popular spiritual author in the
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United States. Number one. Okay, number seven.
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True or false, New Age teaching involves the importance of obeying your parents. But you know what, when you think about it, you know, and the reason
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I wrote that is because I think if you think about Hinduism, Buddhism, some of these
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Asian cultures, what do they stress? Yeah, honoring mother and father and elders, you know, even grandparents and all that.
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There's wisdom that comes with age. I don't know, but it's certainly not
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New Age. That's clear. Tom asked if it's tradition to do that. I guess probably it is.
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But I think there's, you know, major shame and honor and all these things that come with it, which, again,
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I guess would be culture. But listen to what the New Age actually teaches.
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We are to embrace changes that correspond to the new astrological era, this age of Aquarius.
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Here's what I say. All that we learned from our parents and all that they learned from their parents was a result of influence from the age of Pisces.
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That must be jettisoned. Instead, we must learn to accept that we don't need anything outside of ourselves.
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All that is in us is divine. So the goal is to align ourselves with the divinity in the universe.
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We are divine. There's divinity all around us in the universe. And our goal is to become at one with this divine universe.
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And so if that means disobeying your mom and dad so that you can be true to yourself, I mean, this is kind of because I've been reading a lot about what school boards are doing and whatnot lately.
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You know, this idea now, where did this just pass? It passed in a state where you can actually begin the process, children can, begin the process of transitioning without parental consent.
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I think that was in Oregon. It's just bizarre.
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But that's being true to yourself, right? You know, you're a seven -year -old child.
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Why shouldn't you be able to decide everything? I mean, there are a lot of reasons that you shouldn't be able to.
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But according to this kind of thinking, I mean, if God's in charge, right?
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If we had a greater Christian influence in our schools, then we wouldn't see this. Instead, what we have is really a new age teaching.
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You know, why would somebody reason that a four -year -old can identify as something other than what they were born?
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And it's because of this idea that the truth is in them. They know their true selves instead of just being foolish little kids.
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Number eight, true or false new age teaching is not very different from Star Wars theology. I already gave that away.
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But again, there's a divine energy inherent in the entire universe.
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Now, at this point, I want to ask a separate question. What would you say to somebody who puts forth this theory that there's a divine energy everywhere in the universe?
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I mean, you could say, okay, that's dumb. But where you're going, though, is you could talk about the omnipresence of God, right?
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And the Holy Spirit, and the fact that, you know, you could say something like, and I think this would be right to say, did you know that God is upholding the entire universe, you know?
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Right, there is a divine energy, but it's not the one they're thinking about.
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And you could walk them through the scriptures. But I think specifically what I was talking to you on, what I would encourage everybody to do with regard to anytime you come across someone with eclectic, meaning different, varied beliefs, ask them for the source of their beliefs, right?
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Really, how do you know these things? Well, I read a book by Deepak Chopra.
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How does Deepak know that, right? Well, he went on an acid trip, and it's how
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I feel. Again, it's this whole, the truth resides in me. I am the source of all truth.
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There are several problems with that, but we'll see those in just a moment.
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Number nine, true or false, seances, divination, and numerology are all acceptable
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New Age practices. Yeah, acceptable to them, right?
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Not acceptable to us. Yes, yes, there'll be a seance this afternoon in the prayer room.
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No, no. I mean, what are those things called in the Bible? Witchcraft or,
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I mean, divination or, you know, whatever, abomination.
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They're worthy of judgment, certainly. I mean, can you imagine wanting, well, here's the problem with a seance, right?
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You're gathering around, and you're using a medium to call spirits dead people.
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And, yeah, necromancy. Yeah, that's a sin that the Bible calls out. But you're calling these dead spirits.
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Are you talking to a dead spirit? You're talking to a spirit, but it isn't a dead spirit.
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It's a, you know, a demon. I mean, imagine that. Yes, we summoned demons last night.
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The witch of Endor, yeah. I'm always shocked that, you know, she was from Endor.
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More Star Wars. See how it goes? It all comes back to Star Wars. No, I think that's right.
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I think that's exactly right. It's demonic power that's doing all that. Number ten, true or false, according to New Age teaching, the answers to all life are out there in the universe.
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Like Mr. Mulder. The truth is out there. You know how many episodes of The X -Files
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I watched, by the way? Zero. Just thought I'd share that. No, it's not a trick question.
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I never watch the show. But I did have a seminary professor who used to say, the truth is out there,
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Mr. Mulder. Okay.
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According to New Age teaching, the answers to life are all out there in the universe. Thank you.
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Yes. So it's false. The answers are all within us. So the message of New Age, and just think if this doesn't fit what you hear, not just in Disney songs, but from people.
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Trust yourself. Listen to your heart. I could even put it this way. Lean on your own understanding.
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What does the Bible say? Do not lean on your own understanding, right?
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Do not listen to your heart because your heart is deceitful and wicked. Trust yourself.
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Take heed, right? Lest you fall. So New Age, I mean, it's really antithetical to biblical teaching.
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It's the polar opposite. Again, keep in mind that the goal is to achieve oneness with the divine.
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You are divine. The universe is divine. You are trying to become one with the universe.
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Number 11, why do people believe in New Age teaching? Why do you suppose that is?
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It's true. Why? But why? He's put eternity in our hearts, right?
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Well, what makes New Age teaching attractive? It's comfortable.
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It's whatever you want. It's, you know, it suits you, right? It appeals to our desires and wants, and we can feel spiritual at the same time.
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That sounds like pretty much the perfect religion. You can engage with it, you know, as you desire.
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You can get rid of it. You can dump it whenever you want. It's pretty much design your own religion, right?
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You set the standard. So convenient. But again, I think there's a real problem with that.
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If you hold to this worldview, then what makes somebody else wrong?
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How can you say you can't steal? You can't kill, murder.
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You can't murder. You can't covet. You can't do all these things. There's no you can't in these things because it's all you can.
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You are divine. What you desire is divine. It's just kind of, and if we think about this,
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I think it kind of flows out of this whole, you know, what was the core of the
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Enlightenment? The idea of the Enlightenment was that man was the center of the universe.
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And so here's a religion that says not only is man generally the center of the universe, but in this religion, you are the center of the universe.
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You are, in essence, the source of all truth. So, true or false?
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Most theologians have no opinion on New Age teaching. False, obviously.
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Listen to Bavink, Herman Bavink. He says, the theism of Scripture, in other words, the theology of Scripture, posits a connection between God and the world, simultaneously maintaining the absolute sovereignty of God and the absolute dependence of his creatures, thus avoiding both the error of pantheism, which is, again,
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New Age teaching, and the error of deism. Okay, so pantheism is the idea that the divine is in everything.
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You know, there's small g God in everything. Deism is the idea that God just sort of set things in motion and then left them.
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So what Bavink's saying here is, neither of those things are true. God just didn't design the universe, and now he's just kind of the clockmaker watching it go.
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And God is not so dispersed as to have no power, which would be kind of the idea of pantheism, that there really is no personal
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God. There is no moral God. There's just the universe, which is, in effect, God.
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The universe sustains itself. And the Bible says, no, God sustains the universe.
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God created it. God sustains it. Let's look at a couple things, principles.
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God is sovereign. We look at Judges, and I thought this was an odd place to go, because Judges 14, who's it talking about?
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Who's the Bible talking about in Judges 14? Samson.
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It's a story of Samson from Judges 13 to Judges 16.
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And Judges 14, verses 3 and 4, does somebody have that? So this is
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God using the wicked desires of Samson to sovereignly separate the nation of Israel and to preserve
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Israel from the Philistines. Maybe one more.
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Psalm 115, verse 3.
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And getting back to Judges for just a moment, if we look at that, if we just read through it, we'd see here's
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Samson setting his eye on somebody he's not supposed to marry and telling his parents what to do.
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I mean, he's pretty much a new age dude. But the writer of Judges says
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God's at work behind the scenes. Psalm 115, verse 3. Yeah, Mark. Okay.
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Again, set against this seemingly random universe.
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Of course, ultimately, if we watched enough Star Wars, we'd understand that the universe, even in that, is not meaningless.
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It's this constant battle between good and evil, right?
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And, you know, this whole idea of bringing balance to the force and everything else. But the Bible says that God does, this personal
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God who exists, the God of the Bible, says that God does all that pleases us.
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No, all that he pleases. In other words, his sovereign will is always brought about.
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One more point here. God is not part of the universe. How would we prove that God is not part of the universe?
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Can you think of some verses that would separate him from the universe? In the beginning,
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God. Okay. In the beginning, God created. Or even Colossians 1 where it says that Jesus holds up everything by the word of his power.
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God is also all -powerful and omnipotent. Hebrews 1 .3
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says that God is all -sustaining. Acts 17 .25 on Mars Hill, Paul talks about that.
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God is eternal. I mean, the whole idea of, again, and I think there's another appeal maybe of New Age religion, which is you can fold,
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I believe, you can fold sort of evolution and the Big Bang and all that sort of thing into it.
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It's not that far removed from it. Right.
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Right. Right. Where did all the stuff come from to make the universe?
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But Mormons do the same thing. They say that the universe preexisted God, which is a problem.
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Because if you think about that long enough, then that makes the universe or material, yeah, well, certainly more powerful than God or more transcendent than God, more something than God, yeah, the source of God, that he's somehow dependent on stuff.
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Wrong, wrong, wrong. How do we get to know the power of God?
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And the answer is through the gospel, right? I mean, it's interesting because 1
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Corinthians 1, Paul writes that the power of God, the gospel, is what?
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Foolishness to those who are perishing. So, in other words, you're going to talk to these New Age folks and they're going to go, that's so unsophisticated, this idea.
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I like this and I'll read this. God is the highest good in the universe.
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Redeemed man will never be divine and there will always be a creature -creator distinction.
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Revelation 21. The dwelling place of God is with man.
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He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their
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God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away.
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This is the way God is presented in the Bible as the greatest good, not as an amoral.
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What's the difference between amoral and immoral? One's neutral and that's amoral.
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Immoral means bad. Amoral means neutral. And that's kind of the idea of the
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New Age is that while there's a divinity to it, it doesn't mean it's all good. It means it's kind of morally neutral, just like we are in their theory.
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Okay, number 13. When evangelizing
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New Age adherents, a Christian should stress A, the infinite nature of God, B, the limited nature of man,
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C, the need of all men for redemption, or D, all of the above. It's a stumper, yes.
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D, all of the above. I mean, even as Joni was saying earlier, you know, if you think about a universe being infinite, eternal, etc.,
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where does the universe come from? And by the same token, what can a New Age person say to you?
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Where does God come from? And the answer is, what?
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He always was. Everybody has to have a presupposition, big word, and that just means this.
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It's a foundation, a foundational truth upon which they build all their other truths. So we come to proclaim the
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God of the Bible and people say, well, where do you get that? Well, we get that out of the Bible. How do you know the
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Bible's true? How many?
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3 ,000 times God said it is true. I'm going to do a count later on tonight.
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It's objective truth because it's outside of us. Okay. And here's the issue.
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It's objective truth. And what these people believe is subjective truth.
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And why do I say it's subjective? What's the difference between objective and subjective? Everybody knows what the difference is, but nobody talks about it.
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Subjective truth is that which, in your own mind, you're of the opinion it's true. And so what does a
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New Age person or any unbeliever say? Well, that's your opinion. I have my opinion.
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You have your opinion. Do you hold your opinion,
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Christian? Is that the idea? You have an opinion. You think your opinion is better than theirs.
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They think their opinion is better than yours. Is that right? Is it a standoff? Why not?
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Because it's God's opinion. Okay.
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Our subjective opinion is based on objective truth.
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Charlie? Yeah, the law of non -contradiction, which is that A and not
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A are not the same or not equal, cannot both be true, right? If I say it's sunny outside and you say, no, it's cloudy, the law of non -contradiction says one of us has to be right.
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But in the spirit of the New Age, we could say what? Yeah, that's your truth.
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But wait a minute. The sun's beating down on me right now. Okay, that's according to you. Yeah, you know, when truth is that fungible, it's probably about, it has as much value as,
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I don't know, a dollar. So, okay, good.
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So what do we do ultimately? We have to appeal to their consciences. I've said this before, but it's true.
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You know, if you push for universal values, things that we all believe are true, it's difficult and it's difficult when you're dealing with a
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New Age person because they've been taught or they believe that everything that their parents believe, their grandparents believe, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, is false and what they believe is necessarily true.
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Here's the ultimate test of that though. If you push them in towards questions of morality, at some point they're going to say, well, wait a second, that's definitely wrong, right?
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Most people would agree that murdering them personally would be wrong. You know, on occasion you might find somebody who would say, no, that's fine.
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But I think for the most part we would agree with that or there would be something in their life, someone in their life where they would say, okay, that's too far, you've gone too far, right?
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And then the question is what? Why? Why is that wrong? And the ultimate answer to that is that God has put the law in their hearts.
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They have the Ten Commandments. They know that some things are wrong. They have a conscience. And because of that conscience, then you can start reasoning with them about sin.
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Other thoughts? Yes, Corey. Okay. Yes, but I wonder if the question of relativism by mob or relativism by individual is...
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Okay. And to give Corey some credit here,
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I think he's right about this, grudgingly, grudgingly, because here's the point he's making is that, you know, throughout this pandemic, people have come to the point where they recognize that there are some, there are boundaries.
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They're necessarily boundaries. Sometimes it's six feet. But there are boundaries which, you know, are good to observe.
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Now, yeah, love your neighbor, yanked out of context, because love your neighbor has meant all sorts of things to all kinds of people.
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But I think ultimately, you know, there has been some understanding that there are boundaries, that there are goods and evils, so to speak.
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I want to go through just a couple other points here, and then we'll close. But talk about the infinite nature of God, the limited nature of man.
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And this really is, you know, something to stress, because the question is, while you might feel like you know things,
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I would even say, you know, if somebody says to me, well, I'm divine, you know, da, da, da.
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Oh, really? That's quite fascinating. You know, what happens if you throw yourself off the top of a building?
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Will angels catch? You know, I mean, there are things that we would normally ascribe to divinity where we are all going to fall short, right?
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We make mistakes, you know? So I'd say, well, you've ever made a mistake? Can a God make a mistake?
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And if they say yes, well, they have a very, you know, poor view of who God is or what a
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God is. And again, you can just take them to the Bible. This is the God who doesn't make mistakes.
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Well, why is there evil in the world? Okay, great question. Let's talk about it. Here's where evil was introduced, you know, in Genesis 3.
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So we can go through all those things. And ultimately what we do is we press them to this in number 13C, the need of all men for redemption.
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Once they acknowledge that they're sinners, once they understand that God is holy, then their need is for a mediator, a high priest, a sin bearer.
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We have a need for righteousness before God. We can't stand before him as sinners, as imperfect beings.
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Even if you just say this, are you perfect? Some people might say what?
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Yes. So then it's a matter of, you know, you have to define terms.
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I think questions are always good. I mean, you can challenge them and say, oh, no, you're not. But what do you mean by perfection?
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By what standard are you perfect? Because the Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, that God is the only perfect being.
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So ultimately what we want to do, we want to push them to understand who Jesus is. And certainly,
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I don't even think it's wrong to just say, who do you think Jesus is? You know, well, he's an ascended master.
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Or whatever they want to say, right? Well, here's what the Bible says. And if people want to challenge the
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Bible, do they want to challenge the Bible? Yes, they do.
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You know, well, how do you know you can trust the Bible? And it comes back to one thing. What sort of God do you believe in?
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If you believe in a God who just sort of spun things up and let them go, the
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God of deism, or if you don't believe in a God at all, or if you think you're God, can the
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Bible still apply to you? Can the Holy Spirit still pierce through your heart? And the answer is yes, over and over again.
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So we tell them about Jesus, the one who is both God and man, the one who stands before the throne of God and pleads for all who believe in him.
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He lived the perfect life, died a substitutionary death, rose on the third day. We want to proclaim the gospel to even, especially maybe new age people and tell them about Jesus Christ and how they may be saved.
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Other thoughts or questions before we close? Go ahead, Charlie. Well, yeah, let me just interrupt you for a minute.
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Presuppositionalism, you know, the way I understand it, doesn't mean that we can't have a rational dialogue with somebody and that we just need to declare to them, you know, like this, right?
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We just foundationally, there are things that I don't want to get involved in. I'm not going to try to defend the existence of God because, for example, the
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Bible never does. So go ahead. Well, I think, you know, and certainly Acts 17,
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Paul on Mars Hill, he's not engaged in a dialogue, it's very much a monologue.
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But he allows for a lot of their, you know, their worldview. He incorporates it,
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I guess you could say. Yeah, into his gospel presentation, right? You believe in a
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God, you have a wrong idea about God, he doesn't say it that way, but he's like, let me just tell you about who this
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God is. So I, and I mean, there are numerous examples. I think it's fine to engage with people sort of where they are, right?
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But I think there are certain things like, you know, the existence of God, the existence of sin.
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You know, we don't need to prove those things anymore, you know, other than to say, you mean to tell me you've never done anything wrong in your life?
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Right? And so, I mean, there are certain questions you can ask, and if they just say, no, I'm perfect, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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Well, what can you say, right? There's only so far you can go. And ultimately, then you just want to give them a gospel and, you know, be on your way.
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So, yeah. Other thoughts, questions? Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's important not to get bogged down with peripheral issues, right?
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Has anybody arrived in New Age religion? Well, you know, somebody might say Buddha. You know, somebody might even say
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Jesus. There are some people that say L. Ron Hubbard. Sin, death, and evil,
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Jesus conquered. And New Age has no answer for those things. And ultimately, you know, because we do have consciences, all of us, wherever we're from, we understand that these are realities, right?
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Sin, death, these are all things that are, they surround us all the time.
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So, what are the answers? And if you think the answers are in yourself, I mean, can you imagine a more defeating system than that?
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I have the answers, okay? Depression, I think, is ultimately the reality of that.
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You know, we need an external, essentially, conqueror in Christ Jesus.
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Well, we need it close. Father, thank you for this time this morning, even as we look at this errant worldview, this errant pseudo -religious system.
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Father, just knowing that there are so many in the United States who believe this, and really around the world, people who see themselves as not traditionally religious, all these kind of buzzwords that they use.
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And I pray that you would attune our spiritual antenna, as it were, to listen for these phrases that people throw out and think to yourself, what are they really saying about the world, about themselves, about God?
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And let us be ready to give them an answer, one that has hope, one that has a solution, one that offers eternal life.