Tape 3 - Eastern Mysticism & Cults

Park Meadows Church

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I appreciate at least your faithfulness in coming and what I've tried to do and the only thing that I've tried to do in these brief times we've had together is to just be informative, is to give you enough information that it'll be a safeguard and a hedge about your life and also give you enough information that were you to confront someone who's involved in one of these groups that at least you'd have a little information maybe that a question might come to your mind that you could present to them that God might use that question to stimulate them to a study or to a re -evaluation of what they're doing or what they're involved in.

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And so that's what we've tried to do and I appreciate your faithfulness and your coming the notes that you've taken and perhaps you may never have a reason to use any of it but if you travel around or move around at all in this city or any other city of any size you're going to confront someone who has difficulties in these areas and you will confront someone that will be able to utilize what you have in your mind and what you have written on paper.

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So this morning we want to talk about reincarnation and basically this belief has enjoyed an increased acceptance throughout the world especially in the

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United States of America and many people who call themselves Christians either secretly or openly now are dealing with the fact that they believe in reincarnation and this simply means that either lived at another time in another world in another plane as another person or as another animal or another thing in some form of pre -existence and then after this life this is not all there is that you will live in another plane of existence and then other planes of existence and they're really never ending but maybe somewhere out there in the future after all these planes are gone through maybe you might merge into something and so there are many movie stars and celebrities of all walks of life that are getting on the talk shows and the television programs and openly stating their acceptance of reincarnation.

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The movie industry is beginning to just flood the market with major works and millions of dollars put into movies advocating some form of some ramification or some aspect of reincarnation.

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Now the person who is most noted most famous if you want to use that word or most renowned for making this belief possible within the

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United States is the man called Edgar Cayce, a phenomenon within himself.

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We know as Christians because something works and because it accomplishes good does not make it of God, not at all, because Satan can do good and Satan will do good and so we know that isn't so.

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Now he has been called the sleeping prophet, the sleeping prophet. His works are being revised and reprinted and they're brought in a sort of a revival by revised uh uh revived is what

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I meant to say uh they are some of course being revised but basically a revival of his material and the reason he's called a sleeping prophet is because he received most of his information during a trance -like state.

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He would go into a trance -like state and then he would have what he called readings just like reading r -e -a d -i -n -g -s readings he had these readings uh that he would get and they were stenographically recorded they were written down someone wrote them down what he said and they have been recorded and they're put out in books and papers and so forth.

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Now a brief history of this man is interesting. Edgar Cayce was born March the 18th, 1877.

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March 18, 1877 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

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Now during his childhood he began to report to his parents and the people that he began to have visions.

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He began to see visions and he began to talk to people who were in these visions.

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He began to communicate with them as a child. Now he became ill on an occasion and was stricken with a paralysis of the throat and he found it quite difficult to speak.

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There was no medical help available at that time for him. There were just wasn't any available.

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He had a friend to come and to help him re -enter one of these trance -like states.

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To re -enter one of these trance -like states or a sleep that he had first experienced as a child.

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Now he's a young man at this particular time. While in this trance his voice used the pronoun we that immediately clues you to who was talking.

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The Holy Spirit never speaks audibly. And he's the only spirit that you're supposed to have inhabiting your being is the

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Holy Spirit of God. Paul says if anybody receives another spirit other than what you've received let him be anathema because they will be demonic spirits and it is possible for a person to be invaded by an alien personality.

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And so they began to use these this word we and it correctly diagnosed the difficulty.

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It diagnosed the problem and suggested a cure. A treatment which brought perfect cure.

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That has been recorded that has been recorded. You say oh well it became known that Edgar Cayce could while in a trance correctly diagnose and suggest treatments for other people.

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For 43 years for 43 years with a sixth grade education this man astounded and confused the medical experts of the world.

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Medical phenomenon the medical experts of the world of his day with near perfect I said near not perfect with near perfect diagnosis of difficulties and problems and he gave the proper medical terminology and gave the proper cure and it worked for 43 years he did it.

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It has been recorded doctors have agreed they just don't understand it they just don't understand it.

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Now these readings were telepathic they were telepathic he used telepathy in the sense that the patient did not have to be with him.

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The patient could be somewhere else they didn't have to be physically in his presence for him to diagnose them in a trance to diagnose them and to offer the treatment which would bring a cure almost every time.

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Very few times that it didn't but enough to cause some alarm. Now Edgar Cayce considered himself a devout

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Christian. He was a very popular Sunday school teacher for years and years and years.

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He spent some 20 years doing the quote good works end quote of medical diagnosis before he first began to give the readings about theology and philosophy.

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Some 20 years he just dealt with medicine. 43 years he dealt with medicine but 20 years he dealt with only medicine alone and the latter part the 23 years following he dealt with medicine but he also began to include theology and philosophy.

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Can you not see how Satan works? Get you doing something good before he gets you off into attacking the

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Bible or attacking what Christianity is really all about and that's the way always does.

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He always does. All right where would this lead to a person? Okay we can see it in his life.

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He became convinced that since he was doing good for other people then his gift or his power had to be from God.

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He just became convinced because everybody thinks all good comes from God and that's utter foolishness but that's what most people think.

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That's what he thought and there is no indication in any of his writings that he ever asked God to remove that power from him if it wasn't from him.

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He knew very little of Satan. There's no indication of Satan in his writings very much and he never asked

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God there's at least no indication of it in the people that follows him or follow him and written about him or in his writings itself that he ever said anything to the effect that God if this isn't of you it's if it's satanic then get it out of my life

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I devote myself back to you. But you see Satan always leads down a pattern and he followed that pattern. Casey on the basis of a feeling that his readings were accurate in all of their pronouncements made a fateful decision one day to submit to the authority of whatever or whomever spoke through him during the trances.

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He yielded himself to their authority according to his own writings and from that moment on he went downward.

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He was already down going down he just didn't know it but it took drastic steps down. All right the readings and talk about human reincarnation.

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The readings began to indicate to him that the Bible is not to be accepted as authoritative because it does not contain the full ideas of Jesus.

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It didn't have in full the ideas of Jesus and the readings indicated that Jesus Christ had taught reincarnation.

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These things that spoke through him when he was in a trance told him that Jesus did teach reincarnation but it wasn't recorded in the

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Bible because the Bible does not contain all the things. Well the Bible does tell us that all the things that Jesus did why the whole world couldn't hold books about the things that he actually did and said they're so profound.

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And so it leaps upon this and it communicated it to him. Now a second reason according to Casey and these readings that came for not regarding the

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Bible as authoritative is the suppression of the thought and the writings of early church fathers compatible with the theory of reincarnation.

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So because the early Christians who believed in the Bible they didn't believe in reincarnation either. So evidently they can't be trusted either and if they believe in the

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Bible then you can't believe the Bible because they believe in the Bible and they didn't believe in reincarnation. So it's that circular argument that we talk about that's a very weak argument.

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Now these readings that he had said that the 6th century, 6th century

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Byzantine Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora used a church council.

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Now this is what these things told him that the Emperor Justinian the Byzantine Emperor in the 6th century and his wife

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Theodora used a church council to condemn and suppress the writings of the early Christian writer

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Origen who lived in Caesarea. There was a man an early church father back in the early days of Christianity named

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Origen he lived over in Caesarea. All right now Casey stated in his trance that Justinian and his wife were pagans in Christian clothing and that the

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Bible at this point in history was perverted by them as they began to suppress Origen who tried to write about reincarnation and they wouldn't let it so the

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Bible became perverted. Having questioned and discarded the authority of the Holy Scripture he then regarded as truth subsequent materials that were produced by the readings.

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He began to believe that anything that he spoke was truth. That's Gnosticism, added revelation, new information as opposed to the

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Bible. Now the basics of the system can be summarized. Here it is I give you what he says

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I'm gonna quote to you what he believed basically. In the beginning of time there was a whole sea of spirit and it filled all space all the space everywhere was filled with one big spirit.

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It was filled to capacity. It was static, content, aware of itself, a giant resting on the bosom of its own thought and contemplating that which was and then this great spirit moved.

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It filled everything. It withdrew into itself until all the rest of the space was empty and that which had filled it was now shining from its center a restless seething mind.

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This was the individuality of that spirit. This was what it discovered itself to be when it awakened.

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This was God. God desired to express himself then. He desired companionship therefore he projected from himself the cosmos the world and souls and souls.

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All right now when you take that we find that these entities or souls which are nothing but portions of God himself kicked off out into space they came into being.

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Now one of these souls eventually became reincarnated as Jesus. A number of souls became curious about this and they wished to become male and female as they saw the divisions expressed in animal life.

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Male animals and female animals. So they figured well we want to be male female too because the animals aren't.

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All right they entered and occupied the bodies of animals and thereafter could not escape.

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They got in the animals and they couldn't get out. They were there forever. Now we would consider them he says as forms which were half man half beast.

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Now that's a perfect picture what the bible says that a demon does. It begins to become something not half man half beast but grotesque.

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That's why the Greek mythology presents the Greek gods as what some of them are part animal part human.

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That's what happened in Egypt. That's what the Egyptian gods were at the time of Moses when God struck those plagues he dealt with each one of the gods of Egypt and they were part human part man.

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All right now God he says then chose to create a perfect fleshly body man to rescue these trapped souls in the animals.

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This was accomplished by the souls working with the glands of the ape until the body was so perfected that the souls could enter.

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These souls and trapped in animals were called in the bible the sons of men. With the rescuer souls they were called the sons of God.

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Now according to the readings experienced by Edgar Cayce man appeared simultaneously at five different places on the earth at the genesis or the beginning of the five distinct ethnic groups.

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They began to appear not Adam and Eve but man appeared in five different places on the earth and it became the father or the beginning of the five different ethnic groups.

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The genesis account he says in the bible is a symbolized account of what actually took place.

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Now there were two major land masses according to him. There is a movie coming on television about what the man from Atlantis.

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You think that's fantasy? Well it may not be true but you see this has been going on for a long time.

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Edgar Cayce says that both of these two major land masses have disappeared. One of them is Atlantis.

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Now he said this back you know years ago. One is Atlantis which is covered by the Atlantic Ocean and that's the home of the original red race.

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Well isn't that what some of the scientists try and tell us? Where do you think they're getting that information from? That the Indians walked across all this land mass and got here.

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Start of the day they walk and that's all all the reasons about what they believe. Guess what?

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What did we talk about when we talk about eastern mysticism? Karma. What's the law of karma?

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Good and bad. You do good then you get good. You do bad you get bad.

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Well partially in eastern mysticism which is totally satanic. He says that in the course of existence all these souls are subject to the law of karma.

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Exactly what eastern mysticism tells us. Hinduism, Buddhism and all the rest of them. Transcendental meditation, Hare Krishna, all of them deal with karma.

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Okay now he says each soul reaps exactly what it sows. Well we play a little truth there.

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If a soul in one lifetime rebels against God or sins it builds up a karmic debt.

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K -A -R -M -I -C. A karmic debt. He owes a debt to the law of karma and it is a debt and it must be paid by working out through good works in future lives.

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Now Jesus is seen as the soul which first accomplished this process of perfection through a series of lives.

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The readings, these things that spoke through him stated that Jesus and Christ are not the same.

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Well Jehovah's Witnesses believe that. The Mormons believe that. We talked about the cults when

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I was with you last time. Don't you remember what I said? Well you better check it out because that's what they believe.

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All right here's what they say. Edward Cayce. Christ is not a man. Jesus was a man.

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Christ was the messenger. Christ in all ages. Jesus is only one. Now that's weighty matter.

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You just think about it. Christ is not a man. Jesus was the man. Christ was the messenger. Christ in all ages.

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Jesus is only one. That comes out of Edgar Cayce on Reincarnation New York Castle Books 1967 page 157.

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Now Jesus was simply the first perfected entity rather than the perfect man.

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Rather than the perfect man. Now this is amazing when you get into it. Most people don't study Edgar Cayce. They just take out of what they like.

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It sounds good on the surface and that's the way most Christians are. Don't we just kind of play with the surface things of the Bible? We don't study the

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Bible. You can't get most Christians out of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They don't ever go around these other things.

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Most Christians don't know anything about the book of Hebrews. You want to study anything like that? Well listen to what he says. Edgar Cayce taught and believed that the soul we know as Jesus had been reincarnated as some 30 different human beings.

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And he names them. I'll give them to you. He first of all he says 30 different human beings that Jesus came through.

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First of all he was an early sun worshiper. Now where would he get that from? Well the sun god of Egypt was who?

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Ra. Ra. Yeah that's when God zapped through Moses down there.

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That's one of them. Old Ra. Where'd he get his from? Over in the east. All right he got another one. He said that Jesus was the author of the book of the dead.

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There's a very in the black arts there is a very noted book called the book of the dead.

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And he says Jesus was the author of the book of the dead. Also Jesus was Hermes. Jesus was the man called

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Hermes. H -E -R -M -E -S if you're writing it down. Hermes who supposedly is the architect of the great pyramids.

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He's the guy that's supposed to been the architect and the one that designed all those things. And that's who Jesus was. Jesus also was

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Zeand. Z -E -A -N -D who was the father of Zoroaster which brought about Zoroasterism which is anti -christian, anti -bible, anti -god, anti -christ.

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But it's a very popular philosophical thought and it permeates philosophical thinking.

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Now isn't it strange that they try to attribute to Jesus all that's in the world today that's wrong. All right now notice something else.

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He's also Amelius. Jesus came through that. He was Amelius who was an Atlantean.

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He lived in Atlantis. Jesus was him also. And then he just throws a general one down here and he was also other figures in history.

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Anyone you ever have wanting to be. You want to be Napoleon? Okay Napoleon who cares. He doesn't name those. But he's got some more in the bible.

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Now he was also Adam. Who believes that? Mormons.

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Adam God. Our father God who was the same one in the

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Garden of Eden it says. And Adam God, Brigham Young says that Adam God had an affair with Mary and Jesus was born.

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And he says our father Adam is a what? He is an exalted resurrected man.

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That's Mormonism. That's in Mormon theology. Of course most Mormons don't know that either. All right he was

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Adam. He was Joshua. He was

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Yeshua. Here's another Joshua. He was Enoch. And here's a good one. Boy I know more preachers that believe this.

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He was Melchizedek. You need to get my tape on Melchizedek. I just released the tape on Melchizedek.

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And you might want to order that. He was Melchizedek. He was not Melchizedek. Melchizedek was a

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Gentile. Melchizedek's mentioned how many times in the bible?

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Bible students? Three. Well that's close.

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You could have said a dozen. He's mentioned three times in the three different groups of the bible. He's mentioned in Genesis.

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He's mentioned in Psalms. And he's mentioned in the New Testament. He's in the three different classifications. And you need to get my tape on him.

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All right. And then finally after all of this then he became Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus of Nazareth.

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Okay. But included in these 13 things that I've mentioned to you in number six was other figures in ancient history.

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He comes out with 30. 30 different ones. Now Edgar Cayce never mentions that Jesus was ever reincarnated as a woman.

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That's strange. Because in reincarnation you might come back as a woman. Some are already making it you know.

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Some are not waiting around for it. Some of these people that play this kind of stuff you know.

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They're not waiting around for it. They go ahead and get in the jump on it. So that maybe they might come back.

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But he never mentioned that in 29 reincarnations Jesus was a sinner. He was a sinner.

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S -I -N -N -E -R. Who saved himself through good works and became a good example for us.

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Now in the teaching of salvation he says this. Jesus did not save anyone else and did not atone for the sins of the others.

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The Edgar Cayce reincarnation concept of salvation involves in simply reducing one's karmic debt to zero.

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Each person pays his own debt. Brigham Young said exactly the same thing in Mormonism.

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That the blood of Jesus Christ cannot ultimately save anybody. There are some sins that your own blood has to be shed to atone for.

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Plainly teaching in his teachings on blood atonement. All right now what about grace? In talking about grace, grace is defined by the reincarnationist as the opportunity to forgive others as we would be forgiven and thereby doing that you reduce your debt.

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The law of grace is simply the freedom to atone for our own sins. That is in Langley's book

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Edgar Cayce on reincarnation page 243. Isn't that strange? See how they mingle half -truths?

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You see how some things, thoughts of the bible are mingled into this junk? And that's the way it always did. All right but punishment, hell, retribution.

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The Cayce system of doctrine excludes any idea of eternal punishment for sin.

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Well again I don't want to keep knocking it but what about Mormonism? You see Mormonism in theology is very close to reincarnation.

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Because as God is, man once was. And man may become.

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As man is, God once was. And they teach that you can become a God. You can become a

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God. And they even say that if you could look out, Orson Pratt said if you could just look out and see things out there, you would just see millions of gods out there if you could see it.

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And so it's very close to this kind of a thought. And they deal with this thing, you know, about retribution and stuff.

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They don't have anything. Well if you really just think, well we just go on and on and talk about it.

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We'll stay with this. Any idea of eternal punishment for sin? It's all eradicated. Well it is so like when

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Lucifer, the spirit brother of Jesus, stepped forward at the great council of the gods, according to Mormon theology, and he said

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I'll be the savior and nobody will be lost. That's what he said. That's Mormon theology. At the great council, the great god, chief god,

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Elohim, he said, well what are we going to do about redeeming people? And Lucifer stepped forward and said I'll go and nobody will be lost.

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And they said, no you're not going to go. And so he got mad and rebelled and they kicked him out of heaven. And then Jesus said, well I'll go.

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Jesus was second choice according to Mormon theology. Most Mormons don't know that, but it's in their writings.

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You can check it out. All right. Now the only god that the sleeping prophet

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Edgar Cayce believed in was a god of infinite love and mercy who has already forgiven us all.

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And that thought permeates every church in this country. All you've heard of for the last 15 to 20 years, 25 years, is

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God is a god of love and mercy, love and mercy. And now people have no fear of God.

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They have no fear of hell. Most preachers don't believe in it. Most preachers don't preach it or teach it. And so people are paralyzed in the sense of, well

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God's just a god of love. He has to. And that's why people don't want to get saved. Why get saved if God's going to forgive you anyway?

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Just might as well eat, drink, and be merry because there's no such thing as hell. You believe in heaven? Yeah. Believe in hell?

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No. Well boy, that makes for good living. That makes for good living. And there are millions of people who believe that concept.

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God is a god of love and mercy and grace and forgiveness, but he's also a god of holiness, righteousness, and justice. And the

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Bible does teach just that, and we'll see that in a moment. Another Cayce follower makes this statement. We are all a part of God, and God is a part of us.

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There is no conflict, there is no punishment, merely opportunities to develop. That's by Jesse Sterrino, and it's booked

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The Sleeping Prophet, put up in Garden City, New York, Doubleday, 1967, page 243, and it's one of the authoritative books on Edgar Cayce.

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In the universalism concept of Edgar Cayce, there's no place for hell, and in reality, there's none for heaven either.

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You just go through all these planes of living future lives. All right, what does he believe about the Bible? Devoted Christian, he says.

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According to Edgar Cayce, his readings, these things that he got through trance, the

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Bible is neither accurate nor authoritative. Jesus of Nazareth was only one of 30 reincarnations, as we've said, of that particular soul, and he only became the

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Christian in this specific lifetime. Now, Jesus Christ was not

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God incarnate, but simply an entity, a soul, as you and I. So immediately, it denies the deity of Christ and the

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Trinity. All of us sin, and all of us will eventually achieve perfection by repaying our karmic debt.

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This will require many lifetimes in which we will work our way back toward an eventual reunion with God.

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There is no eternal judgment, for God does not judge people. God is not a judge, he says.

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Edgar Cayce believed that it is possible for a person to hold to his doctrine and to still identify himself as a

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Christian. Well, aren't there those who say, well, what difference do all these things make? If you just love

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Jesus, I've said that on two occasions, if you just love Jesus. All right. Edgar Cayce and the

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Holy Scriptures. What does he believe about creation? I had a thought or two for you about creation. His idea of the creation of man and woman differs radically from that of the book of Genesis.

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His readings, these things he got, show God as lonely. Have you ever heard that? I've heard that preached in Baptist churches.

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God was lonely. He wanted fellowship, and he made a man and woman. That's junk. You can't find that in the

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Bible. But I've heard it taught in Sunday school classes, and I'll guarantee you, some of you have said that.

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I've said it, for I learned better. For I learned better. I've said it. I've thought it. God was sitting up there lonely.

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Well, that's what he said. God was lonely and in need of company, so he spun off a part of himself for this purpose.

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Now, the Scriptures declare that from eternity, God was what? Never alone.

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God didn't need fellowship. God wasn't lonely. He wasn't alone.

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He never was. Christ was not created, but he's the Son of God. He is co -eternal and co -creator with God the

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Father and the Holy Spirit. The triune God is complete within himself. He has no needs whatsoever.

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He is perfect God. He has no need whatsoever. Never has and never will have a need.

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Nowhere in the Bible does it say so. He doesn't have any need for companionship. Otherwise, he could not be true, perfect God.

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If he had any need at all, he couldn't be true, perfect God. In God's triune nature, he has companionship, love, and communication all together in the

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Godhead. He doesn't need anything else. God is perfect God.

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That's the way it matters, people. That's the way it matters. But it is true.

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Come out of this concept that God needs you and me. God doesn't need you and me. God's grace brings us to him, and his love brings us to him, but he sure doesn't need us.

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What do you contribute to God that he needs? Now, you just think about your life as I think about mine.

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This frail thing? Well, I got to run to the doctor twice a month to keep me going?

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What good, I mean, what am I contributing to him that he needs me so much? Well, he's got to have preached the gospel.

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No, he doesn't. He's chosen to use me, but he doesn't need me. God could speak the word, and everybody would be

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Christians if he wants to. God can speak the word, and everybody would be lost if he wants to. You think about the sovereignty of God sometimes.

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It's quite interesting, quite interesting, but we've thought this all along. Now, Edgar's case is his concept of Jesus Christ.

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That differs from Scripture, too, as I understand Scripture. Now, you don't have to believe as I do. If you can show me some Scripture, I'd be interested in looking at them.

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Jesus claimed to be the Christ, the Son of the living God. He claimed to be

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God incarnate, God in the flesh, the Messiah of whom the Hebrew prophets prophesied and foretold.

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He was fully man. He was fully God. The Bible exerts emphatically that Jesus was human.

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The Bible exerts emphatically that Jesus was human, and it also just as emphatically says that he was divine, he was deity in one.

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Jesus Christ spoke of himself as the culmination of God's plan of redemption and the fulfillment of the

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Father's promise to Israel, Matthew 5, 17, and other places of Scripture that you want to look at.

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The Bible also teaches you and me that Jesus Christ is presently with God the Father, and he's acting as an advocate on behalf of the believer, 1

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John 2, verses 1 through 2, and other passages of Scripture. Jesus also promised to return and to judge the earth and then rule the earth,

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John 14, 1 through 3, Revelation 19, 13 through 16, and other passages of Scripture.

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The Bible says that he was sinless, 2 Corinthians 5, 21. He never had any sin, never sinned, perfect in all of his being.

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Now, Edgar Cayce taught that Jesus was sinful, he was a sinful soul, who had become perfect through 30 reincarnations.

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Here's what he said, then to the fact that Jesus required baptism may further substantiate his rule as Adam, since there he had sinned.

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Now, why do you think he was baptized? I've shared this with you, I know Brother Don shared it with you.

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Most of you know, why was Jesus baptized in the River Jordan? Did he have sin? Well, that's right, he did not.

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Well, let me give you another thought that what some Christian people, some of these tangent groups want us to believe, that's when he was filled with the

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Holy Spirit of God. Do you believe that? I believe he was filled with the Holy Spirit of God. He was

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God. Why was he baptized? To identify himself with the will and the plan of God.

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Why did the Holy Spirit descend down on him like a dove? Because the law required at 30 years of age that anyone going into the priesthood had to be anointed by God, had to be anointed for his earthly messianic ministry, and he's about to set out on his messianic ministry, and he was offering himself to be baptized by John, who was offering a baptism of repentance unto good works, and Jesus was identifying him with a new godly movement, and that's all.

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Jesus was perfect from the day he was born, he was perfect in pre -existence, Jesus has always been perfect.

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He's always, he's God. The Holy Spirit comes from God the Father, God the Son. They're one in the

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Godhead, but a lot of people want me to believe that that's when he was filled with the Holy Spirit and all this stuff. Well, Edgar Cayce had trouble with it just like they have trouble with it.

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Let me give you something else he said. He too overcame, surrendering all power unto the will of the

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Father. That's an example for man. And only as a man, for he lived only as a man, he died only as a man.

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If he died only as a man, then he could not pay the infinite price that God demands for the payment of sin.

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Only God could do that. Only perfect God could pay a perfect price and the infinite price that God demands for sin.

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So we don't believe that at all. Now, Christianity rests on this fact.

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You say it rests on the resurrection. In a way, Christianity rests on the fact that Jesus Christ is

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God. Christianity rises and falls on the divinity of Jesus Christ.

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It rises and falls on the deity of Christ. That's why every false group and cult attacks that point.

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Because Satan well knows that's where it all hinges. If he is not true God, then we are of all people most miserable and we have been deceived.

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I like, oh well, there's so many things. Let me go on. The death of Jesus Christ, it either is substitutionary and perpetratory, or the entire event has no meaning whatsoever.

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The cross has no meaning unless it is substitutionary for you and me, unless he is the perpetuation for our sins, the atonement for our sins, and the payment and the price for our sins, or that cross has no meaning whatsoever.

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None. If Jesus Christ was a sinner, if he was a master teacher, then he was a liar.

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He was a fraud and is possibly the greatest con artist the world has ever known, if that be true.

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I like what C .S. Lewis, the infamous agnostic, who set out to prove

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Christianity false and became a Christian. You study him in seminary and you study him in colleges. Wonderful, wonderful man, and he wrote a book called

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Mere Christianity. He's screw tape letters and others that some of you are familiar with. This is what he said. I like this.

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You've heard it before. A man who is merely a man and said the sort of things

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Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell.

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You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the son of God, or else a madman or something worse.

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You can shut him up for a fool. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him

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Lord and God. But never come with this patronizing nonsense about him being some great human teacher.

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He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. I love that.

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Boy, I quote that. Listen, man, I hit him with it. You may not remember verbatim, but you can sure hit him with it, and they'll sit and look at you.

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Because here's a man, one of the most infamous agnostics of all time. If one accepts the Bible, they have to accept the deity of Jesus Christ.

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They just have to. All right? Man's sinful nature. What about does man have a sinful nature?

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The Bible teaches that any and all rebellion against God is sin. Any rebellion or rebellion against God is sin.

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Each person is a sinner. You know the scriptures. Romans 3 .23 and others. Psalm 14, 2 and 3.

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I don't think I wrote that up here, but Psalm 14, verses 2 to 3 is an Old Testament concept. Romans 3 .23, all of sin.

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Now, in Edgar Cayce's readings and his trance, they also talked of everyone being a sinner, but there's a radical difference in how one gets saved.

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The Bible teaches that because of sin, spiritual death has occurred. And out of God's divine love,

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God has offered us the opportunity to know the truth by healing us of our spiritual blindness.

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In the Bible, the solution to man's problem of spiritual death is completely God -centered.

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It is never man -centered. Edgar Cayce presents a solution that is totally man -centered.

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Gina Germinara, Gina Germinara, one of the leading advocates of Edgar Cayce's concept and reincarnation, one of those leading followers, presents a solution this way.

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She says, quote, For almost twenty centuries, the moral sense of the western world has been blunted by a theology which teaches the vicarious atonement of sin through Christ, the

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Son of God. That is, Christ's giving of his life. It is no unique event in history.

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To build these two statements, therefore, that Christ was the Son of God and that he died for man's salvation into a dogma, and then to make salvation depend upon believing that dogma, has been the great psychological crime because it places responsibility for redemption on something external to the self.

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It makes salvation dependent on belief in the divinity of another person rather than on self -transformation through belief in one's own intrinsic divinity.

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End quote. For by grace are you saved through faith and not of yourself.

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It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.

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Either that statement's true or false. This person says it's false. Can you not see?

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It's all humanism, isn't it? It's all humanism. I don't need the blood of Christ. I don't need Christ on the cross.

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I don't need anything but myself with my own talent, my own potential, my own abilities. I will soon find that inner consciousness and I will soon have everything together and I've got to get it together.

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I'm trying to get my mind together. I'm trying to get my head on straight and all the other junk that people use to try to say,

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I can do it, I don't need God. And that has been happening from the Garden of Eden to this day. That's exactly what

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Satan's been trying to do, to get people to try to do it themselves. If they just stopped trying and let Christ do it for them, what a difference it would make in their life.

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All right, according to Cayce, it is the pulling up of oneself from reincarnation to reincarnation to reincarnation.

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The soul is sort of like a trustee in jail. You know what a trustee does. He gets to kind of roam around a little bit.

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He doesn't have to stay locked up all the time. Now, we can always, a trustee can always get his sentence reduced for good behavior.

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Roman Catholicism teaches that. Purgatory, purgatory became a doctrine, a dogma somewhere in the

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Middle Ages, about the same time the Pope became infallible, about the same time as in the Middle Ages. It didn't start out that way.

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It's real instant that there were three popes at one time, each one a Mexican -Canadian. One in Avignon, A -V -I -G -N -O -N, one in Avignon, one in Rome, and another over around Liverno, somewhere over in Italy.

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Had three of them, the French popes and the Italian popes have always struggled. Even the school of cardinals, they always struggled to see who has the power.

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Each one had to be the strongest. That's the guy that won. Well, you had that. About the same time all this is going on, then purgatory came into being.

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What's it say? You can get your sentence reduced. Well, you can't do good behavior down there, but you can lay up a treasure of merit.

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You can drain on the treasure of merit of the saints. You can drain on that. Or I can go light some candles for you, and I can put enough money in the good box that I can help you with your sentence.

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And it really doesn't work that way. It really doesn't work that way. But Edgar Cayce, he believed that your soul's like a trustee, and you can get it for a good behavior.

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Now, C .S. Lewis said this, this fine Christian man, tremendous author. He said, quote, we want, now

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I love this, don't miss this, don't miss this one. We want, in fact, not so much a father in heaven as a grandfather in heaven.

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We want a senile old benevolence who, as they say, like to see young people enjoying themselves and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, a good time was had by all, end quote.

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I like that. That's exactly what people want. They don't want a God up there who sees and knows everything.

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They want a granddaddy up there who will see and know everything, and isn't that just like our granddads? Yeah, the daddy says, come here boy,

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I'm gonna whip you. Now, don't, don't be that way. Now, don't, don't whip him. Now, he's, he's, grandmothers do the same.

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Out of the sense of, out of the love of their heart, well, no, don't come to grand, after he comes out, yeah, he's crying, you done whipped his rump, yeah, he's going nuts.

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Who's he go to, mom and dad? Ah, he's gonna go over and sit on grandmother's lap. Go, why? Because they dote a little bit.

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And that's what most people want. They don't want a God to whom they've got to answer. Dear people, they want a granddaddy up in heaven who will just smile and say, well, wonderful day for everybody.

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Tomorrow will be a new one. We'll just start tomorrow all over. I like that myself. I think it says a lot, at least to me.

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According to the readings, again, of Edgar Cayce, God does not personally judge men, but rather allows the impersonal law of karma to be in operation.

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You might read Matthew 25, verses 41 and 46, 2

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Thessalonians 1, verses 7 through 9, and there are many others, but those are explicit. Now, when

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Edgar Cayce questioned these readings as to why he asked these things that spoke to him, why reincarnation is not taught in the

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Bible, they, these things, voices, told him the answer was to be discovered in the teachings of the

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Gnostics. Paul wrote Colossians to refute the Gnostics. That's why he wrote the book of Colossians.

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Who included the secrets of the ancient mystery religions in their thought. And the readings said that this

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Gnostic, quote, truth, end quote, was suppressed and excluded from the Bible when it ought to be included.

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Now, Exodus chapter 20, verses 3 through 5, and it's familiar to you, shows that the ancient idol worshipers mentioned by the readings that Edgar Cayce had could not have been serving

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Jehovah the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. All the cults of Egypt, Chaldea, Persia, India, and Greece were worshiping idols and false gods, and God dealt with them because of that.

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One of the teachings of Gnosticism was that matter itself is evil. Matter, all matter, was evil and yet eternal.

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Hence, our body is really evil or worthless. The body just doesn't make any difference. Don't worry about it.

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Now, the basic teaching of Gnosticism, it is a highly intelligent, it is a highly intellectual way of life and thought.

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There is a long series of emanations, they say, between a man and God. Now, you must fight your way, a man must fight his way up that long ladder to get to God.

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In order to do that, he will need all kinds of secret knowledge and esoteric learning and hidden passwords.

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Now, what did we talk about when we got to talk about transcendental meditation? Hare Krishna, what? They whisper a secret mantra to you.

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And nobody knows that but you and the guru, the Satguru, the perfect master. He's the only one to know that.

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Now, we will need an elaborate system of secret and recondite knowledge in order to reach

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God. It is clear that the false teachers of Colossae were tamed with Gnostic heresy and Paul rebuked them.

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They were trying to turn Christianity into a philosophy and a theosophy and theosophy and philosophy are the two leading thoughts in the world today.

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And that's what they were trying to do way back there. It was defeated for some 300 years because Paul wrote the letter to Colossians.

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It just shut it off and then it sprang back into being. Alright, now this man Origen is referred to by all theologians.

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He was an early writer in the days of early Christianity after the apostles and so forth.

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Origen was a universalist. He was a universalist. And his writings were colored with platonic thinking.

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Gnostic teachings seemed to be compatible with reincarnation. So these readings that Cayce got, he used them to destroy the authority of scripture just as Origen did.

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The plan was first to proclaim that the Bible is incomplete. Now we know some people do that today.

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Well the Bible is okay but it's just incomplete. Have you read this book? The Book of Mormon?

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Have you read this one? Over here we've got another one. Have you read the Watchtower? We've got another one.

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Where do most people go? They go to the bookstore and buy books. They don't read the Bible. They go down to the Christian bookstore and they've got more paperbacks.

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As I said to you the other evening, if you spend your time reading the Bible or that you spend in those little books, you'd be a Bible scholar. You'd be a

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Bible scholar. People want to go and read the books what other people say and they just believe everything they read.

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New song by Pat Boone. Good. Pat Boone says that God is giving revelation outside the

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Bible. No. He said that at Jesus 76 in Orlando, Florida. 5 ,000, 6 ,000 people sitting there.

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No way. God is not giving revelation from the Bible. But the Bible is always incomplete to these people and it also has some error.

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And to add or subtract whatever was necessary so that what was left would conform to the reincarnation theory.

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They began to adapt it. Now, a Christian must not and cannot accept feelings, experiences, or the pronoun we, or whatever, or the thoughts of other people as their authority.

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You cannot do it. Feelings change. Experiences change. You can find as many experiences as you can find personalities.

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Because we're all different personalities. We don't all feel alike. We don't all experience alike. There is only one authority and that is the

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Word of God. It is only in the propositional truth of Holy Scripture. Now, there is no possibility of reconciliation between the two.

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You cannot take the cults or the occult or these other groups and reconcile the Bible to them.

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You just can't do it. Some people think by just saying, well, maybe the Bible does have error, they think they can reach some people by doing that.

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You can never reach anybody by undermining your authority. You just can't do it. You have to stand on it.

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And I've said this and I've said everywhere I go, everywhere I travel, I will not sacrifice the Word of God just to be nice to people.

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I'm not going to sacrifice the Scripture to have people like me. I love people to like me. I'm just like you. I love people to love me.

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I love people to respond to me just like you do. But I'm not going to sacrifice the Bible just to get them to do it.

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But I meet thousands of Christians who do just that. They're willing to compromise what they feel or what they believe, what they know to be true, as they sense the

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Word of God speaks to their heart, but they'll compromise it with their family or with their friends or with their associates. No wonder we're not reaching them for Christ.

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It's no wonder to me there is no possibility of reconciliation. The Bible and Edgar Cayce are in direct opposite camps.

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There is total disagreement. The idea of reincarnation leads back to an impersonal origin of all things.

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The motion or the idea of repeated deaths for individual souls is completely inconsistent with Christian teachings.

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You might read Hebrews 9 .27. What's that say? It's a point on a man wants to die.

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And after this, the judgment. Exactly right. An attempt to gain perfection by whatever number of lifetimes is in direct contradiction of the

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Bible doctrine of justification by faith, where God just gives you. He imputes to you.

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He puts down to your account Jesus Christ's righteousness as a gift. Reincarnation is opposed to the

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Bible teaching of one new birth for every individual who accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

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So we ask ourselves a quick question in closing. Is reincarnation in the

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Bible? They say it is. They say it is. All right. Edgar Cayce and his followers assert that reincarnation references are found in our present biblical text.

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And I want us to quickly close by just looking at some of them. Will you turn to me to Matthew 11 .14. These are the ones they use these primarily.

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There are some others, but these will be the biggies. If you talk to one of them, these will be the ones that they'll nail you with. You already know them, of course.

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You have the answers to them, but I just thought it might be good if we just kind of read them together. Matthew 11 .14.

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And this is talking about John the Baptist. And if you will receive it, this is Elijah who was to come.

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But now we come back and they say, well, now, if John the Baptist was Elijah, we've got two or three problems.

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First of all, they ask him, was he? And he said, no. That's one thing. He said he wasn't. But now we don't want to just read this passage because we want to read some others, sir.

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We want to look at others. So would you read Mark 9 with me? So we take them over to Mark 9 and see what

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Mark 9 has to say about John the Baptist being Elijah. Gospel according to Mark, chapter 9.

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And let's look at verses 11 through 13. All right, talking about John the

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Baptist. And they ask him saying, why say the scribes then that Elijah must first come?

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Because the Old Testament plainly does say that Elijah would have to come before the great day of the

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Lord, which is when he comes to rule and reign as the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. Now, and he answered and said then and told them,

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Elijah verily cometh first and restoreth all things and how it is written of the son of man that he must suffer many things and be treated with contempt.

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But I say unto you, Elijah is indeed come and they have done unto him whatsoever they desired, as it is written of him.

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And they say, well, that's what we're trying to tell you, that Elijah has come. John the Baptist is

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Elijah. We say, well, but we got another verse of scripture we want you to look at. Would you turn to me to the

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Gospel according to Luke, chapter 1. See, the Bible is a unity, isn't it? We say, now what's he really talking about here?

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Is he talking about personally that John the Baptist was really Elijah reincarnated?

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I know people believe that. I know that they believe that he actually was Elijah. I look at verse 17 of chapter 1 of the

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Gospel according to Luke. And he, and this is an angel speaking, and he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready a people prepared for the

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Lord. Now, many people serve in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln. Many people serve in the spirit of Thomas Edison, but that doesn't mean that they were these men in another lifetime.

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And because John the Baptist came in the power and the spirit of Elijah, doesn't make him

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Elijah. Now, reincarnation says, if John the Baptist was Elijah, then Elijah no longer exists, right?

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Sure, because he's gone into another state now. Look at Matthew 17. Let's see if that's so.

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Matthew 17, you know it well. It's that passage of scripture that refers to what? It refers to the transfiguration.

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The transfiguration of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, look at verse 3, well verse 2.

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And was transfigured before them, and his face, talking about the Lord Jesus, did shine like the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.

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And, behold, there appeared unto him Moses and Elijah. Evidently, Elijah's still living somewhere. So, John the

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Baptist couldn't be Elijah if Elijah's still alive, because reincarnation says, when you leave one, that one no longer exists, and you go on to another one.

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You just go from one to the other, but whenever you leave one, then that personality no longer exists. So, John the

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Baptist, there's no way John the Baptist was Elijah. The disciples saw and heard

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Moses and Elijah, not Moses and John the Baptist. And if John the

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Baptist was dead, he'd already been killed. Now, Elijah was

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Elijah after he left the earth. He didn't change. He did not return reincarnated as John the

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Baptist. Now, another passage that they'll use, and we'll not refer to it, but you write down Genesis 14, 18, and that's about Melchizedek.

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I had a young couple who were teaching a Sunday school class. They were in one up in another city in north

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Texas, who wrote me a question. And what I've tried to do is, when people write me questions about the Bible, I usually work up a whole study on it.

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And they said, who is Melchizedek? That is profound. So, I sat down, and for about six weeks,

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I spent and got 15 pages of material, and we put it on tape. So, all

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I can say to you is that Jesus was not Melchizedek. The scripture teaches that he wasn't. It does teach that he did have a mother and he did have a daddy.

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One little Hebrew phrase in there that everybody misses, and they don't read it. I don't know why they don't read it. It's right there. But it plainly indicates that he did have a mother and dad.

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Doesn't give you their names, but it plainly says he did. You say, well, I've read that a lot down there in the city. Order my tape.

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You'll give me some money and I'll give you the tape. Alright? Turn to me to John's Gospel. This is used extensively.

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Melchizedek was the king of Salem, of course. The king of Salem. Salem being the first mention there in Genesis of the city of Jerusalem.

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And he was the king of that. The mayor of the city, perhaps. And he was a Gentile. Abraham came and gave tithes to him.

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Abraham was a Hebrew. And then I think verse 13 is the first place the word Hebrew appears in the

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Bible there in Genesis. You can check all that out as you go back to it. You'll see it. John, the third chapter, that's the one they really like, don't they?

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John 3, verse 3, you can see it already. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again.

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They said, there it is, man. You've got to be born again. Born again, born again, born again, born again, and keep on getting born again until you get it all worked out.

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Well, is that what he's saying? Salvation does not come from developing something within and through reincarnation states, but by receiving something that comes from above.

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That's simple. Salvation is outside itself. So we just take this verse, we try to explain to them what it means.

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We go on over to John 3, 16, and we share that with them and see what they say about that. And then we talk to them about, they like John.

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Turn to me to John 9. This is another one they enjoy. And this one here, we had to work a whole study upon this.

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The Sunday school class that I teach, I shared with you before, time and again, that I teach an adult ones couples class.

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It's the whole department that we teach when I'm home. And boy, they just couldn't figure this one out.

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This was just a stumper for them. Look at verses 2 and 3 of chapter 9, the Gospel according to John.

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And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying,

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Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Now, the boy was born blind, and they wanted to know, did he sin?

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And the reincarnation said, well, there, he's asking right here, did he sin in another world because he was born blind?

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And if he did sin that caused that blindness, well, he had to sin in another existence. What would you tell them?

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Say, we Baptists don't believe that. That'll excite him. That'll excite him, wouldn't it?

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Well, did the disciples really imply that the man could have sinned in another lifetime or existence?

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Not at all. Not at all. They were sure that sin brought suffering.

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But they were not sure about whether each case of suffering was caused by sin or not.

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There are those groups today that say, if you've got suffering in your life, it's because you've got sin in your life. We know that's not so.

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Job didn't have any sin, and he had all kinds of problems. Now, it could be

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Miriam, God gave Miriam leprosy, didn't he? Kicked her out of the camp of Israel. The sister of Moses, because she griped.

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Ladies, that's all she did was griped. She griped and grumbled at Moses, the leader.

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Aaron griped too. But God didn't give him leprosy. Why? He was the priest. He had, he was a high priest.

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If he'd ever got leprosy, God had to get another high priest because he'd become unclean that moment on. So some suffering does come from sin, but not all.

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You can be the most faithful and sweetest Christian in the world and have a physical difficulty coming up in your life. I've said this to you, and I said it again.

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If it snows six feet and you go out there and lay in it nude for three or four hours, you'll catch a cold more than likely. Most likely you will.

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And not so. There are natural phenomena that occur, natural law. Now, Cayce's theory suggests to us that the man's blindness was a result of a karmic debt for some wrongdoing in a previous lifetime.

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And that's where he had it. And you study the whole passage of scripture, and you'll see it's just the opposite of what he's trying to tell us it is.

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All right, look at verses 11 and 14 of 9. They, see, they hang around all these things of Romans, not

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John. Romans 9, verses 11 through 14.

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They'll stay in John, John 8, 58. You know what Jesus said before Abraham was, I am. They say, look at there,

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Jesus, there he was, preexistent. Why, he'd been reincarnated. And we know the

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Jews, why, they took up stones to kill him. They understood what he said, even whether Cayce did or not. The Jews figured he was saying that he was

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God. He was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He said, I am, used the same words that God used when he spoke to Moses out of the burning bush.

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I am. And that's the definition of God. He is the I am, preexistent. Always was, always is, and always will be.