"HINDUISM PART II"
Apologetics • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Three weeks ago we learned about the following topics -
What is Hinduism -
How did Hinduism begin?
What do Hindus believe and practice?
What are the manifestation(s) of God in Hinduism?
What is reincarnation?
Maya = Humanities dilemma
Tonight we are going to learn about 1) their code of behavior, 2) what there authority is, and 3) what the Bible says about these things.
What code of behavior do Hindus follow?
What code of behavior do Hindus follow?
There are four main social positions or varna within Hinduism -
Brahmins (priests and teachers)
Kshatriyas (rulers and soldiers),
Vaishyas (merchants) and
Shudras (workers)
There are four ideal stages of life described in Hindu scriptures: the student, the family man, the recluse, and the wandering holy man. For most Hindu people these represent a metaphorical path, not an actual path.
Hinduism views mankind as divine.
Because Brahma is everything, Hinduism asserts that everyone is divine. Atman, or self, is one with Brahman. All of reality outside of Brahman is considered mere illusion. The spiritual goal of a Hindu is to become one with Brahma, thus ceasing to exist in its illusory form of “individual self.”
This freedom is referred to as “moksha.” Until moksha is achieved, a Hindu believes that he/she will be repeatedly reincarnated in order that he/she may work towards self-realization of the truth (the truth being that only Brahman exists, nothing else). How a person is reincarnated is determined by karma, which is a principle of cause and effect governed by nature’s balance. What one did in the past affects and corresponds with what happens in the future, past and future lives included.
What is a guru -
The job of a guru is to lead pupils on a spiritual path to help them attain “god” or realize their atman. Hindus hold that the atman is the eternal self, the spirit, or the essence of a person. On the path to liberation—also called moksha, nirvana, or self-realization—the final stage is realizing the atman is actually brahman, the one true reality and the force underlying all things. Hinduism states that a guru is necessary to reach such spiritual truths.
An avatar is the bodily incarnation of a deity on earth. The god can become incarnate in one place at a time as a full avatar or in many places simultaneously through partial avatars called amshas, such that the main form of the god can still communicate with the partial materializations. One could view avatars as embodying the concepts of pantheism (god is all) and polytheism (many gods).
What is an Avatar-
The belief in Hindu avatars is similar to the Christian heresy of Docetism, which is the belief that Jesus Christ only appeared to be human. Docetism teaches that Jesus’ body was spiritual, rather than physical; thus, He was unable to suffer physical pain.
In Hinduism, the avatar appears to the devotee in whatever form the worshiper envisions, which, according to Hindu belief could be Mohammed, Krishna, Jesus, Buddha, or any other personal god. An “unqualified” person would take the avatar to be an ordinary human.
The purpose of the avatar’s manifestation is to restore dharma, or righteousness, to the cosmic and social order. Dharma encompasses behaviors such as duty, ritual, law, morality, ethics, good deeds, etc.—anything considered critical to maintaining natural order. That which is unnatural or immoral is called adharma.
The caste system -
No nation or people have been liberated from poverty, want, or injustice through Hinduism. While the caste system was officially outlawed in India in 1950, in truth, the Hindu caste system continues to enslave people, binding them in their miseries, and is responsible for unspeakable human suffering.
The Hindu caste system divides people into four rigid hierarchical groups, based solely on heredity. Members of each caste are restricted in their occupation and their association with other castes.
In the Manusmriti, considered the most important book on Hindu law dating back 3,000 or more years, the caste system is favorably regarded as the bedrock of societal order. Here are the four castes of Hinduism:
• Brahmins: teachers and intellectuals
• Kshatriyas: warriors and rulers
• Vaishyas: traders and merchants
• Shudras: laborers and menial workers
Outside the caste system is another group, known as Dalits, the “caste of the impure.” The Dalits, or “untouchables,” are expected to accept poverty and degradation as a fact of life. Overworked, undernourished, and without access to proper health care or basic hygiene, the Dalits toil in odious, inhumane conditions for meager wages that scarcely keep them alive.
Many of these slave laborers are young women and children. They have few rights. Most are denied educational opportunities. These marginalized people live in filth and squalor and work long hours in hazardous, often deadly conditions.
A majority of Dalit children are chronically malnourished, and only 2–3 percent of Dalit women can read or write. Dalit children who attend school are segregated from their classmates and are often assigned disagreeable jobs such as cleaning toilets.
In a nation already steeped in poverty, the ancient customs of Hinduism prevent the Dalits from rising above their extreme suffering and want.
There is no denying barbarous acts have been committed in the name of Christianity, but those guilty of avarice and senseless bloodshed do so outside of the authority of Scripture. No amount of Scripture-twisting can turn the words of Jesus into a battle cry for bigotry, hatred, and violence, yet one of Hinduism’s holiest books, the Manusmriti, sanctions a cruelly unjust caste system that has enslaved legions of people for more than three millennia. The Lord Jesus can set the captives free (Luke 4:18); the four-headed Hindu god Brahma cannot.
Various Bible passages teach the opposite of the Hindu caste system:
20 And turning His gaze toward His disciples, He began to say, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;
34 Opening his mouth, Peter said: “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, 35 but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.
27 Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
1 My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. 2 For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, 3 and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,” 4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?
31 He who oppresses the poor taunts his Maker, But he who is gracious to the needy honors Him.
What are the Hindu’s authorities?
What are the Hindu’s authorities?
Hindu ancient, sacred texts were written in Sanskrit, the language of ancient India.
The Vedas are the oldest - about 3000 years old. They are a collection of hymns, prayers, and magic spells.
The Upanishads are stories and parables told by gurus (teachers) to their students
The Mahabharata is a story of a war between two royal families.
The Bhagavad Gita is a very popular part of this text.
The Ramayana is a story of the god Rama and the rescue of his wife Sita from Ravana, the evil demon king.
The Vedas are more than theology books. They contain a rich and colorful “theo-mythology,” that is, a religious mythology which deliberately interweaves myth, theology, and history to achieve a story-form religious root. This “theo-mythology” is so deeply rooted in India’s history and culture that to reject the Vedas is viewed as opposing India.
A belief system is rejected by Hinduism if it does not embrace Indian culture to some extent. If the system accepts Indian culture and its theo-mythical history, then it can be embraced as “Hindu” even if its theology is theistic, nihilistic, or atheistic.
What does the Bible say?
1. God is personal and knowable -
5 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.
2. There is one set of inerrant, infallible, reliable, and applicable Scriptures -
18 and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. 19 So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
3. God is creator and sustainer -
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
3 By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
4. Man was created by God, in God’s image, and lives once -
27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
27 And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, 28 so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.
11 Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. 13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
5. Salvation is through Jesus Christ Alone -
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
12 “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
6. Apart from Christ, there is only the Lake of Fire and eternal punishment -
27 and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
SO WHAT??
Psalm 119:97–104 (NASB95)
97 O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. 98 Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, For they are ever mine. 99 I have more insight than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation. 100 I understand more than the aged, Because I have observed Your precepts.
101 I have restrained my feet from every evil way, That I may keep Your word. 102 I have not turned aside from Your ordinances, For You Yourself have taught me. 103 How sweet are Your words to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth! 104 From Your precepts I get understanding; Therefore I hate every false way.