THE THREAT OF THE NEW AGE MOVEMENT
The Excellence of the Christian Faith • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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-{Deuteronomy 18}
-As we have been looking at the excellencies of the Christian faith by contrasting it with false faiths, I want us to be encouraged that no matter what falsehood that someone finds themselves in, there is hope for release from the chains of darkness and entrance into the light of Christ. None of these false religions hold bonds too strong for the gospel.
-This is especially true with my subject for tonight, because this religion (or teaching or philosophy) is very prevalent, and comes in so many different forms. It has penetrated our culture on all different levels. Let me read a testimony from Jordan Taylor, a young lady who describes how deep she was in darkness, and then how Jesus set her free. She writes:
For more than 10 years, I was entrenched in mysticism and self-discovery.
I practiced witchcraft and performed spells. I became an oracle-card reader and enrolled in classes to sharpen my psychic abilities. I was a certified Reiki master and yoga teacher. I used crystals as a means of healing, protecting, and manifesting. I believed in astrology, manifesting under a new moon and cleansing and recharging my energy under the full moon. I worshiped nature and worked with goddesses. I found my spirit guides and let them lead the course of my life. I’d talk to “Spirit/Source/Universe” and believed I was speaking to my “higher self.” I believed I created my own reality and I was my own god, in control of my life. I thought I finally knew my purpose—to heal the collective, raise the vibration of the planet, and help others heal and do the same.
But behind it all, I grappled with darkness, deception, and a yearning for more.
Still, I became trapped in a cycle of healing and “upleveling,” constantly seeking the next healing session in various forms. Though each experience brought fleeting relief, when the feelings faded I still wasn’t satisfied. I believed my next crisis was just leveling me up and raising my vibration and cracking some secret code to the harmony of the collective planet.
While believing all this, I was suffering and in a deep pit of depression. I longed to feel loved, heard, and understood. My soul lacked a sense of belonging. My body was in a constant state of fight or flight. Many days, I wished I wasn’t alive. I was being tormented, experiencing regular sleep paralysis. I thought I could burn a little sage, say a chant, and put crystals in every corner of my room to stop it.
I was wrong about all of it. What I was actually doing was laying down a welcome mat for darkness and deception—and all that comes with it. The very practices I believed protected me and connected me to something divine were only pushing me further into darkness, further away from God.
I was oddly allergic to the G-word (God) during my time in the New Age. I almost unfriended a New Age colleague who’d recently come to Christ because she couldn’t stop talking about him. I was irritated by it. Angry. Repelled. I thought, What happened to her? Has she gone mad? I couldn’t wrap my head around her drastic transformation to Christianity.
I remember a vital moment in my resistance when I reluctantly watched a movie about Jesus to appease my then-boyfriend. My exact words: “Fine, I’ll watch it once if you stop asking me.”
That’s when I first experienced God’s grace, when he met me in my stubbornness. He met me in my sin and depression. I watched the movie about Jesus and sobbed hysterically. I was overcome by an intense feeling of love that poured over my entire being. Growing up in a broken home and being trapped in a cycle of toxic relationships as an adult, I’d never really felt love before. I knew this was the kind of love I was desperately seeking in all the wrong ways. That’s when I knew God was after my heart.
I tried to deny and ignore that experience, but I also wanted to feel that love again. So I chased after Jesus.
-What Jordan was trapped in is best known as the New Age Movement, or what it might also be known as the new spirituality. It is a weird mixture of all sorts of different aspects. Last time we met we talked about Hinduism, and the New Age Movement has its basis steeped in that false religion. But it takes Hinduism, mixes it with the occult, and then throws in dashes of paganism, humanism, and pop psychology for an amalgamation that is more of a network of various beliefs rather than a singular religious movement.
-But it is heavy in superstition and dark spirituality. That is why we wanted to read from Deuteronomy, because we are given this strong warning:
10 “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices soothsaying or one who interprets omens or a sorcerer,
11 or one who is an enchanter or a medium or a spiritist or one who inquires of the dead.
12 “For whoever does these things is an abomination to Yahweh; and because of these abominations Yahweh your God will dispossess them from before you.
-The New Age movement has roots all the way back to occultic superstition in the 1700s, but it became more prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s as eastern mysticism made its way to the west through pop culture icons such as the Beatles and others, and it has been a mainstay ever since. It is still found today in the writings of Deepak Chopra and pushed on society by such celebrities as Oprah Winfrey.
-It has foundations in Hinduism in that it teaches both monism and pantheism. Monism is the teaching that everything is one—everything is part of one being or one existence. Pantheism teaches that everything is deity. So, according to their teachings, we are all individual manifestations of the one who is a god.
-Now, whereas Hinduism focuses on the one entity (what they call Brahman), New Age focuses on the individual manifestation (which Hinduism calls Atman). So while both say Atman is Brahman, the New Age Movement emphasizes the Atman part—they emphasize that you as an individual are divine.
-And so the whole premise of the New Age Movement is to ascend in your consciousness of your own divinity. This has its roots in an old heresy from the 2nd century called Gnosticism which taught that all you need is knowledge about your divinity and you will rise to that status. But what is funny is that they often sprinkle in terms from all sorts of different religions, including Christianity.
-For example, whereas we know that Jesus is the Christ, meaning that He is the divine Messiah sent from God, the New Age movement teaches that Christ isn’t a person but is the divine essence that we need to realize that we have, and try to climb the ladder of our spiritual growth. As one of their own teachers, David Spangler, wrote:
The Christ within us is our own divine essence… It is the spark of the divine that lives in every one of us.
-So, what New Agers are trying to do is to evolve spiritually which they do through things like self-awareness, positive thinking, meditation, yoga, and the like. This is also where the occultic parts of New Age-ism comes in as people seek help in this enlightenment. So they go to mediums and seances to hear from the dead. They consult tarot cards and Ouija boards to hear something from those who would help them get more in contact with their own divinity. Hence, the warning given in the passage we read in Deuteronomy.
-Some people, through these means, seek the help of spirit guides to guide them through their own personal transformation to divine realization. And because they believe that they are divine, they teach that their thoughts and words can shape reality. If they are a god, they can create their own reality and manifest whatever positive thing that they think that they can manifest.
-They also believe that any physical or mental ailments come from an imbalance and healing can come through seeping in positive energy. That is where their whole usage of crystals and the like comes from.
-Because all are one, and all are god, then there are no moral absolutes, there is no evil, negative experiences just help in your enlightenment, and that means that anybody and anything can help you in your growth, even the devil.
-And because anybody and anything can help New Agers, they then believe that all religions and philosophies are created equal and all head to the same place. They have no problems combining Hinduism with Christianity with Islam, because they think that any of these teachings will help you in your ascendency. So, they are pluralistic to the core.
-However, similar to Hinduism, they teach that people don’t always ascend immediately, so they get several lifetimes to try to work it out. They teach that when people die they are reincarnated, and the karma that they collected in the previous lifetime determines where you end up in the next lifetime. All the while you try to ascend to the point of your divinity merging itself into the one.
-And after having given this brief description, I’m sure that you can recognize some of its influences in pop culture, and how many of its tenets have become normal such that it doesn’t shock people anymore. But you can also see the darkness that it invites in. When you participate in such occultic practices as seances or Ouija boards or horoscopes or crystals you are opening yourself up to dark forces. Everything that is behind the New Age movement is demonic, and having read Jordan’s testimony earlier, you hear the detrimental effects it has on someone and their need for the gospel message of the true Jesus. So, what is the truth that counteracts the lies of the New Age movement?
-We know the truth that there is a God, and we ain’t Him. There is only one true Creator God who is holy and unique. God makes it very clear:
5 “I am Yahweh, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. ...
-There is a distinction between Creator and creation, which I emphasized when we looked at Hinduism. While New Agers teach that humanity is divine, and therefore there is nothing wrong with them, we know as Christians that we are mere mortals who fells into sin, and we are unable to change that ourselves no matter how much knowledge we think we can gain. The Bible is clear:
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can know it?
-That being the case, the problem with humanity is not that it is ignorant (per se), but that it is cursed and fallen and mortal. To get beyond this, we don’t need a personal transformation through self-awareness or positive thinking. We need a complete overhaul. We need to be delivered from the state that we are in, and that can only come from another. We cannot do it. God had to do if for us. Thus:
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
9 not of works, so that no one may boast.
-Salvation is a gift from God by grace through Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross—humans can do nothing to add to or subtract from the work of Christ. Jesus is the only way.
-However, once you die your eternal destiny has been set. There is no new life. There is no second chance. If you do not come to faith in Jesus Christ in this one life that you are given, then forever will you be separated from God and His love and His goodness.
27 ... it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,
-You die once and then your eternal destiny is set forever. What you do with Christ and what you do for Christ will be brought back upon you for your eternal state—whether rewards for the saved or punishment for the damned.
13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are uncovered and laid bare to the eyes of Him to whom we have an account to give.
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
-And for those who are in Christ, there will be a new heaven and new earth in which they will dwell with God for eternity. The New Agers believe that through better awareness of their divinity they can bring about a utopia—what they called the Age of Aquarius. But The Bible makes clear that the only change for this world will come at the return of Jesus Christ.
-You might know some folks who are stuck in this type of thinking. We need to pray that they see the light just like Jordan did. And there is a warning for us Christians to stay away from this type of stuff. Don’t do occultish stuff. Don’t get crystals to try and heal you...
