Sermon Tone Analysis

61% of Christians put their faith in new age ideas.

books teaching the idea that God is an impersonal force in the universe and that we are to cultivate relationship with this force by shifting our consciousness and practicing things like “mindfulness”, “presence”, or yoga.

In 2018

Netflix recently came out with a series called “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” complete with spell-casting, incantations, and demonic manifestations...

right around the same time the makeup company Sephora announced that they would be releasing a witches starter kit for little girls complete with crystals, sage, and tarot cards.

STUDY SHOWS AS OF 2018

witches now outnumber Presbyterian Christians in the US by 100,000, with 1.5 million self-identified witches as paganism continues to grow “astronomically”.

27% of Americans identify as “spiritual but not religious”, including 35% of Protestant Christians.

This is one of the fast growing spiritual-religious demographs in the West right now.

In fact, the population of those who identify as witches or pagans is continuing to increase as the those who identify as “Protestant Christian” continues to decrease.

Americans Believe in New Age

They surveyed Americans to see what the thought about the following four New Age beliefs.

1) Spiritual energy exists in physical things

2) Psychics have reliable insight into the future

3) Reincarnation

4) Astrology

Not only did 62% of the general public hold at least one of these beliefs, 61% of professing Christians held one of these new age beliefs:

Pew Research

“Almost one third of the professing church of Christ believes they will live again in another body in another life on this planet,”

even though the Bible says in

Hebrews 9:27 that “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment”.

Reincarnation contradicts the entire Gospel.

We will stand before the judgement seat of Christ.

Four-in-ten professing Christians believes in psychics as a viable means of foretelling the future, even though the Bible repeating condemns this practice:

“There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.

And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.”

– Deuteronomy 18:10-12

MAJOR KEY IF

If we were to take other such New Age beliefs into account, it is a conservative estimate that

at least 80% of the professing church holds to New Age at least one New Age belief, which is nothing short of a theological crisis in the church.

Atheism isn’t the problem anymore in our culture, and neither is naturalism.

62% of Americans hold to New Age beliefs, while only 3% of the American population is atheist.

New Age is the religion of the future and it is beginning to invade our culture and infiltrate the thought-life of Christians.

PROBLEM

Our threat is this new wave of spiritual philosophy that draws from whatever religious tradition and practice it wants while promising its followers supernatural experiences and ascension into some hyper-spiritual state where they can attain paranormal powers and rise up the ranks of god-hood.

Part of the problem is that Christians don’t know what is “New Age” and what isn’t.

Futhermore, they don’t know how to navigate or confute New Age ideas once they are identified.

As a church, we are admittedly under-equipped to deal with the type of spirituality that is taking over the culture and is now making its way into the churches.

There’s a risk! the world of the new age sounds exciting at first.

AND

We are being attacked spiritually as our beliefs are being attacked intellectually...

These are doctrines of demons, masterfully presented as harmless forms entertainment and leisure.

And the obstacle i’ve found that leads young people away from the church and into demonic oppression is church for them was about a tangible, spiritual encounter, rather than a personal, covenant relationship with the one and only Almighty God.

And when these new age movements eb and flow, they prickle our interest because we are more interested in an experience than we are in love with God

The Word must be elevated.

WE must see the gospel in stranger things!

And know his word so we wont be lead astray, but in every religion, culture, story, and movie, we can say “Yeah that’s, but let me show you the truth hidden in plain site of the real GOOD NEWS”

The Epoch of the bible is WAY MORE EXCITING than ANY movie or TV show, if we only had the eyes and mind of Christ to see it.

Run HEISER CLIP

We are created in the image of God, which includes supernatural components written into our DNA by Him, that we see even today.

Hysterical Strength

May 1962, Jack Kirby claims a woman lifted a car off her baby, which inspired him to create the Hulk.

In 1982, in Lawrenceville, Georgia, Tony Cavallo was repairing a

1964 Chevrolet Impala automobile from underneath when the vehicle fell off the jacks on which it was propped, trapping him underneath.

Cavallo's mother, Mrs. Angela Cavallo, lifted the car high enough and long enough for two neighbors to replace the jacks and pull Tony from beneath the car.

In 2006, Ivujivik, Quebec, resident Lydia Angiyou saved several children by fighting a polar bear until a local hunter shot the bear.

In 2006, in Tucson, Arizona, Tom Boyle watched as a Chevrolet Camaro hit 18-year-old Kyle Holtrust.

The car pinned Holtrust, still alive, underneath.

Boyle lifted the Camaro off the teenager, while the driver of the car pulled the teen to safety.

In 2009, in Ottawa, Kansas, 1.70 m (5 ft 7 in), 84 kg (185 lb) Nick Harris lifted a Mercury sedan to help a 6-year-old girl pinned beneath.

In 2009, in Newport, Wales, Donna McNamee, Abigail Sicolo, and Anthony McNamee lifted a 1.1 ton Renault Clio off an 8-year-old boy.

In 2011, in Tampa, Florida, 1.91 m (6 ft 3 in), 134 kg (295 lb) University of South Florida college football player Danous Estenor lifted a 1,600 kg (3,500 lb) car off a man who had been caught underneath.

The man was a tow truck driver who had been pinned under the rear tire of a 1990 Cadillac Seville, which had lurched forward as he worked underneath it.

The man suffered only minor injuries.

In 2012, in Glen Allen, Virginia, 22-year-old Lauren Kornacki rescued her father, Alec Kornacki, after the jack used to prop up his BMW slipped, pinning him under it.

Lauren lifted the car, then performed CPR on her father and saved his life.

In 2012, in Michigan, Austin Smith (age 15) lifted a car to save his grandfather pinned underneath

In 2013, in Oregon, teenage sisters Hannah (age 16) and Haylee (age 14) lifted a tractor to save their father pinned underneath.

In 2013, in Salvage, Newfoundland and Labrador, Cecil Stuckless, a 72-year-old man lifted a Jeep to save his son-in-law pinned underneath

In 2015, in St. John's, Newfoundland, Nick Williams lifted a four-wheel-drive vehicle to save a young boy pinned beneath its tire.

In 2017, in Temple Terrace, Florida, Kenny Franklin, lifted an SUV from a state trooper after an accident

In 2019, in Ohio, Zac Clark, a 16-year-old football player, lifted a 3,000 lb car when he heard his neighbor call for help.

Col 1:29

Colossians 1:29 AMPC

For this I labor [unto weariness], striving with all the superhuman energy which He so mightily enkindles and works within me.

Judges 15:14–16 (ESV)

When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him.

Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands.

And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put out his hand and took it, and with it he struck 1,000 men.

And Samson said,

“With the jawbone of a donkey,

heaps upon heaps,

with the jawbone of a donkey

have I struck down a thousand men.”

Created to have relationship WITH the supernatural.

Genesis 3:8

Genesis 3:8 (NASB95)

They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day...

Exodus 6:7

Angels were and are God’s Messengers

Galatians 3:19

Psalms 103:20

Psalm 104:4

Psalm 104:4 (NASB95)

He makes the winds (Angels, Spirits) His messengers,

Flaming fire His ministers.

Commanded to WALK IN the Supernatural

Healing and Resurrection Powers

Matthew 10:8

Visions, Dreams, Prophecy