New Age Spirituality: Hot Topics Series

“New Age Spiritualism”

2003 Hot Topics Series

Galatians 1:1-12

August 10, 2003

(Note: This sermon went about thrity minutes. I’ve provided a break where a second sermon could start.)

Purpose: To discover what New Age thinking is, what the Bible has to say about it, and then how to react to it.

I. Introduction – Putting up the mailbox….

…thought I was so smart….thought I had the answer

…found out that I skipped a step and had to undo what had been done

…everything was there, everything looked good, but in the long run the mailbox would

not have been functional.

…so it is with New Age Spirituality

…they claim to have all the answers

…but they miss an important step…the gospel of Jesus Christ

…everything’s there, it looks good, but in many ways its dysfunctional

II. The arguments of the “New Age”

David Jeremiah in his book “Invasion of Other Gods, the Seduction of New Age Spirituality” lays out the six fundamental arguments that may sound familiar, if not understandable, by many of us.

We’re going to look at these six through the eyes of Scripture and see what the Bible has to say…

The first fundamental belief is in the “universality of God.”

In short, God is everything, in everything, on everything, and through everything. There is no distinction between humankind and nature; matter, time, and space are unreal myths that must be eliminated. Instead of an omnipotent God , there is a cosmic force of the universe that exists in everything, whether it be a person, a pig, or a pickle.

What does the Bible say?

…Ecclesiastes 5:2 says, “Don’t be rash with your mouth, and let not your heart utter anything

hastily before God….” Why? “For God is in heaven, and you are on earth.” God isn’t in

the tree, or in the river, or in the corn stalk. He sits in heaven and one day we will be there with him.

…Job 38-39 is another passage which shows God’s omnipotence over humankind. If you

remember these two chapters, Job has spent chapters 23-31 telling God what God should be doing and how much God has messed up Job’s life, and the Lord answered Job in these two chapters with a discourse that started, “Where were you when I created the foundations of the earth…” The Creator is not the created.

…In John 12:44-46, we hear Jesus speaking of His Father when he said, “When a man believes

in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” God is the light for our darkened world. Christ came as a representative of God, so that we would not have to live in darkness. God is the opposite of what this world has become.

God is an independent deity who communicates plans, demonstrates emotion, and has the ability to choose separate from His creation. All is not God. Only God is God… “I am what I am.”

The second fundamental belief is in there is no difference between good and bad.

Since God is everything, then what is bad is God and what is good is God. There is no distinction between the two. Whatever works for you is fine, and whatever works for me is fine.

However, the Bible doesn’t say that that’s fine…

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” God’s glory is not sin!

Matthew 25:31 says, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he

will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” It goes on to say that the righteousness of God shown through God’s people will be the determining factor.

I John 1:5 says, “This is the message we have heard from him and declare unto you: God is light;

in him there is no darkness at all…”

The Bible teaches there is right and wrong and that God has set standards for us to follow.

The third factor in this belief is that there is a “unity in the cosmos” – meaning we’re all connected by some consciousness.

All reality, including God, humankind, the created universe, earth, time, space, and energy are all connected in divine consciousness. We lose our individuality, and therefore any responsibility, because we belong to this collective….

(ex. Borg – Star Trek Series)

What does the Bible say?

…Jeremiah 1:5 says that we are individuals with individual responsibilities, “Before I formed