[originally sent under the
title: Overcoming Fear of
the New Age Movement]
November 27,
1989
2
The LORD said to [Moses], "What is that in your hand?" And he
said, "A staff." 3 Then He said, "Throw it on the
ground." So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent;
and Moses fled from it. 4 But the LORD said to Moses,
"Stretch out your hand and grasp it by its tail "-so he
stretched out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in
his hand - 5 "that they may believe that the LORD, the
God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and
the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.". Exodus
4
10
So Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, and thus they did just as
the LORD had commanded; and Aaron threw his staff down before
Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. 11
Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men and the sorcerers, and
they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same with their
secret arts. 12 For each one threw down his staff and
they turned into serpents. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their
staffs. Exodus
7
Please consider with me
this amazing story of Moses and the rod. I want you to put
yourself back in time a moment, standing as an observer in
Pharaoh’s court. You know nothing—except the following:
There
is a rumor our about some man named Moses lately come in from
the desert. No one seems to know where he came from except that
legend has it the man was once a part of an earlier pharaoh’s
court. In fact, it is said that this man was once raised in
Pharaoh’s house, trained in all the ways of Egyptian astrology,
knowledgeable of all Egyptian metaphysical practices, etc. For
some forgotten reason (some say murder), the man was forced to
leave the court and hit the desert. Anyway, there’s
more….
This Moses is making a
claim to have had a special visitation from the “true
God”—specifically, the “God of the Hebrews.” The message of this
God is to let the Hebrews go. Oh—here he comes now into the
court. The stage is set. Let’s see what Moses will do to
represent himself as ambassador of the true God…
Before the showdown
begins, other knowledge you have about Pharaoh’s religion and
his astrologers comes to mind. You know that Pharaoh’s magicians
are able to perform astounding tricks. One of their most well
known symbols—indeed, the symbol that has represented all
eastern satanic religion from the beginning of creation is
the serpent. It is like a trademark
of all false religion.
Armed with this knowledge,
and with your doubts about the origins of this Moses already in
place, you now watch the showdown…
So
Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, and thus they did just as the
LORD had commanded; and Aaron threw his staff down before
Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. 11
Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men and the sorcerers, and
they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same with their
secret arts
“Aha!” you
say.
“Now the proof is in!
This Moses is an imposter. The rumors were true. The evidence is
incontrovertible. He’s a carbon copy of the sorcerers he claims
not to be like. First, he pulls a magic trick—just like they do.
Then not only that, but he turns his rod into a serpent, the
telltale sign of all false religion! Then when you consider the
“roots of this theology” in eastern religion in Pharaoh’s court,
and add to that his reputation as a murderer, it’s absolutely
clear. It would pass in any court of law. The man has simply
borrowed from ancient religion, given it a new twist by
inserting the name of a new god, and by calling it the “God of
the Hebrews,” will use it to lead a revolt with himself as
King-cult leader.”
I.
Knowing
Truth From Error
Doesn’t
the reasoning behind this conclusion appear flawless? The
evidence through appearances and associations is truly
unquestionable. Any of you standing there that day would easily
have drawn the conclusion that Moses was a fraud.
But
there’s just one problem you would have faced if you had drawn
this conclusion: namely this—
You would have been dead wrong!
And
why would you have been wrong? It’s because you cannot use
reason, appearances, association, circumstantial evidences, and
third, fourth, and tenth hand information about people to
establish
what is spiritually true about a person or to establish the
source of spiritual happenings.
Yet
this is precisely what is being done of late through a number of
books on the New Age movement and on other ministries, the
latest being about Kenneth Hagin and the Faith Movement. The end
result of these books is that they put many people under a
spirit of binding fear and engender an unholy spirit of
suspicion about everything.
These
are the undeniable results in the lives of people who read these
books without discernment instead of availing themselves of the
simple Spirit of Truth who instructs our hearts concerning Jesus
without engendering fear and suspicion about what does not test
out to be of Him. I’m writing you about this because it has come
to my attention that a number of you are really getting into
these kinds of books producing the effects I just
cited.
The
irony with these books is that they offer their own observations
as the standard of truth and discernment to which we should
adhere, yet their observations are as subject to the author’s
fleshly frailties as are the ones they criticize. Moreover, once
they’ve exposed all the error, they offer no clear-cut positive
alternative of liberating truth.
All
this combines to leave readers in equal bondage to what they are
supposedly being saved out of. (A
spirit of suspicion is no more liberating than a spirit of
deception or cultic doctrine.)
This is what always happens when people use their reasoning
faculties to try to verify the spiritual reality behind other
people, movements or phenomena. It doesn’t work and produces
false conclusions—logically derived as they may be.
The
natural power of observation and research cannot verify the
spiritual truth behind anybody or anything—whether or not that
power embraces scripture in the process.
We
live some 3,500 years after the fact of Moses’ encounter with
Pharaoh. We have our Bibles. So it’s easy to tell that Moses was
of God. We know all the facts behind the scenes. But if you had
lived then, you wouldn’t have had 3,500 years to wait before you
had to decide whether Moses was of God—or whether Jesus was of
God, or Paul. And the truth is, that if you have to wait til the
Bible is written on a matter before you can tell whether a
current event is of God, you will be too
late
every time.
You
have to be able to know
now
what is of God today, not 2000 years from now. It will be
obviously too late by then to decide whether Kenneth Hagin is of
God, or whether something is truly of the New Age Movement or of
God.
For
this cause, God gave us something in this age for knowing
truth—something that defies time. Here it is:
27 As
for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in
you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His
anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a
lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him. (I AM the way, and the truth, and the life) I Jn 2:27 (Jn.
14:6)
If
you want to know the truth about the New Age Movement, or
Kenneth Hagin, or anybody, then start applying
your knowing of Jesus.
Knowing the truth about anything comes as a byproduct
of your knowing of Jesus.
It does not
come as the result of your effort to learn about it directly
through your reading books about it by Constance Cumbey or Dave
Hunt or D.R. McConnell.
Books
can help—if
they ultimately point you to Jesus. But if books about someone
or something are your central application for your knowledge
about it spiritually, you
will not come up with the truth, but with fear and a warped view
distorted through one more frail mind—a mind just as frail as
the humans it seeks to expose.
I
encourage you to start doing less with these books and more with
your effort to know Jesus through the Spirit. You will lose your
fear and suspicion as a result and will gain the real truth in
your heart which these books cannot give you. As a result, you
will find that the books were right about some things, and wrong
about others. But even in those things you found them to be
right, you will find it will not touch you or consume your
attention. The simple awareness of it is enough—and you can move
on in your life to better things.
So
please don’t get stuck in all this negativism. And if you are
stuck, get back to Jesus so you can start developing the rest of
yourself. One thing is certain: if you want to be safe from the
evils of which you read, you won’t find it by reading about
them.
II.
The
Nature of Truth and Error
Having
said all that, I wonder if I might take some extra space to deal
with the nature of spiritual truth and error. In so doing, I
hope I might clarify what our attitude should be toward some of
the things we hear about New Age teaching that seem to be
similar to much late Christian teaching.
A.
Similarity
The
big problem seems to be the issue of similarity. There is this
natural gravitation in our reasoning that associates like causes
to like effects. If two things appear the same way, it must be
because they have the same cause. The whole discrediting of the
supernatural work and teaching of God in this century is based
on our reasoning this way.
So
when it comes to spiritual things, we apply this same reasoning.
Our premise is that God and satan are opposites, therefore each
has his own way that is distinctly, identifiably different in
results, effects, and associations and appearances. We believe
that God will do everything differently than satan in
appearances because they are opposites in nature. We believe
therefore that if God does something a certain way, satan can’t
and if satan acts a certain way, God would never, etc.
So
once we come to associate a certain way with God, we never dream
satan would operate the same way, and vice versa. Therefore, if
two things happen the same way, it is our nature to absolutely
and finally believe that they have the same cause, and it has to
be either
God’s doing or
satan’s’ doing—but never could both do the
same.
The
only problem though is spiritual
truth and reality do not function this
way!!
There are no neatly assigned, categorized sets of causes and
effects belonging to either God or satan. Spiritual reality lies
in a dimension far above any such notion and can only be
identified an entirely different way. God does not exclusively
own a certain modus operandi nor does satan (as we perceive
them). God can do things in ways that by past association may
seem satanic. And satan can do things in ways that by previous
appearance were associated with God.
There
is no clear ownership of cause and effects between the two by
any appearance whatsoever. In many cases, the work of the two
may actually be superimposed
over each other in the same event or
phenomenon.
For example, the crucifixion of Jesus was both the plan
of God
and the
work of the devil:
“[Jesus], being
delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of
God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and
slain.” Acts 2:23
The
same is true of Joseph who said of his
imprisonment:
“You thought evil
against me: but God meant it for good.” Gen
50:20
And with
Job—
And in our own lives we
recognize the work of God inextricably superimposed on satan’s
work. Out of satanic destruction we are made
Christlike.
So
what are we saying? Though God and satan are spiritually
opposite, that opposition does not manifest in any consistently
identifiable way through opposite sets of causes and effects in
the earth. Therefore you cannot
automatically assign a certain way, or thing, or happening, or
teaching pertaining to such as being necessarily “of God” or “of
satan.” Spiritual discernment has to supersede all such
observation if it is to be true.
B.
The
Counterfeit Factor
Not only can’t we
establish opposite appearances as being of either God or Satan,
but the truth is that by
appearance, evil may have much more in
common
with truth than it has difference.
Why? It’s because evil is simply a
perversion of good. Evil is an offshoot of
something originally good. A lie is a perversion of
truth. Where there is no truth first, there can be no lie
against it.
A lie cannot exist
independently of a truth it has copied and which existed before
it. In fact, the whole satanic plan, empire, strategy is a copy
perverted of God’s. Therefore, by appearance, it is more natural
to expect apparent
similarities between spiritual truth and lies rather
than dissimilarities.
This is what the parable
of the tares and wheat is all about! God plants truth. Satan
plants lies. But the lies look like the truth, and not until
final harvest may they be clearly distinguished by appearance.
In fact, so challenging is the discernment before harvest that
not even angels are allowed to pluck the tares out lest they
pull out wheat too!
So
what does this say? It says to us it is impossible to make
appearances of similarity our basis for discerning between truth
and error.
For
instance, in Christianity we have the doctrine of the
resurrection. But in satanic circles (such as Hinduism), they
have the doctrine of reincarnation. What shall we say
then? Does the similarity of these doctrines mean they are from
the same source? Shall we then take the known source of one to
establish the source of the other?
Shall
we say, for example, that since we know the resurrection
doctrine is from God that reincarnation must also be from God?
Or shall we say that since we know reincarnation is of the devil
that the resurrection must also be of the
devil?
“Ridiculous,” you
say.
Well, of course it is.
After all, you have the apostle Paul 2000 years ago to stand on.
But 2000 years ago what could you have stood
on? What would you have said to the Jew who refused your
testimony of Christ’s resurrection because it sounded just like
Hinduism fresh from nearby India?
Can you get my point? I’m
coming now to the New Age Movement. Here we are—today.
Now. 1990. No Bible is written yet about the New
Age Movement. It won’t be around for centuries, if at all. Yet
here today Christians are teaching some things that sound
similar to New Age teaching, and vice versa. Then you have books
coming out condemning all Christian teaching that sounds at all
like the New Age teaching….
And that is ridiculous!
It is
just as ridiculous to throw out teaching today that sounds like
New Age as it is to throw out the resurrection because it sound
like reincarnation!
But what do you expect?
What should you expect? Shouldn’t you expect some Christian
teaching to sound New Age? Isn’t that what wheat and tares are
all about? As God advances his truth in the world at the close
of this age, doesn’t it make spiritual sense that New Age
teaching should sound like it (and vice versa)?
So why all the
scare? Why, the fact that new
Age teaching sounds similar is a good sign! It’s a sign that we
are on the right track.
Don’t you get it? If we
know that the lie mirrors the truth, we can actually use the lie
to our advantage to discover the truth it counterfeits by
the Spirit of God. God can easily take advantage of a lie to
teach us what is truth if we aren’t afraid of it. His Spirit is not bound! He
can use a lie to teach us truth just as well as He can use clear
truth.
God can teach us what is
right through our observing what is wrong just as easily as He
can teach us directly through what is right. I mean we have all
learned “how not to do it” at one time or other by observing
what is wrong in the church or some institution, and then being
led to what is right as a result. So why fear the New Age
movement? You can learn just as must from its lies
through God’s Spirit as you can from what is directly true.
God’s Spirit teaches us
all truth, whether we are
surrounded by teaching that directly points to truth, or by
counterfeit teaching which indirectly points to truth by its own
perverted existence. So why be afraid?
Personally, I get great
satisfaction inwardly when I hear a New Age teaching that sounds
like something I believe in Christ. Though I reject the lie, the
fact it exists gives me confirmation that I’ve heard truth from
God in my heart. Otherwise there would be no lie to mirror
it!
III.
Clarifying
the Doctrines of Deification vs.
Glorification
This
leads me to my final topic. Let me elaborate on the core
doctrine of New Age and its true counterpart in the emerging
Church of today. Both the Church and the New Age have a
“Doctrine of Man.” In the New Age, we may call it the
“Deification of Man.” It stems back to Eden when satan said, “You shall be as gods.”
Well,
the church has the true counterpart to this counterfeit. This
true doctrine is the “Glorification of Man”—not glorification in
the sense of worship as unto God, but in the sense of physical
immortality. It is the promise of a glorified body like unto
Christ’s own body, replete with all His supernatural
capabilities. Now actually, the doctrine of glorification has
been around for years. You can find it in any college Bible
Doctrines course of systematic theology.
But something is
happening. Two things.
First, the Spirit of God
is now energizing the church in such a way as to bring that
glorification so much manifestly closer than ever before that
even the people who believe in the “paper doctrine” of
glorification don’t know how to handle these energizings and so
are offended by anybody teaching of its nearness in a literal
sense.
Second, the New Age
counterfeit called “the deification of man” has mushroomed so
much now that people who proclaim the nearness of “the
glorification of man” are seen as “New Age,” again simply
because of the similarity. The similarity scares the
people all the more.
In addition, it does not
help that numbers of Christians get their eyes off the Lord, so
that their espousal of true doctrines becomes corrupted into
espousal of New Age doctrines. You see, as we get closer to the
end, and the revelation gets more glorious, the easier it is to
go from true doctrine to false doctrine because of the spiritual
intensity of it.
Some people just don’t
have the maturity and grounding in Christ needed to be
responsible ministers of such hard-to-handle doctrine. So the
doctrine destroys them through their ego which immediately
thrusts it into New Age teaching—because it is now man-centered.
So again, this doesn’t help.
Nevertheless, the
“Glorification of Man” is a true doctrine, embedded in the New
Testament, commensurate with the return of Christ. We should
hold it with fear and trembling before us. We are seeing
ourselves made ready to be glorified. We are seeing the New Age
counterfeit it with “deification.” And we are seeing immature
ego-inflated Christians stumbling over it into New Age-type
teaching.
-
Rightly Stewarding the
Doctrine of Glorification
The question is, how can
we be stewards of this doctrine and increasing partakers of its
growing reality without stumbling over it?
Answer: keep your
eyes on Jesus—not your glorification!
You see—in the final
analysis, the only difference between true church doctrine and
counterfeit New Age doctrine is Jesus Christ at the center of
focus, or man at the center of focus. That’s all. It’s that
simple.
As soon as a Christian’s
center of spiritual gravity shifts off Jesus Christ to something
or someone else, he becomes New Age in thought and practice.
Many have. This is called apostasy. It is simply Christianity
with man on the throne. And that’s really all there is to
it.
So how do we stay pure?
Not by fearing the New Age. Not by shunning all similar
appearances with it. Not by feeding on books about it having
little true spiritual discernment. No. Rather we stay pure by
abiding in Christ—and by accepting the
responsibilities of stewarding increasing revelation and
partaking of the increasing realities of it through our abiding
in him—until He comes, and we are glorified together with Him.
This will be very soon, so
keep at it. Let us then abide in Christ. Let us responsibly
receive the revelation that comes through abiding, and let us
walk in the maturity of that revelation—not fearing the
counterfeit, but rather being “flattered in reverse” by
it!