LIVIING IN THE NEW AGE

                                                                                                        Deuteronomy 18:9-13

These days, some people will pray to anything and everything except God.  A classic example involves the TV star David Hasselhoff, star of Baywatch for many years. He has reported that in June 1998, the year after Princess Diana died, a memorial service was held for her in the grounds of her ancestral home in England. When the day came, it was pouring rain, and David Hasselhoff  prayed to her to stop the rain so that the service could go ahead! And he says that the skies cleared – making this her greatest miracle of that day! But only God can answer prayer! And Jesus added that no-one comes to the Father except through Him! And as we come to communion this morning, we remember that through His death on the cross, we have forgiveness through Him also!

Each year Sydney has a Festival of Mind, Body and Spirit! Now since the Bible tells us that we are made of these three components, it seems quite an appropriate kind of festival to have!  But the Bible also tells us to “test the spirits” and determine whether something is really of God, or whether we’re being led up the garden path!  Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says, “May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ!”

The Festival itself though, is not promoting the Christian faith! It is promoting a different kind of faith which its supporters call “The New Age” or “The Age of Aquarius!” Some of the secular radio stations are quite happy to advertise this festival with all its options, but would never promote the Christian faith as one of the options.

 In the 1960s, the Age of Aquarius was the ascendancy of human achievement, when any traditions seen as restrictive were abandoned by many, and this included the Christian faith! But since man is a spiritual being, the New Age has ushered in a whole range of beliefs and practices to fill this need! Most of them have been around for thousands of years, and therefore the New Age should really be called the Old Age! It involves people are searching outside the truth of God and into the spirit world! This was predicted in 1 Timothy 4:1 as a sign of the end times,  “The Spirit clearly says that in the later times, some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons!”

Satan told Adam and Eve in the garden, that they could taste the forbidden fruit and become like God! New Age exponents also accept this idea and have been tasting the forbidden fruit we have just read about so that they would each become like gods! They believe that they themselves are gods, because they believe that “everything there is can be found in the self”! For this reason, they promote the idea of “consciousness raising” activities so that they can discover new truths within themselves through expanding their minds! But what they are really doing is opening their minds to every kind of demonic force available!

This type of activity is called the Occult – which means ‘hidden’ because people seek what is hidden from general human knowledge! Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever!” Whereas Christianity is a revelation of God, the New Age is an attempt to explore what is hidden from us, especially our individual futures! Whereas the occult was previously taboo in our society because of the commands of Duteronomy, our secular society now accepts the whole gamut of these alternate practices as being “respectable”! I’m referring her to such things as wirchcraft, psychic readings, fortune telling and so on! But the new age is simply the occult with a sugar coating! But 1 John 2:24 says, “See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you!”

The Bible teaches that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19) We either allow Him control of our minds and spirits as well, or we surrender to the other spirits! Whereas the Holy Spirit’s main function is to convict us of our sin, and lead us away from it, the New Age philosophy doesn’t believe in sin or evil as such! But sadly, those who think there is no sin live in a fool’s paradise! Jesus said, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves! Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves!”

Proverbs 14:12 also gives us a warning: “There is a way that seems right to man, but in the end it leads to death!” We can’t afford to make the wrong choices! Only Jesus gives us life!  If you would like to seek Jesus more fully today, a number of us are willing to talk to you about this opportunity!