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#2 Biggest New Age Lie: “Ye shall be as gods” and have total control over your own reality. Find out what the Bible says.

In today’s program we’ll be discussing the second biggest lie in the Top 10 Countdown of New Age Lies. Satan is the father of all New Age lies, “the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world” (Revelation 12:9).

As we get to the top of the countdown the lies I’ll be exposing are getting into deeper theological issues and are becoming increasingly more critical for the salvation of our souls. The Bible truths that I’ll reveal and explain today are very solemn. Whether you choose to hear, understand and accept these truths or not will determine your eternal destiny. “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Let’s get started!

Lies about Man

The New Age is not the first satanic deception – he’s been at it for a long time. Satan deceived the angels in heaven and made one third of them to rebel against the Holy One. He used to be called Lucifer the light-bearer, the covering cherub who covered the throne of God. The fallen angels bought his lies whereby he planted doubt and suspicion in their minds about the character of God. This is why we read in Ezekiel 28:18: “You defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities, by the iniquity of your trading.” This “trading” was the lies and misrepresentation of God’s character that led to open rebellion and war in heaven. As a result Satan and the rest of the rebellious angels were cast out of heaven. This is all described in the Book of Revelation Chapter 12.

Satan also used the same winning strategy with Eve on that tragic day in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God. Satan worked through the serpent to raise suspicion in Eve’s mind as to the reliability of God’s Word and the purity of His intentions towards her and her husband. Let’s read the account directly from the Book of Genesis 3:1-5: “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

This passage of scripture has so many layers of spiritual insight that we could spend the entire program analyzing it! But let’s just highlight a few key observations from the exchange:

• When the serpent said to Eve “Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” it cast doubt on whether God had spoken (“Has God indeed said?”) and it purposely misquoted God’s words. In the previous chapter, in Genesis 2:16, we read: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Therefore God did not say “you shall not eat of every tree of the garden”, He said “you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”.
• Eve engaged in conversation with the serpent, and answered: “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.” Here we see that the serpent had scored a point because it managed to trouble her. God never said to Adam “you shall not touch the tree lest you die”.
• “Then the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” This was the serpent’s final blow. As Satan had done with the angels in heaven, he planted doubt and suspicion in Eve’s mind. First he contradicted God’s word and said “You will not surely die” when God had said “you will surely die”, which implies that God is a liar. Secondly he cast doubt and suspicion upon God’s character by saying: “God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” In other words: Eve, God is withholding something good from you, He wants to have exclusive rights over divinity when you have every right to aspire to it and to want to be like God. What Satan was doing through the serpent was projecting upon Eve his own covetous desire to be like God. (See Ezekiel 28:1, 6, 9).

At that point the Bible tells us: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings” (Genesis 3:6-7). It’s not that they were naked before and hadn’t noticed. It’s that they were clothed in garments of light like God and the angels. When they sinned they lost their garments of light and found themselves naked. They felt ashamed and tried to cover their nakedness.

So Eve bought the serpent’s lies: You shall not die, and you shall be as gods. Six thousand years later we’re still paying the consequence of her disobedience. Six thousand years later Satan is still using the same winning strategy of casting doubt on God’s Word and raising suspicion about God’s motives toward man, that He might be withholding something good from us. Six thousand years later New Agers all over the world are falling for the same lies as naively as Eve did but with potentially worse consequences. Why worse? Because as we near the end of time, the runway to salvation is getting shorter and shorter.

In our previous program we studied how God’s Word categorically exposes the devil’s lie “you shall not surely die”. The Bible declares that we all die, that the soul is not immortal and that reincarnation is a lie. Today we’ll be focusing on the New Age counterfeit spiritual teachings about the nature of man and his reality.

First Lie about Man: Man is God. Man’s Nature is Perfect and Divine.

According to the New Age, man is inherently good. If and when he fails to do good it’s simply because of ignorance about his concealed divinity. In order to reveal his divinity man needs to seek occult knowledge, forbidden knowledge, and elevate himself to a higher state of consciousness and experience. In order to seek and attain this higher state of consciousness and experience—some would call it a higher vibratory state—man can use a variety of practices and tools like breathing, yoga, meditation, crystals, chakra clearing, space clearing of the house, positive thinking, positive affirmations, and even allow himself to be guided by spirit masters.

Setting the Record Straight

 The Bible says that man was created in the image and likeness of God. “Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 2:26-28).

Not only did God create man in His own image and likeness, but He also gave man the kingship over the planet to rule over all the other forms of life that God had created. Eve wanted to be like God, not realizing that God had already created her in His image and likeness, that was as close to divinity as she was going to get.

Man isn’t God and he wasn’t designed to be God. There is a hierarchy of created beings, and when God created man He made him “a bit lower than the angels” (Psalm 8:5, Hebrews 2:6). This means that we don’t have the superior powers that angels have, let alone the divine powers that are the exclusive prerogative of God.

Just as God did when He created the angels, God gave man free will. God is love and love is freedom, never compulsion. God doesn’t force anyone to love Him. Because God equates love with obedience (John 14:15 says “If you love Me, keep My commandments”) He tested Adam and Eve’s love in the Garden by asking them not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

God knows the end from the beginning. He knew that Lucifer (henceforth called Satan which means “adversary”) would tempt Adam and Eve and that they would disobey Him. The Bible teaches that “sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4) and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Therefore Adam and Eve were deserving of death for disobeying God’s command not to eat the forbidden fruit. The reason why they didn’t die on the spot is because in His goodness God had devised a plan of redemption so that they could be purchased back from sin.

We read in Genesis 3:21: “Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them”. In order to clothe them with skins it meant that animals had to be killed: “And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission (of sin)” (Hebrews 9:22). This was the first animal sacrifice of the Jewish sacrificial system that was established as a temporary solution for sin until the Messiah would come 4000 years later. Messiah would shed His blood once in a perfect sacrifice that would replace all other sacrifices, as He did.

The Bible says that sin entered the world through one man, Adam. As a result of sin entering the world, death, illness, decay and corruption became our portion. Those calamities didn’t exist in the perfect Garden that God created. Adam opened the door to all the curses for disobedience and our spiritual DNA became contaminated as a result of the choice that he and his wife made.

Let’s review the Biblical evidence of man’s sinful nature:

• “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5)
• “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—“ (Romans 5:12)
• “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)
• “…among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others” (Ephesians 2:3)
• “For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin” (Ecclesiastes 7:20)
• “There is none righteous, no, not one;
  There is none who understands;
  There is none who seeks after God.
  They have all turned aside;
  They have together become unprofitable;
  There is none who does good, no, not one” (Romans 3:11-12)
• “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

What are the consequences of our sinful nature? It separates us from God. Sinners can’t stand in God’s presence without being consumed. This is why Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden. God is perfect holiness and cannot be approached from our fallen condition.

So much for the myth that our species is progressing to a higher level of consciousness and evolution that will usher in the utopian Age of Aquarius!

The truth is that as a species we are not evolving to a higher level but devolving to a lower level. Our capabilities are not increasing but decreasing because of the cumulative effect of sin and corruption. We’re not progressing to a higher level of civilization we’re regressing to violence, greed, oppression, shorter life expectancy, illnesses, deformities, obesity and perversions. Satan has nearly succeeded in blotting out the image of God in us. When we get to heaven we’ll see the difference in size and stature between our generation and the first generations on earth from Adam to the flood. They still had the effect of the tree of life in their DNA and some of them lived up to nearly a thousand years whereas for us one hundred years is an accomplishment.

The only way out of our fallen condition is through Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the Christ (Christ means the anointed one). Only He can restore us to a sinless condition so that progressively we may once again reflect the image and likeness of God. This is the ultimate goal of the plan of redemption: to restore a people to the image and likeness of their Creator so that we can be reconciled to Him and regain our place in heaven that we lost as a result of sin. “For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven” (Colossians 1:19-23).

Are you starting to see how incredibly important it is for us to understand these truths? Satan would have us live and die in ignorance but our God is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

Second Lie about man: Man is One with the Universe

Many New Agers have adopted the Hindu belief of “all things are one”. The oneness concept is being taught in meditation and yoga classes around the world. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita: “By me is this entire universe pervaded. All things are in Me, and I in them. Know that as the mighty wind blowing everywhere rests in the sky, all created beings rest in Me.” In this view of reality there are no separations between individuals or between individuals and things or between individuals and things and their god.

Here’s an interesting passage from a recent university paper on this concept of oneness in Hinduism: “A fundamental Hindu principle is one of Unity of all created beings. Behind diversity, there is unity. Behind individual souls, there is the Self, one with the Divine. Not only human life but all created life including animal life is a unity. We spring from one source. Differences and divisions are unreal. The belief that we originate from one common source has ethical implications: it leads to a kinder and a gentler world.” Source: http://uwf.edu/lgoel/documents/aonenessinhinduism.pdf

Setting the Record Straight

 This sounds grand and noble. But let’s examine it more closely. The oneness of man with all creation raises the same theological problems as pantheism does—pantheism being the oneness of God with all creation—and it’s no accident. They both diminish the majesty of the one true God. By affirming that there is unity between men and cows, men and pigs, men and insects the oneness concept of Hinduism totally obliterates the fact that God created man in His image and likeness. For this reason they prostrate themselves before cows, monkeys, snakes, elephants and tigers and worship them as deities. It is Satan’s deliberate strategy to obliterate in mankind the image and likeness of God and to debase us to the level of lower species.

This is very different from what the true God did when He established the universe. In the Book of Genesis we read that God made things separate and distinct from one another:

• God divided the light from the darkness (Genesis 1:3)
• God made the firmament to divide the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament (Genesis 1:7)
• God separated the waters from the dry land (Genesis 1:9)
• God separated every species of grass, plant and fruit tree and made them distinct from each other (Genesis 1:11-12)
• God separated the night from the day (Genesis 1:14-18).
• God created the sea creatures each according to its kind and separated them from every winged bird which was each according to its kind (Genesis 1:21)
• God did the same with the cattle, the beasts of the field and the creeping things (Genesis 1:24-25)
• God separated man from the rest of Creation by having Adam name each thing. This is described in Genesis 2:19-20. Adam established his superiority and dominion over the other creatures by naming them.
• And finally God also separated the Sabbath day, the seventh day of the week, from the other days and made that day a holy day of rest

This is the evidence that everything God does is orderly and has clear boundaries and distinctions. God is not the author of confusion, but of perfect order.

Now let’s read again what God says in Genesis 1:26 after He created man, we read this earlier: “Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth”. God didn’t say “go co-mingle with the fish and the birds and the cattle and the creeping things” – No! He said “I give you dominion over them”. He didn’t say “Go worship them as deities” – No! He said “You are to rule over them, I’m putting you above them”. The reason why there’s a continent of 1.3 billion people in India where the majority live below the poverty level is because they’ve completely forgotten who God created them to be. And they’re exporting their religion to the West and we’re attracted to it like flies to honey. It’s absolutely insane! And please don’t fall for the Westernized rendition of that concept which is the so-called “cosmic soup”. Everything God created He made separate, distinct and after its own kind.

Yes, there is a respect and reverence we need to have for God’s creation because He entrusted it to us as stewards and keepers of it. But we are not to blur the boundaries between God and His creation, or between ourselves and the rest of creation, or among the different elements of creation.

Third Lie about Man: Man Creates His Own Reality

 According to the New Age one consequence of being divine is the belief that man creates his own reality. A person can choose his or her beliefs and whatever they believe will be true for them and will determine their experience. Many New Agers also believe that by controlling their thoughts they manage their vibration and therefore can control what they bring into their experience.

Setting the Record Straight

 The Bible says that there is one standard of absolute truth, and that is God’s Word alone. It is the only solid rock on which we can stand. The Bible is God’s inspired Word, and it establishes the foundations of reality. Jesus said: “Heaven and earth shall pass away but My words shall not pass away” (Matthew 24:35, Mark 13:31, Luke 21:33). You may choose not to believe in that Word but regardless of whether you believe in it or not it is that Word that determines your reality. If you’ve allowed Satan’s lies to undermine your belief in the Bible as God’s revealed Word, I invite you to go back and listen to a couple of our early programs: “002 – Evidence that the Bible is the Word of God” and “003 – The Power of the Word of God”.

For years I’d been trying to improve my reality using every possible tool and technique in the personal development and New Age arsenals, traveling all over the world to study with personal development coaches and New Age gurus. To no avail. When after much tragedy and trauma I finally came to Christ and read the Book of Deuteronomy Chapter 28 everything made sense. That chapter of the Bible lays out God’s blessings for obedience and His curses for disobedience. With that new light I was able to explain many things about my life that I hadn’t been able to explain before. Today I have a very blessed life because I’m walking in total obedience to the Lord.

You can speak all the positive affirmations you want, but if you’re doing your own thing and not walking with God you’re building your house on sinking sand. With this concept of “you create your own reality” man tries to usurp the role of God and presumes to have power to control reality. But the moment tragedy strikes our lives we realize our impotence to control reality and how totally dependent we are on that higher power.

If we’re in Christ through the power of God’s Holy Spirit we have great power to overcome sin and create miracles of grace in our lives. Jesus said: “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:5-7). When we surrender totally to God’s will for our lives and allow Him to create our reality, there is no limit to what we can achieve for His glory and the advancement of His Kingdom.

Let there be no doubt in your mind: God is the one in full control of this universe. Nothing happens that God doesn’t allow to happen. God controls time: the Bible tells us that He made the sun stand still for Joshua to win a battle; He made the shadow of the sun on the sundial go back 10 degrees as a sign for Hezekiah; and in our generation He has shortened the days without which no flesh would be saved. God is in control of events: He sets up kings and removes kings; He determines the course of history and the destiny of empires – we see this in the history of Egypt, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and today we’re seeing how prophecy is being fulfilled in our modern nations. God has already determined—beforehand— the timeline of nations and their borders (Acts 17:26).

God has infinite power, infinite authority, infinite dominion over all of heaven and all of earth and the entire universe. The Bible says that the gold and the silver are His and the cattle on a thousand hills as well as the earth and the fullness thereof. Satan is under God’s control and can only operate within the boundaries set for him. Our limited human understanding that has been restricted to this wretched planet cannot even begin to comprehend the goodness, majesty and glory of this divine being who created us and of Heaven which is the seat of His government. His love for us is also beyond our comprehension. If you’re willing to open your heart to the possibility that all this is true, God says “Call upon Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things that you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3). God has a plan and a purpose, a vision and a mission for every human being on this planet. Are you willing to discover what His plan is for your life?

Fourth Lie about Man: Man Decides What Is Good and Evil

In New Age thinking man defines moral standards and decides what is good and bad, moral and immoral: “Every man doing what is right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6, 21:25). Every person should figure out what works for them. What lies behind this belief? If I define good and evil then I’m God, because God is the supreme moral authority. This makes me accountable only to myself. It’s called self-sovereignty. I’m divine therefore I obey no law. I make the law.

Setting the Record Straight

Well, first of all, try this in a civil context and see where it gets you. If you burn through enough red lights the civil authorities will revoke your permission to drive a car. If you’re caught breaking civil laws you will suffer the penalty for it. What makes you think that spiritual laws are different? If you break God’s law: 1) You can’t hide it because God sees everything; and 2) You’ll have to render account before God on the day of reckoning and receive your due punishment (unless you place that sin under the atoning blood of Jesus).

The truth is, you don’t dictate what’s right or wrong. The definition of good and evil isn’t inside of us. It resides with God. He defines the standard for good and bad. He gives us the standard in His law, the Ten Commandments, which are still binding. In the Book of Ecclesiastes Salomon, one of the wisest men who ever lived was pondering the whole duty of man. This is what he wrote: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 KJV). God lays down the law for heaven and earth and the entire universe. His government has laws that we should all know by heart and obey to the letter.

“Spiritualism (read New Age) asserts that men are unfallen demigods; that ‘each mind will judge itself’, that ‘true knowledge places men above all law’, that ‘all sins committed are innocent’, for ‘whatever is, is right’ and ‘God does not condemn’. The basest of human beings it represents as in heaven, and highly exalted there. Thus it declares to all men, ‘It matters not what you do; live as you please, heaven is your home’. Multitudes are thus led to believe that desire is the highest law, that license is liberty, and that man is accountable only to himself.” Ellen G. White, Education p. 227-228

Jesus said that lawlessness will abound in the end-time and would be one of the signs of the nearness of His coming. Beware of this attitude because you’ll find yourself in the company of the anti-christ himself who in Scripture is called “the lawless one”.

Fifth Lie about Man: Self is the Source of Power

 One thing you’ll notice about New Age books and teachers is the prominence of the word and the concept of “self”. Everything is about self: self-worth, self-development, self-power, self-evolution, self-realization, self-confidence, self-esteem, self-forgiveness… all of which take us straight down the path of self-worship.

Setting the Record Straight

God is looking for exactly the opposite from us. He can work great and mighty things through us if we can surrender our self to Him, if we’re willing to humble ourselves before Him and lay self on the altar of sacrifice. “ Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24). In Galatians 5:24 we’re told that “ those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires”. Anything we accomplish is through His power: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

There is a higher good, a higher level of being than to be a slave to the desires of the self. Through the example of Jesus the Bible shows us that humility precedes exaltation and honor: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name…” (Philippians 2:5-9).

The Bible teaches us to die to our old self, to become a new creation in Christ. Let me leave you with this beautiful passage in Ephesians 4:17-24:

“This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”