New Age vs. The Gospel: The Influence of Hinduism

New Age vs. The Gospel: The Influence of Hinduism

Alright, let's take our Bibles, if you will, turn to 1 Timothy together, chapter 4, this evening, 1 Timothy chapter 4, and let's begin the reading, we'll look at verse 1, 1 Timothy chapter 4, and there in verse number, I'm sorry, I meant to say 2 Timothy, I knew something didn't look right, 2 Timothy chapter 4, well, 2 Timothy chapter 4, verse number 1, let's turn there together. 2 Timothy chapter 4, verse number 1, and it's here that Paul says to Timothy, I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead, his appearing, and his kingdom. Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering doctrine.

3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers at an itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. 4 But watch now in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof. 5 If you're going to preach the truth, then it's also true that there are going to, it's all this morning, there are going to be of necessity the confrontation of untruths or deceptions that have come along to pervert the truth, to confuse people about what the truth is.

6 We're not even talking about just the gospel. Preaching, that's the main thing that you, if there's a, if there is a genuine whatever, may it be a product that's being sold, there's only going to be a counterfeit that comes along, and it's a cheap knockoff that is a, that is not, not the genuine thing, and yet if people will try to pass it off as if it is the genuine thing, in order to take advantage of people, right? Take advantage. Take advantage of, in that case, money. Get money out of it. Well, people will do that with the counterfeit gospel to make it appear that this is something genuine so that they'll get followed, popularity, which obviously does lead to money as well.

The root, the love of money is the root of all evil. There's many, many different kinds of evil that will come from that love of money. But Paul is telling Timothy, here, there's, there's a charge given to him to preach the word. He's to be ready, he's to be instant, in season, out of season, in, when, when, when the, when things are easier and smoother or when things are more difficult and you have to swim upstream, so to speak, go against the grain, when it's not popular, when it's not well received, or whatever we may say about that.

He said he was to, he was to prove, to rebuke, to exhort with all suffering and doctrine. You know, how can you do that unless you have, unless you believe that you have the absolute truth? How can you, how can you do that? If you believe that you have to apologize for what you have to say, how can you, how can you preach with conviction? How can you, how can you, even in times where it's not well received, continue to faithfully admit it? How can you, how can you minister that word?

And so this is, this is what Paul says, preach the word, preach the word. For the time will come, as he says here, that they will not endure. They're not gonna put up with healthy teaching. They're not gonna put up with sounds, good doctrine. But after their whole lust, notice that. This, the, the doctrine of men, that many preach and preach, will be affected by what people want to hear. Will be affected by what people want to hear. lusts what they say scratch our ears we have this dish we want to hear this kind of we don't really want to hear that that doctrine yes it's technically true but we want to hear you know it might be it might be Orthodox but we want to hear something exciting and encouraging we don't hear necessarily true in Jeremiah they didn't they say prophesy into us smooth things give us the seats or something along those lines they wanted to hear something well Paul tells Timothy that the time will come they will turn away their ears from the truth that they'll be turned to myths fables the word for fables here is the word Muthah so the Greek myth they will endure

but he says watch down on all things and endure afflictions do the work of evangelists make full proof of thy ministry you're you're going to give an answer of whether you've been a faithful steward of the things entrusted to you you have received this ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ you're going to answer to him one day what have you done be faithful just be faithful preach that don't change it up because of the peer pressure don't change it up the cause of popular demand just continue do the things you receive that you've been assured of

all that being said I want to take and we looked at some of this years ago I think it was years ago now we looked at and we were looking at various divisions of the world we touched on Hinduism and Hinduism is very much behind the thoughts, the doctrine, the teachings of Hinduism are very much behind New Age thoughts. I'd say there's a large percentage of New Age thoughts it will find its root its source in Hindu and Buddhist type Eastern religion certainly when we start cracking that nut open and looking at it we realize there's very little compatible some of the terminology is shared by Hinduism with Christianity but when you actually look at what the definition of that terminology is it's far different than what the Bible what the Bible says.

And I think the Eastern religions will be very much are very much involved in kind of bringing together some sort of cohesion although you can't really have a true cohesion of these various religions especially the false religion and true religion of the Bible because because they're incompatible but it's there's a great effort underway to try to make these things compatible and very much baked into the doctrine of Hinduism Hindu teachings to try to do this and it's been successful in a number of fronts

but you know even that I know you men remember and the other church that one Sunday it's probably been about that long ago we had those two Islamic men come in and they're standing at the end of the service and they're standing back there actually I think Ken got them the door they were wanting to invite us or me specifically to an interfaith conference up in Richmond, Virginia where we had these mudlings of Christians and all these different religions getting together and just pointed out that teaching is incompatible we can't get together all these things there's no There's no common ground, maybe in terminology somewhat, but your Koran says something very different than what my Bible says. How can we find common ground in that?

But Hinduism is a religion that actually originated in Eastern Europe over 3,000 years ago with a group of people called Aryans who migrated to India and spread their religion there, from what I understand. Aryan civilization blended with the Indus River Valley civilization.

And the Aryans recorded their… a series of rituals, prayers, and songs of what they called the Vedas, D-E-D-A-S, Vedas. There are four collections of Vedas that they had that are found. The four collections are called Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yaja Veda, and Natharma Veda. These are, I understand from… Watch. Watch. A video of a Hindu describing this, and he was saying that in each of the Vedas, there is basically, you can find sections called suktas in those Vedas. And the suktas contain mantras. The mantras are actually precise arrangement, I'm quoting him, precise arrangement of sounds to be chanted, then meditated upon. So, even when we think about, these are their writings, so to speak. But they're not even really, they're not revelation of salvatory, saving knowledge. They're chants, basically. It's what they are, a collection of chants and prayers that are offered up to various deities. But they have nothing… They have nothing to do with people coming to an understanding of, come, let us raise it together. Let your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Nothing like that. No, it's a… They teach nothing of sin and of redemption. They teach nothing of salvation as the scriptures teach of salvation. The Holy Bible teaches of salvation.

But in the Vedas, or in addition to the Vedas, there are other… There are other writings that have been added for years later on, even from the Vedas. There's the… And I probably will whittle down some of these, but the Upanishads, there are many of these. The ten of them are viewed as highly important. Common topics in the Upanishads are talking about things like states of consciousness, dreams, meditations, self-realization, basically realizing that you're part of the divine. Yeah. You're a little god, or whatever the case may be. And the unity of all things. That's very common in teaching in Hinduism. There's the Darshanas. These are six major philosophical systems and teachings developed out of the Vedas. There's… I'm not even trying to pronounce the names of them. There's six of them. That are founded with Darshanas. There's the Puranas. P-U-R-A-N-A-S. These are myths or stories of the more recent gods of India that have been added to the… You know, the Pantheon or whatever. These myths or stories about these gods are… There's none. There's not a cohesive understanding and revelation of one saving god, but it's very much like many other pagan religions, where there's just this multiplicity of gods.

And if you need this, and you go to that god, and you go to that god, and you go to this god, and this god will help you just chant this thing, and this god will help with this, and, you know, you need fertility, or you need rain, or you need this. There's all of this. Just… It's just an endless labyrinth of works and doing things. There's nothing about calling on the name of the Lord, and thou shalt be saved. It's about you, like we said not too long ago in one of these messages, it is a religion of do, do, do, do. You just keep doing it. I was just looking through YouTube at some different ones of… Don't worry, it's been too long. I just wanted to hear, what do some of these chants sound like? And there was one of them. I would have been out of my mind if I had listened to this thing. 108 times they repeat the same chant. It went on for like 28 minutes. And it's some kind of prayer to this goddess of something. I can't remember what the name was. But just keep going and going. You've got to do the chant just right. And, you know, the more you do it, the better. You're going to get better. You're going to get better. You're going to get better. You're going to get better at the chant. And you just keep going and you… You know, if you don't have peace, then you probably didn't do it good enough. In whatever case may be. It's really exhausting just to think about all of these various things that they have.

But there are many aids to meditation. But when they talk about meditation, they're not talking about read scripture. And then… They're not talking about that. They're talking about very much emptying your mind. And in the emptiness. And in the silence. You find peace. But not in thinking on what the great God has done for us. He has sent his son to save us. No, it's… It's about you finding your peace in… In connection and oneness with the universe. You know, this is very different from what God says in Isaiah 55. Which are over there with me. Isaiah 55, verse number 8. Isaiah 55, verse number 8. It's there in verse number 8. We read this. For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your. Nor are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways. And my thoughts than your thoughts. Isn't that something? His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. We… Like… We cannot attain unto God's thoughts through our own thoughts. We… They're too high. We… We… We can't attain unto them through just coming… Coming to it ourself. He has to reveal his thoughts to us. We… If we're going to think God's thoughts after him, he's going to have to tell us what his thoughts are. He's going to have to make known his word to us. Because if we… Otherwise, we will lean to our own understanding.

Well, I understand that… Hinduism is about one billion people worldwide with over a million of those. I didn't even look at the recent statistic on that, but it is over a million in the United States. Probably more than that. That's the statistic I had from 13 years ago. Hinduism believes in the supreme God among the gods. It's called Brahman. Brahman. And all the other gods are just extensions of Brahman. Brahman is the chief god, if you will. But he's ultimately very impersonal. Once again, as I've said a number of times in this study, he's an impersonal god, and yet he's not the singular god. There's multiplicities of gods. And we can even discover more gods. Like, you know, Paul said to the Athenians. You've put an altar here to the unknown god in case you missed one of them. In case there's one that you didn't know about. Well, there is one that you don't know about, and he is the one true god.

Is that not what Paul would have said to the Hindus had he had the conversation with them? And there's really no difference between… ultimately between the Hindu pantheon and the… and the Roman pantheon or the Greek or any of the other multiplicity of gods. When we were studying history of civilization in Bible college, you just look and you go back to the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, you look at the Medo-Persians, the Greeks and the Romans, and you just keep going down the line, and they just recycled the other gods. They just recycled the gods. They put a different name on it, and this is the new goddess of fertility. This is the new sun god. This is the new, you know, storm god. This is the new whatever. But nothing changed. They're just the figments of men's imaginations. They're not the revelation of one supreme being to us. They are fashioned in men's imaginations, and even the idols, the statues are made with men's hands.

The Bergmans were saying today, when we talked to them this afternoon, about this is Corpus Christi. What is it, day or week they have over there? It's the body of Christ, and they put white sheets out on the roadways. They get upset if you even drive on those or something. They put them down the middle of the road, and Brother Bergman said he made a mistake, I guess a few years ago, and accidentally, well, they kind of pinned him in. He drove across the sheets, and they got upset with him for doing that. He wasn't trying to create an issue, but anyway, along the way, they put little statues of Mary here and there, and everybody goes by and does their little thing to the statues of Mary, and Brother Bergman was saying this young lady that's been coming to church recently, Sioa is her name, and in their Bible study, they were talking about, it just happened to be this week, they talked about idolatry, and he gave the example of, he was talking about how Roman Catholicism is a religion of idolatry. These shrines and these altars and these statues to the different ones, saints or Mary or different ones to be worshipped, and he mentioned that this is false worship, this is idolatry, and he said it was a blessing to see how, the light came on in her understanding. You could see it, he said, when she realized how this is detracting from the one true God and worship of Him.

But in Buddhism, in Hinduism, the real inner you is God. Your inner essence is the essence of deity, supposedly. And that's certainly contrary to what we're used to. That's certainly contrary to what the scriptures say. If you look in Isaiah 43, Isaiah 43, verse 10. Isaiah 43 and verse number 10. It says there, the Lord says, You are my witnesses, saith the Lord, verse 10, and my servant whom I have chosen, that ye may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me, there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, he says, even I am the Lord, and beside me, there is no Savior. You can't save yourself. You can't be your own Savior. There is no other God beside me. There's no one else that can save you. There's only one Savior. The God and Savior, the one true God. He says, I am. The Lord, the existing one, self-existent, true God. He never had a beginning, never had an end. We'll never have an end. He is the I am. He is the great I am.

This is very different than the impersonal force kind of God that the Hindus worship. This is the one true God. He's, the God who is alive and the God of love, the God who speaks, the God who works, the God who knows, the God who sees it all. There's no need of another God. He is God. There is no multiplicity of gods. God is not all. All was created by God, but without him, there was not anything made that was made. He is the source. Not the force, he's the source of all things. God is not impersonal, but he is very personal and wants to have a relationship with us and wants us to know his will. He wants us to know his word. That's why he's given us that word. We're not praying to the unknown. We're not trying to discover the undiscovered. We are coming by faith, to know the one who has revealed himself and wants us to know everything that we need to know about him. That we might not worship that which is not even worthy of worship. That's not even true.

Hindus do believe that there is, they believe in a Jesus. It's just not the Jesus of the Bible. They believe there is a Jesus. He's just one of the, a multiplicity of deities. He's one of the many gods. They believe that Jesus was just one manifestation or appearance of God, Brahman. They believe he was a manifestation. But you could be a manifestation as well, right? You can be a God. You can be awakened and enlightened. And Jesus is believed to be just one of the avatars, incarnations of God. And that's nothing further from the truth. In him, Jesus, the scripture says, dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead bodily. The fullness of the Godhead bodily. There is one, there is one mediator between God and men and man. That is the man Christ Jesus. But he is the God-man. He is, God come in flesh. This is the mystery of godliness. He's revealed in the flesh. He's not one of multiple sons. He's the only begotten son. He is God come in flesh. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

The Hindus believe in reincarnation, don't they? They believe in reincarnation. And this is the belief that when you die, your spirit is born, reborn into a different life form. You know, if you had good karma, then you'll be reincarnated in a higher life form. Well, there's the different, there's the different castes within Indian society. There's the Brahmins, which are the priests. There's the, there's the, there's the Kshatriyas, the warriors and rulers. There's the Vaishyas, the merchants. There's the Shudras, the workers. That's 53% of Indians work in this level, the worker level. Depending on how good or evil you were in the previous life, you might come back as a gnat or something. You might come back as an animal of some sort, a lower, a lower life form if you didn't have good karma. If you had bad karma and you just, you know, really messed it up, you're gonna come back as a lower life form.

Well, that, that idea of karma is a very, very popular idea in American culture today, isn't it? People don't, people don't talk about God's judgment anymore. They just say karma, karma this, karma that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's the idea of, you know, you know, retribution for what you did. Now, there is a sense, I think even people without the Lord realize that what, what goes around comes around, so to speak. What you, what you, you can't get away from consequences for what you've sown, what you sow is what you're gonna ultimately reap. Well, that's a, that's a spiritual, biblical truth. But it's interesting that we, the, the influence of Eastern thought, has caused us, even in the Western world, to rename all of that into Eastern terminology. You see the, see the influence of that on our, on our thinking, even in the West.

But scripture, scripture, this is not just a cute thought. This is, this is not just a funny kind of thought. Well, I don't wanna be reincarnated as a frog or something like that, or, you know, a cow. I mean, that, that, that kind of makes us chuckle in a way, but it's really actually very sad because as we said this morning, well, it's appointed unto man once to die, and after this, the judgment. No matter how much you talk about good karma and bad karma, it doesn't exist. There's the judgment. There is hell or heaven waiting for every soul once we pass from this life. And, we don't get multiple do-overs. We don't get multiple do-overs. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, knowing that the day of the Lord, the Lord is coming. And, and those who are not in Christ abide under the wrath of God. And so, I think of what John 5 says, if you'll turn over there with me, John chapter 5, verse 24. John 5, 24, we were in this vein this morning, but in John chapter 5, verse 24, we read, verily, verily, Jesus says, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, already, and shall not come into condemnation.

That's what we said in the Sunday school hour. We are not appointed unto wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, verse 17. We are not appointed unto wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, verse 17. We are not appointed unto wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, verse 17. That's only in 5-9. But he is passed from death unto life. He shall not come into condemnation, who, the one that hears my word and believes on him that sent me, has everlasting, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation but hath but is passed from death unto life. But Hinduism denies a literal hell and a literal judgment and a need for fundamentalism. and a literal judgment and a need for fundamentalism. for eternal life. A need to call upon and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They talk about Jesus in their multiplicity of gods, but he's as impotent in their understanding of him as he is in Islam, for instance. He's just a great teacher. A great teacher. There's many false religions that have some idea of Jesus, Isa, but he is not the one in the Bible. He's not the one revealed in Scripture. The Savior of men.

I think about James M. Gray who wrote that song, I know no other Jesus. He talks about the different ones that human minds invent. He said that he only believed on the Jesus that the Father sent. That one true Son of God, Jesus Christ. It is said in Hinduism there are three ways you can break the cycle of reincarnation. All of them have to do with your works. They all have to do with what you can do. Number one, the way of works. Imagine that. The way of works. This is an attempt to purify your soul through careful devotion and obedience to the Hindu scriptures. Number two, by the way of knowledge. You can break this cycle of reincarnation. You can get good karma and ascend and be awakened and enlightened or whatever the terminology they would use there. You can move in the right direction by the way of knowledge.

The way of knowledge is a sort of mystical realization of the Brahman through multiple different means of meditation and so on and so forth. It's always you've got to do something else to achieve. And then there's the way of devotion. According to this view, if one commits himself totally to the worship of a particular god or goddess, that deity will then take care of all the details as far as releasing you from the reincarnation karma cycle. If I devote myself to Krishna, for instance, a god in the system of Hinduism, that will take care of my, ultimately my karma and usher me into oneness when I die. But you know, as some who have lived in this and have come out and put their faith in Christ have said, you never know when you've done enough. You never know when you've done enough. You try, you try, you try, but it might not measure up, you know? How much is enough? How much meditation? How many works? It's just like all the other religions.

You try and you try, and what happens when you try? Well, it will only take one lifetime to figure out that it wasn't enough. It'll only take one time to die and realize this is why there's no sure hope. There's no real genuine expectation of eternal life because you just say, well, I gave it my best shot. This is the same kind of thing that we see in our country, isn't it? People trying to do enough good works, enough philanthropy, enough charity to make it into heaven. Surely a loving God wouldn't send somebody giving their best shot with good intentions. Wouldn't send them to a devil's hell? Pastor Peacock used to say that the path to hell is paid with good intentions. With good intentions. Well, oneness with the Brahman is the goal, right? And you know, you may have, one of the gods can help you with that, to come into that state of oneness. But this can never satisfy the soul.

The Bible tells us that all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. What does Jesus say? He says, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden. I'll give you rest. I'll give you rest. You can stop trying to save yourself now because you can't do it. And come and, as we saw in Pilgrim's Progress, that heavy load, and just, it will roll away at the cross. At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light, and the burdens of my heart rolled away. It was there by faith I received my sight. Except the man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven. And now I am happy all the day. Those who try to pursue enlightenment and awakening through Hinduism, strive for peace. They want peace, but the truth is, there is no peace to the wicked. There is no peace without Jesus Christ. There is no peace through our works. The Scripture says, the way of peace they have not known.

We cannot know the way of peace if it is not first that we come to know the Prince of Peace, the Lord Himself. And so, there are many things that are tried. Dharma is the word for the teachings of both in Hinduism and Buddhism, I understand. Karma refers to your actions. You can have good karma or bad karma that will determine how you're reincarnated. There's the cycle of pursuing and hopefully coming to that oneness. And that enlightenment. But, the things we must not be intimidated. We must not be intimidated in any way or ashamed of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ because that's the only true hope. When you I don't want to paint with a broad brush where we don't need to paint with a broad brush, but it's very clear the more you look at the contrast, every other religion says, do something. There's no other Gospel out there that says what the Gospel says. This is unique among all the religions of the world. There is only one true religion and it is the Word of God. The Bible, the one true God, Yahweh, revealed Himself in flesh. The God, God the Father seen in, if you've seen the Son, Jesus Christ, you've seen the Father.

And then of course, He finished the work. He finished the work on the cross. We need, it is not our responsibility. I was talking with Brother Buddy at the service today and he was just saying, you know, we all have a role to play, don't we? We all have a part. We all have, you know, something to do, something to say as servants of the Lord. And yet each one of us, we have a responsibility to just sow the seed of truth, don't we? We have the responsibility to speak the truth. It's not our responsibility to save any soul. But we should make the Lord Jesus known. Amen. should contend for the faith that's been delivered to the saints. We should shine as lights in this world because we are, through faith in Jesus Christ, we are light. And let our light shine before men that they may see we have true peace. We're not trying to chase an unattainable goal. We know the one who is our peace. We have peace not through mindlessness of meditation, but through intentionally thinking on the one who's revealed himself to us. And all that thrills my soul is Jesus. He is more than life to me. It's not about me getting good enough.

It's about me believing on the one who is worthy to, open the books the one who has by his merit placed my name in the lamb's book of life it's about it's about him it's not about what we can do and so that is the greatest difference really and we've said it in a number of different ways as we've been looking at this but that is the difference between the gospel of the lord jesus christ and any other of these religions that you can put up beside it because there is a one common recurring theme with these and that is that you never know if you've done enough you never know if you've you've uh you've said enough you've prayed enough you've done enough good works but the difference is if we know the lord loves us and we love you him in return and we are experiencing his peace it should be our delight and our joy to serve him because i live for him who died for me how happy then my life will be i live for him who died for me my savior and my god my life my love i give to thee talking about that lamb of calvary may may we do that out of love day by day we serve him you we love him because he first loved us let's pray father thank you that we have found in jesus christ i know we were raised in the bible belt i was raised in the bible belt and a number of these here tonight were raised in the bible belt some didn't always didn't have the same privileges i know brother tim here tonight was raised in the roman catholic church but thank you that the light of the gospel shone into his heart and and others that were raised my my wife's grandparents were raised in that and their eyes were opened or we just thank you that we've come it's not merely a tradition or a or a cultural religion it is that we have individually personally met the savior and realized that without him we are nothing it is through his merit through his grace alone that we are what we are and that we would not be ashamed to tell others of this good news this wonderful blessing that we have in knowing the savior not just one of the saviors but the savior of mankind we pray that you give us a burden we think about these that are lost in the deception of the new age and yet thinking that they have some kind of spiritual path to god that they're that jesus is some kind of spirit guide to help them along but help us to be gladly in love speaking the truth to those that are that may have been deceived by these these false ideas we pray now that you'd bless us as we conclude this service with a final hymn in Jesus name, Amen