A response to a YouTube video

Is Your Church Practicing New Age? | with Steven Bancarz | CT 040

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn86qD5uJ_M

David Burdick1 second ago

Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. It’s much easier to know the Son of God than to know God because the Son [graciously] manifested Himself to us in a body that we have and are. But the Father cannot be known to the human except through His only begotten Son.

That’s the “formula” that the Father created for us and for all the hosts of heaven to know Him. “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in Thy sight. All things are delivered unto Me of My Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” (Matt. 11:25-27).

God the Father is beyond our greatest conceptions. “For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though He needed any thing, seeing He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things... For in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring.” (Acts 17:23-25,28).

“But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him.” (1Cor. 8:6). The ultimate relation to God the Father, and the only real actions we can take to have faith in Him, is to obey His Law. His Law is a formula, but forces us to treat Him and His intelligent creation as tangible and personal. If we will obey His Law, He has a means by which He can give us faith, a new heart to know Him, and a new spirit--the long sought peace. But, as Romans 7 shows we don’t find it naturally enjoyable to obey His Law, the Law of His house.

Yet, we must patiently seek Him for forgiveness and power to obey Him so that He can make His was into our heart and mind. Then He will be the Lord our God, the Person behind the voice that spoke to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. “And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, He hath also rejected thee from being king.” (1Sam. 15:22,23).

David Burdick1 second ago

The gospel is the only way God can make His way into our souls. When we see His Law of love, we recognize that it is reasonable. Everyone needs to be loved. Who can argue against that? None of us because we are made in His image and love is an obvious requirement for life. Without love everything falls apart for our existence and the continuation of the family and society.

Our Father’s Law of love is the solution to all the problems of each human being. But, as we attempt to obey all that is needed to love perfectly, we find another law in us that wars against, which God calls “sin”. Sin is self. Self-preservation, self justification, self-exaltation, self-love, etc. Rather, love is self-sacrificing, self-denying, self-forgetful. Even modern psychology exalts sin by exalting self. But Bible psychology, the divine psychology, turns the fallen human away from self-focus, self-interest, the search to be “as gods” (Gen. 3:5), which Satan has propagated so successfully, the world round.

Romans chapter 7 and 8 lay out for us the only path to salvation--reconciliation with the Creator. After failing miserably at loving God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves, we cry out with Paul, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24). This humbled cry places the heart and mind open to the Spirit of God to enter our thinking. We are teachable because we are humbled at our failures and inabilities. Our conscience is still aching and throbbing with distress, but our cry reached all the way to the ear of the Most High.

That’s when we receive from Him the vision of His beloved Son, made in our form, a spotless, flawless human perfected in body, mind, and soul, and suffering our damnation. There is nothing more immaculate than the ashes of a spotless heifer. His achievement and example destroy our “being as gods” hopes, and fully lays our pride in the dust of death. We are transformed in a moment and made accessible to the gift of God—His restored presence and power. Out of that experience our lives gradually change into a beautiful thing, “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear”, which “are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.” (Mark 4:28; Luke 8:15).

The New Age and every other religion do not offer this. All they can offer can make the fallen heart and mind feel good and proud with the most ancient lie, “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Gen. 3:5). But in the end, [they give only] misery, disease, and death. “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Gen. 2:17).

“Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, and He that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by Myself; that frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad; that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish.” (Isa. 44:24,25).