| “The New Age of Enlightenment” Satan was once foremost in explaining the truth to the universe. He is now gathering all the beautiful knowledge he had while he was still an angel of light, and he will use this to deceive the world. The New Age movement has a Christ, just like Christians do. “Love” is the message they believe will unite the world and vanquish all suffering. Sound familiar? They even quote the Bible! Buddhism (along with other eastern philosophies in which the New Age teachings are rooted) teaches that the secret of life is brotherly love. It teaches that selfishness is the heart of the world’s woes, and can be stamped out by a system known as “the eight-fold path,” which includes right beliefs, right efforts, right thinking, right ideas, right works, right deeds, a right way of earning a living, and right meditation. They teach that only love can banish hatred, and that love of one’s enemies is the jewel of life. These are, indeed, very Christ-like principles. What distinguishes this clever counterfeit from the truth? The great failure of eastern philosophies lies in a misunderstanding of the Source of this love. It does not recognize the nature of man in his fallen condition, and the fact that redemption is possible only through Jesus Christ. It does not recognize Jesus as the one true God and Creator of time and space. Because of this, these teachings and beliefs actually destroy those who teach and accept them. Rather than acknowledging that God is love, they make love their God. Love is not God. It is an attribute of his character, his principle. It comes from God—he is its Author. God has used the strongest language he could to describe the awful consequences of “worshiping the creature rather than the Creator.”[324] They reach the place where even the Almighty One can do nothing for them, and he must sadly let them go. To make it sound legitimate, Satan calls his counterfeit “Christ-consciousness.” He even goes as far as to teach people that they are God! This is nothing new; this was part of the deception he used with Eve: “God knows that the day you eat this fruit, you will be gods!”[325] This blasphemous doctrine manifests itself in a variety of ways: “God is in you; You are a part of God; You are a God in the making.” When the Bible says we are to become “partakers of the divine nature,”[326] it means we can become like God in character. His divine nature is self-sacrificing love—that can become a part of us. We become partakers of his divine nature of love. We become his sons and daughters, members of the royal family. But we will always be creatures. God is unique in his deity. No created being can become God! Remember, that this is how the war started! Satan desired to be God. But even the brilliant Lucifer in all his glory was more like us than like God—he is only a created being. His rebellion was fueled in part by the fact that he could not become God. But the spiritualism of the New Age is only one of Satan’s pawns in the final battle; he has a card up his sleeve that will deceive the majority of the world: Antichrist. |
 |
 |
| 324 Romans 1:25 325 Genesis 3:5 326 2 Peter 1:4 |
 |
| Page 41 |