By Bill Randles
LTRP Note: This is the second part of Bill Randles’ earlier article: Self Exalted Above God . . . The Delusion
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. ( 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4)
I hope I have made it obvious, to all who have ears to hear, that our society is being set up for a delusion which will be damning. God will send this delusion as a judgment but only as the culmination of a thousand little steps in the direction, freely chosen by those who will be judged in it. They who will be deluded had to have rejected the Truth revealed in the Incarnation of Jesus and by the apostles and prophets of the Bible.
Instead, those trapped by the delusion are the ones who have fancied their own ways; they cherish the false illusion presented by the army of false prophets, teachers, opinion molders and shapers coming to them in our culture in the form of popular entertainers, spiritual innovators, people like Oprah Winfrey, popularizers of Yoga and Eastern religion, Rock and Roll entertainers, which have been poured out upon our culture.
Truly, Scripture itself warn us, “There is a way which seems right unto man, but the end leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12).
In my previous article, I mentioned the transformative “Self revolution,” which has swept modern culture, sweeping aside the Christian biblical approach to the self (self denial and distrust). Modern psychology, invented and promoted by atheists such as Freud, and even pantheists such as Carl Jung, have successfully inculcated most of the Western world in an entirely different doctrine of self.
It is amazing that Paul the apostle, among others, predicted this and warned that in the “last days men would be lovers of self” and that this development would become one of the prime dangers of those days, making them “perilous times” (see 2 Timothy 3).
New terms such as self-love, self-esteem, self-fulfillment, and self-actualization have flooded the consciousness of the West, turning people away from any fear of God and into themselves.
This blight has badly affected the church as well, which would be the reasonable antithesis to the self-revolution. But the shepherds have too often put confidence in the psychologists and have promoted and deferred to those with “psychological credentials” as if the Bible itself is not sufficient to teach us about the human soul.
My friend the late Dave Hunt used to make this powerful point that psychology, a compound word meaning “soul study,” should be the arena of those who believe and promote the Word of God. The Bible alone is sufficient for the cure of soul. It is not as if God had to wait for godless atheists such as Freud, Maslow, and Fromm to bring us new insights about the human condition! What a denial of Christ!
There is an even deeper teaching about the self which would be the inevitable end of the idolization of self and the usurpation of Christian ministry by atheists. Sooner or later in apostasy, all roads head east.
Atheism cannot sustain for long, for man is incurably spiritual and has spiritual longings. Jettison the Judeo-Christian heritage of Scripture, church, the view of the Fall, the state of man, heaven and Hell, judgment, and even eschatology, in the end, most people end up incredibly empty—and for many people, it has meant turning to Eastern religion.
What is the essential teaching of Hinduism ? That we must come to the realization, that we ourselves are God. All is one. The “true self” within each of us is God. All meditation, ascetic practices, Yoga, fasting, prayer is to be self-focused and directed within. As spaceandmotion.com articulates it:
The metaphysical foundation of Hinduism, which is expressed in both the Vedas and the Upanishads is that Reality (Brahman) is One or Absolute, changeless, perfect and eternal. The ordinary human world of many separate and discrete (finite) things (which our mind represents by our senses) is an illusion. Through meditation and purity of mind, one can experience their true Self which is Brahman, God, the One infinite eternal thing which causes and connects the many things. True enlightenment is Self-realisation, to experience the supreme reality as Self.
The deeper teaching about the SELF, which has come to us from the East as a consequence of our abandonment of the Judeo-Christian revelation is that the Self is Divine, that we are all part of God, and that we need to “self-realize” this “enlightenment.” This is the New Age movement in a nutshell, or I should call it by its more current name, “the consciousness revolution” which is erupting all across the West. It is also the lie of the serpent in the garden.
There is one very important distinction, in one primal verse of the Bible which is either a polemic to this error, or if ignored leads to it. I speak of Genesis 1:1, (You cannot get any more primal than that)
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
What does this verse teach us about reality and existence? ( This verse is so full of light , thousands of books could be written about it alone). But I will direct you to my point: this verse teaches us that there are only two kinds of existence, Creator, and Creation.
Ours is a binary world. All is not one, all is two. Everything that exists is either the Creator, or Creation.
The Creator is self-existing, He always has been, He is and ever shall be, and He is absolutely distinct from His Creation. Creation is dependent, all of it, on the Creator, and is separate from Him. He, the Creator, is transcendent and eternal. The Creation has a beginning and an end.
The Serpent denies this, by blurring the distinction between Creator and creation, teaching pantheism, and panentheism, (i.e., either all is a part of the whole, which is God, or that God is in everything and everyone.
This lie achieves two huge things: 1) it depersonalizes God, and 2) it turns us from seeking God to seeking ourselves; it turns us within. Of course, sin does not factor in because there is no sin in the Eastern view, only ignorance of one’s own Deity.
Atheism has left people empty, looking for spirituality, but most reject Christianity. What is left? Islam or pantheism? The appeal of pantheism is that one can now be spiritual but not lose his or her autonomy. Thus, this generation is buying into the new teaching, that the Self is what we should be seeking for it is God! A perfect religion for a self-absorbed society.
(From Bill Randles’ blog; used with permission. Photo from the cover of Warren Smith’s lecture DVD, Exposing the Quantum Lie: God is NOT in Everything!)
As a biblical counselor the title of your post “The Deeper Teaching About “the Self” …” got my attention. I counsel people every week that are “trapped by the delusion” that their problems are due to low self-esteem. I recently wrote a post titled “Self-Esteem Sanctification”. The delusion is the more one loves himself the more like Christ he becomes. I hope you have time to read it.
Let me know what you think?
David M Tyler,
Another part of this worship of self and of creation is the saying being used now that the body can heal itself. I replied that God can heal when He chooses to heal. The Apostle Paul had an infirmity that really bothered him, and he implored the Lord to heal it, but God chose not to heal it. We cannot argue with God. We can do everything right as far as health and still get cancer, unfortunately. This is a fallen world. Someday there will be no more cancer, when our Lord returns to rule.
Ezek. 18: 25-28 simply put declares that a mans latter state matters more than a mans former state. A wicked man who repents and does what is lawful has saved his life. A righteous man turns to iniquity he shall die for it. Every Law of Moses is a reflection of God’s character.
Paul puts it differently for those in the grace covenant. 1 Cor. 9: 24 …lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. Far too many famous Christians are in their latter lives turning away from the truth. Their former walk cannot set aside the sin of their latter walk. LHTR has over the years documented a large list of them. They should not expect a, ” well done thou good and faithful servant”, from God on judgment day.
There is another evil that is just as bad. The sin of remaining silent. The sin of not boldly defending the faith. This often is masked as being a good thing. “We should be known not for what we are against but by what we are for” or “lets be for unity not for being divisive”. I would refer them to Lev. 5:1 paraphrased: if you know of a transgression and remain silent God imputes upon you the guilt of that transgression. As shepherd they are all also watchmen on the wall. Ezek. 3: 17-19 paraphrased: , If you watchmen fail to warn the people then the blood quit will be upon your hands. To remain silent, by default, they become not only ear ticklers they become proponents of false teachings. Jesus said that whoever is not with Him is against Him. Jesus also said that those who love Him keep His commandments. Boldly defending the faith is a command it is not an option for those who truly, ” love the lord God above all”
Also, I did not know that the term “New Age” has been now replaced with “consciousness revolution”. Makes sense though, in light of what we see happening.
Dave Hunt has some excellent books, two I have are:
“Occult Invasion” and “Peace, Prosperity and the Coming Holocaust”. Both excellent, and he did his homework and research! He was sounding the trumpet over 30 years ago about the horrible apostasy coming into the church and the new age into society. He didn’t think it could get worse then! Dave’s books show incredible insight into what happened/is happening and how it relates to historical events like the Nazi era also. I highly recommend his books and lectures.
I see the distinction between ‘creator’ and ‘created’, but how does that distinction refute the idea that the entire physical universe was created, including our bodies, but that spiritually we are and always have been a part of the spirit that did the creating, we just can’t see it?
Satan’s lie was not that he said Eve “ye shall be as gods”, they did as God said (Gen 3:22). What he did was lie by twisting God’s Word when he said “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” That led to disobeying God, the sin she and Adam committed.
I think the truth lies in admitting that we must know (see), or become, something more than we are (the proof we are not ‘god’ – because if we were we’d know it!). Thus we must be “born again”, and made into a “new creation” to be more than we are. This comes through salvation – forgiveness, which can only be obtained by first admitting a need for it and then accepting we cannot obtain it by any of our own means (outside of self), but only by receiving it by grace through faith in Christ – the gospel.
Great article! It really sums up what Carl Teichrib is telling us in his book, Game of Gods. He goes into great detail from almost every conceivable angle as to how this is all shaping up now in the world. And it is accelerating rapidly now. “Climate change” propaganda, according to a BBC article I just read this morning, is putting it all into fast forward mode now. Literally thrusting it into high gear and endeavoring to force the changes upon us that they believe are necessary to thwart the “imminent disaster our planet is headed for”. They now have a goal of “doing something about it” in 18 months as opposed to the 12 year time constraint goal they had been pushing up until now. This is all a push to usher in world government. The hour is late. The “churches” are ripe to be absorbed into the “oneism” religion as they take on more and more political correctness in their position on everything the NWO dictates is necessary to fit in. It is truly about “self worship” but also a multi-faceted monstrous spirituality that is taking shape which includes worship of the earth. It is really anything but Biblical Christianity. Thank you Mr. Randles for putting so succinctly in your article!