Church Vision and the New Age – Change or Die

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This is from the site The Exchanged Life and I have been enjoying the sermons.  This article is relevant to some current discussion about Rick Warren and and his relationship to Ken Blanchard. Comments from Barbara Marx Hubbard, New-Ager/politician are frightening. Christians who will not evolve in this new spirituality are likened to  cancer cells, which will need to be eliminated.

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Understanding Church Vision (Part 4 of 4)

One World Religion

Over 300 evangelical Christians signed a response from ‘the Christian community’ and sent it to the Muslim Community agreeing to a partnership in religion. In October 2007 the Muslim community launched a website called www.acommonword.com. A letter was sent to the Christian community asking for an agreement among the religions on common grounds that we could agree on. In the letter, the Muslim writers offer a hand of partnership to Christians as long as we agree on the basic principles that unite us. While the open letter to Christians focuses on each person’s requirement to love God and love one’s neighbor, they also make it clear that loving God requires us to adhere to the following ‘Testimony of Faith’:

The central creed of Islam consists of the two testimonies of faith or Shahadahsⁱ, which state that: There is no god but God [Allah], Muhammad is the messenger of God. These Two Testimonies are the sine qua non of Islam. He or she who testifies to them is a Muslim; he or she who denies them is not a Muslim.

The letter also states the following about Jesus Christ:

Muslims recognize Jesus Christ as the Messiah, not in the same way Christians do (but Christians themselves anyway have never all agreed with each other on Jesus Christ’s nature), but in the following way: …. the Messiah Jesus son of Mary is a Messenger of God and His Word which he cast unto Mary and a Spirit from Him…. (Al-Nisa’, 4:171). We therefore invite Christians to consider Muslims not against and thus with them, in accordance with Jesus Christ’s words here.

Since the Muslim letter only quoted part of Al-Nisa’ 4:171, I decided to look up this reference in the Quran to see the remainder of the verse. Here is the entire passage in context:

People of the Book, do not exceed the limits of devotion in your religion or say anything about God which is not the Truth. Jesus, son of Mary, is only a Messenger of God, His Word, and a spirit from Him whom He conveyed to Mary. So have faith in God and His Messengers. Do not say that there are three gods. It is better for you to stop believing in the Trinity. There is only One God. He is too glorious to give birth to a son. To God belongs all that is in the heavens and the earth. God alone is a Sufficient Guardian for all. (Al-Nisa’ 4:171)

Muhammad called Christians the ‘People of the Book’ because they believed in the scriptures. The call for unity requires us to directly reject the following scripture in 1 John 5:9-13  

⁹ If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son.  ¹⁰ He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son.  ¹¹ And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.  ¹² He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.  ¹³ These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

If you do not believe in Jesus Christ as He has been revealed in the scriptures, you do not, and cannot have eternal life for Jesus plainly warned that “if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins” (John 8:24). Therefore, the Quran and the Bible are in direct conflict with each other and this foundational issue is irreconcilable. So in reality, the Muslim partnership extended to Christians has the following requirements in order to have common ground: accept the premise that “There is no god but God [which means Allah], Muhammad is the messenger of God”, do not be devoted solely to Christianity, and agree that Jesus is “only a messenger of God” but is not divine nor is God’s Son. According to Islam, Jesus was a messenger, but Muhammad is ‘the messenger’. Every Muslim will tell you that you must confess that ‘there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is his prophet’. They say that Jesus was a prophet, but they will never say that Muhammad is ‘a prophet’. Every Muslim will strictly adhere to the belief that ‘Muhammad is the prophet’. The Bible tells us that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the prophets and that in these last days Jesus was the final word (Hebrews 1:1-2), but Islam teaches that Muhammad is the true messenger and the one chosen by God.

While one-world religion proponents argue that we can agree on most issues and therefore should not bicker over the few that we don’t agree on, the truth is that certain beliefs cannot be compromised. Look at Philippians 2:5-8   

⁵ Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,  ⁶ who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,  ⁷ but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.  ⁸ 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.

This is at the core of our Christian faith. You cannot compromise this truth and remain in the faith. Also consider 1 Timothy 3:16   

¹⁶ And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory..

John 1:1-3  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  ² He was in the beginning with God.  ³ All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

John 1:10-14  ¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.  ¹¹ He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.  ¹² But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:  ¹³ who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.  ¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

This wasn’t controversial among those who held to the word of God, but in this era where Christians do not seek the Lord through the word, this has become a point of contention. The world has always denied Jesus as the only way and in these last days, the church has forgotten the truth of salvation in Christ just as the Bible foretold. Look at 2 Peter 2:1  

But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.

Is this not exactly what the ‘open letter to Christians’ is asking us to do? I have quoted some of the most influential evangelical leaders and each one of them has denied that Jesus is the only way of salvation – which is a denial of the faith. On November 18, 2007, a response was posted to the acommonword.com website. The letter written was headed up by the seminary professors at Yale University and signed by over 300 evangelical Christian leaders and organizations. You can read the entire letter on the Common Word website, but I want to bring your attention to this excerpt:

We receive the open letter as a Muslim hand of conviviality and cooperation extended to Christians world-wide. In this response we extend our own Christian hand in return, so that together with all other human beings we may live in peace and justice as we seek to love God and our neighbors.

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And to those who nevertheless relish conflict and destruction for their own sake or reckon that ultimately they stand to gain through them, we say that our very eternal souls are all also at stake if we fail to sincerely make every effort to make peace and come together in harmony.

The evangelical community received the letter and then implied that any who do not receive this are ‘those who relish conflict and destruction’. By stating that they receive the invitation, it is an acknowledgement and acceptance of the terms written in the letter as we examined above. Any who do not agree to this form of unity are identified as the cause of conflict. If you read the letter you will see that one of the overarching themes is the quest for world peace. It is not a jump in conclusion that those who do not agree with the plan for peace by compromising their faith in Christ are a threat to peace and will become the enemy of the world religions that are uniting.

Consider that Rick Warren has stated that those who refuse to change must die or leave. David Spangler stated in his writings that people who will not accept the new world spirituality (which he calls the Luciferic Initiation) will be removed from the world to an upper room to be retrained until they can be embodied and safely be returned to the social body; Leonard Sweet states that we must change or die and these each are endorsing each other. Leonard Sweet quotes David Spangler in his book ‘Soul Tsunami’. In this book, Sweet states:

I am grateful to David Spangler for his help in formulating this “new cell” understanding of New Light leadership.”

Rick Warren endorsed this very book and wrote the forward on the front and back cover. Ken Blanchard has been commissioned by Rick Warren to teach leaders who will teach evangelical churches and Blanchard spoke at the ‘Choices for the Future’ symposium with Barbara Marx Hubbard. In her book, Hubbard echoes the warnings of these evangelical leaders but adds chilling details that make it clear that the ultimate plan is to force the world into the New Age spirituality. Look at these excerpts from her writings found in ‘The Book of Co-Creation’:

Out of the full spectrum of human personality, one-fourth is electing to transcend… One-fourth is destructive…they are defective seeds. In the past they were permitted to die a ‘natural death’. …Now as we approach the quantum shift from the creature-human to the co-creative human – the human who is an inheritor of god-like powers – the destructive one-fourth must be eliminated from the social body. …Fortunately, you are not responsible for this act, we are. We are in charge of God’s selection process for the planet Earth. He selects, we destroy. We are the riders of the pale horse, Death”.

“This act is as horrible as killing a cancer cell. It must be done for the sake of the future of the whole. So be it; be prepared for the selection process which is now beginning. We, the elders, have been patiently waiting until the very last moment before the quantum transformation, to take action to cut out this corrupted and corrupting element in the body of humanity. It is like watching a cancer grow; something must be done before the whole body is destroyed…. The destructive one fourth must be eliminated from the social body.”

Is this not an exact fulfillment of John 16:2b-4?

…the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service.  ³ “And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me.  ⁴ “But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. …

Notice that Barbara Marx Hubbard has declared that the selection process is already underway and who do you think the ‘destructive one-fourth’ is? Based on the testimony of Hubbard and our own evangelical leaders, those who refuse to change must die. Hubbard may sound like a New Age flake, but she has a lot of backing. She has worked with the White House under two presidents including our current administration; she was a vice president nominee in 1984, she was an American Citizen ambassador to the former Soviet Union; she has founded two major global organizations (the ‘Global Association for New Global Thought’ and the ‘World Future Society’); she has written 5 books and delivered over 80 keynote speeches to colleges, leadership conventions, political organizations, and has direct ties with our current evangelical leaders.

Just consider how many times death is endorsed by our major evangelical leaders. In Tim LaHaye’s left behind series, the tribulation force of God fought against the lost souls by killing them. This was justified since their souls were supposedly already lost anyway. This is the overarching theme in their Left Behind game where ‘Christians’ are encouraged to kill those who refuse to be evangelized. You can find ample information on this game by doing a search on ‘Left Behind: Eternal Forces’. In the evangelical letter to the muslims, our leaders state that those who refuse to compromise risk their eternal souls. Rick Warren calls church leaders that resist the purpose driven movement ‘leaders from hell’ and compared them to Sanballat. Sanballat tried to prevent Nehemiah from building the wall around Jerusalem. Ironically, Warren is attacking those who are trying to build a wall between the church and the world while claiming that the true wall builders are the ones attacking. For the first time in history, the evangelical community has joined forces with the world to stand against those who stand upon the word of God. Now the political, world religions, and evangelical church are all calling for the destruction of those who refuse to be evangelized into the New World Order.

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Please finish the article HERE

http://www.exchangedlife.com/Sermons/topical/vision/vision4.shtml