Now this morning I preached a sermon about science fiction religion and we talked a lot about how a lot of the atheists of this world, especially the really evangelical atheists. The ones who really push and promote atheism in the media and through their books and through media appearances, et cetera. How basically they're not really following science, because they like to hide behind science and say, "well we as atheists we're just really logical, rational people. We're just going where the evidence leads us. The evidence is showing us there's no God, and it's all based on science. It's all based on fact."
We showed this morning how it's not science. It's science fiction. That's what these guys are really into. They start out by hating the Lord, start out by rejecting the God of the Bible, and then setting out with that agenda mixed in with a whole lot of steady diet of science fiction. They come up with all this crazy nonsense, and we looked at that all this morning, but I had a lot of stuff this morning that I didn't get to and so I wanted to continue the sermon tonight. Really I kind of just want to focus on one thing tonight that was in my sermon this morning, but it kind of needs it's own sermon and I was out of time. The title of the sermon, you could call it sci-fi religion part 2 or you could Star Wars in light of the Bible would be another title of this sermon.
Now here's the reason I bring this up. It's not just the atheists who are heavily influenced by science fiction. It's not just the atheists. In fact a lot of Christians, and a lot of just Americans in general have become heavily influenced by science fiction to the point where they have ideas and beliefs that are not Biblically based, and in fact they contradict the bible but they're coming from science fiction. Where science fiction and other things that they see on T.V. and are taught in the media in general overrides what the Bible says. It succeeds what the Bible says. Now this didn't really surprise us when you think about the fact that your average American and your average Christian spend more time watching T.V., watching movies, and the media in general than the spend in the word.
I mean would anybody really argue with that statement? I mean would you really tell me that people today amongst your independent Baptist churches, your evangelical Christian churches, you think most people in America today are spending more time in the Bible or more time watching T.V. or watching movies or other media outlets? You know it's true. Therefore we cannot help but speak the things that we've seen and heard the Bible says. There's this constant influx of wrong philosophy and then just a little trickle of the Bible that gets in when we're gracious enough to give God a minute or two of our time for a little Bible devotion, and then you wonder why people's ideas are so different than what the Bible teaches. Then you wonder why you get up and preach hard from the Bible and people just think your nuts, and they're so shocked. It's because they've got their mind on a whole other program.
Obviously Star Wars is just a small part of that. I want to focus on this tonight, because of the fact that this is a really popular movie obviously. It's huge. I mean, I remember I saw my first Star Wars movie when I was probably 5 or 6 years old. I remember I was just a little tiny kid, and it was Return of the Jedi and I was watching in my living room and I fell asleep toward the end. I swore to my parents I was just resting my eyes. You know kids never want to admit that they fell asleep during a movie, so I was just resting my eyes. Anyway, this is a really popular film and also because of the fact that it's rated PG, family friendly type of a film. This is something that Christians really rally around and they say, "Well you know, we love Star Wars." Well I want to point out a major philosophy that's taught in Star Wars that seems to have permeated our culture, and permeated Christianity.
It's not coming from the Bible, it's actually coming from Buddhism and other false religions. One of the major themes of Star Wars is this idea of the force, and that there's the dark side of the force. You know beware of the dark side, so I went on to a website that had the transcript of all the movies where it's just the text so I don't have to sit and watch the movie. Here's all the text, and I just searched the word dark side and I found some of the quotes about this that I remembered. Listen to this, this is going to be from Yoda, and I'm not going to do the Yoda voice because I don't. Everybody wants it, yeah. I don't know. I do a lot of impressions all right, people but I can't do this one. I'm sorry.
Yoda says, "A Jedi's strength flows from the force but beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression, the dark side of the force are they." According to Star Wars, oh man just stay away from anger. Stay away from fear. What, that's a ticket to the dark side. Then you know Obi-wan Kenobi came out he said, "Luke, don't give into the hate Luke. That leads to the dark side." All right, and then you know the emperor, this is from Return of the Jedi. You know the emperor when he's dealing with Luke Skywalker he says, " Good, I can feel your anger. Take your weapon strike me down with all your hatred and your journey toward the dark side will be complete." According to Star Wars basically if Luke Skywalker kill the evil emperor who is blowing up whole planets or whatever and just killing billions of people. Then he's giving into the dark side because any anger, any fear, any hate that's the dark side.
Honestly there's other quotes that are kind of just the same thing. "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering," okay. Here's the thing. This is not was the Bible teaches at all, but yet this is what most Christian's believe. Most Christians that you talk to would tell you all hatred is wrong. Don't preach hate. Hate's not a family value, and oh we should never hate. It should be all love. You know that what I'm telling you is the truth right now. They also have this idea that all anger is sinful. We should never be angry. We should never have fear. We should never have these different emotions that are perfectly natural, normal emotions that are part of our lives, and there is a Godly hatred. There is a Godly fear and of course there is a righteous anger, a righteous indignation, but in America today we're taught that we should never have these negative emotions. It should be positive only.
The Joel Osteens of the world promote this positive only Gospel, and over and over again we're told that we should never experience negative feelings. To the point where literally I talk to someone who's child died and a few weeks by and their doctor was trying to put them on anti-depressants. Oh you're still upset, you're still depressed about your child dying? Your only child? Here take these pills, because we should never feel any negative emotions. Let's see what the Bible says on these particular subjects. Turn if you would to Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Let me just point out to you, this is Buddhist teaching. In Buddhism, and if you listen to my sermon Buddhism in light of the Bible they have this idea where everything that's positive is good and everything that's negative is bad. This whole dark side type philosophy, and even when the Hindus are meditating and when they go to the yoga class. You know they're breathing in everything that's positive and breathing out all the negative but you know what?
The Bible teaches that there is a time for the negative and a time for the positive. Just as our battery in our car needs to have a positive and a negative terminal in order to operate so is life, and God in the Bible has positive portions of scripture and negative portions of scripture. In fact there's more negative in the Bible than positive. Honestly if you look up for example, when the children for Israel are going into the promise land and they're going to give the blessings and the cursing upon Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. There are more than double the curses are there are the blessings. There are way more negative commandments than there are positive commandments and in fact if you look at the longest book of the Bible.
It's pretty much the book of Jeremiah, a lot of people say Psalms, but if you look at how many words are in the book. It's right there neck and neck with Jeremiah and by some measures Jeremiah is just a hair longer. Jeremiah is a very long book, even though it's only 52 chapters. Chapters and versus are long. That's probably the most negative book in the Bible, if you read the book of Jeremiah, very negative. God is a God of love, but he's also a God of wrath, he's a God of vengeance. He said, "Vengeance belonging unto me saith the lord. I'll repay." People today they just want to keep saying over and over again how God is love, but that's true. What about holy is the Lord? What about God is angry with the wicked every day, so is god on a path to the dark side?
Look what the bible says in Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 1. "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." Look at verse 8. "A time to love, and a time to hate. A time of war and a time of peace." There's a time and a place for love and there's a time and a place for hatred. I mean the Bible said in Psalm 139, and you can turn to Amos 5:15, and I'm not going to spend all night on this point although I could because there's so much scripture on this. The scripture that we read in Psalm 139 said, "Do not I hate them O Lord, that hate the, and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee. I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies." That's what David said in the book of Psalms, and that's not just his word. That's the word of god.
That's the inspired word of god from the mouth of the prophet David. The Holy Ghost speaking through him according to Jesus Christ, in the book of Psalms. He says, "I hate them with perfect hatred." Perfect means complete. He's saying I have complete hatred for them. Nothing but hatred is what he means by that. He says those that hate the Lord, I hate them, but according to this new Christian mentality then that would be hate speech. That would be actually the dark side, and that would be un-Christian, and unloving and un-Christlike. Wait a minute this the holy spirit talking, and even the man David was the man after God's own heart. This idea of hatred always being wrong or bad or we should never feel hatred is a false doctrine. Now the Bible does condemn hating your brother without a cause.
Obviously the Bible does teach love, and he says to love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you. Pray for them which [inaudible 00:11:59] and persecute you. Here's the difference with that, the Bible says love your enemies. He explains what he means by that. Those who do you wrong, love them. Be that not overcome of evil but overcome evil with good. What about when the Bible says "Do not I hate them o lord that hate thee." The Bible is not saying we should hate those who hate us. He doesn't say, "Hey if somebody hates you, hate them back." That's not what the Bible teaches. No, the Bible says we're supposed to love those who hate us.
We're supposed to do good unto those that persecute us but when someone is a hater of the Lord. That's the person we should hate, and there's a difference between hating our personal enemy and hating the Lord's enemy. There have been a lot of people over the years that have been personal enemies of mine in the sense that they've done me wrong. They've been enemies at the job or enemies in other situations like school for example. I've had people lie about me and curse me and persecute me in school, at work, just in every area at life. God commands us to turn the other cheek. God commands us to love them, pray for them, and hopefully eventually they can get saved. Honestly, there have been people in my life that have gotten saved and they were an enemy and then the became a friend.
Now that's not always the ways it's going to work. Obviously some people are never going to come over to your side but often you can turn your enemies into friends. By loving them, by praying for them, and often it's not that they're bad people. It's just that they're misguided and if we would show them the love of Christ, we could be a blessing and turn them around and be a good testimony. Then people will try to take that teaching of scripture, which is a beautiful teaching in scripture about loving our enemies, and they'll try to twist that to love pedophiles. Love serial rapists, love Mao Tse-tung, love Joesph Stalin, love mass murderers, and they'll try to twist that doctrine to love everybody.
It's not love everybody. It's bless those that curse you. Love your enemies. There's a scriptural teaching here that says "Do not I hate them o Lord that hate thee." You say that's not a command, yeah but in 2nd Chronicles 19:2 there's a king who is rebuked by the prophet of God and he says to him "Shouldest thou help the unGodly, and love them that hate the Lord? Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord." He actually rebukes him for loving those who hate the Lord in 2nd Chronicles 19:2. So this teaching is consistent way in multiple places in the bible. It's not like it's just one verse that we're misunderstanding or something. No, there are multiple verses.
We can turn to a lot of scriptures about hate [inaudible 00:14:48] 5:15. This is a good verse. It says, "Hate the evil and love the good, and establish judgement in the gate. It may be that the Lord God of Hose will be gracious under the remnant of Joseph." Psalm 97:10 says "Ye that love the lord hate evil. He preserveth the souls of his saints. He delievereth them out of the hand of the wicked." So there is a place for hatred in our life. We should hate those that hate the Lord, and we should also just hate evil in general. David said, "I hate every false way" in Psalm 119. We should hate false doctrine we should hate sin. We should hate perversion. These are the things that destroy peoples lives. How could you sit here and tell me that God wants us to love a child molester?
I mean, think about how wicked of a person a child molester is. How they take that sweet innocent child and defile it and corrupt it and ruin their life? Who thinks that a child molester should be taken out and killed as a punishment? I do. Too bad we're not some kind of governing body here, because right now it's a revolving door. Where they arrest these horrible, filthy, perverts and they'll be put away for a few years and it's a revolving door. No. They ought to be taken out like a dog and shot. That's the Biblical teaching of what should happen to these people. We studied God's law, and yet Christians today have been duped into this thing. By the way, homosexuals are pedophiles wake up. Wake up people. It's not like they show you on T.V. They're not reproducers. They're recruiters and they're after your children. That's a whole other sermon in itself.
Turn if you would to Proverbs chapter 28. According to Star Wars, according to the media, according to science fiction, according to that which people are spending hours and hour watching, and very little time in this book. Then they say "oh Pastor Anderson, you don't know what your. Man, we shouldn't be hateful we shouldn't ever hate people. Hate is the dark side." It's like that's Yoda talking, that's not the bible talking. I'm serious tonight. They all it's silly sermon, a silly subject. You know what's silly? Is that Christians get their doctrine from this, and I know it not just Star Wars but Star Wars is just another break in the wall of this continual brain washing that's been taking place for decades now of just love everybody, accept everything, tolerate everything.
I mean if people are going to be transgender, transvestites, that's all fine and dandy. I mean this is the agenda today. Christians are accepting things that you never thought they would accept. They're putting up with things that you never would have thought that you put up with and it's simply because the devil has control of their mind instead of the Lord having control of their mind. It would be solved by spending time in the Bible, not hour after hour in the hell-ovision. In front of the Tell-lie-vision. In front of movies that are put out by people who reject the God of the Bible and they prefer eastern mysticism. Buddhism, Hinduism, the Satanic counterfeit religions. A lot of people would say, "Well come on. Star Wars is a good clean movie. It's good clean fun," and you say "well what about all the religion though? What about the religious overtones of Star Wars."
Here's what they would say, "Yeah but we just ignore that part, right? We ignore that part." Here's my question then. If you're ignoring that part then why do you believe all hate is bad? If you ignore that part then why do you believe that fear is bad? If you ignore that part then why do you believe anger is bad? I mean people will hear a preacher get up and get angry and scream about sin and say, "he's angry that means he's not filled with the spirit." That's what they say. Anytime a preacher gets up and gets mad at sin and preaches hard. They'll say, "That preacher is not filled with the spirit. I can tell by the anger, because if he were filled with the spirit he would be peaceful and calm."
That's what they say, but that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says that when the spirit of the Lord came upon Saul he was filled with anger. That's what it says. The spirit of the Lord came upon Saul and he was filed with anger and he took oxen and chopped them up and mailed them out to everybody and says, "this is what I'm going to do with your oxen if you don't get in the Lord's army." I mean, I'm just telling you a Bible story tonight, is that okay? Oh, you want me to tell you about long ago in a galaxy far far away? Why don't I just tell you about a few thousand years ago in this galaxy on this planet in reality, something that actually really happened, when a man became filled with the holy spirit he became angry at the Lord's enemies. He became angry at oppression. That's biblical.
Yet today, oh peaceful calm because let the force flow through you Luke. When you're peaceful and calm and passive. Just let go and let the force flow through you. Don't get angry, don't hate. That's the dark side, so it doesn't jive. So which one do most Christians in America believe? The Star Wars mentality or the Biblical mentality? You already know the answer to that question, but no we just watch it and it doesn't affect us because we know what the Bible teaches. We're not going to get into eastern mysticism. Funny how you agree with Obi-Wan Kenobi on all these points, but it doesn't affect you.
Fear, look at Proverbs 28:13. The Bible says, " ye that cover up the sins should not prosper but who so confess at them and forsaken then shall have mercy. Happy is the man that feareth [inaudible 00:20:53]." Now how does that fit in with this fear is always wrong mentality. Happy is the man that feareth [inaudible 00:21:02] but either harden of his heart shall fall into mischief. Flip over to Ecclesiastes chapter 12 the next book in the Bible there. While you're turning there I'll read for you Revelation 14 verse 7. "Saying with a loud voice fear god and give glory to him. For the hour of his judgment has come and worship Him that made heaven and Earth and the sea and the fountains of waters," so the bible commands us over and over again to fear god fear the lord. The fear of the lord is the beginning of knowledge.
The Bible says "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding." That's where it starts. That's level 1. You're not even to level 1. You're a type 0, you know. [inaudible 00:21:42]. You haven't even made it to level 1 until you've learned the fear of the Lord . Ecclesiastes 12 verse 13, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, fear god, and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man." That's it in a nutshell. Fear god and keep his commandments. Now many people will try to say, "well fear doesn't really mean fear in this situation. It just means respect." Well then let me ask you this. Why is it several times mentioned in the Bible fear and trembling? You don't just tremble out of respect.
The Bible says in Ephesians 6:5, "Servants be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling, and sing of this if your heart is unto Christ." Philippians 2:12, "Where for my beloved as ye have always obeyed not is in my presence but now much more in my absence work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." Psalm 2 verse 11, "Serve the lord with fear and rejoice with trembling." God says that we are to fear and tremble before him. The Bible does say there is no fear in love but perfect love casted out fear because fear had torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
Here is the thing, as we grow in our walk with the lord. We move away from fear and toward the love of God, but it begins with fear. Why do we even get saved in the first place? To escape hell, fear of hell. Fear of the Lord causes man to depart from hell because of the fact that they are scared of that, and they put their faith in Jesus Christ as a savior because they first realize that there is a danger to be saved from. Which is the punishment for their sins, and so our life starts with fear. Now a child that's born into their family and they start to grow up and they get a little older and they start committing sins and doing wrong. They need to be disciplined. The Bible teaches that we must not spare the rod, and that we must chase in our son while there and so forth.
That child in beginning is going to obey out of fear, because a 2 year old or a 3 year old isn't going to come to grasp the concept of "you know I just love my parents so much I don't want to disappoint them so I'm not going to throw this temper fit right now. I'm actually going to obey and go to bed when I'm told." They don't think, you know. What gets them to obey in the beginning is fear, then as they get older they grow and love for their parents and they get the character to do what's right. They move more toward love as opposed to fear, but there's nothing wrong with the fear of the Lord. No, the fear of the Lord is only praised. Only praised in the Bible, it's only positive. Fear of anyone or anyone else is always negative about if we fear man, if we fear what man can do, but when we fear the Lord that's great so there is a place for fear. Isn't there?
Can we just hatred is bad? No, hatred can be bad or it can be good. It depends on what we hate and why. Anger, is anger always bad? There are a lot of Christians who thinks so. They look at a man who is angry and they say "he's not filled with the spirit." Well lets see what the Bible says. I already pointed out one scripture to you but if you would go to Mark chapter 3 verse 5. Mark chapter 3 verse 5, I already pointed out the scripture that said "Saul was filled with the Holy Spirit and his anger was kindred as a result." That's not the only story like that, but Jesus Christ himself, and the Bible says that Jesus. That the spirit was not given by measure unto him.
I mean in him dwelled all the fullness of the God had bodily and the Bible says that he was anointed with the oil of gladness above all his fellows. He had the ultimate Holy Spirit anointing on his life while he walked and talked on this earth. Why did he have that ultimate holy spirit anointing? The Bible says because he loved righteousness and hated aniqueity. Therefore God anointed him with the oil of gladness above all his fellows. That's why Jesus Christ had such anoint. He was filled with the Holy Spirit 24/7. He walked in the spirit, in the power of the Holy spirit. The Bible was clear on that, but look at Mark 3 verse 5 about Jesus it says, "and when he had looked around about on them with anger being greed for the hardness of their hearts he sayeth unto the man strike forth thine hand and he stretched it out and his hand was restored whole as the other."
Did Jesus have a right to be angry here? Absolutely. Was he filled with the spirit? Was he Godly in this anger? What about when he preached in Mathew 23? You can feel the anger in that chapter. He is rebuking and harshly criticizing the pharisees the Sadducee the lawyers, and there is anger there but it's a righteous anger. It's a Godly anger. In fact there's even a command in scripture Ephesians 4:26 it starts out with these words. "Be ye angry and sin not." Now if anger were a sin that verse wouldn't make any sense because how could you be angry and sin not if all anger is sinful. Obviously it's possible to be angry, and not sin. Then he explains how, "let not the sun go down on your wrath." So we're not to harbor anger. We're not to hang on to anger and be angry from day to day.
There's a time to get angry but then it's time to put that aside. Go to bed at night. Wake up and start a fresh morning, and not to just be a person who dwells on past grievances. The past is about forgiveness in Ephesians 4. He says we need to forgive others and not be angry with them today about what they did unto us about what they did yesterday. It's not wrong to be angry. There's a verse in the sermon on the mount. Mathew chapter 5 verse 22 if you want to flip back there. Where in the modern versions they change this verse to make it out that anger is always wrong, because in this Scripture it says, "But I say unto you that who so ever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgement."
In the modern versions the NIV, the ESV, scriptures like that. They take out the without a cause, so now it's just well if you're angry with your brother. You're in danger of judgement. That would make Jesus as sinner, because he was angry with his brother so it's very important of course that we have a King James Bible, accurate Bible. Not these new modern Bible of the month club Bibles that keep changing all the time and hat kind of seem to fit in with what's popular. This doctrine of no anger, no hatred, no fear. Look, I'm not saying that all 3 of these things can't be sinful. There are times when all of them are sinful. Fear can be sinful, anger can be sinful, hatred can definitely be sinful, but it's not always sinful.
It's not some dark side. It's not like oh lets only have positive, positive, positive. Sweetness and light and no dark side. Nothing negative ever, which is what these films are teaching. Which is the mentality that they portray which is not unique to them. It comes from Buddhism. Okay? Here are some other things about Star Wars from a religious standpoint. First of all, just the fact that Darth Vader is born of a virgin should raise a red flag with you. That there are some weird religious undertones in this film. Who knew that? Put up your hand if you already knew that. Yeah I remember I thought this back when I was going to the movies and stuff and I watched the episode 1 when it came out back in 1999 or whatever it was.
I walked out of there and I said to somebody. I said, "That was pretty weird about how they're making Darth Vader be born of a virgin." The person I said that to said, "what are you talking about? I don't remember that in the movie." It's there in the movie. It's right there in the movie because the guy asked her so whose the father and she says "oh there was no father". It was conceived by the force. Which the force is like a replacement for God in this movie series. Flip over if you will into Daniel chapter 11. So Darth Vader is born of a virgin according to episode 1, and also Darth Vader comes to fulfill prophecy. There's a lot of talk about the prophecies and things that this guy would come, and he's going to bring balance to the force. Then of course eventually Darth Vader sacrifices his life and brings balance to the force. This virgin born Darth Vader.
When we think of the force, again this calls to mind Buddhism, Eastern mysticism, Hinduism. If you think about it in the movie there's a lot of meditation that goes on and I'm not talking about Biblical meditation. See, Biblical meditation is when we mediate on God's word day and night. That's actually where we memorize scripture and then think about the scripture that we memorize. Kind of run through verses in our mind, and think about what they mean. That's what meditation is Biblically. That's a good meditation. To sit and dwell on God's word, but the meditation that we see in Star Wars is basically liken to Buddhist and Hindu transcendental mediation. This is a very dangerous practice and Christians get mixed up in some of this stuff.
They get mixed up into yoga and they say, "Well it's just great stretching." Here's the thing though, you could probably just stretch on your own without yoga or you could probably find a different stretching program. Not one that came from a Satan worshiping false religion called Hinduism. Find a different program, plus I think stretching is over rated anyway. I never. I don't stretch before I run, so you know some people can over do stretching anyway. You see these people bending themselves into a pretzel. I'm not sure that's even totally beneficial, because your muscles are like rubber bands and if you stretch them too much it's like a rubber band that's been stretched too much. It doesn't have as much strength, but anyway that's a fitness discussion that has no place in the house of God. Not going to go into that.
The bottom line is that Christians can sometimes get into these meditative type practices and this type of Yoga influence where they're doing these breathing exercises and all this stuff. A lot of it seems pretty benign on the surface, but when they talk about making your mind blank. This is what you have to be aware of, because one of the big things about Buddhism is just completely emptying your mind where you're just thinking about nothing and you're kind of in a trance. You're in this state of what they call in Hinduism dreamless sleep. Where you just have no thoughts and your mind is just empty, because they teach that when you do then enlightenment will come in. According to these hard core Buddhists and Hindus that go through these processes of fasting and vegetarianism and meditating and all this stuff.
Then basically these spirits will come in and commune with them. We know what that is. That's demonic. When you're sitting there, opening yourself up, right? Luke, let the force flow through you. Just be passive, right? Just kind of sit back and let it come to you, and let it come in. This is actually demonic and a lot of people have demonic experiences through Hindu and Buddhist style mediation. This is not Biblical meditation. We're to mediate on god's word. Not to just blank out our mind and just oumm, oumm, and try to sit there levitate objects. Look this is all straight out of eastern religion, and it's wicked religion. It's not something that we should be influenced by. This idea of God being an impersonal force. No, man is made in the image of God. God is a he. God is a person. God has personality. God is not just this impersonal force in the universe, but look if you would at Daniel chapter 11.
I'm going to show you the force in the bible. It says in Daniel 11:36, and just to give you the context. This is a scripture that has to do with the Antichrist. This is prophetic of the Antichrist putting himself above all Gods. It says in verse 36, "The king shall do according to his will and he shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every God and shall speak marvelous things against the God of Gods and shall prosper until the indignation be accomplished. For that that is determined shall be done. Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any God for he shall magnify himself above all, but in his estate shall he honor the God of forces. A god whom his fathers knew not so he honor with gold and silver, and precious stones and pleasant things."
Notice, he's not going to honor a personal God, but he will honor the God of forces. The reason that's left capitalized there, God of forces is because its a name of a god, so you capitalize a proper name there. The God of forces is, according to the Bible, the God of the Antichrist, because of the fact that the new age movement is part and partial of the Antichrist and his religion. A lot of this stuff comes from the cabala from Antichrist Judaism and the God of forces is going to be something that the world accepts. They're being prepared for it with all of this eastern mysticism coming into our western culture through things like Star Wars. The force, and so forth.
This whole good and the dark side, think about the symbol of the false Chinese religion, Daoism. The yin and yang. Right, and think about how it's that black and that white swoosh thing with the circle. About how there's a little bit of good in that which is evil, and a little bit of evil in that which is good and how they both work together. You know it's the force, right? The good side and the dark side. There's still some good in Vader. It's never too late for anyone. That's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches absolute good in God. God is light and in him there is no darkness at all, and the Bible says of Satan there is no truth in him. He's absolute evil. Satan is absolute evil. God is absolute good. That ying yang symbol has no place in christian theology or with the God of the bible, but the world has that philosophy. The Force teaches that philosophy.
Not only that but the thing that stood out to me as a little 5 year old boy or how ever old I was. I was a really small kid when I say my first Star Wars movie, Return of the Jedi. The first thing that stood out to me was when Luke Skywalker first comes on in that particular movie he looks like he's a Catholic priest or something because he has like this collar turned around backwards. It's like when he became a Jedi he gets a backward turned around collar at the beginning of Return of the Jedi. Did anybody ever notice that or is it just me? A couple people, yeah? I saw that as a little kid I was like, whoa is this dude a Catholic priest?
I was always taught, and I teach this to my kids, I taught this when I used to be a Sunday school teacher back in the day. I always taught that any preacher who has his collar turned around backwards is a false teacher. Always taught that, I remember when I was in south Chicago there were a lot of baptist churches there that were not baptists in doctrine. They were charismatic Pentecostal churches and they would call themselves missionary baptist but they were not baptist at all. I remember I would draw a picture in my Sunday school class in south Chicago and hold a picture of a guy with the collar turned around backwards and say, "This is the bad preacher." A lot of the missionary baptists, false teachers that taught a work space salvation, that's how you lose your salvation. Would turn their collar around backwards so they would look like a catholic priest.
I don't want to look anything like a Roman Catholic priest and that's why I would never turn my collar backwards. I'd rather abstain from all appearance of evil, but that just seemed a little weird. They're trying to put a religious over tone on this with the virgin birth, Luke gets the backwards collar at the beginning of return. I hope I'm remembering that right. A couple of other people said they saw it too, so I think I'm remembering it right. It's been a while, but anyway. These are some of the things in Star Wars, now let me say this. This philosophy of a positive only, which is what Star Wars teaches. Any negative emotion, any fear, any anger, any hatred is the dark side has cracked into Christianity and we see a positive only movement in the likes of people like Joel Osteen.
You know another guy that was really well known for this doctrine of positive-ism, and positive only type of thing was a guy by the name of Norman Vincent Peale. Who knows who I'm talking about? This guy Norman Vincent Peale, all right is the only crowd. You're dating yourselves. Back in the previous generation this was a big name Norman Vincent Peale, the power of positive thinking. He was on the best seller list with his book for a couple of years straight, and he sold millions of copies of this book. Now this guy was a protestant pastor, but this guy taught a lot of false doctrine. Guess who grew up going to this guy's church. Power of positive thinking church. His pastor was Norman Vincent Peale, Donald Trump. Yeah, so lately Donald Trump has been saying how, "Oh man, I'm a Christian. I'm Presbyterian" and he said, "I grew up going to listen to my pastor Norman Vincent Peale, and he said I love. He was the great Norman Vincent Peale. Wonderful man of God, and oh so great."
Now this doctrine of the power of positive thinking has to do with a lot of just praising yourself, and kind of looking at yourself in the mirror. You know, I'm a great person, you're going to succeed today. It was all about sort of using God to gain a lot of success in life. That's how Trump interprets it too. He's like "oh yeah, it's all about succeeding and making money and being successful in the worlds eyes. This power of positive thinking is basically how you're going to climb the ladder in the corporate world and succeed and make money," and all this worldly achievement that you're going to get through tapping into this energy that is God. Now what does that sound like? God as the force. You know, use the force Luke, like using God for your own gain. Using God if I can just tap into these secrets of Christianity then I can make money and be successful.
They suppose that gain is Godliness as it says in 1 Timothy 6, "from such withdraw thy self." I've got to tell you this, and I have to cover this in the sermon tonight. I don't think that there's a more prideful arrogant person on this planet than Donald Trump. I mean the guy is like a caricature. He's like a parody or something. It's almost like a joke, it's almost like a comedy or something. How prideful and arrogant this guy is, where does it come from? It comes from this preaching that only ever builds you up and puffs you up and it's all positive, and the power of positive thinking, and builds you up, and you walk out with an ego as huge as Donald Trump's. That's the product of this type of Christianity. This positive only Christianity. Maybe if Norman Vincent Peale would have had a little more anger and got up and ripped some face on sin maybe Donald Trump would have grown up to be a more Godly person.
Maybe if Norman Vincent Peale would have had a little more hatred in his heart for sin and ungodliness and wickedness he could have done some real preaching that could have influenced young Donald to grow up and have a little bit more of a modest, humble view of himself. What does the Bible say about pride? The Bible says in Psalm 10 verse 3, "for the wicked boasteth of his hearts desire and blessed the convantist whom the Lord abhorreth. The wicket through the pride of his countenance will not seek after God. God is not in all his thoughts." Recently Donald Trump was asked, "Do you ever ask the Lord for forgiveness? Have you ever asked God for forgiveness?" He just said, "Well you know, I mean I just do the right thing and I don't have to ask forgiveness. I mean I can't remember asking for forgiveness because I just do right. I just do the right things."
I mean it's bizarre to listen to this guy talk. He literally just talks about, "Man I'm such an awesome guy. Man everybody loves me everywhere I go. Man I'm the richest guy, all the most famous people. I say jump and they say how high on the way up. I've controlled all the politicians with my money. I know it, I hang around with all the biggest people. I'm the most successful guy, I'm a cool, I'm a good looking guy. I'm an awesome guy." I mean it's weird. Has anybody else? Is it just me? It's weird, I mean it's crazy. It's like what? Now you expect politicians to prize themselves right? You kind of just come to expect that politicians are going to get up and praise themselves and say, "look at my wonderful track record. Look at all the wonderful things I've done. My record speaks for itself and I've done this and I've done that. When I get in office, I'm going to clean house. These guys don't know what they're doing, but my businesses have all succeeded and I'm number one."
You expect that, but he takes it to a whole new level that I've never even seen. I've never seen it. It's like a parody. It's weird that anybody could not just be revolted by listening to this guy talk. What does the Bible say? The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Okay well where does that lead us? Does it lead us to the dark side? No. The Bible says that when we hate evil, he says pride and arrogancy and the evil way and the froward mouth do I hate. See I hate that froward mouth. I hate that pride, that arrogancy. That's what the Bible says we should hate. The Bible said when pride cometh, then cometh shame, but with the lowly is wisdom. Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Everyone that is proud is an abomination to the Lord. Let me just back up and say that again.
This is Proverb 16:5, "Everyone that is proud is an abomination to the Lord. Though hand join in hand," and I'm sure he's had hand joining a lot of hands, "he shall not be unpunished. Better it is to be of a humble with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud." I bet some of his ex-wives would probably agree with that too. "A high look an proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked is sin. Proud and haughty scorner is his name who deal with in proud wrath. A mans pride shall bring him low but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit." Go to Daniel chapter 4. Daniel chapter number 4, the Bible says in James chapter 4 verse 6, " but he giveth more grace wherefore he sayeth God resisted the proud but giveth grace unto the humble."
What am I trying to say tonight? I'm telling you, this positive only religion that we see today. This positive only Christianity. This your best life now mentality. This God is not mad at you mentality. I mean there's a book out by Joyce Meyer called God is not mad at you. No matter who you are, no matter what you've done. No, the Bible says God is angry with the wicked everyday, but you oh God is not mad at you. Oh it's just the power of positive thinking. Just everything is going to go great. They say peace, peace when there is no peace. What is the result of this positive only Christianity that we see? An imbalance where it's all love no hate. You know, all boldness no fear. It's just all positive and no negative. The result is people who are proudful and arrogant people.
Why? Because no body is ever telling them that sometimes you're not doing that great. Sometimes you're being an idiot, and somebody needs to rebuke you and tell you that. Sometimes you don't need a pat on the back, sometimes you need a swift kick in the pants, and people who never get that swift kick in the pants they grow up to be arrogant, prideful, self glorifying, boastful people. The Bible says in Daniel chapter 4 verse 28, " all this came upon the king Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of 12 months he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon. The kings [inaudible 00:48:15] had said is not this great Babylon? That I have built for the house of the kingdom by the power, by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty?" Is not this the great Trump tower that I've built? Is not this the great business that I've built?
"While the word," verse 31," was in the king's mouth there fell a voice from heaven saying o king Nebuchadnezzar to thee it is spoken. The kingdom has departed from thee, and they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beast of the field. They shall make thee to eat grass as oxen and 7 times shall pass over thee. Until thou know that the most high ruleth in the kingdom of man, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar, and he was driven from man and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven until his hairs." Uh oh. Uh oh Donald Trump. Maybe the process has already started. "Until his hairs were grown like eagles feathers and his nails like bird claws." I wonder if that hairdo is the curse of God on Donald Trump. He did it to Nebuchadnezzar.
Well you say, "come on pastor Anderson. Donald Trump is our guy." You know what I don't have a guy. My guy is Jesus. I don't have a guy. You say, "Well you're preaching about the election." I'm not even voting in the election. Let alone preaching. I don't even care about the election. "Oh but Donald Trump is talking," No because God said that everyone who is proud is an abomination. Sorry to confuse you with the Bible, but everyone whose proud is an abomination. I'd be shocked if even the most staunch fan of Donald Trump would say, "No. He's very humble." I mean it's a joke to even suggest that, right? These are the type of people that are produced from a Norman Vincent Peale type Christianity. From a positive only type Christianity. It's not a pretty sight, literally and figuratively. It's not a pretty sight. When you hear this guy praising himself and it, you know, you expect it from politicians but I mean it's just to the point of where it's just a joke.
I mean it's unbelievable. Maybe you haven't heard this guy talk, and that you know what great if you haven't because it's great to unplug from any of this. I just recently, I hadn't been hearing him because I don't really pay any attention to these things because I kind of know that it's all controlled and everything. I'd rather just focus on that which is spiritual, but recently I sat down and just watched this guy talk about Norman Vincent Peale. It was just like in 10 minutes he praised himself like 100 times. It was bizarre. It was sick. It made me want to throw up. I don't like being around people like there where it's just, "look how great I am." It's just like Nebuchadnezzar, and it's just like so many other people in the Bible who are destroyed by pride. You want to talk about the dark side? It's pride. That's going to take you to the dark side.
When you start exalting yourself to where you say I don't even need to receive forgiveness from God. You say, "well I go to church. I eat the little cracker. I drink the little wine." You sound like your not discerning the Lord's body. You know what I mean? Didn't God say something about that in 1 Corinthians 11? Sounds like you're eating and drinking damnation on yourself, buddy. Being blasphemous and making light of the Lord's supper. Yeah, you don't need forgiveness well you know what? Don't worry because you're not going to get any. What do you need it for, right? You don't make mistakes. At least not big ones. That hair cut was a big mistake, whatever you call that thing. Anyway, the moral of the story is this. We need to spend more time in God's word, and we've all.
Here's the thing, look. I'm guilty because I grew up rotting my brain on the television probably more than most people. I mean I grew up watching T.V. all day long, watching all the movies, playing all the video games and spending little time in God's word. It was only when I was about 16 or 17 that I actually got serious about reading the Bible. We all have picked up wrong philosophies and wrong mentalities from this world, and we need the washing of water by the word in our lives. For somebody to get angry at this sermon, that's the dark side. No I'm just kidding, but for somebody to get angry at this sermon. I don't know how you could get angry at this sermon because honestly I'm just telling you read the Bible and get your beliefs from that because we're all being influenced by the prince of the power of the air.
We've all seen enough of this stuff, and it's time to shut it off and turn this on. Is this going to do you wrong? Is this going to give you the wrong doctrine? No this is going to fix things, and honestly people would stop thinking that real preaching is so crazy if they'd actually read the Bible. They'd realize that it's just what the Bible says, and they're just not used to it because they're more used to what the world dishes out. Let's get in the word, let's study to show ourselves prudent to god. Let's meditate on this book. Let's skip the yoga class and mediate on this book day and night.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father we thank you so much Lord for the word that you've given us that we can have a spiritual meal everyday. We can mediate on your word, Lord. We can be filled with the spirit. We can ingest these truths, Lords. We've all had a lot of junk put into our mind and a lot of ideas that are contrary to Scripture. Lord if someone disagrees with me on any of the subjects that I preached tonight. On the subject of hatred, the subject of anger, the subject of fear, the subject of pride Lord I hope that they disagree with me because they read their whole Bible cover to cover multiple times and decided that what I'm saying is not scriptural.
Not that they just disagree with me because they were in church their whole life, and they just never heard this before, and that isn't what I think is right. Lord help us all to use your word as the measuring stick, and not what the world tells us is right and wrong, and not to listen to some green puppet tell us what's right and wrong. Instead of listening to the eternal word of God, and in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
