In this provocative episode, we delve deep into the mystifying concepts of the New Age movement and its ancient roots, challenging the modern synthesis of evolutionary science and Eastern philosophies. As we critically examine the ideological underpinnings of animal rights activism, we uncover a narrative that equates all living beings, diminishing the sacred dominance humanity holds according to biblical tenets. Through intriguing anecdotes and rigorous scriptural analysis, we endeavor to clarify mankind’s divine purpose and the distinct spiritual capacity that sets humans apart.
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SPEAKER 02 :
The deceptions of the new age are upon us. We’re living in a time that many are calling the new age. Some are calling it the age of Aquarius. Others are calling it globalism or new globalism. Some are calling it cosmic humanism. And there are all kinds of names for this esoteric movement. It’s a syncretism of so many things, it’s like a sponge that soaks in many kinds of weird, occult, offbeat, sometimes seemingly nonsensical ideas. And yet it is incredible how many are buying into it. Now may I say to you, That the new age is not new. It goes all the way back to ancient Babylon. It’s one of the mustiest things around. And it is rooted primarily, however, in Eastern religions and what we would call today Hinduism. And God in the new age… is impersonal. They believe in God, but not the God that you believe in, not the God that I believe in, not Jehovah God, Elohim, the Lord and God and Father of our Savior, Jesus Christ. That’s not the God that they believe in. Their God is an impersonal God, or they think of God as energy, or the all-pervading reality of It’s a form of pantheism. Everything is God, and God is everything. As a matter of fact, you are God. But not only do they believe that you are God, they also believe that the animals are God. Everything is God. It doesn’t elevate to man. Above the animals, it brings man down to the level of the animals. I’ve said all that to say this. I want to speak to you today on a subject I never in my wildest dreams as a young preacher believed that I would be preaching on. And it is this. The Bible and animal rights. I never thought I’d ever be preaching on that. Never in my life. And when I first heard about animal rights and saw a few people with placards and so forth, I dismissed it lightly as some people from somewhere, some fringe somehow, and something silly and something absurd. But I’ve changed my mind. And I see now that what we are up against is a part of a total conspiracy that against our Lord and His Christ and His Word. Now, I say that a lot of this is rooted in Eastern religion, Hinduism, which has as its backbone pantheism and reincarnation. Reincarnation is that man and the animals are interrelated, and at one time you may have been an animal. And now you’re a human being. Ah, but if your karma is bad, you may again be an animal. It sounds silly, but dear friend, these people are deadly serious about this entire matter. It’s incredible. Not that people will not believe the Bible. What is really incredible is what people will believe. What they will believe. Now remember that if you’re pantheist, that is pan meaning all and theist meaning God. That means all is God and God is all. That doesn’t elevate you. You say, well, if God is everything, then I am God. Yes, but dirt is God also and you’re equal with dirt. It doesn’t elevate you. What it does is to bring you down to the level of the animals and things. Secular humanism? Hinduism, New Ageism, evolutionary thought, all of these things are together. And so what are the goals of those who are campaigning for animal rights? Well, number one, they reject, listen to me, they reject the idea that man is essentially, intrinsically, basically different from the animals. And their goals, therefore, are to set the animals free. Not just simply from inhumane treatment. Not a one of us, I hope, would argue against inhumane treatment for any animal. But they’re not wanting to set the animals free from inhumane treatment. They are wanting to set the animals free from the dominion of mankind. What they’re trying to say is this, that there is basically no difference between man and animal. You say, well, what is the impact? Well, the impact, my dear friend, is incredible. Let me just read some of what these are saying. For example, we say, well, let’s be humane to the animals. But Michael Fox, a veterinarian who directs the Center for the Respect of Life and Environment at the Humane Society of the United States says, quote, humane treatment is simply sentimental, sympathetic patronage. That is, we’re not just looking for humane treatment. Gary Francione, a law professor who litigates animal rights cases, said he would not allow an animal to suffer even if the research would produce a cure for cancer. He said, and I quote, “‘I don’t believe it is morally permissible to exploit weaker beings even if we derive benefits.'” And in a symposium with these animal rights people, one person asked a question like this, if a pig could give its life to save the life of a baby, would you be for it? And this animal writer said, absolutely not. He said, he warned sternly against that and said that the baby’s parents should be made to care about the pig. Now we hear about racism and and sexism. Get ready. There is a new word coming, speciesism. That is, if you are for human beings, think that human beings are more important than animals, you are a speciesist. Hard to say, so maybe it won’t go for very well, but it’s hard to say. Now listen, you say this is all silly. But Peter Singer’s foundational text, Animal Liberation, is the textbook that many of these go by. And let me quote from that. Quote, it can no longer be maintained by anyone but a religious fanatic that man is the special darling of the universe. And by the way, most of you here are what he would consider religious fanatics. And it goes on to write, or that other animals were created to provide us with food, or that we have divine authority over them and divine permission to kill them. And then again, Michael Fox quoted in the Washingtonian, he put it succinctly, and this is what he said. Listen, there are no clear distinctions between us and animals. Animals communicate. Animals have emotions. Animals can think. Some thinkers believe that the human soul is different because we are immortal. And that just becomes completely absurd. Now you can understand why there are some who want to treat animals as humans and why some human beings are living like animals. There’s no difference. And of course, if man is the product of evolution, they’re right. And any straight thinking person would say that is right. I mean, if man is indeed just another animal who has come up through the evolutionary process, the only difference between man and animals is that man is probably a little more clever. Now let’s see what God’s word has to say about it. And by the way, dear friend, aren’t you glad for the Bible? Genesis chapter one, verse 26. And God said… Let us make man in our image and after our likeness. Why does it say our? God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. You have the Trinity here in the first chapter of the Bible. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God, singular, said let us, plural, make man in our image. And then read, and let them have dominion. over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Now, ladies and gentlemen, in all philosophy, there is one, one, one overriding question. Let me tell you what it is. Here’s the question. Did God make man… Or did man make God? That is, is man in the image of God or is God in the imagination of man? That’s the question. Did God make man or did man simply conjure up the idea of God? And your whole philosophy will go from one side to the other according to how you feel about that. Now there are those who just simply feel that we are the product of blind chance. That the whole universe somehow just, it’s just here. It never had a beginning. And if it did have a beginning, out of nothing, something came. You have some philosophical problems with that, I hope. That nothing times nobody equals everything. But that’s what they believe. And then somehow out of this primordial ooze, this chaotic mass, somehow the most complicated forms of life without any guidance just came into being. First of all, out of this ooze, out of this primordial soup, There came primitive protozoa, early life. And then millions of years, billions of years, compounded by chance, turned that primitive life into unsegmented worms. And then dump in some more billions of years, and those unsegmented worms became fish. And then mix in some more years and some more chance, and And those fish became reptiles. And then some more years and some more chance. And those reptiles, at least first amphibians and then reptiles. And then those reptiles became birds and then mammals and then man. Now in the nursery school, when we tell about a prince that was a frog and is kissed by a princess and the frog turns into a prince. We call that a nursery rhyme. But in the classroom, when frogs become princes, we call that science. But they believe that. I mean, they believe that. And if they believe that, I say they’re right. There is basically no difference between man and the animals except that man is a higher form of the animals. But that isn’t what God’s Word says. Look at what God’s Word says in verse 26. And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion. Now let me talk to you about three things. First of all, the creation of man and the animals. The creation of man and the animals. Man and the animals were created by Almighty God and they were created at basically the same time. The Bible does not teach evolution. Well, you say, pastor, What about all these primitive half-humans and half-men that we’ve seen in the textbooks? What about all of that? These creatures in the museums, these men on their way up. Well, dear friend, that is what is in somebody’s imagination. These are not pictures of actual beings. These are the creation of somebody’s imagination. For example, the Scopes trial was held here in Tennessee, the famous monkey trial back in 1925. And people are still laughing about that because they say that William Jennings Bryan, who was a great believer in the Word of God, argued with Clarence Dyer about evolution and so forth. And Dyer, who was a very cunning and a very shrewd and a very brilliant lawyer, argued with the great Christian William Jennings Bryan One of the things that Dara did was to bring in for evidence for evolution a replica of a prehistoric man, paintings and all. His name was Nebraska Man. And Nebraska Man was thought to be one million years old. And he said, what are you going to do, Brian, about Nebraska Man? Well, he said, I just think we need more evidence. I don’t think you have enough evidence to prove that Nebraska Man, this half man, half ape, ever existed. Well, the scientists themselves did some more work on Nebraska Man, and you know what they found out? They found out that the man who discovered Nebraska Man, a man named Mr. Cook, had really discovered a tooth. I didn’t say teeth. I said tooth. And out of one tooth, they created an entire race of people male and female, drew pictures of them. And there they were and gave an age and a date. But friend, you haven’t heard the punchline. Later on, they found the entire skeleton and it was the tooth of a pig. And out of the tooth of a pig, Clarence Darrow the great brilliant lawyer came into the courtroom and held up a whole race of men and said, this is proof of evolution. Well, you say, yes, but that doesn’t disprove that evolution is true. It just proves they made a mistake in that particular area. When I was in school, We studied in my biology classes the Piltdown Man. He was supposed to have been discovered by Charles Dawson. And what Charles Dawson really had in this supposed ape man, he had a jaw that had two molars in it and part of a skull. He found it in a gravel pit in Piltdown, England. And he presented that. They had a whole race of men. that they described after that. Later on, it was shown to be a hoax. And in 1956, the Reader’s Digest had an article, I have it somewhere in my files, called The Great Piltdown Hoax. What had happened is this, that the jawbone that they found was the jawbone of an ape. He was only 50 years old. Someone had filed his teeth down and discolored them with chemicals and hid them there in Piltdown, hoping that it would be discovered. It was a joke, a colossal joke. But my dear friend, the point I want to make is this, that the scientists bought into it, lock, stock, and barrel, and developed a whole race out of it. Well, you say, Pastor, what about all the dinosaurs? Don’t you believe the dinosaurs existed? Of course I do. The Bible tells about the creation of the dinosaurs right here. The Bible says here in verse 24, and God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping things, the beast of the earth after his kind. And it was so. And when God made these animals, God made the dinosaurs. You say, well, why don’t we have any more dinosaurs? Because my dear friend, the dinosaurs are extinct. But the Bible teaches that the dinosaurs were created the sixth day with man. Men and dinosaurs were on the earth together. As a matter of fact, if you turn to the book of Job, you’ll find a dinosaur described. Job chapter 40, verse 15. And now behold Behemoth, which I made with thee. That is, I made Behemoth the same time I made mankind, Job. He eateth grass like an ox. Lo, his strength… is in his loins, his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar. Some have tried to say behemoth here is an elephant. Have you ever seen an elephant’s tail? He moved with his tail like a cedar. The sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass. His bones are like bars of iron. He is the chief of the ways of God. In other words, he’s a big dude. And he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him. He’s not stronger than God. Surely the mountains bring him forth food where all the beast of the field play. He lieth under the shady trees and in the covert of the reed and the fins. The shady trees cover him with their shadow. The willows of the brook can pass him about. And behold, he drinketh up a river and hasteth not. That is, he just lumbers along. He trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth. He taketh it with his eyes. His nose pierceth through snares. Again, that can’t be an elephant. Have you ever seen an elephant’s nose? No, that’s the horn on a dinosaur. Did you know if you were to go down to Glen Rose, Texas, near Glen Rose, Texas at the Paluxy River, there you would see in a riverbed the footprints of dinosaurs and human footprints inside those dinosaur footprints. Did you know that? To prove beyond the shadow of any doubt that human beings and dinosaurs existed together. Just as the book of Job tells us and just as Genesis chapter 1 verse 24 tells us that God made man and the animals on the sixth day. God created these creatures. And so I want to say this, first of all, about man and the animals. The creation of man and the animals, they were both created by God. They’re not the product of evolution. I hope you will not buy into that monkey mythology. If you were to compare man and the animals, you’d see in many ways they’re very similar. For example, men and animals are similar in design. When I took human anatomy and physiology in college, one of the things we had to do was to work on one of those pigs that had been soaked in formaldehyde. Have you ever done that? I mean, well, you’re looking at somebody who’s done surgery. I mean, to look in there and to find the structure of the digestive system and all of the systems that are in that pig. Why? Because we can learn something about how we work by studying how the digestive system and other systems of animals work. Does that mean, therefore, because man and animals are similar in design, that man has evolved from the animals? Of course not. I mean, if you were to look at a doghouse and then look at a cottage, then look at a fine house, and then look at a mansion, they would all be very similar in some ways. They all have floors, all have walls, and all have roofs. Would you say, therefore, that the cottage evolved out of the doghouse and the mansion evolved out of the cottage? Of course not. Now, if you give that to some scientists today, they’d say, see, that proves evolution of a building. That doesn’t prove any evolution. It just simply proves that whoever designs buildings says basically buildings have certain things in common. That is, they have floors, walls, and ceilings because they serve a common purpose. And so men and animals live in the same environment. So in many ways, they have a similarity in design. They also have a similarity in diet. Look here in Genesis chapter 1 and verses 29 and following. And God said, “…Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all of the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed. To you it shall be for meat, and to every beast of the earth, and every fowl of the air, and everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life. I have given every green herb for meat, and it was so.” Men and animals have not only a similarity in design, but a similarity in diet because we have the same kind of organs. We have stomachs, esophaguses, we have gastric juices, and so therefore we can eat the same thing. Does that mean that man therefore has evolved from an animal? Well, if your automobile burns gasoline and your motorcycle burns gasoline, does that mean that your automobile evolved from your motorcycle? No, they both burn the same fuel. Men and animals have a similarity in diet. They have another similarity. They have a similarity in death. I mean, men and animals die. Look, if you will, in chapter two and verse 17, God said, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it. For on the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Men die and animals die. Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verses 19 and 20 says, For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beast. Even one thing befalleth them. As the one dieth, so the other. A similarity in design. A similarity in diet. A similarity in death. Why do men die and why do animals die? Because all creation is under a curse. And death is an irresistible fact for both man and animals. So I’ve talked to you about the creation of man and the animals. But now let me talk to you about the contrast. What is the difference between man and an animal? Or are these right when they say that there is basically no intrinsic difference between a man and an animal? Let me show you the difference between men and animals. Number one. Man has a longing in his heart to know God. He has a craving for deity. Notice verse 26. And God said, let us make man in our image and after our likeness. Now, my dear friend, when God made you, God made you in his image, not in his physical image. God doesn’t have hands and feet and eyes and ears. God is a spirit. When God made you in His image, He made you in His moral and spiritual image. It’s a spiritual image. Put this verse down, Colossians 3 verse 10. The Bible says, put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him. So your newness has to do with your knowledge. It is a moral, a mental, a spiritual capacity. That’s what it means to be in the image of God. And this one, Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 24, that she put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. You see, because we are in the image of God, we have a moral and a spiritual nature. Hinduism, New Ageism has basically no morals. And you can understand it. You see, if God is everything and everything is God, then evil is God as well as good is God. Bad is God as well as good. And so there are no real moral distinctions. And that’s the reason anything goes in the New Age movement because there is no moral spiritual backbone. That’s the reason the new age has a menacing danger to all of us. You see, man made in the image of God has a moral, mental, spiritual proclivity to reflect his creator. He has a craving for deity. He also has a capability for dominion. Look in verse 26, God says, and let them have dominion. Man, my dear friend, is meant to rule. Psalm 8, verses 6 through 8, God says, Thou madest him, man, to have dominion over the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beast of the field, the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea. God made man to have dominion over the animals. And when Jesus Christ was here on earth, He demonstrated that dominion. Jesus rode a wild donkey into Jerusalem upon which never a man sat. I want to see one of you try that. Jesus had dominion. Jesus had a rooster to crow at the exact precise moment he wanted that rooster to crow after Peter had denied him. Remember that? Man, I want to see you make one crow, much less I want to see you keep one from crowing. You know, the rooster thinks because he crows, the sun comes up. But Jesus had dominion over the fowls of the air. Jesus had dominion over the fish of the sea. When it was time for Jesus to pay his taxes, he said, you go cast a hook into the sea. And there was one particular fish out of all of those fish that our Lord had guided to a coin lying on the bottom of that Galilean sea and then guided to that hook. Now, friend, listen, how many times have you gone fishing and not caught anything? Because you see, man to some degree has lost his dominion. But God gave man dominion over the animals. There’s no ifs, ands, and buts about it. You see. Man has something that animals don’t have because animals have something that men don’t have. Do you know what animals have? Animals have instinct. Men don’t have instinct. God in mercy gave the animals instinct. I sometimes go out in the morning and I marvel when I see a spider’s web with the dew in it. Have you ever done that? Looked at that engineering marvel. Now, dear friend, a spider cannot have a very big brain because I have looked at I mean, you know, and yet overnight, that’s incredible that he can do that. And the beehive, as they build those little eight-sided things, it’s incredible what goes on in the beehive. And the beaver, as he builds his beaver dam like we had some up here on our lake. My dear friend, you’ll never see a beaver build an eight-sided cell or you’ll never see a bee build a dam. All they have is instinct that God has given to the creatures. But God didn’t give man instinct. God made man in His own image and God gave man the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is to man what instinct is to the animals. Now, if you were to take the instinct out of the beehive, what would happen? It’d be very much like our world today, men without the Holy Spirit. Men without the Holy Spirit. You see what has happened? What is wrong with the world today is that man is not operating at full function. You see, man has a capacity for dominion, a capability for dominion. And then he has, I want to say, a capacity for depravity. Animals don’t have. Animals can’t sin because animals don’t have any choice. The reason they don’t have any choice is they don’t have any moral basis. But men do. And the sad thing is this, that man created a little lower than the angels has morally become a little lower than the animals. I mean, men can do things that animals can’t do. Men have a capacity for sin that animals don’t have. Somebody wrote a poem about monkeys sitting in a tree discussing evolution. One monkey said to another as he was so ashamed of the rape and the pillage and the murder and the arson and the drugs and everything, he said, man descended beyond recourse, but brother, he didn’t ascend from us. I mean, dear friend, let me tell you that men will do things that animals wouldn’t do. See, listen, man has a craving for deity. Man, my dear friend, has a capability of dominion, but he has a capacity for depravity. I’ll tell you something else about man that makes man different from the animals. Man has a concern for his destiny. Man is the only creature who knows he’s going to die. No elephant knows he’s going to die. He may by instinct go to the burial grounds. The salmon may swim upstream and spawn and then die, but they never think about death. They never say, I better prepare for eternity. But the Bible says that God, concerning man, God has put eternity in our hearts. A Gallup poll has shown that 67% of Americans believe in life after death. Dear friend, we don’t believe it because we proved it. We move heaven and earth to prove it because we believe it. Why do we believe it? Because we’re made in the image of Almighty God. There’s a difference. Plants have a body, but they don’t have a soul. Animals have a body and a soul. Your soul is your mind, your emotion, and your will. But only man has a spirit. And the Holy Spirit in the human spirit is what makes us what we are to be. God gave man a spirit. With your body, you know the world beneath you. With your soul, you know the world around you. But with your spirit, you know the world above you. And God made man with a spiritual capacity to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him. Now listen to me, dear friend. You’re no animal. You’re the distinct creation of almighty God. And what did God make a fish to do? God made a fish to swim in the sea. And what did God make a bird to do? God made a bird to fly in the sky. And what did God make you to do? God created you to know him, to love him, and to serve him. Listen very carefully. If you don’t know God and you don’t serve God, You’ve missed the purpose for which you were created. And you will be like a fish in a tree. Take a fish out of the sea and put him in a tree and he’s an unhappy fish. Take a bird out of the air and put that bird under the water. To say the least, he’s an unhappy bird. Dear friend, if you’re not serving God, if you don’t know God, you have missed it all. And how can you know God? by receiving Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord. God loves you so much. Jesus Christ died for you in agony and blood. You’re no accident and you’re no animal. You’re made in the image of God. You’re made for His glory and for His purpose. Dear friend, do you know Jesus Christ? Are you saved? You can be saved right now where you are. If you’ll pray and say, Lord Jesus, come into my heart, forgive my sin and save me. And I promise you on the authority of the word of God, he will do it. Father God, oh, Holy Spirit of God, draw the lost to Jesus and help those of us who know him already to love him and serve him in a better way. In your name I pray. Amen.
SPEAKER 01 :
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