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Ray Exum, Crystal Lake Church of Christ
10/9/94 a.m., #1568
For a copy of this lesson on audio cassette, click here.
This morning I would like to speak on a subject that really is part of what is called the New Age movement. The New Age movement is a term that has been given to several different things. Astrology, for example, and the psychic movement, and black magic things such as that. And really the New Age movement is misnamed. It is not the "New" Age movement, it is the "Old" Age movement, because back in the days of the Old Testament the prophets of God had to preach against the same things which today are going under the title of the New Age Movement. We read that they had to preach against the Baal; they had to preach against child sacrifice to the pagan god Molech; they had to preach against the worship of the female deity Ashtar and all these things we see today maybe under different names. But nevertheless we see the exact same things today under the title of the New Age Movement.
This morning, though, I would like to center my comments just on one part of what is called the New Age Movement. It is a major part of this movement, [and] is called the belief in reincarnation. As we think about the doctrine of reincarnation, it is staggering to read the statistics on how many Americans today believe in reincarnation. One survey has found that about 23% of Americans firmly believe in reincarnation. And another survey found that another 58% of Americans believe that reincarnation is a distinct possibility. When you read statistics such as that it is frightening to see what is happening in the United States along these lines of reincarnation.
We can read the names of a number of famous people who have advocated reincarnation in this country: Henry Ford, for example; Mark Twain; a number of movie stars such as Sylvester Stallone; George Harrison; John Denver; Lorretta Lynn; Glen Ford; and others. At the head of the list of entertainers in this country teaching reincarnation would be Shirley Maclaine. She has written a book on this subject, which I read a few months ago, "Out on a Limb." And in that book Shirley Maclaine said that she knew that she had lived in many previous lifetimes. She said she knew that she had been a former prostitute, that she had been a royal court jester that had been beheaded by Louis XV of France. And there are a number of other personalities that she supposedly has lived in the past. And how did she find out about all of this? She said that she found out about her previous lives by consulting mediums, meditation, and at least one case of acupuncture.
The other most famous advocate of reincarnation in our times, at least the twentieth century, was General George Patton. And George Patton, I assume, was a great American general, and yet he had some personal beliefs that were really unscriptural, including this one in reincarnation. But George Patton said that he knew that he had fought with the Greeks against the city of Troy in the Trojan War. And then he had been reborn to fight with the Romans under Julius Caesar; that he had battled the Huns; that he had been among the Crusaders as they had tried to take Palestine from the pagan people in the Dark Ages; and so forth. And so we have a number of famous people such as Shirley Maclaine and George Patton who have written on this subject, and who have claimed to have had previous lives
What exactly is reincarnation? The word reincarnation has as its root word "carno", which is the Latin word for flesh. Sometimes we speak of the incarnation of Jesus Christ through Mary. And when we speak of the incarnate Christ, or the incarnation of Christ, then we understand that Christ was put in fleshly form. He was put into the flesh as He came through the body of Mary; he was incarnated through Mary. Incarnate means, therefore, to be put into a fleshly form. The "re-" there, the re-incarnation, is the belief therefore, that people have lived in this life, but then they die, the body dies, but the soul is put back into another body. It is reincarnated; that is, put back into the flesh once again.
I'd like to divide the lesson this morning into two parts. The first is why people would want to believe in reincarnation. And then secondly, what the Bible says about this particular subject.
But first, I'd like to go over the reasons that people give for believing in reincarnation and there are six of them when you begin to read their material. I want to go over all six of these reasons that people sometimes give for believing in this rather bizarre doctrine.
The first reason is this: it gives a person another chance at this life. Behind that reason is the idea that if a person does not achieve perfection in this life, then he gets the opportunity, you can put it in those words, of going back through this life again. And the next time hopefully he will get it straight. And he keeps going through the life again until he begins to move up the scale. He is born into richer families, more noble families, until ultimately he reaches the state of mental peace or perfection known as Nirvana. Well somebody might say, "[What happens] if you live a worse life your second time through?" I've got some bad news. Those who live worse the second time than the first time get demoted. They get demoted first to a poorer class of people. If they still don't do any better, they get demoted to an animal. According to classic Hinduism, if they still don't do any better, they get demoted to a plant. And again, according to classic Hinduism, if they still live a lousy life they get demoted to a mineral such as a rock.
So the basic idea behind this is that your first time through determines which direction that you're going to go in. I don't know if you see the consequences of this immediately, but what this is getting to is a doctrine that does away with the concept of hell. There is no hell in this belief. There is only a demotion until you learn to live better and then you come back up the scale one life at a time until hopefully you finally reach perfection some day. But notice that this does away with the doctrine of hell.
Well, it's interesting that that is one consequence of this particular doctrine today of reincarnation: it does away with hell. Why would somebody want to do away with the subject of hell? Because it is a difficult concept. It is hard for us as human beings to understand that God would punish someone eternally, but yet that is what the Bible teaches. We cannot ignore that in the scriptures. We have to believe that there is a hell. And yet reincarnation gets around that. It skirts around that issue completely.
Well, there are some problems with this idea that it gives a person another chance in life. One problem is this: what if you never get it right?. I can think of a person I know who has been married five times. I mean, that person just continues to make the same mistakes over and over and over. Take somebody such as Elizabeth Taylor, who has now been married eight times. It seems to me that just because we go through life again doesn't mean that we're going to get it any better the second time than we did the first time.
And so I would ask that question. What about those who continue to make the same mistakes again and again? Are they cursed to live in this existence throughout all eternity? And I might turn the question around this way also. When we think about this idea that you get another chance, that assumes that there are those who ultimately make it to Nirvana. I'd like to know where are those people? Where are those upon the earth today who have reached perfection? You would think that out of six billion people on the earth today that we would know somebody in that state. I don't know anybody, though, that has reached perfection in this life. In fact, I would have to say concerning my own life, I am never going to reach perfection. I don't care if I have to come through this life a thousand times, this guy is not going to achieve perfection. It's not going to happen in my life. And I think probably with most people, it's not going to happen.
Most of us would appreciate the words of the apostle Paul when he said about his own sins, "For the good that I wish I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not wish." Remember those words from Romans 7? And then he went on to say, "Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death?" And then he gave the answer, and that was Jesus Christ. Paul was saying it didn't matter how much he tried, he could not be perfect. And I would say amen to that. All human beings ought to appreciate the words of Paul there. Beloved, if we go through this life a thousand times, or a million times it's not going to get any better in terms of our achieving perfection; it is not going to happen.
But that's the first belief anyway, the first reason that they use in supporting reincarnation: it will give you a second chance at life.
There's a second reason that some people believe in reincarnation and that it perfectly - according to them - explains away human suffering. There's a second big issue in life that they just dismiss because of reincarnation. Because you say, "Well, why do the innocent suffer?" They would say they suffer because of what they did in the last life.
Take a little baby, that is maybe four months old, let's say. And let's say that this baby dies. Hindus and others who believe in reincarnation would say, "You don't need to shed any tears over that baby. That just shows that in the last life that baby was a criminal. That baby is now suffering for what that child did in the previous life." In fact, according to those that believe in reincarnation all of the suffering in this life is caused by a person's previous sins in previous lives.
You look at countries, for example, such as India. Why is it that when we look at pictures and movies and so forth from India, you see the poor on the streets, you see the crippled, you see the maimed people, you see the homeless, you see the starving, you see the low caste people? Why is there such an ignoring of all of the physical suffering that is going on in that country? Beloved, it is because of the doctrine of reincarnation. When those that believe in this doctrine look at this poor, crippled person beside the road, what they say is, "You can't help that person. He is suffering because of sins in the previous life." In fact, they go out of their way to ignore that suffering. If they help that person, if they take care of the starving people, and the hopeless, and the homeless, and so forth, that just prolongs their agony. They're just going to have to suffer that much longer, because they have to pay the debt of the sins and the evil things that they did in the previous life.
All suffering, therefore, is explained away as just the result of what a person did in the last life. And you better not help that person, or he will just have to suffer that much longer. Sometimes it is tempting for us to blame suffering on a person's sins. And sometimes there is suffering that comes from a person's sins. Back in John the 9th chapter, do you remember when Jesus healed the blind man? And His own disciples, the disciples of Christ, went to him and said, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered, it is neither that this man sinned nor his parents, but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him." In other words, our Lord was saying that there are some cases that you cannot explain on the basis of sin. Here was a man born blind. Why, Lord? So that the glory of God might be manifest unto the human race.
There are some cases where God allows suffering so that in the life of that person God may receive the glory for the good that will be done by that person. We cannot as Christians say that all suffering is based upon sin.
I would say to those who believe in reincarnation can you really, consistently, practice what you believe? If you had a little baby that died, would you be able to look into the eyes of that child and say, "You sweet, innocent child, you died because you were such a criminal in the last life?" I don't think most parents would be able to make such a statement as that. And yet that is what would be required by the doctrine of reincarnation.
So we see, therefore, that it explains human suffering poorly; but that's their theory. And also we see that it gives people another chance for a second life.
Let's go to a third reason that some people believe in reincarnation. And this is what they refer to as deja vu. Deja vu is the French term for "already seen." And maybe you have experienced this in your life as I have. You walk into a place and you know that you've never been there before. And yet, you also have the idea that you have been there. And psychiatrists have called this deja vu.
What is the answer to this feeling that we sometimes have that we've been at a place before, and yet we know that we've never been there, we've never been in the state maybe. And yet we have this feeling that we've been here before.
There was an interesting article that appeared in Newsweek magazine September 26th this year. And it was about the complexities of the human mind. In the article they gave a number of very interesting peculiarities concerning the human mind. The human mind is the most complex part of the entire creation that God made back in the beginning. There is nothing finer in the universe than the human mind, except the mind of God. In this article they pointed out some of the strange things that the human mind does. For example, they gave the account of a person who witnessed a traffic accident. He was standing there at the corner, and one car ran through the red light and hit another car. It went to trial and the lawyer said to this witness, "Did you see that car run the stop sign?" The witness said, "Yes, I saw him run the stop sign." There's a problem there, it wasn't a stop sign, it was a traffic light. How did the mind change that to be a stop sign from a traffic light?
Well, the writers of this article pointed out that the mind is very complex. When we see something the parts of it are filed in different parts of the mind. What we see goes to one part of the mind, what we hear goes to another section, what we touch or experience through our senses goes to another section. When we are asked to recall that, the mind goes go to different filing cabinets, it has to pull all this together and reassemble it. And it doesn't always come together just right. Psychiatrists therefore say that there are similar cases where we think we've been there, but the problem apparently is that the mind is registering in the past tense rather than in the present tense.
Let me tell you what happened to me several years ago. I walked into a building in another town, and I knew for a fact that I had never been in that place before. So I had this feeling of deja vu. I thought, "I wonder if reincarnation is right after all. Maybe I have been mistaken on this subject." I started checking. And I checked on the age of that building. I found out that building had been built since I was born. So I could not have been there in a previous life. What happened? What happened is that the mind for some reason registered in the past tense rather than in the present tense. And who knows why it does that. But that is the way that psychiatrists explain this feeling of deja vu. It is a peculiarity of the human mind. It does not prove that we have been here in a previous life.
There's a fourth reason that some people give for believing in reincarnation. And that is that sometimes under hypnosis people say, "Well, I was a soldier in the civil war." And again psychiatrists have pointed out that we assimilate everything that we see and that we hear; every place that we visit; stories that our parents and maybe grandparents have told us. It all is a part of the mind. And therefore, in some cases under hypnosis these things may appear to be in the past when in fact we are recalling stories and facts and places that actually were in our own experience in this life.
There's another thing to keep at least in mind. And that is that we should not discount the power of Satan to deceive us. In II Thessalonians 2 we read there that for those who have rejected the truth God allows Satan to give them a deluding influence, a deluding influence. Hypnosis, therefore, does not prove our existence in a previous life.
There's a fifth reason that some give to support reincarnation, and that is child prodigies. People look at somebody like Mozart, who held his first concert, as I recall, about the age of five. And they say "Well, how could Mozart have been that brilliant at the age of five. How come we have people today who play the violin expertly at the age of five or six? Doesn't that mean that they must have been great musicians in the previous life? And this carried over, and now this is why they can hold these concerts and play so well at such an early age?"
Well, I think there are several ways to refute this. One is the fact that there are people known as savants. A savant is a person who has problems in some areas of life, but excels far beyond other people in one narrow area of life. If you saw the movie "Forrest Gump", for example, you saw an example of a savant who was an expert a ping-pong, but had problems in other areas of life. There are indeed people like that, and for some reason their minds turn out this way. They excel in one area and are deficient in others. I think that might be part of it.
There is something else that some may be familiar with: the Suzuki method of raising children. With the Suzuki method you immerse the child, even before birth, in what you want the child to learn. If you want the child to learn to be a violinist, thgen even while he's in his mother's body you play violin music to the womb. As soon as the child is bory, you give him toys, toy violins. You surround him with violin music. At the earliest age that he can hold a violin, this is what he does. And so we see today some incredible examples of child prodigies that have been raised by the Suzuki method. This does not prove reincarnation. It proves that we are all different, with different abilities, different strengths, different weaknesses, and in some cases we are raised in different ways. It does not prove reincarnation.
There's a sixth reason that some give to support reincarnation, and this is particularly Shirley MacLaine's argument. And that is, she says that the Bible supports reincarnation because John the Baptist was the reincarnation of Elijah. This is her statement in her book Out on a Limb. That is an incorrect understanding of the scriptures. John the Baptist was not the reincarnation of Elijah. They were very similar. They were both wilderness men. They were outspoken. They were fierce in denouncing false teachers. But one was not the reincarnation of the other.
In fact, if you're interested, you may want to read the first chapter of John. Down in verses 19, 20, and 21 they asked John if he was the reincarnation of Elijah. And he said no. They were similar. As the Bible says, they had the same lifestyle, but John was not the reincarnation of Elijah. That is a misunderstanding of the Bible.
Let us turn this around and look at what the Bible says about any possible previous life. I want to ask you to read with me first from the Old Testament a passage, and then from the New Testament. If you would turn to the book of Ecclesiastes, please, in the Old Testament. Right after Psalms and Proverbs there's the little book of Ecclesiastes. And would you please look at Ecclesiastes chapter 9. And the wise man Solomon wrote on this subject of a possible previous life. Notice Ecclesiastes 9, and notice what Solomon said in verses 5 and 6, which is the Old Testament refutation of reincarnation. Ecclesiastes 9, verses 5 and 6: "For the living know they will die, but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward for their memory is forgotten. Indeed, their love, their hate, and their zeal have already perished, and they will no longer have a share in all that is done under the sun."
Notice what Solomon was saying there. That is, when we die, we lose contact with this life. We no longer know what is happening in this life. Everything that we did in this life is left behind us when we leave this life. And notice there at the end of verse 6: we no longer have a share in what is done under the sun.
Under the Old Testament, therefore, reincarnation would have been a false doctrine. We do not come back to this life. We are never again under this sun.
And then I would ask you to turn with me in the New Testament to the book of Hebrews.
Would you look please at Hebrews chapter 9. Here the writer of Hebrews has something excellent to say in refuting the doctrine of reincarnation. If you would look with me, please, at Hebrews 9. I want to read verses 27 and 28. Notice the impact this passage has in destroying the doctrine of reincarnation. Hebrews 9, verses 27 and 28. "And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once; and after this comes judgment. So Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time for salvation, without reference to sin to those who eagerly await Him."
These two verses refute several key parts of the theory of reincarnation. Notice in verse 27, it says that we die once. Did you catch that? In reincarnation they have to continue to go through death. Can you imagine having to go through death time and time and time and time again? And over and over and over until we finally reach Nirvana? Death has got to be awful the first time! How can they teach -- maybe people don't appreciate this about reincarnation -- how can they teach you've got to die again and again and over and over until you finally get perfection in this life. The writer of Hebrews says therefore that we die once. And then we face God in judgment. And notice verse 28: verse 28 says I don't have to achieve perfection in this life. That is not my goal. The Lord Jesus Christ died to bear my sins, and he's coming back for us. Notice at His second coming he will be here without reference to sin. That is, those who have accepted Jesus Christ, who have obeyed his will, and lived faithfully to death, he will return to us without the reference to the sins that we have committed. We do not have to be perfect to be saved through the blood of Jesus Christ.
The truth is, therefore, brothers and sisters, that reincarnation is another futile attempt to get around the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, that we will stand before him some day in judgment. The truth is that we have one opportunity to go through this life. Since we cannot achieve perfection, there is only one other way to be saved. And that is through the blood of Jesus Christ. And after living this life faithful to him, he will rescue us eternally without reference to our sin.
There are some here this morning who certainly need to get their lives straight, and reincarnation is not your savior. Jesus Christ is. If you're subject to the invitation, if you are ready now to cover yourself with the blood of Christ by being immersed in water in his name for the forgiveness of your sins, then as we sing the next song we would ask you to come to the front and make this known to us. Let's all please stand and sing at this time.