Isaiah 2:5-6
Come, descendants of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the Lord!
6 For the Lord has rejected his people,
the descendants of Jacob,
because they have filled their land with practices from the East
and with sorcerers, as the Philistines do.
They have made alliances with pagans.
This is a word of warning to the church! Spiritual practices from "the East" are forbidden by God because those "ways" are not grounded in God alone. They are at best syncretic, adding to what God has said and done, as if we just need one more bite of that fruit from Eden so that we need trouble God any more to become fully human.
The "ways of the East" rely on human initiative. It is human pride that says, "Yes God is good. But I need more than what He has provided in order to "know myself" and to flourish. There is a demonic "pragmatism" that looks at Eastern religious systems and states, "Well, it seems to work, so why not employ it?"
"Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body." Colossians 2:8-9
Astrology states that you were born under a star sign that defines who you are, what makes up your character and that you had better have a good astrologer guiding you if you intend to make it through life.
The Enneagram is the same thing. It was birthed and grounded in Sufi, Islamic spirituality. It is a man-made system that states that you can take a test (without any reference to the God Who created you, knows you and wants you to become all He created you to be) and be assigned a number that will tell you all about your character, defining you so you can know how to undo your faults. Ah, salvation by the numbers. BUT, you had better have an Enneagram Master to guide you daily as you try and save yourself, redeem yourself from the foibles your number reveals you have.
Isaiah 55:6-9 "Seek the Lord while you can find Him. Call on Him now while He is near. Let the wicked change their ways and banish the very thought of doing wrong. Let them turn to the Lord that He may have mercy on them. Yes, turn to our God, for He will forgive generously. “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts."
Jeremiah 10:1 "Hear the word that the Lord speaks to you, O Israel! This is what the Lord says: “Do not act like the other nations, who try to read their future in the star Do not be afraid of their predictions, even though other nations are terrified by them."
Jeremiah 23:16-18, 22-29 This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says to His people: “Do not listen to these prophets when they prophesy to you, filling you with futile hope. They are making up everything they say. They do not speak for the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise My Word ‘Don’t worry! The Lord says you will have peace. And to those who stubbornly follow their own desires, they say, ‘No harm will come your way!’ “Have any of these prophets been in the Lord’s presence to hear what He is really saying? Has even one of them cared enough to listen? If they had stood before Me and listened to me, they would have spoken My word, and they would have turned My people from their evil ways and deeds. Am I a God who is only close at hand?” says the Lord. “No, I am far away at the same time. Can anyone hide from Me in a secret place? Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?" says the Lord.
(The Astrologers and Enneagram Masters) “I have heard these prophets say, ‘Listen to the dream I had from God last night.’ And then they proceed to tell lies in My name. How long will this go on? If they are prophets, they are prophets of deceit, inventing everything they say. By telling these false dreams, they are trying to get My people to forget Me, just as their ancestors did by worshiping the idols of Baal. “Let these false prophets tell their dreams but let My true messengers faithfully proclaim My every word. There is a difference between straw and grain! Does not My word burn like fire?” says the Lord. “Is it not like a mighty hammer that smashes a rock to pieces?
Do not be deceived. Do not be arrogant. Do not go beyond what is written in the Word of God.
2 Corinthians 11:3-4, 14-15, "But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent. You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed. These people are false apostles. They are deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ. But I am not surprised! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So, it is no wonder that his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. In the end they will get the punishment their wicked deeds deserve.
Paganism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Shintoism, animism, ancestor worship; all of these are the false ways of the East. There is no salvation discoverable in these systems. There is no grace or assurance of salvation or human redemption. There is salvation in no other Name, save the Name of Jesus Christ.
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