The topic tonight is Catholic mysticism and its influences on Christians. It is a frightening topic because of the great success that Catholicism has had in marketing mysticism and other groups that have taken over the task of working together with the Catholic Church and in a very big way on the internet with DVDs and CDs, videos, and many other clever ways of getting a mystical message out to the general population of the USA, Canada, Europe, and the whole world. I have very vivid memories of mysticism and the occult as a priest. I had been born in Ireland and I was working in a South American Caribbean atmosphere where there was a lot of mysticism. In Trinidad we called it Shango. In Haiti, one of the other islands of the Caribbean, it was called Voodoo. Cuba, it was called Santeria. It was all a mixture of Catholicism with pagan religions and with contacting the spirit world and it could be frightening. In one of my first parishes, I remember that a young boy came to my office. He wasn't a young boy. in his late teenage years and he said to me if he had permission to go to the Shango Feast and I asked him where it was and he told me it was on Bonaventure Road it was a village called Gasparillo which brother here would know from Trinidad and he told me where it was going to be and what time and I told him that he should not get involved with that. He told me he was going to go nonetheless and that many members of the choir, the choir that I had, would be there attending. So I turned up myself and nearby, I was watching just as the sun came down, I was watching people going into the home and then go out to the backyard. And as they came in, there was a big bowl of blood and I knew from reading about Shango this is a bowl of goat's blood and the people went in and put their hands out and blessed themselves like the Catholics do going into mass with the goat's blood that was the beginning of the ceremony and then they sat in a circle in the backyard and they started to play the bongo drums and they were calling down the spirits, to be in contact with the spirits and then it went on for about 25 minutes to half an hour and it became frightening because some of the people got up and started to dance and then they started to move around the place like they were snakes and they were catching the spirits and some of them were on the ground, breathing and It was rather frightening just to watch. The young man that I had advised not to go and told him that he couldn't go, he was one of those that went around on the ground in a state and he was taken off to St. Anne's Mental Asylum near Port of Spain and I went to see him twice. He was completely out of his mind. He lost his mind that night and there were other evil effects upon others and that was just the beginning of my understanding the occult and trying to get into contact mystical experiences and I never thought the day would come when this sort of thing would become far more rampant or officially recognized in any standard way by Catholicism. I had gone to the seminary, made inquiries, and I was told this is part of the West Indian culture, it's the same in Haiti, it's the same in South American countries, you know, and there are practices going back to pagan times, but it's part of the culture, and we endorse it. But I didn't know that there was anything else just than a tacit endorsement. I didn't realize at the time the decrees of Vatican Council II. And it was only later that Vatican Council II teaching really took heart in the populace of different nations. So we have had in many nations across the world, particularly in the developing nations like where I was in Trinidad and South American nations. We've had for centuries a blending of the occult with Catholicism in some of the European countries as well, but it was more not commonplace or you had to look for it before you found it. Now it's becoming more mainstream and the pagan religions, even main pagan religions like Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam are becoming very prominent. For example, if you go into a Catholic bookstore you will see a myriad of books on Zen Buddhism, you'll see books on Sufi, meditation from Islam. and you will see other Buddhist writings and of course Catholic mystical writings too. Not only the ancient ones but the modern ones as well. And if you go into Barnes and Nobles, I don't know if you have that type of secular bookstores or Borders or some of these other so-called secular stores that have a Christian section. The Christian section is mostly made up of Catholic books and mystical books And they may have one or two shelves where there's, you know, little sparse things that might look like Christianity, but it's mostly mystical. It has taken over what is supposed to be Christendom, so it has become center stage. And of course, on the internet, and with DVDs, and with CDs, and on internet webpages, MP3s, and things that people can get to, lead the youth and other adults into mystical experiences. So what had been for years more in the background has become prominent and so it's a topic that we really have to address and we really have to be explicit as we address it. I have the notes for tonight available. It's in printed form. You can get it whereby you will get all the references. Like everything that I do, I give exact references so that you can find that what I'm saying can be documented and you can study it for yourself. I won't always call out the references, but I always give exact references to what I am speaking about. The acceptance of this high-powered mysticism has come about in Catholicism and it has reached official approval. It's like an official marriage took place between Roman Catholicism and mysticism. And it was done at Vatican Council too. The name of the document was Nostra Aetate, one of the famous documents from Vatican Council II, and I'd like to read the exact words of the council. Quotation. In Hinduism, men explore the divine myth and express it both in the limitless riches of myth and accurately defined insights of philosophy. They seek release from the trials of the present life by ascetical practices, profound meditation, and recourse to God in confidence and love. In Buddhism, in its various forms, testifies to the essential inadequacy of this changing world. It proposes a way of life by which man can, with confidence and trust, attain a state of perfect liberation and reach supreme illumination, either through their own efforts or by the aid of divine help. The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions. The Catholic Church has endorsed what is true and holy, of divine illumination, supreme illumination with regard to Buddhism, where man can with confidence and trust attain to this union with God, or so-called union with God. That was the marriage of Catholicism and mysticism. They also endorsed at Vatican Council too, Islam, and in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, Islam is also endorsed, as are these other religions. But if we read paragraph 400, or 841, from the New Catechism, we read the following. The Church's relationship with Muslims, the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims who profess to hold the faith of Abraham and together with us they adore the one merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day and so they officially endorse Islam and of course with Islam goes Sufi meditation and the Fatima shrine of the apparitions of Mary which the Muslims are into called after Fatima Muhammad's favourite daughter where we have a combination of strange events happening with the so-called Mary appearing and all types of signs and lying wonders, Fatima and Portugal. It was the beginning of many of the leading newspapers in 1917 carrying photographs of the sun dancing and thousands of people being mystified by what happened publicly at Fatima. now official recognition in the 1960s of what Catholicism recognizes as the truths of these pagan religions that they endorse them. The Vatican Council continued after Nostra Aetate, that document, they wrote another document two months later, an even more famous document called Gaudium et Spes. Those are the two Latin words for joy and hope, Gaudium et Spes. And in that document, they affirmed a divine element in humankind. I'd like to read their exact words, quotation, Vatican Council too, longs to set forth the way it understands the presence and the function of the Catholic Church in the world today. Therefore, the world which the Council has in mind is the whole human family seen in the context of everything which envelops it. For this reason, This is the reason why this sacred synod in proclaiming the noble destiny of man and affirming an element of the divine in him offers to cooperate unreservedly with mankind in fostering a sense of brotherhood to correspond to this destiny of theirs. The destiny of man divine element in him, in their own words. The Catholic Church recognizing in mankind as such a divine element. That is horrendous because that sets man's hope on himself and not on the historical Christ Jesus and the Gospel message. But this is the Catholicism of the 20th century that is finding its fruition or eve of fruit, shall we say, in the 21st century. A very famous Jesuit priest, if you put his name into a search engine on the internet, you'll get many things that he has written and books that he's written and webpage and on and on. A very famous Jesuit is William Johnson. William Johnson writes, just what happened, quotation. Then came Second Vatican Council, 1962 to 1965. Overnight, the Catholic Church, which had been a Western institution, exporting its wares to the East, became a worldwide community. Asian and African bishops and theologians assembled in Rome, and with the European and American confreres, acknowledge that the Spirit of God is at work in all peoples and in all religions. Since then, most theologians recognize non-Christian religions as valid ways." End of quotation. He was saying just as it is. Since Vatican II, non-Christian religions are now valid. in the eyes of Catholicism. A marriage has taken place and Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam go hand in hand with Catholic practice. And William Johnson, the Jesuit priest, tells you just how it is. He gives an example of the enlightenment that we have received from Buddhism. Quotation. Self-realization lies at the very heart of Buddhism. In self-realization, I become one with God, just as the object is one with the mirror, and just as Jesus is one with his Father. End of quotation. In the United States, by far the most famous mystic was Thomas Merton and his books still sell rapidly on Amazon.com and in many, many bookstores across America and across the world. Thomas Merton. Merton saw the same thing and he wrote about it and I'd like to quote his exact words. Thomas Merton. Now I realize what We all are. If only everyone could realize this. I suddenly saw that all the secret beauty of their hearts, the depth of their hearts, where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time, there would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other." End of quotation. Thomas Merton died. You might know he died at a then Buddhist camp in the Tibetan mountains or wherever it was, he died and he was electrocuted having a shower. But he has a famous priest who continues to endorse his writing and to get it out and to write himself. William Shannon says the following, A person of true faith travels not without difficulty towards the heart of mystery. Such a person, as Merton puts it, works his way through the darkness of his own mystery till he discovers that his own mystery and the mystery of God merge into one reality, which is the only reality, a person's being merges into one reality which is the only reality. You have become one, he says, with God. Now these explanations of where Vatican Council 2 teaching has gone with the Jesuit William Johnson and William Shannon and Thomas Merton show that they have attempted to transmute God the one true God into their own image. The words of Romans chapter 1, verse 23, change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image of a corruptible man. That's exactly what they have done. And I have not come across any Christians who have blown the trumpet of the gospel discern these things or, you know, call these things horrific blasphemy, latent pantheism. And that's exactly what it is. An attempt at blasphemous transmutation of who God is, to identify him with the human person. There are so-called leading evangelicals who endorse the same thing. So-called, because they are not evangelicals. The most famous of which is Richard Foster. He has a study Bible on the Bible. He has a whole Bible which is a study Bible in mysticism. Renovare. You can buy it on the Internet or buy it from his own ministry. But this man teaches the same identification with God. And Foster states quotation about contemplative prayer. Contemplative prayer immerses us into the silence of God. How desperately we in the modern world need this wordless baptism. Progress in the intimacy of God means progress towards silence. And then Foster asks rhetorically the question, What is the goal of contemplative prayer? And he answers, quotation, to this question the old writers answer with one voice, union with God. Bonaventure, a follower of St. Francis, says our final goal is union with God, which is pure relationship where we see nothing. Foster, is a mystic in the strict sense. Mysticism is mindless. It surpasses the mind. You've got to reach silence or mere nothingness to reach God. And of course, it does away with entirely Jesus Christ as the one mediator. It bypasses the mind and it bypasses Christ Jesus as the one mediator between God and man. And Richard Foster, who claims to be evangelical, teaches this direct union through silence and wordless baptism. Thomas Keating is another famous Jesuit, Catholic priest. You can put his name in a search engine and be surprised with what he has written. and the effect he is having in Canada, the United States, and across the world. Thomas Keating. He writes about contemplative prayer. And he says, quotation, contemplative prayer is the opening of mind and heart, our whole being to God, the ultimate mystery, beyond thoughts, words, and emotions. Keating depersonalizes God. God becomes the ultimate mystery. That's typical of the mystics. God is ultimate mystery. He is non-speaking, non-judgmental, ultimate mystery. How different is the God of Keating and the God of Richard Foster to the men on Mars Hill who worshipped an unknown God. They have an unknown God. He's just ultimate mystery. So, they tell you also who they are. But what to God that we have people who would analyze and show the horrendous effect that these men are having on our youths and on our schools. I know that some schools keep track of where people go on the internet. When I was up with John McKnight's church in Maryland, and you go down from Canada, but you go up in the States to Maryland, and they were checking because you've often got to check where the youth are going. Are they going to some site like Thomas Keating and Richard Foster? Are they going into a quagmire which can lead into the occult? And we have to check if we are responsible for youth. Now the God of this world has, in the words of 2 Corinthians, hid the gospel from those who are lost and blinded their mind. But it is sad to see how they are blinding other people's mind by their wicked and evil teaching. In a certain sense, it gets worse as it gets more popular. It's not just in these so-called mystics, but Modern Pentecostalism through the Word of Faith movement has brought this thing onto the stage and it stage manages mysticism. It's not mysticism just in books, on internet, on DVDs, but it's before thousands of people as we have famous Pentecostal Word of Faith Preachers mystify huge congregations. And so we have the famous Kenneth Copeland saying, quotation, you don't have a God in you, you are one. And the same Kenneth Copeland, and it's recorded and transcribed from a tape that he made at a crusade in 1987, said, I say this and repeat it so that it don't upset you too bad. When I read in the Bible where he, Jesus, says, I am, I say, yes, I am too." End of quotation. Kenneth Hagen of the Word of Faith Movement says, quotation, you are as much an incarnation of God as Jesus Christ was. Every man who has been born again is an incarnation and Christianity is a miracle. The believer is as much an incarnation as was Jesus of Nazareth." End of quotation. The infamous Casey Treat, and he has a webpage which you can go and see this on his webpage, He says, when God looks into a mirror, he sees me. When I look into a mirror, I see God. On the same webpage, he says, quotation, God dwells in you. God walks in you. When you walk, God walks. When you show up, God shows up. When you show up, a winner shows up. You won't lose. End of quotation. And we could go on and on, but this is just a sample of the same type of mysticism being stage-managed by Word of Faith men in their so-called Pentecostalism. And so we have such as Paul Crouch, Benny Hill, Charles Kapp, Robert Tilton, Paul Jungi Cho, Marilyn Hickey, T.S. Osborne, Jerry Seville and many others. The Trinity Broadcasting Network in the states most major cities you will see their studio and you will find it very easily on television. It's one of the major stations in practically every big city in the states. I don't know if it reaches Canada but Trinity Broadcasting they also have radio networking throughout the world. Jean and Paul Crouch are the founders of that networking. They, of course, have mysticism and charismania, word-of-faith teachers, and they ecumenize and work together with the Catholic Church. The Catholic mystics are strange, but even more strange is the Catholic Charismatics, because the Catholic Charismatics have three sources to draw from. They have the mysticism of their own sacraments that are physical things that give them spiritual contact with God. That's mystical in itself. Then they have the Zen mystics. Then they have all the resources of the Word of Faith movement. and so they're thrice dead in the deceitfulness in which they are. But for the Catholic mystics, the Catholic charismatics, the Word of Faith, the Kevin, the William Shannons, the William Johnsons, the Keatings, and Thomas Mertens, Richard Fosters, we quote the words of the Lord, I am the Lord, That is my name and my glory I will not give to another. God is who he is. He won't have strange gods before him. And it is horrendous that we have to say it so clearly, but that's the way it is. We really have to show how evil this is. And as it were, cleanse our minds from the wickedness of what has been broadcast to the world. Now, if it was just this alone, we could, in a sense, stop here and say, you know, this has reached a stage whereby leaving aside the mind, trying to have direct contact with God has reached horrendous levels in Catholicism and in such as Richard Foster and others like him in the so-called evangelical world. But a whole movement has started in the United States of America that has begun to affect the rest of the world. It is right across the USA and it has permeated into the lives of many of the churches. It has devastated some churches already, in France in particular. It has begun to infiltrate into the United Kingdom. It has hit quite heavily my own Ireland, which has its own emergent movement. And it is making inroads in other language groups besides English across the world. And its leaders are very well known. It's huge on the internet and quite dynamic in marketing its goods. It is huge in the so-called Christian bookstores and in the different ways where you can buy books, DVDs and messages online. Its most famous leader is Brian McLaren that has been recognized officially by the Atlantic Baptist Convention here in Canada as an authentic Christian quite recently in this year, 2007. So it has been officially recognized by Baptists here in Canada. It is a movement that has taken wings, as it were, with famous people in San Francisco, Alan Jones in so-called Grace Cathedral, where Tony Blair visited when he came to visit the West Coast of the United States. He went to attend church at Grace Cathedral. Of course, where all the services are videoed and go out later on as DVDs. a huge internet webpage. Alan Jones marketed and re-images Christianity and that's the name of his book. I've written a whole critique of Alan Jones. It's been published by Evangelical Press and some other newspapers in the United Kingdom. I have it on our webpage marianbeacon.org where you can read. It's horrendous stuff, marketing, direct union with God and endorsing officially Islam and other horrendous things that Alan Jones does. Now I can't go into an analysis of Brian McLaren. I have two articles written on him on our webpage, but I'd like to just give an example of another one of the main leaders, Tony Jones. because he is another quite well-known leader of the emerging church movement, and he's typical of them all. He's quite like another so-called light of the emerging church, a man recently becoming really popular, and that is Scott McKnight. and he endorsing the Roman Catholic Mary in his book called The Real Mary. So the movement is quite dynamic in power and money. It is financed by some major corporations including the Zondervan Publication House who publishes most of the books. So they are well financed and they have yearly conferences, Zondervan organizes conferences for church leaders, usually in San Diego each year. So Tony Jones is officially the U.S. National Coordinator of Emergent U.S. He's a regular speaker at Youth Specialities National Youth Workers Convention. and he has spoken also at the Zondervan Pastors' Conferences. He has two major books. One is called The Soul Shaper, Exploring Spirituality and Contemplative Practices in Youth Ministry, published in 2003. And that was his first book, and another book called The Sacred Way. In the first book, he says on the cover It is a hands-down most comprehensive primer on the study and use of spiritual and contemplative practices for the benefit of teenagers and especially your own soul." He recommends in the book Meister Eckhart's collective works, a mystical thesis on emphasizing God's indwelling in humanity. I had read some of Meister Eckhart's thing when I was in Catholicism, like I'd read The Cloud of Unknowing and gone into Therese of Avila, you know, the Catholic mystics, but to see it now publicized in a book that's supposed to be by an evangelical is horrendous because it shows you that it's teaching, again, the same pantheism that is rampant in Catholicism. In his two books he explores how to reach God directly and he does so explaining first of all his own story or what you would say his testimony. His testimony is not of somebody who has been convicted of sin and looked to Christ Jesus for salvation. His testimony is somebody fumbling in the darkness of unbelief. And I'd like to read his own words. This man who puts himself forward as a leader, is recognized as a leader, shows how fumbling he is. Page 15 of The Sacred Way, Chapter 1. The chapter is called The Quest for God. Some of us have this nagging feeling that God is following us around, nudging us to live justly and expecting us to talk with him every once in a while. Every time I leave God's side, as it were, it's not too long until I feel God tagging right along beside me. I can't seem to shake him. Yet I have this sense of God's company Yet having this sense of God's company doesn't necessarily translate into a meaningful spiritual life. I know this because despite my awareness of God's presence, I have spent most of my life trying to figure out what it's all about." End of quotation. So obviously a man in the darkness trying to find out what life is all about. But he tells you how he did discover something. And after explaining just what the problem was, the problem growing up was obligation. And that's exactly what he spells it out. Page 15, the same page 15 of the book, he says, growing up in a Protestant church, I'd say there was one word that summed up my religious life, obligation. And then something comes to him. He sees something different. He who had been bothered by Bible reading and quiet time saw the solution. Quotation, something occurred within me. People have been trying to follow God for thousands of years. Maybe somewhere along the line, some of them had come up with a way of connecting with God that could help me. I could think of no better way to spend three months sabbatical than to travel and read about different ancient ways of prayer and devotion, end of quotation. And then in the book he speaks about going to Dublin, Ireland and meeting a Jesuit priest and the staff of the Jesuit Communication Centre. He speaks about reading voraciously of Roman Catholic mystics and speaking with many people at the Jesuit Communication Centre. He speaks much about Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order. that was set up to start the Counter-Reformation and of Ignatius' visualization and attempts to will in the presence of God by the force of his will and his intellect. So, Jones learns Catholic ways and then he writes in the sacred way what he sees as Christian. and distinct from what he used to see as Christian. Quotation, and this is pages 16 going into 17 of his book, the second book. For years I've been told to be a Christian meant three things, read the Bible, pray, and go to church. But I had come to the realization that there must be something more, and indeed there is. It is a long tradition of searching among the followers of Jesus. It is a quest for ways to connect with God, the quest to know Jesus better, to follow him more closely, to become in some mysterious way wrapped in his presence. I thank God that some of these brilliant spiritual persons wrote down what they learned. And so he comes to a realization of mystical ways. In the two books, The Soul Shaper and The Sacred Ways, he gives a list of 16 different ways. And I don't read them all, because the list is too long. But some of these are the Jesus Prayer, Lectio Divina, Silence, Solitude, The Stations of the Cross, Centering Prayer, The Ignatius Examen, and The Labyrinth. And he speaks about making the past come alive at the present. That is his motto. He wants to make the past of these mystical writers come alive in present day life. And he it is who sets out to teach pastors and people across the world. what, quotation, saints of the Christian Church have found out and labored at practice for two millennia. And then he says the following. One of the things you may leave at the front cover is denominational bigotry. A lot of the practices herein seem very Catholic or very Greek Orthodox, and if you aren't from one of these traditions. Remember this. Before 1054, we were all Catholic Orthodox. That's right. For the first half of Christian history, there was one church. And most of the practices in this book are from that time. He says that his book is drawn from Christian Church before 1054. And most of the practices are from that time. He's quoting from apostate Christendom that had gone apostate. He doesn't mention the true Christians of early times. No mention of the Valdois, who had true Christian faith, right through history. and evangelized right through Europe. No mention of the later the Waldenses, the Paulicians, the Albigenses. No mention whatsoever of the missionaries that evangelized right across Asia and that had true Christian churches right across Asia. No mention of my own Ireland, where Patrick went, And for 707 years after Patrick, there was true Biblical Christianity, such as Columbanus, Columba, Columbkill, Fornanon, and many other famous preachers and teachers went across Europe and where there was true Christianity. No mention. He mentions a Taft State Christendom like it was genuine Christianity. The man obviously in darkness, not only in his own summary of his testimony, but what he is looking upon as Christianity. He is drawing from apostate Christendom, and particularly from a later apostate, the 16th century Ignatius of Lyon, because he mentions Ignatius, the labyrinth centering prayer stations of the cross and the Jesus prayer. He mentions these things as ways of coming into contact with God. And he teaches gross idolatry. I dealt last night with the subject of idolatry, and you would think that no more examples could be given than some of the horrendous examples I gave last night. But he has an even more offensive way of teaching idolatry than what we had read from some of the so-called Christians that we dealt with in the previous address. He talks about the presence of God, the Lord, in an icon. Reading from the Sacred Way, pages 98 going into page 99, he speaks of a Greek Orthodox woman and he quotes what she says as his teaching. The sober presence of the Lord in an icon makes us uncomfortable because it makes us realize how far short we fall off the ineffable beauty and power of God. The steady, unsettling gaze of the Lord is in the icon is like the gaze of a surgeon as he looks upon a patient's wounded, broken body. The surgeon understands the woundedness better than the patient does. and he knows exactly what it will take to heal it. Our Lord sees brokenness and failures in us that we can't, or that we simply won't, or that we could not bear to see. He invites us to open ourselves to his healing, a healing that will progress very gently, very gradually, as we are able to bear it. So he speaks about the icon, the image, gazing at you and seeing your woundedness and healing you. Absolute, vicious, idolatry. And he goes further, that not only are you to look at the icon, but you are to pray to icons, that is statues or portrayals of the saints. And you are to pray through the statue or the icon to God through the saint, quotation. The Catholic belief is that Christians can pray through saints, especially the Blessed Virgin Mary, and their prayers will be delivered to the throne of God. The bottom line is that we use icons to pray, but pray through them, not to them. Since we believe that those who have died in faith are currently living in eternity with God, Praying through an icon of a saint is simply asking one of these friends to pray for me. This is exactly a definition of necromancy, calling up the dead to intercede for you. It's what the Bible forbids. He teaches. what the Bible forbids. In the pages of Scripture, nobody prays to God, only to God and God alone. There's no prayer to the dead in the pages of Scripture. But Tony Jones incorporates it into his teaching as one of his ways of having contact with God. He speaks more on this subject He says on page 103, in order to incorporate praying with icons into your personal devotional life, the first item of business is to get an icon. Shadows are never seen in an icon. No source of light illuminates the subject's face. The icon itself is the source of light. is not meant to be a depiction of a normal human being but of Jesus or Mary or a saint in the resurrected state. So you are to purchase an icon and it will have no shadows in it and it will be light because it's supposed to portray not a normal human person but Jesus, Mary, or a resurrected saint. This is the sort of horrendous idolatry and mystical practices of Tony Jones. The epilogue to both of his books come back to the same type of practices where he urges people to have religious exercise and I'd like to finish with quoting from the sacred way of what he sets out for young people and adults to do. Following some experiences from ancient practices outlined in this book, you may decide to incorporate some of them into your personal rule of life. An example of a rule would look something like this. Pray through two centuries of the Jesus prayer in the morning and in the evening every day. Keep the Sabbath from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday every week. Walk a labyrinth once a month. Take a two-day silent retreat once a year. Fast and walk the stations of the cross every Friday during Lent. Take a 28 Ignatius retreat every decade." And then he gave this final damning piece of advice, quotation. We have lots in our ministries, but development of a disciplined spiritual life isn't one of them. It isn't optional, it's mandatory. Slow down, listen to God, be silent, meditate, make the stations, stare at an icon. And there, do you feel it? the divine light of the risen Lord flickering within you, slowly building to a roaring fire. And talk about blasphemy against Christ Jesus, the Lord and Master. I think we've got to ask the question that scripture says, who had darkened counsel by words without knowledge? scripture says, who are dark and counseled by words without knowledge. Have you read Alice in Wonderland? You know the novel Alice in Wonderland? Well, you know the Mad Hatter's Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland. That has really more to offer than Tony Jones. But in a certain sense, that's fiction, and Tony Jones is claiming to be factual, real Christianity. and it's damningly blasphemous for those who attempt to make God in such a way as we can connect with him. As believers, we cast down every imagination and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought and obedience to Christ. But this is what is making a deep effect right across the world, including Canada, at least in embryo, and in the United States in huge ways. It usually begins with a youth minister and usually begins with a mid-week service where these things are introduced. before these men take over as the principal pastor of churches, as they have done. So Roman Catholicism in its marriage with Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam has borne fruits. Borne fruits in the Catholic mystics such as William Johnson, Thomas Merton, William Shannon, Keating, Richard Foster, and many others. And we have these things before us. And we have to be men and women of the Gospel message. The Gospel message is an historical, real, factual, faithful life of Christ Jesus and perfect sacrifice. It is objective, factual, historical, recorded on the pages of Scripture. by which we are convicted by the Holy Spirit and become conscious of our sin before Him. We repent of our sin by His grace and receive everlasting life in Christ Jesus, not in ourselves, in Him, to the praise of the glory of His grace. And that is our answer. We live in days of desperate need where Subjects like I have addressed this evening are seldom if ever touched. I thank God there is one organization, lighthousetrails.com. That is a publishing organization who also publish or market some of my own books. But most of all they have on their research page They have continually exposed the wickedness of such as Tony Jones, Brian McTarran, and the multitude. It's about 40 other main emerging church leaders. I cannot name them all. But they will show you, and they will show you Christian organizations as they submit to the emerging church movement. It is horrendous to see how engulfing this has become. And we need the Lighthouse Trails ministry to keep showing us how far this cancerous mysticism is succeeding in the Western world, so that we can blow the trumpet in our Christian schools and churches of the gospel message, so that our young people and our congregations are not deceived. We have to really see that on the pages of Scripture we see light. The real light is the light of the Holy Spirit who is the Word of Truth and the Word that He has given. Holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. We have the written Word of God, the authentic truth. We trust the written Word of God on who Christ Jesus is and His Gospel message. And it is the power of God unto salvation. And we are commanded not to be unequally yoked and to separate and come out from what is evil. And we are to earnestly contend for the faith, to earnestly strive to show forth wickedness that proposes to be Christendom. It's not simply to show how Roman Catholicism has officially married pagan religions, but to show how disastrous is its effect in the Catholic mystics and in the marketing that now goes forth in the emerging church movement. We pray that the Lord will give us, his people, the zeal and the ability to research, to write, and to speak upon these things. And in our ordinary conversation, to warn the people of God. And in our prayers, to plead of what is said in Chapter 2 of 2 Thessalonians. We know that the deceiving lying wonders of the man of sin, the son of perdition, will be cut off at the end. And we pray for the day when the Lord Jesus will come and cut them off by the word of His power and the breath of His mouth, as He will at the final day. But in the meantime, we pray that the gospel will go forth. And in this hour of need, men and women like yourselves, will stand up and give the Gospel and we will see true revival of God's people and a true understanding of the historical Christ and of authentic Christendom so that the real answer is as we stand before the Lord as true men and women, pleading with Him for sanctification and revival in our life and for the Gospel to go forth. We will see genuine Christianity grow. We pray that many who have been deceived will come to understand the Gospel and be themselves convicted. And in all these things that we pray for, we pray that God will be exalted. All praise and glory and worship be to him now and forevermore. Amen and amen. Praise God.