Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look
us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this
message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
It's good to see you this morning.
And we'll get right to our lesson today as we are looking
at Buddhism this week. And I'm excited about being able
to present to you both the beliefs and the errors of the
Buddhist religion. And you know, we are inundated
with terms of Buddhism, whether we realize it or not, sometimes
that even Christians incorporate into their daily speech things
like karma or Nirvana or gurus. These are sometimes words that
we use a financial guru or well, that's karma coming back at them
or those kinds of situations. And those types of words are
actually not found, well, in Christianity whatsoever.
They're actually found from the Buddhist religion.
And I will tell you there's a lot of mystery that surrounds
Buddhism even as it is one of the larger of the world
religions. There's questions even amongst
Buddhists themselves, is it a religion or not, is a philosophy
or not? And believe it or not, the
different strains, the different groups of Buddhism that are out
there do not agree with one another even on whether Buddha
is a God or not. And so we're going to try to
uncover a little bit of the mystery of what Buddha Buddhism
is here today and try to help us with that.
And even see again how it's been incorporated into some of the
things that we say and some of the things we think about if
we're not careful. Understanding that they come not
from anything from Christianity, but rather from Buddhism.
Well, Buddhism is the spiritual tradition and philosophy founded
by Siddhartha Gatma. Now Siddhartha Gatma is the
Buddha. He is the one who is Buddhism is
named after. He lived in India around the 5th
to 4th century BC. What is Buddhism address?
What is it about? Well, it's about human
suffering, the nature of existence, the path to spiritual
liberation. And as we're going to see this
morning, it is a very moral way of living.
I my study even over this last week and seeing that Buddhists
are very moral people in many ways, they're very concerned
about living in a way that is ethical.
But as we see from the title this week, Buddhism is moral,
but it misses the mark because morality in and of itself is not
what we are trying to achieve. Because we're going to see when
that morality is not anchored within the word of God, It
actually ends up being the morals that man wants.
And man's morals can change, can't they?
What they think is good and what they think is bad over times.
But yet we have the word of God, which is unchanging.
The word of God, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today,
forever, Amen, the Bible tells us.
And so our morality must be anchored in that.
But there's so much more to go over in Buddhism in these few
short minutes. This morning I'm going to
introduce it with a illustrated video that I hope will help you
give a basic overview of what Buddhism is all about.
Look at that cute little Prince. It's Buddha.
Though right now he's still called Siddhartha Gautama.
Siddhartha lives in a palace in India.
His parents believe that this little guy will become something
extraordinary. To know this for sure, they ask
an astrologer to consult the stars about the future.
He will either become a very powerful ruler like his father,
or he becomes a holy man and your family will lose all power
in the Kingdom. Oh my, don't worry.
As long as you keep him away from sickness, ageing, poverty
and death, it will be all right. They decide to protect the
Prince from all such experiences.
Siddhartha grows up, gets married and has kids without
having met ordinary people outside the palace.
But one day, Siddhartha drives his car outside the palace area.
There he witnesses how ordinary people live.
He sees an old man, a sick man and a beggar monk in the street.
He also drives by a dead man. What?
People get sick and are poor and die.
Life is just endless suffering. Siddhartha doesn't want to
suffer, and he doesn't want anyone else to do so either.
This must be solved. He leaves his wife and child and
goes away. Siddhartha asks a lot of wise
men for advice on how to live. That doesn't get any good
answers. So he decides to try not eating.
He will starve himself like a beggar monk.
An ascetic. Look how thin he has become.
This clearly doesn't work. It won't make one happier.
No, Siddhartha realizes this. He gives up the idea of starving
himself and sits down beneath A Bodhi tree to meditate.
Here he decides to stay until he's found the solution.
Nothing will make him move. An evil demon called Mara
appears to tempt him. Mara offers him lots of great
things, but Siddhartha just stays put.
And finally, after having meditated for 49 days,
Siddhartha realizes what's wrong.
Humans are never satisfied. They always want more.
And this wanting to have more never ends.
And then the suffering never ends either.
So now Siddhartha has realized how it is he has become
enlightened. And that is what the word Buddha
means. Now he is no longer Siddhartha
Gautama, but Buddha. The Buddha wants more people to
realize this. Some of his friends listen to
him and start to follow him. They become his disciples.
Buddha preaches to them and to other people.
At this time in India, everyone is Hindu.
The Hindus believe in rebirth, reincarnation.
You are born, live, die, are born, live, die, and so on in an
endless cycle. Samsara stop, I want to get off.
Buddha preaches the importance of getting free from samsara.
Getting reborn makes it impossible to avoid suffering.
Buddha had tried both being rich and starving.
These are two exaggerated ways of living and neither are good.
He believes it to be better to choose a middle way.
But hey, Buddha, if you're not born again, where do you end up
after death? You don't get to a place, but to
a condition where you don't want anything.
Nirvana. Why do you call it Nirvana?
Nirvana means blown out. All your desires are blown out
and you have reached a kind of peace.
Buddha wanders around preaching how to reach Nirvana.
When Buddha dies, there have become many disciples.
Now it's time for them to pass on his teachings.
All right so basic overview of what Buddhism is all about it
was founder is Siddhartha Gautama and I once again have
neglected to turn on the clicker all right and that will
certainly help there He is Siddhartha Gautama there he was
born as a Prince in Lambini, which is modern day Nepal lived
in luxury until encountering sickness and death.
And this caused him great confusion and we saw that he
went through a time of meditation, self denial which
brought him so-called enlightenment while he was
sitting under the Bodhi tree there at that time.
I will say it's not easy to give an accurate historical account
of who Buddha was and everything you saw there seemed very, I
mean, they were very clear about who he was.
However, biographies of his life and who he was weren't even
really written till around 500 years later.
And so a lot of what we just saw is more myth and legend more
than actual recorded history of somebody writing down this is
who he was, this is what he experienced.
It really has turned into more folklore or legend than anything
else. Now as I look at this statue
right here of the Buddha, you might be thinking what I was
thinking as I was studying this week.
And I thought that don't look like Buddha because I'm used to
seeing the statues of Buddha being, well, a lot more
well-rounded than the one that we see here.
And that's because again, there are different strains of
Buddhism. There are different groups of
Buddhism. And So what you see here is what
many Buddhists would consider the actual statue, the actual
image of Buddha. This is him in as fast.
This is him as he has slimmed down and almost gaunt looking,
if you will. The Buddha that many of us are
more familiar with would be the laughing Buddha.
This is the one that you're going to see at the Chinese
restaurant. This is the one that you're
going to see with a bowl there that people are putting money in
and people are putting that in for good luck to be able to give
that to the Buddha. This is not the same Buddha.
This is actually just a symbolism of the abundance and
contentment and happiness that following Buddhism brings, at
least to one group of Buddhists. And so you will find this often
in Asian restaurants, Chinese restaurants, you will find this
laughing Buddha there. However, this is not the Buddha
of which we just saw again, it's more of a representation of what
Buddhism can bring to those who are its hits parents Now many
years later. Buddhism started to spread over
Asia next several centuries and as it did so, it adapted to the
local cultures and the local religions of that day.
As you saw mentioned just a few moments ago that there was
already Hinduism existing in the area that is now known as India.
And so with that came a lot of push and pull.
In fact, we will see as we do get to Hinduism at some point
here over the next few weeks or months, that there are some
similarities, of course, the death, rebirth and life cycle.
However, with Buddhism we find that you're able to break out of
that cycle and achieve Nirvana at some point of which Hinduism
does not believe, but before it has.
Or rather I would say to the place that's gotten today, there
are now 2 made branches of Buddhism.
There are more than just the two, but I would say from my
study there are two main branches, 2 very distinct
branches, a conservative and a more liberal school of thought.
The conservative school is named the Theravada Buddhism and it is
the dominant form of Buddhism today in Southeast Asia and so
often times it's just simply called Southern Buddhism.
Southern Buddhism, again Southern is in southeastern
Asia. It has been more conservative
and has supposedly stayed more to what Buddhism originally was
in its form as the Buddha had taught it.
They follow the pally Canon of scripture was written centuries
after the Gautama's death. However, that there are many
that believe that it holds to more exactly of what he would
have taught compared to later teachings and iterations.
Including the other. Put the same word there twice.
How about that? But the second word there should
be my Hayana Buddhism and my Hayana Buddhism is also called
Northern Buddhism. China, Japan, Korea, Tibet this
is where you will find my Hayana or Northern Buddhism.
It is where you would find the laughing Buddha.
It is a more liberal form of what Buddhism is and as again as
it spread N it incorporated all different types of beliefs and
practices as well. Now these two branches do not
agree with each other that Theravada Buddhism and the My
Hayana Buddhism. Southern Buddhism sees Buddha as
a man, that he never was a God, that he was more of a wayshower.
However, Northern Buddhism does worship the Buddha and they do
believe that he is God as well. You might be familiar with the
Dalai Lama that would be part of Northern Buddhism and they
believe that he is an incarnation, that he is a deity
like man. And so we look at the Dalai Lama
and say, well that seems just like a peaceful guy.
That seems like someone who stands for peace and again, very
moral in many ways as certainly we would look at him as a man
who would stand for peace. But in and of himself that's not
good enough because this is a man who presents himself and is
presented to those particularly of Northern Buddhism as a God
like figure. And so when we look at him, we
can't just look at him as a harmful, peaceful, older
gentleman, but rather we must see him as an idol that is being
worshipped by those who are of the one that is not named up
there, the Mahayana of Buddhism. But whether you believed in the
Theravada of the North or the Mahayana, or whether the
Theravada of the South or the Mahayana of the North, there are
some things that are in common. They both would teach that one
can escape suffering only by attaining Nirvana, meaning
you're in the constant cycle of life.
But however, you can get to the place where you break out of
that cycle and achieve the transcendent state of being
called Nirvana. And unless one retains Nirvana,
they would both believe one is trapped in that system.
And what traps you in that system?
Your karma, your good deeds or your bad deeds.
This is what will keep you going into your future lives.
Good deeds makes you more or exalted.
You might even get to heaven, which we'll hopefully see a
video about in a few minutes if we get time for that.
Worse deeds will get you to hell.
You say they believe in heaven and help not like the Bible
says, but what I would say is a better form of life and a worse
form of life. But even then, you can come back
from heaven, back to this world. You can go from hell to this
world. You kind of bounce around all
these different places until you finally achieve Nirvana.
You say, Pastor, that must be very confusing.
Well, it certainly is, which is why they don't even agree on
many of the very fundamentals of their own religion.
But they also would say that you must realize through meditation
that there is no substantial self, that that you are not
really you. You are you now, but you are not
you in the future, where even many religions would teach that
your soul would just continue on.
Even if the outward man infestation, the body would
pass, your soul would continue. They basically would teach that
you are a new person when you go to the next, that the connective
tissue isn't nearly as direct as it would be in other places.
You are a composition of different elements that
literally shares no essence whatsoever.
So that would be the agreement of those two branches, Theravada
and Mahayana. Now, what are the core
teachings? What are the things that they
teach about what you need to know?
Now remember the last couple weeks as we looked at
Scientology, there was one word that really summed up all of the
teachings and that was this survival.
Do you remember that? It was all about survival and
that's why you had the 8 dynamics that you need to
survive with self, you need to survive with family.
And that circle just kept growing wider and wider.
If we were to take one word and really put it down to what
Hinduism is, or rather Buddhism is all about, it would be this
word suffering. The idea that the Buddha had
suffered, he had saw suffering, He felt like he needed to suffer
as well. But then as he continued to
suffer, as we saw in that statue that depicts him in that gaunt
type of way, that the more he suffered, he realized there
needed to be the middle way. There needed to be a way that
wasn't rich and wasn't poor. It wasn't all about great health
and it wasn't about sickness that it would be this middle
way. And so suffering would be the
keyword of which we will be able to look at here in just a moment
through the four Noble Truths. But before we do that, I have
another video from a gentleman who is a Buddhist here in the
United States, and he's going to explain some of those things as
well. Namo Buddhaya, welcome to
today's video. Today in this video, I'm going
to discuss about a simple question that most of the people
ask from Buddhist monks. And the question is very simple.
It is what is Buddhism? It seems to be a simple
question, but it is very complicated when you're trying
to give an answer for this question for.
So let's try to find an answer for this question today.
So, so many people ask that is Buddhism a religion or is it a
philosophy or is it a way of life?
Now, first of all, what is your what is your opinion about this?
Is it a religion? Do you feel it is like a
religion? Do you feel it is like a
philosophy or it is like a more like a way of life?
What do you think about it? Well, this is the thing if I can
give a simple answer for Buddhism, what Buddhism is?
This is the answer. Buddhism is a profound teaching
and a deep teaching that it is very difficult to put it into
one basket, one category, saying this is a religion, this is a
philosophy, this is a way of life.
Why? Because let's say when you visit
a Buddhist temple, if you had the chance to visit the Buddhist
temple, you will see Buddhist statues.
People come and worship to the Buddhist statues.
They offer flowers, and they offer so many offerings to the
Buddhist statues and they worship and they do all sort of
things. When you see that, you may start
to think, oh, this is a religion, OK.
In the same time, if you dive into the Buddhist teachings,
core Buddhist teachings, and if you read some sutas, what will
happen? You will come to an
understanding that these teachings, what the Buddha has
taught is so profound and it is more philosophical.
It dives into the deep topics in life like existence and life and
impermanence, a lot of things like that.
OK. Then you may start to think,
well, Buddhism is more philosophical.
And in the in the other way, if you try to practice Buddhism,
right, if you try to practice Buddhism by practicing virtues
and practicing meditation, it becomes more of a way of Life.
OK, So what exactly is Buddhism? How can we understand?
Well, the one answer that I can give when you sum up all the
Buddhist teachings, OK, the one answer that I can give is
Buddhism is all about four noble truths.
The Buddha said Dukha is the first noble truth.
Life is based upon unsatisfactoriness.
OK then the samudaya is the second noble truth and that is
the unsatisfactoriness is based on it become it origins because
of the craving and the desires in our life.
OK, and the third is the neroda. If you let go of the craving and
the desires in your life, you will end up the
unsatisfactoriness. And finally, the 4th noble truth
is the mugger, the path that leads to letting go of this
unsatisfactoriness. Okay, removing that
unsatisfactoriness and that is the Noble Eightfold Path.
So this 4 Noble truth is all about Buddhist teachings.
OK, but when you see the Buddhist traditions and Buddhist
rituals, you will see people are worshipping.
Then it is also it has a part of religion.
OK, people worship, but it is not in the way of a religion
that people think it is a religion because the definition
of the word religion is constant, worshipping and
believing into a supernatural and superhuman being or a God.
In that sense, Buddhism is not a religion.
It is also it has more philosophical aspects, but it is
not just a study of these concepts.
You cannot just stop from studying about the impermanence
and the existence and everything just as a study.
You have to dive into these studies and you have to practice
it. It runs beyond the studying.
It goes to the practice, and you have to realize by yourself,
through yourself, what the reality is.
That is what Buddhism is. OK, so if I said that what
Buddhism is, the Buddhism is all about the four Noble truths.
So that is the answer that I can give to a person who is asking
this question, What is Buddhism? It is about the Four Noble
truths and the reality of this world.
So keep this in your mind. Namo Buddhaya.
He did, yeah. I, I was, I was wondering if
anybody catch that. But anyway, moving on.
There are the four noble truths that are mentioned,
unsatisfactoriness or suffering. Either one would be kind of the
same idea. He presents it as
unsatisfactoriness, but yet the first you would see would be the
Duca, which is suffering or unsatisfactoriness.
Life in this world is inherently unsatisfying and marked by pain,
frustration, and pertinent and permanence.
Birth, aging, sickness, and death are all examples of the
suffering. Even pleasure is temporary and
cannot fully satisfy the heart. Interestingly enough, they're
identifying a problem of which the Bible speaks of.
There is something to say that satisfaction of this life in and
of itself is, well, unsatisfying.
I just read this last week through the book of Ecclesiastes
and here is a man who had everything.
The Buddha thinks that he had a lot.
Well, let me tell you, compared to Solomon, he had nothing.
But yet even Solomon looks at his life and he surveys
everything. And what is the word that he
continually uses? Vanity, vexation of spirit.
That I have all these things, but yet what good is it doing
me? In fact, he says, I've collected
these things for my whole life and the only thing I get to do
is to hand it off to somebody else.
That we come into this world and we leave this world with the
exact same as we started, didn't it?
And so there is some level of an itch that is to be scratched
there. That is the issue of suffering.
But again, the issue is not necessarily what they diagnose
as a problem. I wouldn't say the main problem,
but a problem of life. It is the answer that they have
for that problem. They continue with the Samediah,
which is the cause of the suffering.
They say suffering arises from craving and attachment.
We cling to people, possessions, experiences, believing they will
bring lasting happiness. This craving and entangles us in
the cycle of birth and death and rebirth.
And that's why the Buddha would have left his own family and
said, well, I'll have to go my own way and try to find my own
way. And even as I was watching, I
was thinking, whatever happened to your family?
You just left and became enlightened, but you left them
behind. But in his teaching, it's really
not about anyone else and what they need.
It's all about you being able to find that place where you will
end up in Nirvana. Then the Naroda would be the
cessation of suffering. It is possible to end and
suffering by extinguishing craving and attachment.
That liberation is called Nirvana.
This is the place where Buddhists are trying to be able
to go, where their mind is free from desire and the cycle of
constant rebirth. But then yes, the final section
of that is the mega, which is the path to the cessation of
suffering. Yes, the third truth is where a
Buddhist wants to be. The 4th truth tells them how to
be able to get there. This eightfold path that we'll
see in just a moment provides the practical way to end
suffering. It's about ethical conduct.
It's about morality. It's about living in a way that
is taking care of other people. And again, in and of itself,
that morality is something that could be applauded in a way that
people are living in a peaceful and non destructive way.
But again, what is that morality attached to?
That's what this always comes back to.
And so this eightfold path that we see, and I'll just give them
to you very quickly, there's the right view.
That's the understanding of the nature of reality and the truth
of suffering. The right intention is to
cultivate intentions of renunciation, goodwill,
harmlessness. The right speech speak
truthfully, kindly, without causing harm.
The right action behave ethically, avoid killing,
stealing and sexual misconduct. Right livelihood earn a living
in a way that does not harm others.
The right effort actively prevent unwholesome thoughts and
cultivate wholesome thoughts. The right mindfulness maintain
awareness of body feelings, mind right concentration develop deep
meditation that leads mental clarity and insight.
I will say this, Buddhists often live more moral lives than some
Bible believe in Christians. I'm not comfortable with you
saying that, pastor. It just ends up being the truth
is that they take what you see here very, very seriously, that
they are to live ethically moral lives.
And that's why there was that kind of push and pull that he's
talking about. Is it a religion?
Is it a way of life? It was his way of saying that we
should be living out our religion.
Well, we would agree with that as well, that we should be
living out our relationship with Jesus Christ, that the outflow
of our life should be holiness. In fact, we're going to be
talking about this morning at 11:00 when we see that Christ is
holy. But they would, we would look at
that and say these are good things.
They are very moral. But I have to remind you that
morality again, in and of itself won't cause someone to go to
heaven. They won't cause someone to
achieve the Nirvana of which they believe it will.
Isaiah 64 verse 6 But we are all as an unclean thing and all our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags and we do fade as a leaf on
our iniquities like the wind have taken us a well away.
Philippians 3 verse 9 and be found in him.
This important be found in him who is him Jesus Christ, be
found in him not having mine own righteousness.
We could stop right there because the morality and
righteousness of which we're talking about is not just
finding it in a philosophical and moral system.
It is about finding righteousness through Jesus
Christ that he is our righteousness.
He is the one that shows us the path to holiness and he is the
one who saves us because we cannot save ourselves.
So finishing that verse and be found in him not having mine own
righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through
faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by
faith. Now, there's a lot of popular
terms of Buddhism, again, that we have often incorporated into
daily life. And I would say that even as I
was looking at some of these, that it was a reminder to me to
even be careful in how we speak and making sure that we don't
use some of these terms in a way that would almost seem as if we
are approving or as if we are proselytizing for Buddhism
itself. And so some of these you might
be familiar with, some of the terms you might not be familiar
with, but maybe the symbolism you are.
And the first is karma. Karma originally means action or
deed. It refers to the law of cause
effect. In casual use, it really would
mean this. Today, what goes around comes
around. I think that's what people would
say, well, you've got some good karma or that's some bad karma.
You see somebody that is in a bad situation, bad karma.
You see someone that got something maybe they weren't
expecting, that's some good karma.
Here's one of the really insidious things about the issue
of karma. It is really taking away from a
Bible truth because the Bible truth of karma is this the law
of sowing and reaping that is Bible That's not karma.
We don't call sowing and reaping karma.
That is a a gross exaggeration and perversion really of what
the Word of God teaches. Galatians 6 verses 7 and 8.
Be not deceived, God is not mocked.
For whatsoever a man soweth that shall, he also reap, For he that
soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he
that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life
everlasting. Do I believe in karma with a
different name called sowing and reaping?
No, I believe in sowing and reaping and I don't want to try
to give credence to the issue of karma.
So maybe something even in our language day-to-day that we
might not want to say this issue of karma.
We would rather say that it is the issue of sowing and reaping.
Nirvana. For some it's a state of
liberation, for others it's a band.
But what is Nirvana? It is.
I thought I'd slip that one in. So it is a state of liberation
from suffering and the cycle of rebirth.
It is commonly used to describe a place or a state of perfect
happiness and peace. But yet, if you are not
enlightened, as I mentioned, I don't think we'll show that
third video, gentleman, because of time.
I want to get to some of my other slides here.
But they do believe in heaven and hell, but again, not the way
that we would believe in heaven and hell.
They believe that they are just other realities.
There are other existences that there is not a real hell or lake
of fire as the Bible teaches, and that heaven is a place of
permanent and eternal rest would not be the place of which they
teach. It would be either that they are
just other states as you are on that cycle of trying to be able
to find Nirvana in and of yourself.
But again, if you think Nirvana is their word for heaven, it is
not their word for heaven. It is a state of mind.
It is a state of being. It is not an actual place where
people would spend eternity, and even if we were to say it was,
we recognize that they would not spend an eternity there because,
well, they do not believe in Jesus Christ.
Because heaven is about what I am, the way, the truth, and the
life. No man cometh unto the Father,
but by me. That wasn't the Buddhist
speaking, that was Jesus who spoke and said those words.
Here's another one that's often used Zen.
It's originally a school of Northern Buddhism that focused
on meditation. Now you'll say, pastor, is it
meditation a good thing? Well, meditation is a wonderful
thing. But as I've often said here it
we're going to converse about these things.
We have to define our terms as Bible believers.
We do believe in meditation, but we don't believe in the Zen form
of meditation where, you know, we put mats out and we cross our
legs. Some of us, we cross our legs.
We won't be able to uncross our legs.
We help getting back up, but you know, put our fingers out and
hum, you know, or chant or something like that, or have a
mantra of which we'll look at in a second.
This is not what Bible believing meditation is.
Bible believing meditation is to focus on the word, to focus on
that which God has already revealed.
That's why you read the Psalms and you find that term Selah.
I love that. What is Selah?
Therefore, it means stop, pause, meditate, think on these things.
In fact, if you're reading through the Psalms and you see
Selah, you ought to stop there for a minute and really consider
why you read what you just read. Now, if you're like me, you
might be just going from point A to point B and your Bible
reading and you say Cela and you keep right on trucking, right?
But there will be nothing wrong with just taking a moment saying
the Lord literally in his Word has preserved a stop sign for me
to stop and meditate. This is not the meditation we're
talking about. They're talking about emptying
your mind of everything that you are thinking of.
Why? Because you're trying to get
your place, your mind to that place of Nirvana that you can
eventually reach is a very dangerous thing to empty your
mind of all thoughts. You say, pastor, why would it be
so dangerous? Well, there is one who would
love to fill your mind with thoughts as you empty it.
And so no, we're not talking about biblical meditation here.
It is reaching that place of of them.
Well, how do we reach true peace in this life?
Well, Isaiah 26 verse 3 says thou will keep him in perfect
peace whose mind is stayed on thee, for he trusteth in thee.
So what is biblical meditation? I'm staying my mind.
I am focusing my mind on Jesus Christ.
How do I do that? I focus on his word.
I consider his word, I ponder his word.
I read my Bible reading in the morning and what do I do in the
afternoon? I'm still chewing on what I read
in the morning. Remember, reading your Bible
isn't just about making sure check off your box for the day,
read it in the morning and think about it in that afternoon.
If you read it at night, sometimes some people that's
better. Sometimes if you're like me, the
day got out of hand and it's night and I'm thinking, I said I
read my Bible today. I'm going to read my Bible
tonight. I have to remind myself in the
morning, what did I just read last night?
Because I want to meditate on it and focus on it's not just about
reading my Bible. So I said I read my Bible,
Jesus, I've been a good Christian.
I read my Bible today. He said, well, why don't you
meditate on it? Something think about what you
read. This is, this is truly what it
is. And so not the Zen form of
meditation, certainly not the case at all.
The mantra, what is what's your mantra?
Now people will say things like that.
Well, my mantra is I don't have mantras, All right, that's my
mantra. Why?
Because mantra comes from Buddhism, and it means a sacred
syllable word or phrase that is often repeated during
meditation. That could be a mantra in and of
itself. In secular context today,
usually people mean it's like a motto or a principle that you
would live by. This is my mantra.
This is what I live by. But yet when you continually
utter the same phrase over and over and over again, you're not
accomplishing what you think you're accomplishing.
I always go back to paganism because paganism constantly
reminds people to say the same thing over and over again.
What does the the Lord tell us? Avoid vain repetitions.
That's what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount.
He says you think that you shall be heard for your for your much
speaking. This is Matthew chapter 6.
He said, he said, be ye not therefore like unto them, for
your Father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask
them. That's what Jesus said.
But the mantra is this. In fact, when I think of a
mantra you just mentioned, when I think of the mantra, I go back
to Mount Carmel. And when Elijah was in that
great contest with the prophets of Baal, and it says that for
hours the prophets of Baal, attempting to be able to have
Baal hear them, chanted, O Baal hear us, O Baal hear us, O Baal
hear us. That was their mantra, if you
will. But Elijah didn't have to go.
O Jehovah, hear us. O Jehovah, hear us.
The Bible says he prayed a simple prayer.
He repaired the altar. And what happened?
The fire fell down from heaven and they consumed the sacrifice,
the wood, the water and the altar.
That's some kind of fire. Why?
Because God was just saying I don't need your mantra, I need
you. And obviously Israel saw the
power of God that day. I just mentioned Matthew chapter
6 verse 7. But when you pray, use not vain
repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall
be heard for their much speaking.
We don't need a mantra. The mandala.
Now, you may not be familiar
with this term, but you may be familiar with the actual item
itself. This is a geometric design.
I'm kind of kicking myself that I did not put a photo of it here
today, but you could look it up yourself.
The mandala. This is a geometric figure which
is often used for focus during meditation.
You're meditating, you're clearing your mind and you're
focusing on this picture. Few years ago there was this
really popular trend of having coloring books for older people.
You know, I want to say adult coloring books, but I, I, you
understand, I'm, I'm, I'm talking about the fact that
these are not little kids that are coloring, you know, pictures
of Paw Patrol or something like that.
This is adults and using, well, don't knock it, you know, if you
haven't tried it, but but you know, color pencils and stuff
like that. A lot of those are actually
Mandelas. A lot of people don't realize
that if you look at those, those are actually for the purpose of
focusing during meditation. I'm not saying that if you
happen to color one of those, you're accidentally going to
become a Buddhist. I'm not saying it, but all I am
saying is to be aware of those things because they slip into
popular consciousness without us even realize.
He said, well, that's a kind of a cool little figure right there
where other people would look at it and say, boy, that is what
I'll focus on to get to the place of Zen during my
meditation. And so we need to be careful how
we let these things slip into our lives.
Again, I would not suggest that if you colored this and you
didn't even I'm, I'm a Buddhist. I don't even know how this
happened. But again, we're to be wise as
serpents and harmless as doves. At the same time, we should be
aware of what Satan uses to soften our defenses to things
that are not of the Lord, but of Satan.
And then here's the last one that we're very familiar with is
the guru. That's a financial guru.
Hey, that guy is a political guru.
These are terms that we use often, and we just mean that
somebody is very knowledgeable in their field.
That's what we would mean. But at the same time, in
Hinduism, the guru is a spiritual teacher.
It is someone who is like that gentleman that you saw just a
few moments ago. I would assume that he would be
considered a guru to a following that he has.
And so the term guru is one that, you know, again, we would
use in a much different way, but it doesn't come from our own
popular way of talking, but rather it is a term that has
been borrowed from Buddhism. Now I want to very quickly gives
you some Christian apologetics, some some problems with Buddhism
on top of what we have already read here today.
Buddhism offers the solution to life'll problems as an
impersonal solution. You need to extinguish yourself.
That's the issue. Suffering is the key.
Find the middle way. Yourself is not yourself, but
you must find your own path. But Christianity teaches
something much different. Biblical Christianity teaches a
personal God who loves humanity and acts throughout history.
Psalm 145 verse 18 The Lord is nigh unto all of them that call
upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.
And of course John 316 as well. Salvation by works versus
salvation by grace. A Buddhism emphasizes self
effort To reach Nirvana you have to find your own Nirvana.
But Christianity emphasizes grace through faith.
Ephesians 2894 by grace are you saved through faith and that not
of yourself. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast moral authority.
This is a big one. Buddhism relies on karma as an
impersonal moral law. How do you know if you've done
well or not? Well, it's all about karma.
And the best you can tell about how your moral your life is, is
if good karma is coming your way.
And perhaps you are not doing so well because you found bad karma
is coming your way again. There's a problem with that.
We have found, as I mentioned just a few services ago, that
the rainfalls on the just and the unjust.
And so there could be some that think, wow, the rain came today.
I must have good karma when it really is just.
God is merciful and gracious upon you, and you might perceive
that as God is blessing your efforts when your efforts are
wicked. And so that's a problem.
But rather, Christianity grounds morality in God's character.
What's moral, What's holy? Can we put it that way again, to
tie into what we're going to be looking at at 11:00 this
morning, What is holy? Well, it's not what is holy,
it's who is holy. We look at who is holy and we
see what His Holiness is, and then we understand true
holiness. Isaiah 33, verse 22.
The Lord is our judge. The Lord is our lawgiver, the
Lord is our king. He will save us.
Psalm 119 One O 5 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a what
light unto my path, Hope of eternal life.
Here's another place that we could see differences.
Buddhism offers Nirvana based on self.
This is what you have done. Christianity offers resurrection
and eternal life through Christ. John 1125 and 26 I am the
resurrection and the life he that believeth in me, though he
were dead, yet shall he live first.
John 511 and 12. This is the record that God has
given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
This is where we find eternal life.
Buddhism teaches to overcome suffering you must become
detached. This is the way to overcome
suffering. However, Christianity teaches
transformation through Christ and finding purpose in
suffering. Could you imagine if the Apostle
Paul tried to live like Buddha? The Apostle Paul had all kinds
of troubles and tribulations and trials, but instead of doing
that which would have removed himself from those troubles,
what did God teach him? My grace is sufficient for Thee,
he says. That is what will bring you
through the trials and difficulties of life.
Why? For my strength is made perfect
and weakness. This is what Paul says so much
different from that which is taught by the Buddhist.
I have to draw short here this morning, but just in summary,
Buddhism offers profound insights on suffering,
meditation, and ethical living. There are very ethical people,
but in very ethical people does not mean that they are
biblically correct. They lack a personal God.
They lack divine revelation, they lack eternal hope.
Buddhism cannot even agree with itself what it is.
Do we worship the Buddha or not? Is it a religion?
Is it a philosophy? Is it a way of life?
As we saw in the video just a few moments ago, Christianity
rather provides salvation by grace, a personal God, eternal
life and moral certainty. And so I would caution you as we
look here at the conclusion, first of all, let's be careful
in Co opting the terms of those who do not believe in the Bible.
Let's be careful in incorporating those to our daily
life because it could mean that we are not having the influence
that we want to have with the lost as we're around them.
If somebody has something good happened to them and you say,
wow, I found 20 bucks on the street right there, man, that's
some good karma you got today. What you may not be realizing is
you're reinforcing error in someone's life.
You don't know how they will take that.
You just mean it as another word.
But to them, they might think, you know what, maybe maybe
that's just the way life is, good karma and bad karma.
You may reinforce error and make it actually harder for the next
person to come by and teach truth from the Bible.
So let's be careful on how we use those terms.
But if I was to give you just a couple of thoughts here that I I
put together as summarizing thoughts.
Buddhism may encourage moral behavior, but it fails to
address the ultimate source of morality.
When right and wrong are based on human opinion, humanity
effectively sets itself up as its own God.
That's problem number one. Problem 2.
Buddhism may emphasize the pursuit of peace after this
life, but it overlooks the truth that Jesus is the only way, the
true and eternal life. There is no peace any other way
than through Jesus Christ. And the Buddhist may be peaceful
people, the Buddhist people may be moral and ethical people, and
for that in this life we applaud them.
However, it will not achieve them eternal life.
They will be much better to find what true morality, true ethics
are and that is found through Jesus Christ.
Thank you for listening to this sermon from the pulpit of
Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing
to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us
know by contacting us at info@mylibertybaptist.org.
Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,
MA. May the Lord bless you as you
grow in His Word.