Michigan Camp Meeting 2017

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Exit the Dragon: Spiritual Dangers of Martial Arts

Bayani Pastrana

Exit the Dragon: Spiritual Dangers of Martial Arts- Part 1

Heavenly Father, as we have come together this afternoon, we pray that you guide and lead us by your Spirit.

Help us all to glean understanding from your Word and from your guidance through your Spirit.

We thank you for your love and your mercy.

Alright, this afternoon's presentation, Exit the Dragon, and this is for the whole week, subtitled, The Spiritual Dangers of the Martial Arts, and that, of course, is me by Andy Pastrana.

There was a time when I would just get right into it, but a friend of mine told me, no, you got to let them know what your background is.

But I, you know, and I would tell them, no, I don't want, you know, I don't want them to even know about me.

But then this friend of mine pointed out that, well, people tend to listen more when you've actually been in something.

My main discipline was kung fu, 5 animals.

I trained dragon, crane, tiger, snake, and panther.

I trained hungar, I trained kempo, bit of tai chi.

I did train weapons, broadsword, bo staff, nunchucks.

And those are just to mention some, because those were my main disciplines.

Then I got into a new age and spiritualism via the martial arts.

And we're going to be talking more about that in a moment.

And this week we're going to go through different things and I hope you can stay with me in our journey because I'm going to share my journey through this whole thing.

And what I'm going to be sharing is some of my experiences in basically in spiritualism through the martial arts.

Today's topic is going to be the personal god versus a universal energy.

We're going to get into the foundation of the martial arts.

Now what's important to understand is when you buy a house, anybody ever buy a house before?

1 of the important things to know when you buy a house is what kind of foundation you have.

You may have a nice house, you know, with nice lighting.

It can even be made out of brick on the outside and so forth, but if your foundation has cracks in it, you're gonna be in big trouble because that's going to cost you more than the house itself.

And what we're going to look at to begin with is the foundation for the martial arts.

Today we're going to get into the personal God versus a universal energy.

Like I said, I grew up as a Catholic, but I did not know God.

When I got into the Word, 1 of the things, and this is 1 of my wife's favorite texts, mine as well, Jeremiah 31, 3, Many of you know this, right?

The Lord hath appeared unto me of old, saying, Yea, I have what?

Love thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.

Understand that I love the martial arts, but as I got to know the Lord, I loved Him more.

So it's not about saying, okay, well I don't like the martial arts so I'm just gonna leave.

If there's something you don't like, it's easy to leave it.

But when you enjoy it, if it's something you've been doing, if it's part of you, it makes it harder.

A studio I ran, we're open 6 days a week, but I did it 24-7.

I'd be fighting, I'd be doing kick, I'm laying down but my kicks are going up and I'm doing punches and so forth.

My wife 1 time, now understand, I trained 11 years but my wife trained as well, She trained for 5 and a half years.

She used to throw guys down that were 200 pounds plus, and she's only 5 feet tall.

I remember 1 time we were sleeping, and I woke up and my wife was angry with me.

I couldn't understand why, but she explained to me what happened.

I was fighting in my sleep, and what had happened is I ended up hitting her.

And she, of course, being a martial artist as well back then, she decided she was going to elbow me right in my head.

She was angry with me, not because I hit her, but because she hit me and I just kept sleeping.

I tell you, it's only the love of God that will draw us away from anything that is not according to His will.

And it can be because, well, I don't like it anymore, so I'll leave.

All we're doing is getting rid of something that we don't like.

John 5.39, search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life.

When I was in the martial arts, I did not open this book.

Even growing up as a Catholic, I did not pay attention to this book.

There was another book in the martial arts that I was actually gaining my philosophy from.

It's known as the I Ching, Book of Changes.

And that's where you learn philosophy and so forth on how to live and so forth.

And as I was studying that book, I learned, okay, these are principles for life.

But then I had, when I started studying the Bible, I now had 2 books.

The 1 book taught me about my right conduct and the right things to do in life and so forth.

This book pointed out that there was somebody who would teach me and actually guide me in right living, and that was Jesus Christ.

And so we find that when I got into the Word, I got into studying the Bible, Jesus Christ became my master, not the other master I used to call a master.

Now some of you are coming here, many of you have an idea of what the martial art is, but what is a martial art?

Martial basically, the word martial, it relates to war.

And then the word art, okay, can also be called a skill.

And thus martial art is war skill, that is, skill in war.

Another way to put it, some also refer to it as the art of war.

So understand that when somebody does the martial art, ultimately it is about engaging in battle.

Now in modern terms, it is most commonly used to refer to fighting systems that developed from the Orient.

And By the way, when you see those Oriental arts, you can actually trace them back to India and the philosophies they have there.

By the way, you trace it far back enough, you'll actually trace it back to Genesis chapter 3.

There are some who make reference to WMA, which is Western Martial Arts, or HEMA, Historical European martial arts.

For example, Greek wrestling, German fencing, French kickboxing, European stick fighting, those kind of things.

But for this presentation, we're going to look at the Eastern arts that most people are aware of, which comes from the Orient.

There are several systems of the martial arts.

In the Chinese arts, you have Chinese temple.

Pa Kua Chang, Chi Kung, and the list goes on.

Exit the Dragon: Spiritual Dangers of Martial Arts- Part 2

Heavenly Father, we thank you once again for your love and your mercies towards each and every 1 of us.

Thank you, Lord, that you have brought us out of darkness and into your marvelous light.

Just be with us now and guide us by your Spirit that we may discern your truths, especially for these last days.

We thank you once again in Jesus' name, Amen.

Exit the dragon spiritual dangers of the martial arts.

Today we're going to look at biblical meditation versus Eastern meditation.

Now as we talked about yesterday, there's a whole concept that the Eastern religions and Eastern thought has that is different from biblical teachings, and that is the concept of God.

The Bible teaches us that God is a personal being who loves us, who cares for us, and who we call our Father, whereas in the Eastern thought, he is merely, or it is merely, some universal force or some sort of power that we become a part of, that we are all connected to.

And we had also mentioned that there's certain things that have been portrayed in movies and so forth, and even 1 of them we mentioned yesterday was about the force in that movie, in that series called Star Wars, where they say, use the force, Luke.

But in essence, it is based on the yin and yang philosophies of opposites coexisting.

That's why darkness will always have, there will always be darkness as long as there is light.

There will always be evil as long as there is good.

That's why even in that movie Star Wars, Luke Skywalker, the good guy, he's supposed to use the force, but then that force was also with Darth Vader, the bad guy, because he was on the dark side of the force and yet it was still the same force.

It wasn't 2 different forces, it was the same force.

Part of it is light, part of it is dark, but 1st John 1 5, it says that God is light and in him is no darkness.

Today we're going to look at how this is tried to accomplish as to how we get that God in us out.

In a martial arts, instead of saying the God in us, they may say the Master in us to get that out.

And again, it's all part of becoming part of this universal force.

And by the way, the system I was involved in, we strongly believe that we can call upon the past masters and the present masters who have connected with this force, with this Dao, they call it a Dao, pronounced with a D but spelled with a T, T-A-O, and that is that they have, there are some that have connected with it.

And for us to try and connect with it, we try and connect and ask those past masters and the present masters to help us to connect as well.

It's the closest thing that you could say that we even prayed.

Let me demonstrate what we used to do as an example.

And so we would basically kneel down and we would go here and then bow.

And by the way, we'd face the East when we did it.

You read Ezekiel chapter 8, you'll see that there's a significance in facing the East.

All these religions are connected together, by the way, and you will see that in a moment.

But we would go like this, and we'd go past masters, and then do it again, present masters, and then we would ask, now when we say present or past masters, we're talking about the dead ones that have passed away.

And we would ask them to help us to connect with them in this whole idea of this universal energy.

Which would be some would call God, but it is not a personal God.

But today we're going to see that the connection or the way we get into that as well is through meditation.

Now all this is basically all part of spiritualism.

You read the great controversy and you'll notice the different parts of Babylon, whether it's Catholicism, whether it's the Protestant America, or anything else, or the third part of Babylon, basically spiritualism, you'll notice that they all connect through spiritual principles.

Now you know this, as good Bible students, that the origin of spiritualism isn't something new.

It goes way back to the first 1 who practiced spiritualism, okay?

Here's what it says, and if you've read this before, I'm sure if you've studied the Great Controversy, you're familiar with this.

Here it says, how art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning?

How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations?

For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

I will be like the Most High." What was his goal?

He wanted to be like God, not in character, but in power and position and prerogative.

Because if he really was like God, then he would not be prideful, he would not exalt himself, he would do what?

Okay, as you read in Philippians 2, talking about Jesus who thought it not to be, thought it not robbery to be called equal with God, and yet he humbled himself and came in the form of a servant.

So we see this individual, Lucifer, he exalted himself, but the God of heaven, what does he do?

Now, but we See here, I will be like the Most High.

And it did not stop there because we know as he was cast down, spiritualism was brought to the human race.

Now we know this to be the devil because in Revelation chapter 12 verse 9 it does let us know that he was called the old serpent or the serpent of old that's because he was back in the Garden of Eden.

It says, a serpent said to him, you shall not surely die.

We talked about that a little bit yesterday.

Says, for God does know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, And you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Now here's what's interesting, a couple of things.

Again, he's letting them know, or he's letting Eve know that you shall be as gods.

Now by the way, Eve did not know other gods, she only knew the 1 and only God.

This could be translated with a capital G, G-O-D, and some Bibles do do that, because it's the same word, Elohim, it's the same word used.

But the point here is again this is the same spirit we found with Lucifer that becoming like God and again not dying.

Now upon death, if we move on to become part of this universal force, guess what?

You were just that force inside and you just came out.

Now, the thing with spiritualism, as you notice, it has come through now, and especially in our days, we see more and more of the occult.

In books, in movies, in TV shows, everywhere.

Video games, children's programs, there are cartoons, I mean they're everywhere and it's accepted.

It is seen that you know there's the good side, right?

You know there's a bad side but there's also the good side.

I remember 1 fellow before I met up with him in 1 of my previous districts, he was, he got into witchery.

He became a witch, but he grew up as a Christian, but he left Christianity and he became a witch and so forth, and he decided he was going to practice the white art, okay, of witchcraft, Okay?

The deeper he got into it, the more he realized there was no such thing as good witchcraft.

But praise God, the Lord delivered him out of that darkness and into his marvelous light.

And had the pleasure of baptizing this individual.

But we see more and more of that, not just among adults, but even children, and it has brought on to the occult.

You go to the library, you go to the bookstore, there's a whole section just on the occult.

You want to get into witchcraft, it's there.

You want to get into other things, whether it's things like the Kundalini and other things that you want to conjure up and so forth.

You want to learn about warlocks, witches, sorcery.

By the way, not just there, also the internet.

The internet's pretty convenient nowadays.

It's so much quicker to do research nowadays.

That's a good thing, but it also, if you're researching the wrong things, it could also be bad.

I remember when I first started following the Lord, I did not have a Bible program.

The internet was just kind of getting started and so forth.

Exit the Dragon: Spiritual Dangers of Martial Arts- Part 3

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to come together once again and to look at some principles in right living.

And Lord, we pray that you guide us by your Spirit.

And for those that are yet coming, we pray that Lord, you bring them swiftly here, that they can catch even the beginning parts of this.

So just be with us, give us guidance, open our eyes that we may see and our ears that we may hear in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Okay, welcome once again to The seminar, Exit the Dragon, Spiritual Dangers of the Martial Arts.

A lot of people have told me I need to write a book, and I was supposed to have it finished before camp meeting, so you guys have something in your hands.

However, as a pastor, I did get quite busy.

I just transitioned to another church district just a couple months ago and I hit the ground running visiting as many people as I can.

Between the 2 churches I got 25 interests for Bible studies we need to follow up on, training members and getting ready for evangelism in 1 of the churches in the fall.

But anyway, if you want an update on, Remnant Publication wants to publish it, so I'll let them do that.

You can email me, let me know that you want updates on when that's available.

And if you have questions, just email me here.

I do have a card for my other email through the conference, but this way if it goes through here I know what the topic is.

And I do have a website that is under construction and it will probably be a while for it to be constructed.

Jesus will probably come before then, okay, before that happens.

So There's my info and this will help me to understand that when you email that that is what you are, what the topic is going to be.

Okay, give you a chance to write that down.

It's done and you don't have to worry about writing it down incorrectly or anything like that.

Today's topic is combative mind versus the mind of Christ.

Now, would you say that we are living in perilous times?

People often ask, and are asking more and more nowadays, what's going to be like in the end times?

I remember this was a few years ago when I was in another church district.

I heard on the news that there was a drive-by shooting, okay?

And this guy, he did a drive-by shooting on somebody who owed him money, but the person was not in there, but the two-year-old child was.

Okay, it was in the car seat, so the child was killed.

The 1 he was actually after was not in there.

When we read the scriptures and you read Matthew 24, when Jesus talks about that we are, you know, when they ask him the question of what it's going to be like at his coming and the end of the world, okay, he gives signs of the nearness of his coming.

He gives signs and other signs of the nearness of his coming.

And then he goes into, in Matthew 24, verse 12, he gets to this part here, where he explains that, because iniquity, that is lawlessness, shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

1 of the signs that we have in these last days is that things are going to get worse and worse.

Do you think violence is going to decrease or increase as we get closer and closer to Christ's return.

Now here's the thing, people look around today And 1 thing I hear a lot is that, well, we need to protect ourselves.

Now understand, I'm not talking about whether you defend yourself or not.

The issue here is do we actively participate and join and learn the Eastern arts for the sake of protecting ourself or defending ourself.

I did a testimony 1 time and I actually called it, because I was invited to a church, I called it self-defense can kill you.

Because people say, well, I got to learn to defend myself.

So their solution is to join self-defense classes, the martial arts, and so forth, the Eastern arts.

If the world is getting worse and if violence is going to increase as we get closer to Christ's return, What does that tell you about the training you need to do then if that is your solution?

Should you train less or will you need to train more and more and more?

You will not be able to keep up with it, dear friends.

The solution is actually in 2 verses later.

But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

As people get colder and colder, as violence increases, we are to endure what is going on.

But here is the solution, dear friends, verse 14.

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come." What is the solution to verse 12?

Iniquity shall abound, so the love of many shall wax cold.

The gospel needs to go out into all the world for witness unto all nations, then the end shall come.

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Exit the Dragon: Spiritual Dangers of Martial Arts

Exit the Dragon: Spiritual Dangers of Martial Arts- Part 5

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