Man: Quite a good scene, isn't it? One man crazy, three very sane spectators. Look, it's moving. It's alive. It's alive. It's alive. It's moving. It's alive. It's alive. It's alive. It's alive. It's alive. In the name of God, now I know what it feels like to be God.
Man: There's a great line by Shakespeare in which he says, "We know what we are. We know not what we may be." In the age of accelerating technologies in which we extend the cognitive reach of our mind, the perimeters of our humanness with these extensions of self, these exoskeletons, these technological scaffolding, the wings of our aircraft and the signals traveling through our smartphones, sending our thoughts electrified at the speed of light across oceans of sky. We redefine and extend what it means to be human.
Edward O. Wilson says, we have actually decommissioned natural selection. Now we must look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become. We are now the chief agents of evolution. We have reverse engineered the software of biology and are about to rewire and upgrade and redefine what it is to be a homo sapien. Marvin Minsky used to say will robots inherit the earth? Yes, they will, but they will be our children.
Man: Now, just to give you an idea of what this transhumanism is, it's basically the idea that man can exceed the limitation that God has put upon him. Okay? God has created human beings with certain limitations. We're not all knowing. We're not all powerful. We're not all present like God is. We have human limitations. This idea of transhumanism is to use science and technology to exceed those limitations, and especially when people talk about transhumanism, they often refer to the ability of human beings to live on beyond a normal lifespan, even to live forever. Not eternal life through Jesus, spiritually, but rather physically to make our bodies be able to live forever, reverse the aging process or use technology or what have you.
Steven Anderson: The Bible says that God is the master of all things in heaven and on earth. That God created us and guides the world we live in. A total mastery of the universe may not be just a divine power. It could be our destiny. Will we someday not only play God, but be God? What will we do with our omnipotence?
Man: With nanotechnology, you're dealing with atoms, right? The building blocks of the physical world. If all the miracles of computation and information technology are living in the space of ones and zeroes, they can be made into the hundred thousand songs in your pocket. They can be made into miraculous devices that let you make wormholes that talk to other people across the world. All of that ones and zeroes. When we're able to do that, when we're able to play the instruments, just like we do in the digital space but with atoms, then all the physical world will be as manipulatable as digital. Oh, man, that's it, like we've transcended. Like, we're done at that point. We're playing with atoms. We're Gods.
Man: Ultimately, it's ability to become far more, the term is dangerous to say, but Godlike.
Man: But I am eager to move on beyond version 1.0 of our biological bodies. Particularly when we can have virtual bodies, we can be different people in different situations. We don't have to have the same boring body all the time.
Man: We are going to become Gods. Period. If you don't like it, get off. You don't have to contribute. You don't have to participate. If you're going to interfere with me becoming God, we're going to have big trouble.
Steven Anderson: First of all, I just want to point out, in the scripture, here, Genesis Chapter 3, that when man had reached a level that God did not want him to reach, where he had exceeded the limits that God had placed upon him, God put a stop to man's progress at that point.
Speaker 3: The Lord God said, "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil. Now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever." Therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden.
Steven Anderson: Why was man kicked out of the Garden of Eden in the first place? After man took of the forbidden fruit and took of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God said that he did not want him to continue in the Garden, because he would be able to eat of the tree of life and live forever. God did not want him to both have the knowledge of good and evil, and be able to eat of the tree of life and live forever. That's why he had to be thrust forth from the Garden of Eden. Why? Because God had commanded man not to eat of that tree, and he said, "In the day that thoust eatest thereof thou shall surely die." The moment that Adam ate of that fruit, he died spiritually, not physically, but spiritually he died.
Speaker 3: The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Steven Anderson: The Bible says, "Wherefore is by one man's sin entered into the world, and death by sins." Death passed upon all men for that all have sinned. Bible says it is appointed unto men once to die. See, death is the punishment for our sins. God's not going to allow men to circumvent death through physical means. If God would have allowed it here, man could have taken of the tree of life and eating of it and lived forever. God said, "I'm not going to let that happen. That's why I'm going to throw him out of the Garden of Eden."
Now, flip over to Genesis 11 and you'll see something similar. Genesis Chapter 11. In Genesis 11, we have a story of the Tower of Babel.
Speaker 3: The whole earth was of one language and of one speech. It came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar. They dwelt there. They said one to another, "Go to, let us make brick and burn them thoroughly." They had brick for stone and slime had they for mortar. They said, "Go to, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven. Let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."
The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. The Lord said, "Behold, the people is one and they have all one language. This they begin to do. Now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down and there confound their language that they might not understand one another's speech." The Lord scattered them abroad from thence, upon the face of all the Earth, and they left off to build the city.
Steven Anderson: What we see here is that when man reaches a level that God doesn't want him to reach, then God puts a stop to it. When they are at a point where God says, "Now nothing's going to be restrained from them." He steps in and He stops the progress dead in its tracks. When we think of transhumanism and people seeking technologies to gain immortality or to kind of play God with human beings and create genetically modified human beings or super human beings, transhumans, then I believe based on the study of scripture, based on Genesis 3, based on Genesis 11, that this will not be allowed to take place. I don't believe that it will ever happen.
Crowd: Right.
Steven Anderson: Just going into it, all these technologies I'm going to bring up in this sermon, I do not believe that man will achieve these technologies, because I think when God looks down and sees what man is doing and says, "Wow, he's becoming like unto us," historically in the Bible, He steps in and puts a stop to it. We know how things are going to end upon this earth. We have the Book of Revelation. We have 1 and 2 Thessalonians that explain to us, in detail what the end times are going to be like. We know that there's a period coming known as The Tribulation. We know that the second coming of Jesus Christ is real and it's going to take place. The question is, when will these things take place? We don't know. I personally believe that the second coming of Jesus Christ will take place before these transhuman type technologies are reached.
Dr. Michio Kaku: Welcome to Next World. I'm Doctor Michio Kaku, a physicist and a futurist. I use science to predict the future. In fact, in medicine, and our way of life, everything is going to change explosively in the next 30 years. The future will be an exciting, fascinating new world completely different from what it is now.
Man: Kevin Kelly describes the emergence of language as a singularity. He says if you draw a line in the sand, the humans pre language and the humans post language, the world post language would be unimaginable to the humans on the other side of that line. Perhaps we are due for another kind of consciousness reset. It's a wonderfully enthralling idea and I think it's inevitable in the same way that our exponential, technological trajectory seems to be inevitable. You never realize that the singularity's happening until you're on the other side, and you're like, "Wow, it's a different world." The thing is, usually those things are generational. The thing is now that's happening within one's lifespan. It's kind of we get to bear witness to it.
The singularity's become kind of a controversial term. People that are against the idea think that it's just a technologist's version of The Rapture. It's heaven on earth. It's the second coming. We're all going to become immortal. Woo hoo. I think that that's kind of an over simplistic definition. I don' think that that's what people really refer to when they talk about the singularity. Kurzweil says it's a metaphor. It's a tool that we use to understand something. It's a metaphor borrowed from physics that describes what happens when you go through a black hole. When you go through a black hole, the laws of physics as we know them collapse. Borrow that metaphor to describe what's happening in the information technology.
We have artificial intelligence, information technology, computation advancing exponentially, biotechnology, mastering the information processes of biology, advancing exponentially. We have nanotechnology, patterning atoms, the building blocks of the material world the way we pattern bits of digital information, advancing exponentially, three overlapping revolutions set to remake the world as we know it. As unimaginable to see what's happening beyond that singularity as it would be to explain the nuances of Shakespeare to a chimp, simply unimaginable to us in our current wetware.
The world is going to change so dramatically and so drastically that we need poetry and we need metaphors to try to map that out. We simply don't have the equations to tell us exactly what that world is going to look like.
Steven Anderson: It's just simply not going to happen, because I don't believe that God's going to allow it to happen. I believe the second coming of Christ will happen before that happens. That's what I believe based on the scriptures. Look over, if you would, to the Book of Isaiah, chapter 14, Isaiah Chapter 14. While you're turning there, I'll read for you from Genesis 3 Verse 5. When the devil was first tempting man to eat from of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, here's what he said. "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
The devil is trying to tempt man with this idea of being like God. He said, "You'll be as gods knowing good and evil." They take that bait. They eat of the forbidden fruit. Then, when God says, "You've become like as one of us, knowing good an evil," He casts them out of the Garden. See, there was a little bit of truth in the devil's lie. When the devil lies to us, sometimes he'll mix in a little bit of truth to make it more believable and to get people to fall for it.
Look at Isaiah 14 where the Bible talks about the devil himself falling. It says in Verse 12.
Speaker 3: How art thou fallen from heaven, Oh Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations? For thou has 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." Yet, thou shall be brought down to hell, to the sight of the pit.
Steven Anderson: In this scripture, we see his pride, his arrogancy, how great he thinks he is. It all comes down to that final statement. "I will be like the most high." That was the downfall of Satan. Then that's what he tempts man with, wanting to be like God. This transhumanism, as I'm going to show you in this sermon, is nothing more than man trying to step into the place of God. It's nothing more than pride and arrogancy that says that we can create something greater than what God has created. You see, the crowning achievement of God's creation was mankind. He created the earth. He created the animals and then the final achievement is when he creates man in his own image after his own likeness. That is the greatest thing that God created, a human being. Okay?
Man thinks that he can improve upon that. That's what transhumanism is, creating something better than what God has made. If you listen these guys to talk, they're so prideful and arrogant and they talk about how our bodies were not designed by God, they're just an accident of evolution. They're not perfect. There's all these problems with them and all these improvements that we could make and so forth. They want to play god and do a better job with it.
Man: Yeah. I think if I did this interview with you in 25 years, probably 20-30% of me would already be machine parts or completely synthetic. I have friends right now who are about a year, maybe two years away from amputating a limb and putting on a robotic limb. The robotic limbs that tie into your neural system now have gotten so sophisticated that you can grab a glass of water, you can write with them.
Man: They'd be doing this by choice or because [crosstalk 00:18:13]?
Man: Yes, that's the whole thing. They'd be doing it electively. It's one thing if you've lost your arm because you were in a war zone and a landmine or something like that. There are bio hacker transhumanists out there, young kids mostly, that really want to take it to the next level. They're also trying to implant chips onto their brains so that they can be the very first people to commune with basic artificial intelligence. They have the first telepathic communication with machines. We now have so much different type of brainwave headsets and brainwave technology that you can actually put a chip in your head and talk to your computer in a very basic ... It's the beginning of The Matrix.
This is what some of these bio hackers are starting to. It's a part of the transhumanist community, but it's sort of the real aggressive kind of young crowd. I totally support it. I think it's wonderful stuff. The arm one's very important because I actually was like an artificial arm, too. Eventually, in probably 10 to 15 years, you're going to be able to take a football and throw it a mile. I mean, there's going to be advantages at some point about this. The question is how will your family member deal with it. How would my wife deal with it? She's like, "Well, if it's some robotic metal arm, I don't like it." It might be a warm synthetic arm that looks very similar to what flesh is and still be able to throw a football a mile long. We're going there. I bet in 25 years I might have something like that.
Man: Now, listen to me very carefully.
Man: Our brains are remarkable, miraculous even. They can't do everything unless we give them a little high tech help.
Man: When children see the movie The Matrix and they see Neo jacking in an electrode and all of a sudden becoming a kung fu master, the first question they ask is how can I get one? Well, this does not yet exist. It's actually physically possible.
Man: The key to transforming learning from an organ process to a machine like downloading of information is a squiggly bit of brain known as the hippocampus.
Man: We can enhance the animal's ability to remember. You could think about using devices like this to greatly enhance human memory and to shorten the cycle for learning in terms of downloading huge quantities of memory at a single time.
Man: Chips that augment our hippocampus could very well help us learn faster. Will that make them a must have for competitive parents?
Man: At that point, it could create an arms race in elementary school.
Woman: What's four times three?
Man: Rumors go out that, "Well, Jones' kid, he's been enhanced. Our Johnny has to compete with this enhanced kid."
Man: The reality is that with these kinds of technologies, they do not get distributed to everyone at the same time. Some people get it first. Some people get it better.
Man: As a society, we have to really think long and hard about who gets this. If it's just the wealthy that there are real dangers that they will use it to consolidate their power and their wealth.
Man: Transhumanism, what are your general thoughts of transhumanism? What do you know about it?
Man: My understanding of transhumanism is that basically involves using technology to transcend our limitations as human beings. Most of the time when I've heard people discuss transhumanism, they were talking life extension, even to the point of living forever, physically on this earth, because obviously, we as human beings don't have that physical capability, but there are people who think that technology could be used to achieve that.
Steven Anderson: Now why does man seek to live forever? Why does man even want to have a life that never ends? Because the bible tells us that those who are not saved have a fear of death. The bible says in Hebrews 2:14.
Speaker 3: For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death it might destroy him, that at the power of death, that is, the death, and delivered them, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
Man: If scientists were to cure aging in the future would you want that? Would you take that option?
Woman: Yes.
Man: Yeah?
Woman: Yeah.
Man: You want to what?
Woman: I want to live forever.
Man: You want to live forever?
Woman: Yeah.
Man: If I could, I think I'd want to live forever.
Man: Why?
Man: Because I love life.
Man: My relationship with death remains the same. I'm strongly against it.
Man: Really, I have to say that I just enjoy being alive.
Man: I do not want to end up in a place like this.
Man: The human species, human being is not a coffin. The human being is something that is designed and can by able to live forever.
Man: Are you trying to live forever?
Woman: Of course!
Man: I don't want to die.
Man: You don't want to die.
Man: Don't want to die.
Man: You could take a pill that would let you be young and healthy forever. Would you want to take that pill?
Woman: Yes.
Man: Yeah?
Woman: I would, mm-hmm (affirmative).
Man: You'd want to live forever?
Woman: Yeah. I want to be here for as long as I could be.
Woman: I want to live forever.
Man: You want to live forever.
Woman: Of course.
Man: Why would you want to live forever?
Man: Because there's way too much for me to do in 80 years.
Man: Doesn't feel natural to die.
Woman: I'm really afraid to die.
Woman: I'd want to cure aging and live forever.
Woman: I never, never want to die.
Woman: Of course, absolutely, that would be the best thing that can happen to a person in terms of life. That's what I think.
Woman: I want to get old.
Man: You'd want to live forever?
Woman: Yeah. Of course.
Woman: Just what, I don't want to get old. I don't want to get old and then just be like slow and needing help from people.
Woman: Because I don't want to be old.
Man: I want to live as long as I can. I don't want to die.
Speaker 7: (singing)
Steven Anderson: You see, the believer says, "Oh, death, where is thy sting. Oh, grave, where is thy victory. For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you." To the unsaved, they fear death. They don't know what it is. They don't want to go there. Basically, they want to try to extend their life through technology instead of seeking the way, the truth and the life. Jesus Christ, who offers eternal life through faith in his love, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish but have eternal life. They want to bypass that and make their own eternal life, live forever on their own terms. This is what transhumanism is.
Now, let me mention to you a few different types of transhumanism. Basically, for my understanding, there are basically three different methods that the transhumanists would use to seek to achieve eternal life without Jesus, just eternal life physically on this earth. I'm going to mention those three different methods that they will use.
Number one is to genetically modify our bodies. Find that aging gene and turn that thing off, right? Reverse the aging process. Somehow get in and genetically modify man where he would live much longer or even live forever. This is one school of thought amongst the transhumanists.
Man: The biggest promise would be the ability to manipulate life forms in ways that would be beneficial to alleviate disease or minimize infection. To improve the human condition. Since 2000 or so there's been explosion in our ability to be able to sequence not just short stretches of DNA but the DNA in complete genomes, from simple bacterial systems, microorganisms, to man.
Man: As we're learning more about our DNA and our bodies and we're actually going in now and starting to manipulate characteristics. If your baby is about to be born and the doctor says, "Your baby has a health problem." We can go in and fix the baby before your baby's born. Imagine a time where you go to see your doctor and the doctor says, "You have to choose one of these intelligence ability, withstand disease, physical strength," a whole series of things to basically enhance their babies before they're born and giving them longevity or super strength or higher intelligence.
This sounds like science fiction, but this is all coming so quickly. Are we a combination of a man and machine? Are we literally going in and changing the genetic structure, the future of our species? This used to take millions of years to evolve. Now we may be able to do this in literally a matter of years.
Steven Anderson: Now, this goes to the point that they think that they can do better than God. They're going to go into the DNA of man and make something better, improve upon it. Here's what the Bible says about what God does. If you would, turn to Psalm 139. The Bible says in Genesis 1:31, "And God saw everything that he had mad and beheld it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." The Bible says in Ecclesiastes Chapter 3, Verse 14, I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it nor anything taken from it and God doeth it that man should fear before him."
The Bible says that when God makes something, he makes it very well. He looked upon all of his creations very good. God is the ultimate creator. God has a perfect design. Now how could man be a greater design when we're made in His image? He's God.
The Bible says in Psalm 139, Verse 13, "For thou has possessed my reigns. Thou has covered me in my mother's womb." Verse 14, "I will praise the, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are thy works and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect. In thy book, all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them. How precious, also are thy thoughts unto me, oh God. How great is the sum of them?"
According to the Bible, we are a magnificent creation of God, fearfully and wonderfully made. The Bible says in Psalm 100, Verse 3, "Know ye that the Lord, He is God. It is He that has made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture." They think that they could do better than God.
A verse that comes to mind is Psalm 131, Verse 1, where the Bible reads, "Lord, my heart is not haughty nor mine eyes lofty. Neither do I exercise myself in great matters or in things to high for me." We need to realize that there are certain things that are beyond the scope of what we should be tampering with, meddling with, worried about. We think that we can do better than God.
Now, the reason why the transhumanist thinks that he can improve upon God's creation is because he believe that man is an evolved animal and that man is not made in the image of God.
Crowd: Right.
Steven Anderson: The Bible says that man is made in the image of God and then it goes beyond that. It says that after God had formed man from the dust of the earth, that he then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. Man is a living soul created in the image of God, fearfully and wonderfully made. These evolutionary biologists, they look at the body as being imperfect. It needs to be improved upon. We could do better.
I heard this crazy, psycho, science woman saying, "Imagine a Versace body design."
Woman: These individuals, the late Versace was an incredible designer. What if he was a transhuman? What if he was an artist who really wanted to combine art an science. I bet his designs for a future body would be astounding.
Steven Anderson: No. I believe God created our bodies right.
Crowd: Right.
Steven Anderson: Do we all just have to look the same and all be just perfect? Maybe there's room for people to be different from one another and have faults and have issues that make them human. If we're too perfect, it's like we're not even human anymore. It'd be like a robot, just perfect all the time.
Which leads me to my next point about how a lot of these transhumanists, they have very misguided ideas about life and the human experience. A lot of these transhumanists will talk about, "Hey, if we can alter man we can make it so that people don't have to go through any pain or suffering. Look at all the pain and suffering people are going through. We need to get rid of that in the world."
Man: [inaudible 00:33:27] comparative, is essentially the idea that humans are going to master their own genetic source code and rewrite a genetic makeup so that life can be based entirely on information sensitive gradients of bliss. Not merely is it going to be possible for us to reengineer ourselves, it will also be possible for us to reengineer the rest of the living world. Nature at the present is essentially at the present, red in tooth and claw. A lot of nature consists of immense cruelty, creatures eating each other. In future it will be possible to enjoy, yeah, essentially paradise engineering, life animated entirely by gradients of intelligent bliss.
One needs to be quite careful here in that clearly there is distinction between what is technically possible and what's actually going to happen. It's worth stressing, again, that we're talking here about phasing out involuntary suffering. It's not as though there are any plausible scenarios involving coercive happiness.
Steven Anderson: Wait a minute, pain and suffering makes us a better person.
Crowd: Right.
Steven Anderson: David said it is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might keep thy word. People who don't go through pain and suffering and struggle in their life are horrible people.
Crowd: Yeah.
Steven Anderson: Did you know that? Look at a child whose given everything that they're want and everything's perfect. What are they? A spoiled brat. You know what? I thank God that I wasn't genetically modified into a perfect human being, prideful and arrogant. I mean, what if we were all just born and raised just tall, slim, good looking, athletic, muscular, smart? You know what we would be? The most arrogant jerks. We'd be horrible people.
Crowd: Yeah.
Steven Anderson: We literally would. That's why Paul said, "I glory in my infirmities." We should be happy. God made us the way that we are. We should just rejoice in who we are and realize that suffering and pain are good for us. They make us who we are. Here's the thing, all of pain is not even really suffering. Sometimes we go through pain and enjoy it. Think about how many people a day exercise and they love the pain of exercise or the pain of struggling up some mountain somewhere or whatever they like to do, running. Look, most people would agree that running can be painful, but yet people love to run. It's a good kind of pain to them. The point is, this idea of eliminating pain and suffering, number one, you're going to create horrible people, spoiled brats of human beings who've never gone through affliction, tribulation and suffering that make them a better person. Then you're also creating people who don't really enjoy life because if you don't have pain, you don't really have pleasure really. It's all just the same to you. You're a spoiled brat. You've dulled the senses at that point.
They have misguided thoughts about life and the human experience. Also, they think it's great to let everybody live forever. Here's the problem with that. There are a lot of bad people, that it's great when it die.
Crowd: Yeah. Really. [inaudible 00:36:48]
Steven Anderson: Seriously. I heard about a horrible person who died this week. This sodomite, reprobate horrible person died. I thought, "You know what? Praise the Lord that this horrible person, this predator is gone." What if the worst kind of predators, the worst kind of people just lived hundreds of years? The Bible says this, okay, and if you would flip over there to 2 Timothy Chapter 3. 2 Timothy Chapter 3. Right now we're just talking about some of the misguided ideas of these transhumanists. They think they're smarter than God.
"Hey, let's eliminate pain and suffering." Hey, you don't have to be that smart that eliminating pain and suffering's a real bad idea. It's going to create horrible people, okay? "Hey, you know, let's make everybody be able to live forever." Okay, that means all the worst people just live and live and live and get worse and worse and worse and worst. Look what the Bible says in 2 Timothy 3, Verse 7, "Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."
There are people out there who it's not like, "Well, you give everybody enough time, eventually they're going to get it." No, the Bible says that there are people who are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Extending their life's not going to help that process. It says in verse 8, "Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses so do these also resist the truth. Men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the faith." Verse 13, "Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse." They're going to get worse he says, deceiving and being deceived. We'll just decide which people can live ... Yeah, who decides.
Man: This equation has four factors, a little bit of multiplication. You've got a thing on the left, CO2, that you want to get to zero. That's going to be based on the number of people, the services, each person choosing on average, the energy on average for each service and the CO2 being put out per unit of energy.
Let's look at each one of these and see how we can get this down to zero. Probably one of these numbers is going to have to get pretty near to zero. That's back from high school algebra. Let's take a look. First we've got population. Now the world today has 6.8 billion people. That's headed up to about 9 billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.
Steven Anderson: What in the world? See. This is very ill conceived. Very misguided type of a thought process. You see, the normal span of our life that God has given us is three score and 10 years. It might be four score. Some people even live to be 100. That is what god has determined as an appropriate lifespan for us on this earth and I am content with that. If that's what God has for me, then that's all I want.
Then I'm ready to go on to glory, to go on to heaven to live eternally with him. I'm not trying to go beyond that because God in his wisdom has decided for a reason to limit our lives to about 70-80 years. That's his choice. As I finish up this point about the genetically modifying of human beings, let me say this. There are often unintended consequences to this genetic tampering. The genetic code of man and of every creature is so complicated that often humans think they understand it and then they go in and mess with it and then they end up ruining it, okay? Now, there are already genetically modified, and if you would flip over to Revelation 11, there are already genetically modified organisms that have already been released into the environment. They've already been released into nature as we speak.
Of course, we're all familiar with genetically modified foods and there are even genetically modified animals that are out there now. Here's the problem with these genetically modified organisms, whether they be plant or animal, is that once they're released into the environment, they contaminate the ecosystem and you can never put that genie back into the bottle. Once it's out, it's out there. It's going to contaminate everything.
Woman: Of proving the sale of genetically modified salmon has recharged the debate over the future of our food. Critics called the modified salmon frankenfish. GMOs or genetically modified organisms have been part of our diet for years, most of them are corn, soy and other crops with added DNA from other organisms to increase their resistance to disease. The Grocery Manufacturer's Association says up to 80% of processed food sold in the US is genetically modified. Most of it is not labeled.
Steven Anderson: That's a scary thought. Whenever they genetically modify things, they mess them up and make them worse and they have all these unintended consequences. There's another way that they think that they're going to achieve immortality through transhumanism, which would be to simply replace the body with parts that do not get old.
Man: You can't run from this. You have to understand the reality of the situation.
Man: Show me.
Man: Kim?
Man: No. There's nothing left.
Man: Your body may have gone, but you're still here.
Steven Anderson: Here's some problem with that. First of all, the brain probably can't last forever.
Crowd: Right.
Steven Anderson: I mean, think about how when people get older, doesn't their brain stop working as well as it used to?
Crowd: Yep.
Steven Anderson: Okay. Whoa, that was kind of loud. The thing about it is, even if you replace the body, you still have a brain that's going to wax old. That's part of problem with that game plan, okay?
Some of the experiments they've been doing with this is, for example, not too long ago they did this experiment where they actually were able to cut the heads off of two monkeys and swap heads, okay? They actually cut the head off a monkey and switched it with another monkey's head and reattached it. The thing stayed alive for 7 more days. The thing died after 7 days because basically the old body rejected the new head.
Now, I think there's a scripture about this, about not putting new wine into old bottles. Not putting a new cloth unto an old garment. Basically new wine must be put into new bottles, but the put the monkey's head and put it on a different monkey's body, reconnected it and the thing was able to live for 7 days, but the reason it died after 7 days was that it just rejected.
You know how sometimes people get an organ transplant and their body rejects the new organ? It just wasn't compatible. It's like, "Whoa, wrong head." Anyway, they did that. The goal is to do it with humans, to be able to take that head, swap it out, put it on a new body, or put it on like a cyborg type body or put it on a young body or whatever, a full body transplant. This is what they want to do. This is what they're seeking to do to achieve immortality.
Damien: What's up everybody? Damien here with IGN news. Russian computer scientist, Valery Spiridonov will undergo the world's first head transplant in December 2017. According to EIN News Desk, a Chinese surgeon and an Italian surgeon confirmed that they will likely perform the procedure at Harbin Medical University in China along with a Chinese/Italian team. 30 year old Spiridonov, who has an incurable muscle wasting condition called Werdnig-Hoffmann disease, was confirmed for the procedure earlier this year after volunteering for the project. Spiridonov told EIN, "When I realized that I could participate in something really big and important, I had no doubt left in my mind and started to work in this direction. The only thing I feel is the sense of pleasant impatience, like I have been preparing for something important all my life and it is starting to happen."
According to the surgeon's calculations, it will take two years to plan the procedure. Lasting up to 36 hours. The procedure involves removing the heads from the donor and patient and then transplanting Spiridonov's head onto the donor body with glue and stitches. Spiridonov's head and the donor's body will be cooled during the procedure to extend the cell's life span without oxygen. Spiridonov will be induced into a month long coma post operation while a cocktail of drugs will help stop the transplanted parts rejecting each other. It is not yet publicly known where the donor body will come from. That's probably the craziest thing you'll hear today.
Steven Anderson: Thirdly, so number one, genetically modify. Number two, hey, let's get body parts that don't wear out. Just keep the brain. Just move the brain only. Okay? My thoughts on that is that the brain itself is going to get old and wear out, as evidenced in the world that we live in. Thirdly, this, and this is the weirdest one. Basically taking your mind and consciousness and uploading it to a computer.
Man: We are fast approaching an event unprecedented in our history, a tipping point known as a technological singularity. When this happens, the world will change forever. A new chapter in human history will begin.
Man: By 2020, we'll have computers that are powerful enough to simulate the human brain, but we won't be finished yet with reverse engineering the human brain and understanding its methods. One of my main themes, and I've developed this thesis over 30 years is that information technology grows exponentially.
Man: Go back 500 years, not much happened the century. Now a lot happens in six months. Technology feeds on itself and it gets faster and faster. In about 40 years, the basic change is going to be so astonishingly quick that you won't be able to follow it unless you enhance your own intelligence by merging with the intelligent technology that we're creating. That's such a profound transformation that we've borrowed this metaphor from physics and call that a singularity.
Man: First, this is the human brain, the most complex object in our sector of the galaxy, 100 billion neurons that can be scanned by MRI, neuron for neuron.
Man: This means we can digitize all the information we accumulate during our lives and upload it into a giant mother computer. A vast database of all human knowledge, a resource we could share by downloading programs we want to give us instant knowledge. When the singularity arrives, we will be in control. By merging with machines, we will enter a new age of superhuman existence.
Man: That in the post human era, we become homo superior. We become a new species. We're talking about humanity becoming like the gods. What do you think?
Steven Anderson: Now here's the problem with that. If you were to take all of the information in my brain and take it out of my brain and put it in a machine, would that machine be me now? No. It would think like me, maybe, if they could ever achieve that technology. Remember, back to the beginning of the sermon. I don't think any of this stuff is going to happen. Okay.
That machine may think like me. Some would even say that it thinks that it is me. Does that machine even have the consciousness to even think that it's anything or is it just doing what it's programmed to do? These are questions. The bottom line is, even if it could be conscious and think that it's me, it wouldn't be me, though. You haven't transferred the soul. You haven't transferred the spirit when you just take information from someone's brain and put it into a machine. Okay?
Not to mention the fact that that would be the ultimate invasion of privacy. I mean, you don't like the government looking at your emails?
Crowd: No.
Steven Anderson: Listen to your cell phone calls? What about going into your mind? Everything you've ever thought, everything you've ever said or done or heard or known. I mean, would you like that all to just be uploaded to some government computer somewhere. You say, "Oh, man, that's far fetched." Here's the thing though, these technologies are approaching. That's why, at some point, God's going to have to do a Genesis 3 moment, a Genesis 11 moment where he steps in and puts a stop to it. Listen, they already have the technology where they can read people's minds to an extent.
Man: We can take the living brain, put it in an MRI and get 30,000 dots, like a Christmas tree set of lights that code the amount of electrical activity. You take these 30,000 dots, put it into a computer program that can then decipher it, and then bingo. What you get is a picture of what they are thinking. We can now visualize what somebody is thinking about. In fact, it's on the web. There's a picture of Steve Martin, for example, in one of his movies. Then, right next to it, is the picture as viewed through the human mind. This is amazing. You can clearly recognize the eyes, the ears. You cannot recognize the fact that it's Steve Martin. However, you can also do giraffes. You can put elephants and clearly you are looking at an animal and not ...
Steven Anderson: These are the type of things that they just get excited about. They salivate over this. "Oh, this is so amazing. These discoveries." This is what they're into. It's transhumanism. All right? I got to get out the Doctor [inaudible 00:51:46] glasses for this. "It's so amazing, because we're going to reach a whole new stage of evolution. For billions of years, we've been evolving at a slow rate, but now we're going to rapidly go into this new phase." They even talk about how, "We might even be left behind. The transhumans are going to take over." Every science fiction where they create an artificially intelligent machine, it always takes over and kills everybody.
Man: Here we go.
Dave: Open the pod bay doors, Hal.
Hal: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. This machine is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Man: Stop. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Man: It was the machines, Sarah.
Sarah: I don't understand.
Man: Defense network computers, new, powerful, hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond, extermination.
Speaker 12: Shall we play a game?
Woman: How could it ask you that?
Man: How about global thermal nuclear?
Speaker 13: The choice is yours. Obey and live or disobey and die.
Steven Anderson: The bottom line is this, transhumanism will fail. That's the end of the story. This idea of, "Oh, we're going to reach these technologies. Look, God's going to put a stop to it. God has put certain limitations on us where you can't have your cake and eat it too, and where you will die. Without Jesus Christ, you will die and there's nothing you can do about it. Now, you might be able to extend your life a little bit using technology. Obviously, I don't think there's anything wrong with, "Hey, you have a heart attack and get a new valve put in or something." That's just whatever. That's obviously, there's nothing wrong with you lose a leg and you put on a prosthetic. Okay, but we're talking about people who are trying to live forever, trying to go beyond what God has given to us as human beings. We're not talking about fixing an injury or fixing something that breaks. We're talking about people who want to improve upon God's creation. That's where they've crossed the line into this transhumanism.
The bottom line is, I'll read this from 2 Timothy, Chapter 1, Verse 9. It says, that God basically, Verse 9, "Who hath saved us and called us with a holy calling not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our savior, Jesus Christ who hath abolished death and hath brought light and immortality to life through the Gospel."
That's the bottom line is that immortality is only achieved through the Gospel. We have eternal life through Jesus. He only has the words of eternal life.
Crowd: Right.
Steven Anderson: Man is blasphemous when he says, "I'm better than God. I'm smarter than God. I can create a better human being, better animals, better plants. I'm going to live forever. I don't need Jesus. I don't need God. I'm going to do it all by myself." It's a Tower of Babel mentality.
Crowd: Yep.
Steven Anderson: It's a satanic mentality. God has the power to put a stop to it and he will put a stop to it.
Steven Anderson: We're going to go ahead and get started, let me have your attention please [crosstalk 00:56:02]. My name is Pastor Steven Anderson. I'm here from the United States. I came all the way here to speak to you guys today. I'm from Arizona, which is the state right next to California. I'm here to preach the word of God to you today. I want you to listen very carefully. It's very important what I'm going to preach to you today.
Not only that, but we also brought DVDs for everybody. We're going to drop off 600 DVDs so that every one of you gets to take home a DVD to watch. Those will be given out to you later today. All right?
Let's start out with the word of prayer. I'm going to pray first. All right, dear Lord, thank you so much for the chance to be here today and to hear your word preached. I pray that you would please just help everyone to listen carefully and learn something. In Jesus's name we pray. Amen.
Crowd: Amen.
Steven Anderson: All right. Today I want to talk about the subject that you only get one shot in life. You only get one shot in life. Here's what the Bible says. "And as it is appointed unto man once to die, but after this, the judgment. It's appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment." You only get one life to live. You get one shot at it. You need to make sure that you do it right.
Now, first of all, number one, you only get one shot at being a child. You're only going to be a child one time in your whole life. The way that you live your life now is going to determine how you live for the rest of your life. You're developing those habits now and a way of life now. The Bible says that even a child is known by his doing whether his work be pure and whether it be right.
The Bible says of Timothy that from a child, thou has known the holy scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Timothy was one who had known the Bible from a child, even as a kid, he started developing the habits of reading the Bible and learning the word of God. You should do the same thing. Secondly, you only get one shot at the way that you live your life.
See, there are many mistakes that you can make in your life that will damage your life where it can never be fixed. The Bible says, "Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." A lot of people believe in reincarnation. The Bible says there's no reincarnation. The Bible says it's appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgment. After you die, you're either going to go to heaven or you're going to go to hell. It's that simple. Now the question is, how do you get to heaven?
First of all, the Bible tells us that we've all sinned. We're all sinners. The Bible says, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." The Bible says, "As it is written there is none righteous, no, not one." I'm not righteous. You're not righteous. None of us is perfect. We all sin every day. The bible says, "For the wages of sin is death." After we die physically, though, there's actually a second death. The Bible says, "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." What would we normally call that place? The lake of fire?
Crowd: Hell.
Steven Anderson: Hell, right? The Bible has a list of people that are going to be going to hell. It says, "But the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whore mongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
The Bible lists a lot of really bad sins, murder, sorcery, idolatry. Then it says and all liars. Now, I know I've lied before. Who's ever told a lie before?
Crowd: Me.
Steven Anderson: We've all lied before. The thing is, the Bible says all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Here's the good news that God loves us. If God loves us, do you think he wants us go to hell when we die if he loves us?
Crowd: [crosstalk 01:00:26]
Steven Anderson: No, but was he just kidding when he said that in the Bible? No. That's why God found a way to save us from that punishment. The Bible said, "But God commendeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Jesus Christ game to this earth as God in the flesh. God became man and dwelled among us. Jesus lived a perfect life that none of us could live. Jesus also performed a lot of miracles such as walking on water. He healed the sick, raised the dead, cast out demons. He also turned water into wine. He fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fishes. He also preached hard against sin. He preached the word of God.
When you preach the word of God, a lot of people get angry, they get offended. Jesus was eventually arrested. When they arrested him they ended up beating him and spitting on him, hitting him in the head with a stick, whipping him. Eventually, they actually nailed him to the cross. When Jesus was nailed to the cross, the Bible says that he himself bear our sins in his own body on the tree. Every sin that you've ever done and every sin that I've ever done, it was as if Jesus had done it. He was being punished for our sins.
When Jesus died on the cross, they took his body and buried it in a tomb. His soul went down to hell for three days and three nights. Three days later he rose again from the dead. He walked out of the tomb. He showed the disciples the holes in hands and the hole in his side to prove that it was really him. Now, Jesus Christ died on the cross for every person in the whole world. Is every person automatically going to heaven? The answer's no. There's one thing that we must do to be saved. The Bible asked a question one time. What must I do to be saved? They said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved." Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. It did not say to join my church and you'll be saved. It didn't say to join your church or any other church to be saved. It said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved in thy house."
The most famous verse in the Bible is John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life." Not whosoever lives a good life, not whosoever gets baptized to gives money to the church or turns from all their sins. It's whosoever believeth in him, because the Bible says he that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already because he's not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. We have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved and that's it.
Once we believe on him, he has a gift for us, everlasting life. The Bible says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Now is a gift free or do we have to pay for it?
Crowd: Free.
Steven Anderson: It's free, right? If I were to give you a gift, if I were to show up and say, "I'm going to give you this Bible as a gift, but I need you to give me $5,000," is that a gift?
Crowd: No.
Steven Anderson: What if I said, "Okay, I'll give it to you for free, but you have to wash my car?"
Crowd: No.
Steven Anderson: No, because if you have to do any work for it, or if you have to pay for it, then it's not a gift. Okay? A gift is purchased by the giver, while Jesus is the one giving us eternal life. He's the one who paid for it. Jesus paid for that with his blood, with his death, burial and resurrection. All we have to do is just receive that free gift and the way that we receive that gift is by faith. Once we receive that gift by God by faith, then he gives us everlasting life and he promises he will never leave us or forsake us.
He said, "I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." Once you're in his hand, no one can take you out of his hand. The Bible also says that one day when those who did not receive Christ as savior are cast into hell, he will tell them, "I never knew you depart from me. I never knew you." He didn't say, "I used to know you." He'd tell them, "I never knew you." Once he knows you, you're good. You're safe forever. Okay.
Once you're saved, the Bible says that you become a child of God. Now, you all have parents that discipline you if you disobey. Your parents have rules. The teachers have rules. The school has rules. If we break those rules, we're going to be punished. They're not just going to smile and tell us it's okay and we can just do whatever we want. Right? There's going to be a punishment. It's the same way with God. If you break God's rules, he'll punish you on this earth in this life but he's not going to kick you out of the family. Just like your parents wouldn't tell you, "You're not my son anymore. You're not my daughter anymore." They'll punish you, but they still love you.
It's the same way with God. He'll punish you in this earth, but he's not going to send you to hell if you believed on Christ. Once you're saved, you can never lose your salvation. He will punish you on this earth. You could get, let's say, for example, you commit a really bad sin after you're saved. Like what if you rob a bank, for example. If you were to do that, God's going to punish you. You're probably going to go to jail or worse, right? Let's say you actually killed somebody. You're going to go to prison or somebody might beat you or kill you or something bad could happen. The great news is that once you believe on Jesus Christ, you're saved forever. You have eternal life.
That doesn't mean we should just disobey him. If we do, we'll have consequences in this life. Okay, just like my son, if my son disobeys me, I'm going to give him a whipping, but I'm not going to throw him out of the family. It's the exact same way with God. Sometimes God has to give us a whooping, but He's not going to throw us out of the family. He's not going to cast us out. The Bible's crystal clear, that if we don't believe on Jesus Christ, we're not saved. The Bible says, "He that believeth on the Son has everlasting life, but he that believeth not the son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." The Bible's crystal clear that you have to believe on Jesus Christ to be saved.
Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh under the father but by me." There's no exceptions to that. You have to go through Jesus or you don't go at all. Now, I'd like to ask you today a couple of questions. Who here believes that Jesus Christ died on the cross for all your sins? If you believe that, raise your hand. Who believes that Jesus rose again from the dead?
Crowd: [crosstalk 01:07:26]
Steven Anderson: Okay, so according to the Bible, then, if you were to ask Jesus to save you right now, would he do it?
Crowd: Yes.
Steven Anderson: Yeah. How many times do you have to do that in your life?
Crowd: Once.
Steven Anderson: Once, because once you do it, you're saved for eternity. One time, the Bible says that if, "Thou shall confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." It doesn't say you might be saved. It says you shall be saved if you believe on Christ in your heart and fully trust him to get you to heaven. Not trusting in your own good works or your own good deeds, but trusting fully in his death, burial and resurrection. If you believe that, I'd like to just lead you in prayer right now to receive Christ as savior right now. Let's bow our heads. You could just repeat this after me if you believe that. Say, dear Jesus.
Crowd: Dear Jesus.
Steven Anderson: I know I'm a sinner.
Crowd: I know I'm a sinner.
Steven Anderson: I know I deserve hell.
Crowd: I know I deserve hell.
Steven Anderson: I believe.
Crowd: I believe.
Steven Anderson: That you died on the cross.
Crowd: That you died on the cross.
Steven Anderson: For all my sins.
Crowd: For all my sins.
Steven Anderson: And rose again.
Crowd: And rose again.
Steven Anderson: Please save me right now.
Crowd: Please save me right now.
Steven Anderson: Give me eternal life.
Crowd: Give me eternal life.
Steven Anderson: I'm only trusting you, Jesus.
Crowd: I'm only trusting you, Jesus.
Steven Anderson: Amen.
Crowd: Amen.
Steven Anderson: All right, now how many of you just prayed that prayer right now. Yeah. According to the Bible, if you believe in your heart, obviously I can't see what's in your heart. As long as you believe on Jesus Christ in your heart, you'll be saved. Here's the thing, now that you're saved, though, you have a choice how to live your life. You could either live your life the way of this world or you could live your life the way of the word of God. Either way, you're going to heaven because you're saved and salvation's a free gift. He's not going to leave you or forsake you.
Let me tell you something, you could really screw up your life if you go the way of this world. Let me tell you, we're living in some very strange times today in 2017. We're living in a wicked time right now. A lot of things that are very sinful and wicked, that never would have been acceptable in the past, they're starting to be accepted today. Today, through television and through the radio and through a lot of other ways, they're forcing a lot of very sinful lifestyles down our throat. They want us to think that homosexuality's normal.
They want us to think that it's normal to go to bed with somebody that you're not married to. They want us to think that it's normal just to go out and get drunk and party and do all these things, that that's just normal. You know what? The Bible says that God has not called us unto uncleanness but unto holiness. God wants us to live right. God wants us to clean up our lives and to live a godly life that would please him.
You know what? You have to make that choice for yourself. One day you're going to grow up and your parents aren't going to be there and the school's not going to be there. Your pastor might not be there. You have to decide for yourself that you're going to save yourself from this untoward generation and that you're not going to go the way of this world and go the filthy, fornicating adulterous way of this world and that you're going to live a godly, clean and righteous life.
If somebody gave me a free gift, I would appreciate that, right? If Jesus gave us the ultimate gift of eternal life, we should show him our gratitude and our appreciation by living for him, loving him. I hope that you all watch the DVDs that we're leaving with you so that you can learn more about the word of God and so that you can grow in faith and grow in the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Thank you everyone for listening to what we have to say. God bless you.
