Is Your Spirit Exercised?

Tom:

Thanks, Gary.You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him.We want to thank you for joining us as we carry on our series on the EmergingChurch, a movement that is growing at a phenomenal rate within evangelical Christianity.For a number of weeks we’ve been discussing mysticism in evangelical Christianity, which is quite pervasive and showing no signs of slowing down.We’re particularly concerned about the mystical techniques that are being introduced, most of which are taken from Catholic mysticism, Eastern Orthodox mysticism and Eastern mysticism, and I think, Dave, the best way occult mysticism.But Dave, before I get into that I need to make an important correction regarding something that I said a week or so ago.In giving some examples of how mysticism is influencing evangelical organizations and ministries, I said that even AWANA was introducing mysticism in their program.Well, that’s not accurate. They offer a book which I believe is confusing at best in which they are debating these issues and end the debate by some members, some executive members of the AWANA organization.They make overtures, they commend some of these practices, not all, they are critical of some, but they do commend some of these ideas within the contemplative model.So Dave, what I plan to do is address these things in the February newsletter, just give my concerns about this.On the other hand, I really appreciate AWANA.My kids went through it; I think they’ve stayed with the Scriptures.I know some people have some issues with them, but I think they are a good organization and my concern is that they don’t drift into mysticism, which so many within evangelical Christianity are doing.Now Dave, last week, as we continued our discussion of the various mystical techniques being accepted by evangelicals, we were going over the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius, the Catholic saint who founded the Jesuits.

Dave:

Tom, maybe we had better clarify Catholic saints, let me just say a word.May I?

Tom:

Sure.

Dave:

This is a man who has been elevated to sainthood by his church after his death.But the Bible is addressed, the New Testament for example, Ephesians, the saints of Ephesus, the saints of Colossi, the saints at Corinth.Every Christian who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit is sanctified, set apart to God, set apart to Christ for His service.His body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, so every Christian is a saint, that’s how we are addressed.So when we say Saint Ignatius, maybe we are giving too much to the Catholic Church, but that’s what they call them, and that’s how they are commonly known.

Tom:

Right, it’s a title.We don’t accept it, but nevertheless it’s a title.Dave, as you remember, last week I quoted Tony Campolo, to whom I make no apologies because this is what he said:“I learned about this way of having a born-again experience from reading the Catholic mystics, especially the spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola.Like most Catholic mystics he developed an intense desire to experience a oneness with God.”Now Dave, you know we talked about that last week; we need to elaborate on this.First of all, the spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, what do you know about them?

Dave:

Well, he presents a technique or spiritual exercises for understanding the Bible, for getting in touch with God.For example, he would say, “Well, if you want to really know Jesus and Mary, and so forth and to also visualize yourself right there in the home of the holy family, and this is an occult technique.We have no way of visualizing Mary; we don’t know what she looked like, or Joseph, or what was going on in that home.Richard Foster, of course, he does the same thing.He says well, if you want to understand what Jesus said, for example when he shoved out into the lake, and He’s in that boat, and He’s teaching the crowd on the shore, well, just put yourself in the scene.You’ve got to get all your five senses involved, hear the waves lapping on the shore, smell the fishnets hung up to dry, feel the hunger in your stomach and the rough spun texture of your robe, and so forth, and then look at Jesus.Picture Him in your mind, and it will be more than an exercise of imagination.Jesus will really come to you and speak to you.”It was Ignatius who got this thing going, and Richard Foster and many other Christians, unfortunately, have followed suit.Just common sense will tell you are not going to call from the right hand of the Father on high, the Son of God, to come as your private guru and talk to you in your imagination.This is your imagination, but Foster says he will really come to you!Now that’s really dangerous.So you think you are really in touch with Jesus? Well Jesus will not get in touch with you in that manner, but there are any number of demons that Satan could designate.Who do you want to get in touch with?Who do you want to meet?Do you want to meet some extraterrestrials or what?They will impersonate, and we’ve got demonic impersonations of Jesus of Nazareth that are deluding Christians, and they are being encouraged into this, and this is part of what this whole contemplative approach is about.

Tom:

Right.Dave, let’s say, even is somebody says well, I’m just trying to get a better understanding of the Bible.I’m not into all of that kind of stuff.There’s a big problem there.In their imagination they’re actually adding to the Bible, moreover when these individuals teach these kinds of things they are not looking for the text, what the text says, words that have meaning.They’re looking for sub texts, they’re looking for ideas and so called deeper ideas of understanding that affect the emotions.They are more interest in mystery and intuition, that’s the problem with this.

Dave:

They’re looking for feelings.He wants oneness with God; he wants to experience oneness with God.Now how do you do that? Where does it ever say that?Well, Jesus prayed that they may be one, as thou, Father, art in the end; I am thee that they may be one in us.This is an objective fact.We don’t somehow experience it or feel it. It’s something that we believe in our hearts and we know it’s true.When you move into feelings and now, oooh, if I could just feel this, now you’ve gone into mysticism, you’ve gone into error, you’ve opened the door for some very serious problems.

Tom:

Dave, as I said earlier, this is Catholic mysticism, Orthodox mysticism, the roots of it are Eastern mysticism, and I think people need to be aware of that, because when they talk about, as Campolo says here, “A oneness with God” you know that the goal of mysticism is union with God.Well, what are they talking about there?They’re really talking about in the Eastern mystical vein, just as a drop of water emerges from a cloud and submerges into the water, we go back to God, because we are God, a part of God.Union with God, these individuals who are saying, No, we just want to be closer to Jesus, I don’t know where they draw the line on some of these things, especially based on what I have read.

Dave:

Well, Tom, there’s an interesting book that we have referred to a number of times, I guess, The Way of the Shaman, by Michael Hunter, who is himself, a shaman, an anthropologist. He explains what a shaman is—it’s a name that comes from the Tangos tribe in Siberia—what they call their witch doctor, medicine man, or whatever, and anthropologists have adopted this internationally for a witch doctor, or whatever.Now, he says it has come into our society.Now he is not being critical, he thinks this is good.He says that there are five basic elements of shamanism.These are the techniques used by the shamans, and he lays them out.He’s even talking about psychotherapy, positive thinking, positive speaking, positive confession, but the very first one he mentions is visualization.Now the witch doctor goes on a journey into the future or into the past in his mind to pick up a spirit guide.And the way he does it is by visualizing himself on this trip and then he visualizes this—it could be an animal—it could be a human—and he says this the premier, this is the number one occult technique for entering into the world of the occult, which is demonic.And now this is what Ignatius of Loyola introduced, Richard Foster thinks it’s wonderful, the contemplative movement does and so does the EmergingChurch.

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

We have serious problems, Tom, and it’s worth the time we spend to expose this.

Tom:

I hope so, Dave, and I hope our audience—you know, we’ve had some people not agreeing with us on this, but we expect that.Nevertheless, what they need to do, and we’ve said this over and over again, search the scriptures!Do you find Paul using these techniques?Do you find any of the apostles anywhere, Old Testament prophets, does anybody use these techniques?

Dave:

Absolutely not.Tom, techniques, the technique is supposed to arouse a response from the spirit world, whether it’s a candle, or whether you are looking at a crystal ball, whatever it is, this is what a technique is.So now God has to respond!Oh, we’ve got this technique now.Well, then this is how He is going to speak to me, it is by this means.No, He speaks to us through His Word!

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

Tom, well, we’ve talked about it in the past.

Tom:

Well, that stuff is magic, I mean, it’s supposed to work the way magic works, a cause and effect, an incantation, going through this formula, or whatever it might be, that’s witchcraft.

Dave:

Exactly, and God will not respond to that, but demons will.

Tom:

Right.Dave, another quote from Tony Campolo, related to all of this.He says, after the reformation we Protestants left behind much that was troubling about Roman Catholicism of the fifteenth century.And we’ve been saying over and over again, if you want to understand where all this mysticism, so called evangelical mysticism is coming from, it comes from Catholic mysticism.Anyway, he goes on— the methods of praying employed the likes of Ignatius have become precious to me.With the help of some Catholic saints my prayer life has deepened.

Dave:

Tom, I may have given the illustration before, I don’t know, but I was speaking, actually at Campus Crusade’s headquarters.

Tom:

That was before they moved to Florida.

Dave:

Right, many years ago.Well, this was not, I don’t think it was sponsored by Campus Crusade, but they—I guess—allowed their facilities to be used.It was a group of pastors, and I was talking to them on this subject—visualization.This was many years ago, twenty years ago at least, and one of the pastors came up to talk to me afterwards.He was objecting and he said exactly what Campolo, you just quoted Campolo was saying.Well, he says, I visualize myself in the presence of God. I find that it really helps my prayer life and it draws me close to God, and so forth.And I said now how do you visualize yourself in the presence of God?The Bible says, He dwells in a light that no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor can see.Now whatever you are getting in your mind is not the presence of God!It’s not even an accurate picture of it, so you are deceiving yourself, and you are putting yourself in a position where you can get an improved prayer life from some other spirit, not the Holy Spirit.

Tom:

Dave, perhaps the most popular of the mystical techniques is the use of prayer labyrinths.Now I’ll give our listeners and viewers a little background there.Well, first of all, labyrinths—which are concentric circles.You start at the outside of the circle and you work your way through a path to the center, and then from the center back out.It’s not like a maze that you get lost in, so you just follow the path, but you go to the center and then you work your way out.And of course it’s been used in the occult for a millennium, but it was introduced into the Catholic Church right around the thirteenth century.The idea was, for example, if you went to Chartres Cathedral today in France, you would find this pattern in tile on the floor at the cathedral.Well, the idea was, in the thirteenth century Catholics would make pilgrimages to the Holy Land and through that, particularly during the Holy Week, and they would walk the Via Dolarosa—The Way of Sorrows—supposedly the path that Jesus took from the Pretoriumto Calvary’s Hill.And by doing that they could gain indulgences.And for those that don’t know, this would be something that you would gain to take time—shorten your time in Purgatory.Now, during the thirteenth century though, this was a dangerous trip.There were wars going on, there were the Muslims in control of the Holy Land, so you were putting your life in your hands by going there.So to avoid that, the Church came up with this technique so that you could walk this pattern, this concentric pattern while you were meditating upon the Sorrows of Christ, the Via Dolarosa.Okay.So, for years that was a big item within the Church, and then it sort of fell off, but it was kind of replaced by, and I’m getting ahead of myself a little bit, by the stations of the cross, which we will probably talk about next week or later, because that has come within the evangelical church as well.But Dave, now you’re visualizing the techniques that we are talking about.Just another way of seeing yourself there and God is going to honor that, and let alone give you time off in Purgatory.None of these things are biblical. Yet the prayer labyrinths—I could take you to evangelical churches in the basement, youth groups, there are all kinds.The have things that are cut out, tarps that they put on the floor of their basements and some cases outside the church they have cut their lawns in a way that they can walk this pattern, and so on.We have some churches here in Bend that Tuesday and Thursday they roll out the tarps so that the people can walk this labyrinth.

Dave:

Wooo, this is very heavy delusion, it’s a deception.So now, instead of really getting to know God’s Word and through His Word getting to know Him and spending time on my knees in prayer with God, now I’ve got a technique, and I’m going to walk this labyrinth!Somehow—now of course, Tom, when I’m doing that I’m trying to work up a feeling, this is beneficial!So I should be getting some benefit out of it.You are taking yourself into a delusion.

Tom:

Dave, and plus the fact—and I keep saying this over and over again, what are evangelicals doing turning to the Catholic mystics for their content—to enhance or increase their spirituality?This is ludicrous!Now, regarding the prayer labyrinths, I would say that the person most influential in bringing this technique from Chartres Cathedral to the United States.She was a priest, priestess; I don’t know what you would call her, at Grace Cathedral, the Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco.Episcopals are big into this, the National Cathedral which is Episcopal, I believe.

Dave:

Yes, it is.

Tom:

Okay.They have that prayer labyrinth.The Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, they have prayer labyrinths, but it’s open for anybody and everybody.If you’re a New Ager and just want to go and meditate and find yourself, look within, these techniques are made available.This is occultism spread across the board under the guise of Christianity.

Dave:

Tom, it’s just another example of error that is flooding the church, and much of it is based on the idea that I must have a technique, and somehow I’ve got to feel this.I’m not walking by faith, but I’ve got to have something that I really feel, and that’s very deadly.

Tom:

Deadly indeed, Dave.I hope people understand, we are not trying to be critical here.We see a flood here, and we’re trying to encourage people to grab the sandbags, let’s hold this thing back, let’s do what we can do, especially concerning our youth.I mentioned Youth Specialties a couple of weeks ago.We have organizations, so-called evangelical organizations that are introducing these things to our young people.That grieves me no end.