Gary:
Please stay with us and at the end of the program we’ll let you know where to send your questions for Dave and Tom to address in a future Contending for the Faith. You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Now our final segment:
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
We resume our excursion through the Book of Acts, here again are Dave and Tom.
Tom:
This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment and we are going through the Book of Acts. We are in Acts chapter 10, and last week we got through verse 8, but Dave, these verses deal with Cornelius, a Roman centurion. The scripture says that he was a devout man, one that feared God, and an angel appeared to him and the angel instructed him to send for Peter, who was at the house of Simon the tanner.
Dave:
In another town.
Tom:
Right. So, picking up with verse 9: “On the morrow, as they went on their journey and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour. And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance, And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth:” Verse 12:”Wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.”
Dave:
That’s interesting—Not so, Lord—you know, we’re supposed to say, Yes, to God. No, Lord, I’m not going to do that.
Tom:
Well, he may have thought that the Lord was testing him here and he would want it to be an honest answer.
Dave:
Tom, you’re right, that could very well be what he thought. Fell into a trance—just before that we had the centurion he saw in a vision. It wasn’t that an angel actually came and appeared to him, although that can happen, and it wasn’t that a sheep actually was lowered from heaven with all these creatures in it, although that could have happened too, but it was a vision for Cornelius the centurion, Peter is like in a trance, he’s kind of drifted off into a dream state, you would say, and God is speaking to him in this way. Literally, he sees, but you would have to say it was a vision like Cornelius. He sees this thing happening, he’s not fully conscious, and yet he is able to respond and say, Not so, Lord. We don’t understand exactly what was going on there, but Tom, we have to have a word of caution because one thing that you will notice in the Bible, there are no techniques for getting in touch with God, or for having an angel appear.
Tom:
And Dave, when there are, it’s called divination, the Bible condemns it.
Dave:
Exactly, but that’s the way of the world. So, for example, Calvin Miller, in his book, The Table of Inwardness, he says one door opens to the world of the spirit imagination, that’s how chapter 7 begins, and he tells you, You should visualize. Now, Cornelius was not visualizing an angel, and Peter was not visualizing—why would he have been visualizing, you know, or Richard Foster in Celebration of Discipline, he says, You can have Jesus really come to you if you visualize Jesus and get a clear picture He will even come and talk to you. Now that is, as you said, occultism, that is not what is going on here. For example, if you went to Jeremiah 42, the disobedient rebels, who are still around after most of Israel has been carried off to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar’s men, they would say to Jeremiah, Well, go to God and get a message from us. All they want is a message that agrees with what they want to do, they are not going to obey God. It doesn’t say that Jeremiah laid down on the couch and put his hand over his third eye on his forehead, as Edgar Cayce used to do.
Tom:
Dave, last week we had a segment in which, through Christianity Today, you had children in Sunday schools an environment was set up in which they were to hear from God. Whether these children were believers or not, it didn’t make any difference. This is leading them into what they called, “spiritual disciplines”, but what, in fact, is a form of occultism, or divination.
Dave:
So, obviously, the resurrected, glorified Jesus Christ, who is at his Father’s right hand in heaven, is not at our beck and call. He doesn’t come to be with us when we visualize him, and this is the technique of every witch doctor—you know, it’s shamanism. That is not what was going on here, God initiated this. You see, the problem is, if we initiated it and if we have some method or some technique whereby we can get in touch with God, that is wrong. We’re told to simply pray to God and talk to him. So, we need to get that clear. That is not what was happening here, there was no technique, there was no attempt by Cornelius the centurion to contact an angel, there was no attempt by Peter to get a sheet let down from heaven, God initiated this. And you know, Tom, it reminds me again of a verse in scripture, I’m sure I can quote it but I want to be exactly certain of it, Jeremiah chapter 14, where God speaks through Jeremiah to the false prophets and he says—Well, let me read the whole verse: “Then the Lord said unto me—that is, unto Jeremiah—the prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.” So, Jeremiah doesn’t have some technique, he said, Okay, I’ll ask the Lord, and Chapter 42:7, it says: After ten days, the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah. So even Jeremiah the great prophet, he couldn’t get God to talk to him anytime he wanted, he certainly didn’t use visualization, and Tom, it’s a tragedy that this is being taught today. I don’t know that we have said much about it, but the Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible, put out by Richard Foster and others, like Eugene Peterson, and so forth, is leading people into occultism at the same time it downgrades the prophecies of scripture, tells us that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are just from pagan myths, and they have kind of edited it to make it sound like it’s one god instead of polytheism, monotheism. We don’t find that in the Bible, it is forbidden and we do not find that happening here in Acts, chapter 10. Maybe that’s too much time spent on that, but let me just quote what God says again, “I didn’t send them; I didn’t command them; I didn’t speak to them; they prophesy a false vision and divination, the deceit of their hearts.” That’s what you’re going to get involved in if you start using these techniques.
Tom:
Dave, I think it’s important—twenty years ago, you know, I had the privilege of helping you with, The Seduction of Christianity. There’s another aspect that we pointed out in that book, and that is altered states of consciousness. See, somebody is reading about a vision and a trance they think, oh if I could just get myself ready or prepared I could hear from God. Certainly, drugs might be something that a Christian avoid, but you can do it through sensory deprivation, through fasting, through all kinds of things that are pressed toward hearing from God, and that’s contrary to what the word of God teaches.
Dave:
It’s called an ASC, or an SSC, shamonic state of consciousness, or an altered state of consciousness, in, let’s quote Sir John Eckles again, Nobel prize winner for his research on the brain. He said, “The brain is a machine that a ghost can operate.” In the normal state of consciousness, your spirit is the ghost, if you want to call it that, that operates the brain, an altered state on drugs or Eastern meditation; the normal connection between you and your brain is loosened and that allows another spirit, a demonic entity, to interpose, tick off the neurons in the brain, create a universe of illusion, and this is where these psychedelic experiences, the visions of false prophets, and so forth, come from. The angels that Benny Hinn says visited him for an entire year every night, that was not angels; it was either he’s lying or his imagination, or he was in an altered state, I don’t know. Okay, we’ll have to come back and we’ll get down to what actually happened here.
Tom:
Well, Dave, this vision of Peter, it took him back. This was something so contrary to what he thought and what he understood.
Dave:
And what he was expecting.
Tom:
Exactly.
Gary:
Dave and Tom will continue their discussion on the topic of salvation next week, we hope you can join us. This is Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.
Does God love only some of us? Has He already determined those elect who will live forever with Him in heaven? Are you one of the elect? And if not, is there anything you can do about it? The Doctrine of Calvinism, it’s five points and their implications for the body of Christ are discussed and debated in two powerful books from Dave Hunt and The Berean Call. Debating Calvinism, Five Points, Two Views, features a written debate between Dave Hunt and James White, published by Multnomah. In an easy to read format Hunt and White exchange energetic letters addressing this long argued topic. Co-author of The Seduction of Christianity, and co-host of Search the Scriptures Daily radio, Dave Hunt: “The influence of Calvinism is growing greatly in the church today. It’s very important that we understand and we did debate in Calvinism so that you could have a debate in writing. You can go back and forth and read exactly what each side said, think it over carefully rather than an emotional debate.” And, in what some are calling the definitive work on this topic, don’t miss Dave Hunt’s What Love is This: Calvinism’s Misrepresentation of God. In this recently expanded and up-dated edition, Dave exhaustively documents the unscriptural nature of this doctrine that comes perilously close to blasphemy. Once again, Dave Hunt: “We did a new revised up-dated edition of What Love is This? because so many Calvinists were criticizing what I had said. I went through all of their criticisms and answered them in this new and expanded version.” Debating Calvinism: Five Points, Two Views, and What Love is This: Calvinism’s Misrepresentation of God, in e-book or hard cover are both available from The Berean Call. Information on how to order in just a moment.
And now, to tell you more about our ministry, here’s TBC Executive Director Tom McMahon:
Tom:
The name, The Berean Call, is taken from the Book of Acts, Chapter 17, Verses 10 and 11, where we find the apostle Paul entering the synagogue in the Greek city of Berea after he had just come from Thessalonica. To these Bereans he preached that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah sent from God. They were commended for being noble, or fair minded, not only for their willingness to hear what Paul had to say about the matter, but more specifically, because they searched the scriptures daily to find out whether or not what the apostle was saying was found in God’s Word. That’s what we hope to encourage through this ministry. Our mission is to alert believers in Christ to unbiblical teachings and practices impacting the Church. We want to exhort believers to give greater heed to biblical discernment and truth regarding what they are accepting as spiritual. We hope to supply those who profess to be Biblical Christians with information and materials that will encourage the love of God’s truth. Hopefully, we can help mobilize believers in Christ to action in obedience to the Scriptural command to earnestly contend for the faith found in Jude 3. And finally, our prayer is that we can be used of God to stimulate Christians to look to the Bible alone as their rule of faith, authority and practice in living lives pleasing to our Lord and Savior. Gary.
Gary:
If you are a serious student of God’s Word, we offer a wide variety of items that you will find helpful, from books and tracts to audio and video tapes, CD-ROM, our internet website and much more. For a complete list of materials, or to get a copy of today’s broadcast, write to us at PO Box 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call us at our toll free order number 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. If you would like a copy of this broadcast, ask for Program #5305, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. Get a pen or pencil ready, we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment.
Next week, we will continue our series of programs based on Dave Hunt’s latest book, Judgment Day, and, “Does prophecy validate the Bible?” In Religion in the News, “Hyping Narnia to Christians.” We’ll take a look at that story and address the question: “Who goes to war at Armageddon?” We hope you can join us. If you have questions or comments about this program, we urge you to contact our offices. Search the Scriptures Daily Radio Ministry, is made possible by God’s grace, your prayers and your financial support. I’m Gary Carmichael, and for Dave, Tom, and everyone here at The Berean Call, I would like to thank you for tuning in and invite you to join us again next week. Until then, if you desire to know God’s truth, search the scriptures daily.
For more information about The Berean Call, write to us at PO Box 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708. Call us toll free at our order #877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.
