Gary:
You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still ahead, Dave and Tom continue their weekly in-depth study of the Doctrine of Salvation. Please stay tuned.
CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH
In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here’s this week’s question: “Dear Dave and Tom: I have a friend who was a relatively young Christian, yet she says that she believes in reincarnation. She says that the most compelling reasons for her belief are the studies done regarding past lives therapy. The historical accuracy of events remembered by those in such therapy can only be accounted for by their actually having lived in that distant time period. I know that the Bible doesn’t teach reincarnation, but I have no good answer for what supposedly has been documented by the studies she said she read. What can I tell her?”
Tom:
Dave, you know we were just talking about psychology, and this is one of the reasons that Carl Jung got excited about his concept of the collective unconscious because he could see things happening in different cultures, but people that had no contact with one another seemed to reinforce the same concepts.
Dave:
Yeah Tom, they should contact TBC and we’ll send them some stuff. We’ve done some studies on this which we can’t cover in this short a time. But first of all, there are three things about reincarnation: It’s amoral, it’s senseless and it’s hopeless. Why is it amoral? Before we even consider their evidence, and their evidence is very, very slim, and we can explain that as well. But anyway, it’s amoral because, if I’m a husband who beats his wife in this life, reincarnation, karma says I must come back in the next life as a wife who is beaten by her husband. But that means that my husband in the next life, he must come back in his next life as a wife beaten by her husband. So, the exact crime that you have committed you must be the victim of it. So, it does not solve the problem of evil, reincarnation and karma perpetuate evil, number one.
Tom:
Can I just interject this? This is real reincarnation, this is transmigration as the Hindu’s taught it, this is san sorrow, the wheel of sorrows, not some homogenized, Americanized, or Westernized version which we are getting today.
Dave:
Right. Secondly, it’s senseless. Anybody see that this world is improving? I mean, what’s the point of coming back if you keep making the same mistakes, because I guarantee you, although there are a few cases where they say, oh yeah, de-ja-vu, oh, my, I remember being here. Well, come on! Let’s have some details. If this reincarnation thing is going to help you and you’ve got karma that you’ve built up in the last life you’ve got to work off in the next one, you had better know some details. What’s the point of continually coming back only to repeat the same mistakes? Nobody can remember what happened in that last life, okay! Not in any detail for certain. So, it’s senseless, it doesn’t make sense. Number Three: It’s hopeless. Look, the fact, Tom, that you and I are sitting here facing one another on radio, it’s the result of our prior lives, the karma that we’ve built up in our lives and the fact that people out there are listening to us, we hope, that’s also because of their prior lives. But then the prior life was the result of a prior life, and the karma that we’ve built up in this life--well, that means we’ve got to live another life to work that off, but in the process of working that bad karma off we built up more bad karma which requires yet another life, and another and another and another. Tom, It’s hopeless, okay! Now, she says, or whoever this was said, Well, I know the Bible doesn’t teach it. No, the Bible teaches against it. It’s appointed unto man, Hebrews 9:27, once to die, and after this the judgment. Jesus Christ was resurrected, not reincarnated, and we’re never promised that anyone would be resurrected. (reincarnated?) Paul says, Absent from the body, present with the Lord, which is far better. Now, as far as these cases, Tom, you just quoted 1 Timothy 4:1, in our last segment: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.” We can very easily explain. This person was not there in India in that little village in the 1500’s, but a demon was there, and when you put yourself into an altered state of consciousness….
Tom:
This is past life therapy, it’s what it’s all about.
Dave:
It all happens under hypnosis, and the Bobgan’s wrote an excellent book on that.
Tom:
Which we offer.
Dave:
Yeah. You put yourself in that state of consciousness, it the hypnotist’s mind can influence you, and even control you and give you all kinds of delusions, certainly other minds could also be influencing your mind, and this is where these so-called past life experiences come from. Tom, we lived in California once upon a time, and Long Beach State College, for the State College System of California, they had a couple of scientists there who did experiments, and they found out that under hypnosis you tell someone: You’re being approached by UFO, describe the creatures taking you aboard, and they will describe the whole thing exactly what these other so-called victims of abduction will tell you. Or, you are dying, Oh, you’re dead, describe it. They will give you the whole thing, going through the tunnel, you know, darkness, this Being of light, and it can all be simulated under hypnosis! And this hypnotist doesn’t have to make suggestions, it comes out. This is demonic, and we can document that around the world, as we have.
Tom:
Dave, this is a person who writes to us about a young Christian, but it’s amazing how many Christians, who have been Christians for a long time, believe in reincarnation. I remember when you were being interviewed on a TV program in Southern California, do you remember?
Dave:
Well actually, it was a little debate with some reincarnationists.
Tom:
Right, but there were two women that you had met previous to that because they came from some of your meetings.
Dave:
Well Tom, this was a Monday morning and that was Sunday, and the assistant pastor, before he introduced me said: I want you to meet my elderly aunt, she’s had such a wonderful spiritual impact on my life. And when they asked for hands, who in our audience--quite a large audience--believes in reincarnation? Her hand went up! It shocked me! A lady who had met me out on the sidewalk as I was going in: Oh, I was at your meeting yesterday, my father was a Baptist minister, and so forth, oh, it was really terrific. She put her hand up! So, it’s in the church, Tom.
Tom:
Yeah, and it’s a sad thing because again, it’s one more thing that’s not biblical, that many in the church have embraced.
Dave:
It contradicts the Bible and it gives you hope of escaping judgment, you’ve got another chance, another route.
Gary:
If you have a question for Dave and Tom to respond to in a future Contending for the Faith, stay tuned, we’ll have our contact information at the end of the program. You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.
