Is 'The Secret' Something New?

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Welcome to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call with Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon. I’m Gary Carmichael, we’re glad you could tune in. Coming up in today’s broadcast in our Understanding the Scriptures segment, Dave and Tom will continue their in-depth study of the Book of Acts, and “How could Paul be pure of the blood of men?” In Religion in the News, “The definitive Passion of the Christ.” We’ll take a look at that story and address the question: “Should you pray for someone’s salvation?” We hope you can stay with us. Our ministry, The Berean Call, offers a wide variety of teaching materials, including books, tracts, audio and video disks, and copies of our weekly broadcast on compact disk or DVD. You may also subscribe to our monthly newsletter, which we offer free of charge. We’ll let you know how to order later in the program.

Now, this week’s Cover Article. Tom and Dave continue their new series of programs addressing the popular spiritual phenomenon known as “The Secret.” This week we focus on the question, “Is ‘The Secret’ something new?” Along with Dave Hunt, here’s T. A. McMahon.

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. In this first segment of Search the Scriptures Daily, we’re addressing “The Secret” which is the latest promotion of concepts, beliefs, practices related to the mind sciences, religious science, positive mental attitude, positive confession and the word-faith teachings, humanistic psychology, and many, many other things. It’s a combination of so many false ideas, false teachings, that it’s overwhelming. Now, if you’re not aware of The Secret , it’s an 80-minute video and a book based upon the video that was given huge publicity by Oprah Winfrey, and Larry King on their TV programs. It’s been atop the New York Times best seller list for 17 weeks, having sold 6 million copies thus far, and the DVD has sold more than 2 million copies. Well, what is “The Secret?” According to its claims, it’s “learning to master the most powerful law in the universe, the law of attraction. Once learned, you can use it to acquire [they say] massive wealth, eradicate disease, perfect your relationships, be successful in all aspects of life, and [of course] bring about world peace.” Now, here’s the general claim from the DVD itself, “You know, this Secret gives you everything you want, happiness, health and wealth. You can have, do, or be anything you want. We can have whatever it is that we choose to have. I don’t care how big it is. What kind of a house do you want to live in? Do you want to be a millionaire? What kind of a business do you want to have? Do you want more success? What do you really want? I’ve seen many miracles take place in people’s lives, financial miracles, and miracles of physical healing, mental healing, healing of relationships. All of this happened because of knowing how to apply The Secret .” Dave, “The Secret,” you and I address this so-called “Secret” twenty-two years ago in the Seduction of Christianity and our concern then, as it is today, is that it entered into the Evangelical church and it was shipwrecking the faith of many and the only new thing about this latest presentation, I think, is the packaging. It comes on like the DaVinci Code, you know, this deep dark secret that’s been lost and hidden over the ages, and of course, the other new thing is that most of the players, again, twenty-two years ago the major players were Napoleon Hill, W. Clement Stone, Zig Zigler, those who were promoting positive mental attitude, but there are also individuals in the church, going back to E.W. Kenyon, and of course he spawned people like Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Fred Price, Casey Treat, on and on, many of these guys. Well, Joel Osteen’s father was a part of this, John Osteen. I mean, this was all, again, positive confession, positive mental attitude, and so on.

Dave:

Don’t forget Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuler.

Tom:

Exactly. The power of positive thinking, or possibility thinking, which was Schuler’s variation, and so on. So, it’s been around. It’s not a “secret.” But, again, the marketing. That’s what has made it so attractive.

Dave:

Tom, I find it astonishing. I’m just sitting here watching the video, your copy of it there. Immediately, any logical person with any common sense at all, asks, “Really?” You guys have everything you want? You are everything you want? You live in the house you want to live in?” Now, probably you would like to live maybe at least 100 years, maybe 200 with perfect health and strength. None of these people that they talk about in the past have done that. We mentioned Waddles last time, last week, he died at 51. What happened to “The Secret?” It’s supposed to give you everything. But, let me read from the book here. Tom:

Dave, as you’re going to that let me bring up another name which many of our listeners or viewers are familiar with, especially if they’ve read the Seduction of Christianity , Napoleon Hill. The last 18 years of his life he spent in a nursing home and we’re told by his biographers that he died penniless. Now, what about that?

Dave:

Seems like “The Secret” turned on him, as always.

Tom:

Yes, and it would because we know where it came from, what the roots of it are.

Dave:

Right. This is Michael Bernard Beckwith and he says, “The moment you begin to think properly,” okay, so in other words, it’s the power of the mind, “this something that’s within you,” what is it? “this power within you that’s greater than the world, it will begin to emerge.” Now, why does it begin to emerge? I’m thinking properly. It sounds like I’m the guy who has the power, why do I need this other power? It’s like a magic genie, you know, you call it to do your bidding. “It will take over your life. It will feed you. It will clothe you. It will guide you, protect you, direct you, sustain your very existence.” How come some of these guys died in the condition we’re talking about, and died so young? “If you let it—now that is what I know for sure.” And Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “The Secret is the answer to all that has been, all that is, and all that will ever be.” Now, anybody listening to this who knows anything about the Bible, knows anything about God, knows that this is a slap in the face to God. This is denying what God says about Himself.

When Moses asked, “What’s your name? Who are you? You’re sending me to Egypt to deliver your people and they’re going say, well, who is this God that sent me? What’s your name?” God says, “I AM that I AM.” And through Isaiah and many other places He says, “I am God, there is none else.” About Jesus, John writes, “all things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.” And yet this book, The Secret , says that, well, “quantum physics says that the universe is the result of a thought.” I guess last week I asked a logical question, “who’s thought was that?” Before there’s a creation, before there’s a universe, we’ve got a thought that brought it in to existence. Now, thoughts don’t just come out of the air. They are “thought” by “someone.” Who is the one who thought it?

Tom:

A thinker.

Dave:

Right. You’ve got to have a thinker. Tom, it is so full of holes and yet people are just going for this. Why? Because lust, they want power. They want what it offers. And, I guess, that was Eve’s problem in the Garden.

Tom:

Absolutely. And amazing to me, Dave, this was before sin, this was before she actually sinned that Satan offered her something that was really ludicrous. She had everything in perfection. But, that thought, that deceptive, seductive thought caused her to disobey God. And then Adam, you know, right after her.

Dave:

Adam, I believe, he wasn’t deceived. Well, it says, he was not deceived.

But, he didn’t want to lose his wife, I guess.

Tom:

But, Dave, I’d like to go back. We’re going to talk about this now and when we end this series really underscore it. Part of the lie to Eve was that she would be as God. Now, I think, if we go to II Thessalonians 2: 10b-11, where it says, “because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.” I think you can trace the lie right from the lie in Genesis that Satan offers to Eve, all the way to the Anti-Christ who sets himself up as God to be worshipped as God. So, this idea that we’re gods, you find it in, and it’s not just Mormonism and Hinduism, etc., you find it in psychology, you know, self-deification, self-actualization. All of that seems to be the lie that we buy. It’s amazing.

Dave:

Well, the world buys it. The lie is now called “The Secret.” It’s been repackaged and people are just going for this like Eve bit and got hooked by the serpent in the Garden. To me, Tom, it’s, you wanted to do this series, you want to make a DVD or something about it, my first thought was, “forget it.” This is so absurd. What’s the point of even talking about it? It bores me. But, they go for this, and the only reason,

Tom:

Seventeen weeks on the New York Times best seller list.

Dave:

You said the top of the New York Times best seller list?

Tom:

Exactly.

Dave:

And, 6 million copies of the book sold already. Well, Jesus said in John 8 to the Jews who had just said they believed in Him and then when he tries to tell them who He really is, what He came for, He came to deliver them from “self” and from sin. That’s not the deliverer they want. They want deliverance from the Romans. Anyway, He says, I think it’s verse 45, “And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.” And, I keep going back to this, Tom. It seems to me that Christ is saying, you would believe any lie. The one thing you will not believe is the truth. Now, Tom, I ponder that a great deal. Why? Why? Well, the only thing that I can suggest, Jesus says you must deny “self,” take up the cross and follow Me. And you know, Tom, as we’ve often said, you start talking like that on radio and television, you’re not going to build a huge church because that’s not what people want to hear. But, when you tell them, as Satan says, oh, I can make a god out of you and you can have anything you want. Obviously, this is amoral. You can have anything you want, I can have anything I want, well, I’d like to have your wife. Okay, just think the good positive thought about it. All right? What could be wrong with that, because it clearly says that there are no morals in this. No right and wrong. Well, let me just see if I can find it here, Tom, see if I can read it. It says, “The earth turns on its orbit for you.” Wow! For every one of the 6-plus billion people the earth is turning on it’s orbit for each of them, each of them can have whatever they want. The oceans ebb and flow for you, the birds sing for you, the sun rises and it sets for you. Wow! I’m beginning to really swell, my head is getting so big I’ll never get another hat on! It says, “No matter who you thought you were, now you know the truth of who you really are.” Whooee, boy, I love this, this is wonderful stuff. “You are the master of the universe.” What! The universe was here a long time before I got here! “You are the heir to the kingdom, you are the perfection of life, and now you know “The Secret”! Tom, I mean, how could somebody read this and not guffaw—this is ridiculous stuff!

Tom:

Well Dave, it is to us because we know what the scriptures teach. And you know, you would say, Well, what about somebody with common sense, you know, what about just a person with common sense, who is reasonable and rational, and so on? But Dave, we’re talking about covetousness, we’re talking about greed, we’re talking about materialism, we’re talking about what we want, and how many times have we seen those fleshly ideas override reason? Again, the way this is packaged makes it so incredibly seductive. Well, let try a scripture here, Dave. We talked about the bottom line to all of this is that we are gods, okay, but the prophet Jeremiah, chapter 10 verse 11, has something to say about this. This is Jeremiah speaking, Jeremiah:10:11Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.: “Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.”

Dave:

Tom, I often quote that to Mormons or mystics or Hindus because, as you know, the goal of every Mormon, well, a lot of them realize they will never make it, but those going through the temple rituals and so forth, the whole purpose of that is, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. That’s the literal terminology in Mormonism, and ultimately, maybe a billion years from now you will have become a god. Now, did you make the heavens and the earth? No. I talked to some yogis in India about this. I asked them, Did you create the heavens and the earth? “Well, no.” They had a tough time saying that, although, Tom, I don’t think I mentioned this ever maybe, but at least not for month. I’m sitting next to a guy in the airplane, a very intelligent man in some ways, top business man, and yet he believes that we create—this is Hinduism, this is Maya—we create this whole world by our minds. And I said, Well, if you’re creating this airplane that’s holding us up and the seat I’m sitting in I hope you don’t lose your memory or your thoughts, I mean, we’re heading for the ground. I guess everybody else, isn’t it amazing that everyone in this airplane, they’ve got the same idea, they got together and they conspired, and I hope they know about the control panel up there in the cockpit, I hope they’ve got all those wires going right here with their minds! I mean, Tom, it is so ludicrous!

Tom:

But see, Dave, you’re pointing out something. Some people. an intelligent man grabs onto something, but all of a sudden his critical thinking goes South. God down through history, look at all of the ideas of gods, even Hitler for example, the Aryan race, this is a race of gods? Well, we’re going to apply Jeremiah 10:11 to that as well, but we have it over and over again, man’s ego is incredible.

Dave:

Tom, maybe it’s hopeless for us to even talk about this because everybody wants to believe the lie, but let me try to find out—

Tom:

But Dave, I think we could find some people out there who want to, come let’s reason together, as the scripture says, and that’s what we’re trying to do in this program,

Dave:

Well, listen to what Peter says in 2 Peter chapter 2. The Bible, I say it probably thousands of times, I love the Bible, you will not escape the Bible. This was not written by men, it lays it out very clearly through forty different writers, they don’t contradict one another, it’s amazing! And listen to what Peter says. This is 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 1: “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, (By you saying you’re God, you’re denying God) and bring upon themselves swift destruction.” The word actually means sudden, and you may linger for a while, but it’s going to come. “And many shall follow their pernicious ways—(Wow!) by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.” They don’t like what we say, they don’t like the truth. But this is the verse I was thinking of, verse 3: “And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you:” Wow! Tom, in my files I have so many—here’s an envelope coming from, I don’t even remember, it could be W. V. Grant, it could the Tiltons, who knows, any one of these guys—

Tom:

These con men, we make no apologies for that. Well, some of them have been jailed just for that very thing.

Dave:

Right on the front of the envelope it says: Man who received this got $5,000 in the mail. Probably mentioned it a few times, but here’s a letter from Oral Roberts, who is still highly regarded in the church, hero on TV and so forth, he’s been up all night. He’s got my name in there, in this letter, he’s been up all night praying for me, and God has given him 32 specific blessings that God wants to give to me. Now of course, Tom, you’ve got several hundred thousand other people who have their name in that same letter. The man is a liar, he’s a fraud, what is this for? Well, I’m going to get these 32 blessings, he’s got me going for this bait right away, but what’s the key to it? Well, you have to give him a seed faith offering, and that will start the miracles going. Tom, you know in, I think it’s Occult Invasion , I quote a letter from Oral Roberts, you remember, to the widower of a dead woman, it’s addressed to her and Oral Roberts is saying, “God is going to heal you now” you know, and send in your seed faith offering, and so forth, this man got so angry. But notice what it says, “through covetousness.” Now I think there’s covetousness on both sides.

Tom:

Without a doubt, Dave, if there wasn’t an audience that had the flesh in mind that one of certain things would work.

Dave:

That’s who’s buying this book, through covetousness. Now Oral Roberts is coveting your seed faith offering, but you’re coveting what he is offering. Okay, that’s how it works. Shall they—and Tom, this is modern language, “with feigned words make merchandise of you.” In other words, they are selling you a bill of goods, and you are buying it. Tom, that’s what this “Secret” is about, and they have packaged this thing in a way that it’s really appealing.

Tom:

Dave, I mentioned earlier, 22 years ago we wrote, The Seduction of Christianity , and we thought, Well this is as bad as it’s going to get, the Lord must be right at the door. Well, that was 22 years ago. In the last 3 or 4 years, since The Seduction of Christianity , things have taken over, almost exponentially. In other words, I can’t compare the last 3 or 4 years to the 20 years or 18 years or so that preceded that. And let me tell you why I think we are seeing things, and not only is it a spiritual thing, strong delusion is entering into this there is no doubt, but marketing. Dave, have we ever seen marketing in the church, not just seeker-friendly, seeker-sensitive, purpose-driven, everything has a marketing basis. We now have pastors who are CEO’s, I mean this is the idea, we’ve taken these business concepts. Take it back to one of Rick Warren’s mentors, Peter Drucker, but we see this over and over again and it’s having an effect that’s staggering.

Dave:

In Christian psychology, Wow, what packaging they’ve got.

Tom:

Of course, that’s part of the package, Dave. We are not going to go by things that God lays out, but we’re going to take man’s ways. And of course we know twice in Proverbs, “There’s a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Dave, what I would like to do, again, we don’t want to belabor this, but I think starting next week we’re just going to go over these elements. If people really want to have their thinking developed in this, in other words, we want them to critically think about some of these things, we’re going to go over some of the elements just to show you: Number one, they are not biblical, Number two, they are not even rational or logical, and if somebody is caught up in this—

Dave:

Number three, it’s amoral.

Tom:

Right. Well, they have a god that’s not personal and they can control this god, this is rebellion.

Dave:

And get what they want.

Tom:

Exactly, so next week we will pick up with this.