Announcer: It's time now for Bible Talk. Join our hosts Gary Gibbs and John Bradshaw speakers for the
Amazing Facts ministry as they now open the Bible and discuss themes that affect your life today. Stay tuned because the next 15 minutes will deepen your understanding of God's Word.
John Bradshaw: Hello, friends, and welcome again to Bible Talk. I'm John Bradshaw. With me is Gary Gibbs. We have got another tremendous subject this time on Bible Talk. Gary, lately we've been talking about what happens to a person when they die. Review for me where we've been the last couple of visits.
Gary Gibbs: John, the common conception about what happens when we die is that as soon as a person dies they either go to Heaven or to hell. We've been looking at what the Scripture says and the Bible says that when we die we go to sleep. In John 11, Jesus called death a sleep. Over 50 times the Bible describes death as a sleep.
John: Last time we talked about the verse often used to refute that thought. Where Paul talked about he would like to be absent from the body he was in and he wanted to be present with the Lord. We established very clearly from I Corinthians 15 that he would be present with the Lord when mortality was swallowed up of life. You told us when that'll take place.
Gary: Yeah it happens at the last trump according to first Corinthians 15:52. And the last trump is when Jesus comes. You see that very clearly in first Thessalonian 4:16 and 17.
John: I want to review something from our last two discussions. Because most people have been told at sometime or another that when you die your soul goes off some place. In the Bible it teaches us something interesting about the soul that everybody needs to know.
Gary: Yeah the Bible says that you become a living soul when the energy, the power of God, the life giving force unites with the body. Genesis 2:7, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul."
John: So a soul isn't what you have?
Gary: A soul is what you are. It's your thoughts, feelings, and purposes.
John: OK. Let's bring this into everyday life because there are many many people who embrace the idea of being able to communicate with the dead. Today psychics are popular. The psychic hotlines are booming in popularity. There are even highly rated television programs where people are brought into an interview with a psychic, a medium, and this medium puts them in touch with their dead loved ones.
In fact, let me tell you, years ago I used to host a radio program and one Friday night we had a radio program with a very special guest. I want to tell you too, it wasn't my idea. This was the program directors idea. But there was a nationally known psychic who would appear on radio programs every now and then and we knew this was an instant ratings winner if ever we had her on the radio.
John: Long time before the radio program even began people were calling up trying to get through to speak to this lady. And before my eyes, and I heard with my own ears peoples questions and sat across the desk from this lady as she answered their questions and put them in touch with, supposedly, their dead relatives, loved ones, whatever the case is. This really happens. People really communicate with somebody. Let's talk about what's going on there because this is big business today.
Gary: Well, clearly from what the Bible says they're not talking to their dead loved ones. And even if you did accept the belief, though it's not according to Scripture, that when you die you go to Heaven, the Bible absolutely says there's no communication between the two. So that puts this in a total realm outside the Bible, even if you have the wrong view of what happens when you die, because the Bible says the dead will not communicate with the living.
So that means it has to be from Satan. Now, Satan's supernatural and he's lived all the lifetimes everybody has ever lived here. So he can tell people things that only their dead loved ones know because he has angels who were there watching it all. So just because something is supernatural, John, doesn't mean that it's from God. There are two supernatural powers in the universe, God and Satan.
John: So this very popular, it's a phenomena today. People watching these television programs. Reading the books. Just two days ago I was driving down a highway and saw big sign for the areas most renowned psychic, "come and have your palm read", this sort of thing. You're saying this has got no basis in Scripture.
Gary: Not Scripture. In fact some of these people just are fakes. You listen to their answers, they're generalized answers that would apply to anyone, but some of them actually have supernatural powers. And the Bible tells us we need to beware of that.
You know Scripture says that even Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light, in the book of Corinthians, so you know we have to beware that these things, just because they're supernatural they're not necessarily from God, that's second Corinthians 11:14.
John: OK. So the psychics, the mediums, we want to keep away from that. We recognize this certainly isn't Christian in any way shape or form. Take it a step further.
My sister-in-law, the wife of my brother, was getting into her bed late one night, early one morning. As a law student she would often be up half the night studying. As she was getting into bed, my brother, I guess, is comatose right there in the bed and she's pulling back the bed covers and turns around and sees my Father standing at the foot of her bed. Now that would be unusual at the best of times but what made this especially unusual was the fact that my Father had died 18 hours earlier.
Now you know as well as I do this happens all over the globe. It's a big phenomenon. Hundreds and thousands, I'd say millions of people, encounter this directly or indirectly. What about people appearing to their loved ones from the other side?
Gary: That could be one of two things. Usually I believe its from the Devil because the Bible says in second Corinthians 11:14 even the Devil himself can be transformed into an angel of light. And so he establishes credibility for this doctrine that when you die you don't really die you go to live somewhere else. He establishes credibility by these imitations, these imitations of dead loved ones because that's an experience you have.
John: Sure, those experiences they're pretty hard to deny aren't they?
Gary: You can't deny them. You saw it and you experienced it.
John: I've had people say to me, and I don't want to gloss over a point you just made. I want to go back to it. I've had people say so, why would this even happen if it's not from the Lord? You're suggesting this is all part of the devil's mass strategy to accept this whole idea of life after death.
Gary: In the last days, the Bible says in Revelation 16:14, that the spirits of demons will perform miracles and signs to deceive the world. That's why there's this increase in this phenomena of life-after-death. It's popular in all of the TV shows and the movies, in the books, the magazines. Because, the devil's building momentum for his last great deceptions when he starts personating the dead loved ones that we have. Who start telling us what it's like on the other side.
We'll believe that before we'll believe the Bible because that's an experience we have, something we saw, something we heard.
John: So, that makes it so much more important that we understand that the Bible says that death is a sleep. If you understand that, then you can't be deceived by TV psychics. You can't be deceived by apparitions even from those you love who have passed away.
Gary: Listen, here's the problem with this teaching that as soon as you die you go to Heaven or Hell. It's the teaching that says that we are all immortal creatures. You're naturally immortal. You don't have to go to God to get immortality. That's not what the Bible says.
John: In fact, the Bible says in I John 5:12, he that hath the Son has the life. That would make a mockery of that text if you inherently posses immortal life in some soul that goes on living. Am I right?
Gary: That's right. John 3:16, the most precious text in all the Bible. What's it say, John?
John: God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Gary: So, there are only two options in that text. You either believe, or don't believe. You either perish or you have everlasting life. The only people who have everlasting life are those who believe in Jesus Christ.
You don't have everlasting life in Hell and everlasting life in Heaven. You only have everlasting life when you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and you live forever in Heaven. You receive that gift when you believe him but you receive the gift of Heaven at the resurrection.
John: On Bible Talk today as we study this, it's impressing itself upon my mind that understanding this correctly gives us an appreciation as to the importance of knowing Jesus because only life is in Christ. If we don't know Jesus Christ as our Lord and as our personal savior, we can't have that everlasting life that's promised to us.
Gary: Let me show you how important this and how the devil tries to deceive people. We go to I Samuel 28. You find there King Saul who was the first king of the nation of Israel in the Old Testament.
At this point, he has wondered far from God. The Bible says there in I Samuel 28 that at this point in time, God was not even speaking to Saul. Saul had committed what we call the unpardonable sin. That's in verse six.
He wants light. He wants understanding from the other side as to what's going to happen in this upcoming battle. He goes to a witch. Previously, he had obeyed God and he had killed all the witches and put them out of the land.
John: He missed one, obviously.
Gary: That's right. She was in hiding. But, he knows where she is. He makes his way to her and he goes to her and she calls up a familiar spirit.
John: This is a compelling story because, here you've got the king actually talking to someone who had died or is there more to it than that?
Gary: It appears that way. She calls up this spirit and Saul says what do you see? The woman says I see an old man and it appears like it might be Samuel. Then Samuel the prophet of God who had died awhile back, he apparently speaks to Saul and tells Saul that he's going to die in the battle that's upcoming. That demoralizes Saul so much that the Bible says that he can't eat, he can't sleep and he goes into battle just completely demoralized. He's hungry and he's tired.
Guess what happens? He dies in battle, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Who was behind this? Who was behind this? Some people say well, that was God speaking to him, see it came true.
John: I've had a lot of people say here's the evidence that you can communicate with those who die because the king went out there and he saw Samuel. What you said though was he didn't see him at all. The woman could see that it was...
Gary: The woman saw him.
John: Saw, and then he derived from that, that it was Samuel.
Gary: That's right. If you go to I Chronicles 10:13. It gives us Gods take on what happened. The Bible just reports things, but then it tells us what God thinks about it.
Verse 13 of I Chronicles 10, So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the Lord, even against the word of the Lord, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to inquire of it, and inquired not of the Lord; therefore, he slew him.
Saul died because he went to a witch. A witch is not in partnership with God whatsoever. He inquired of a familiar spirit which is the euphemism for a satanic spirit.
John: We've covered some ground today. We have seen that it's so important for Christians to understand. For all people to understand that death is a sleep and that there's no consciousness in death.
We can't go and speak to the dead through mediums and spiritualists. These apparitions from the other side are not something we need to get involved in whatsoever. There's more to talk about, we'll do it next time. Join us here on Bible Talk.
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