Understanding Deceptive Spiritual Experiences with Pastor Mike Shreve

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And I thought I was experiencing ultimate reality.

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I thought I was experiencing God.

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Now I realize that was totally a deceptive experience

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given to me by a satanic spirit

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that was involved in my life at that time.

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Pastor Mike Shreve, it's great to have you here

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on Charisma News.

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Now we've asked you to come on here

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because there is a lot of occult practices,

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witchcraft, new age things that are basically rising

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to the top of culture during this time of year.

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And we wanna be able to bring a Christian perspective,

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a spirit-filled Christian perspective

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and to really shed some true light on these things.

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And you've got an amazing testimony

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of how God has brought you out from a new age,

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yoga, spiritist, mysticism type thing.

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I actually kind of forget all the stuff that you've told me,

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but we're gonna kind of dive into that here.

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And let you do some really pulling back the curtain

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on these practices that are made popular

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at this time of year.

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So Pastor Mike, thanks you for being here on Charisma News.

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Oh, it's my privilege always to be with you.

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I appreciate my covenant connection with Charisma

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and our work together through the years.

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Yeah, and that's what we really wanna do

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in this conversation is reveal the true light

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in a time of the year where darkness is celebrated.

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Pastor Mike, one of the things that has really intrigued me

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and it's kind of come up in the news

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or definitely on viral shorts and videos

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on the internet right now is this concept

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of astral projection.

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I actually heard a pastor friend of mine tell a story

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of a witch doctor had astral projected into his bedroom

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to cast some spells and it's a wild testimony there,

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but he unknowingly had allowed some connections

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with that witch doctor when he was on a mission trip.

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And so tell us a little bit about what astral projection is

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and what is the, if that's the counterfeit,

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what is the real?

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I believe that I experienced astral projection

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when I was a yoga teacher for universities.

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I, of course, have come out of all of that

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and renounced all of that, but back in 1970,

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I was running a yoga ashram in Tampa, Florida.

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I was spending 12 to 14 hours a day in meditation

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and chanting mantras and doing things

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that were geared toward experiences of the supernatural,

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such as astral projection.

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And there were a couple of times I had the strong impression

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that I had actually left my body

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and was in a spiritual realm.

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And I have a graph in my book

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that I think illustrates what happened.

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I have a book called In Search of the True Light.

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I believe in three heavens.

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The first heaven I interpret to be the atmosphere

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around the earth and the universe,

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the cosmos beyond the natural universe.

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Then the third heaven is the manifest presence of God,

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which Paul also referred to as paradise.

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But in between the two heavens,

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you have a second heaven

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that is never addressed in scripture.

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We don't really know what it is,

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and all religions promise some kind of experience

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of the supernatural.

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And I believe at times through various practices,

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through various rituals,

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through various meditative processes, et cetera,

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they penetrate the second heaven

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because they have experiences of a spiritual realm

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that I know now as a Christian

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is dominated by angelic and satanic activity.

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I personally do not believe Satan reigns in hell.

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There's no scripture that depicts him as a king in hell,

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directing demons from hell up to the earth,

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as you see in many Christian plays, of course.

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But he is called the prince of the power of the air.

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However, we don't see him jumping from one cloud

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to another up in the air.

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So it must be a concentric realm or a spiritual realm

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that is just a little bit higher

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than our physical perception of the atmosphere, the air.

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And I interpret that to mean the second heaven,

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where there's conflicts between angels

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and there's conflicts between demonic attacks

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and angelic responses over regions, over individuals.

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And I believe when I had my experiences during meditation

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that possibly, that's the explanation,

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possibly I penetrated that realm,

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but it's inevitable if you try to move

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into the supernatural through seances,

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through spiritualism practices,

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through meditation practices, et cetera,

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you're going to be deceived

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because that is a realm dominated by Satan

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and a cloud of demonic influence all around the world.

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So they are very adept at giving false experiences

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of the supernatural.

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One time I went into this brilliant, intense white light

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that felt like a force, just a force, an impersonal force.

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And I thought I was experiencing ultimate reality.

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I thought I was experiencing God.

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Now I realize that was totally a deceptive experience

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given to me by a satanic spirit

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that was involved in my life at that time.

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So I'm not saying people can have legitimate experiences,

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but they're inevitably going to have

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satanically inspired deceptive experiences

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if they attempt to go a different way.

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Because Jesus said, I am the door.

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And by me, if any man enter any will be saved.

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And he also said, I am the way, the truth and the life.

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And no one comes to the Father but by me.

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So if you attempt any other way, you're a thief and a robber.

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Well, I was not intentionally trying to steal

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something spiritually that was not rightfully mine,

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but whether it was intentional or not is irrelevant

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because I was trying to encounter a realm

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that I had no spiritual or legal right to enter

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as an unregenerated child of Adam.

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But the thing about it is when you're born again,

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instead of you penetrating, trying or attempting

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to penetrate the spiritual world,

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the third heaven and the God of the third heaven

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bridges that gap and comes down into your heart.

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And so all religions are man's effort to reach God,

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but Jesus is God's effort to reach man.

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And then you have a true experience of heaven on earth.

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In fact, the Bible said we become seated with Christ

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together in heavenly places.

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I hope that's a suitable explanation.

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Amen, amen, it does.

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And I've got a follow-up question for you.

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And I think this one is gonna really help people,

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especially this time of year,

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because there's a lot of things that look like fun

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in this Halloween season where there's ghouls and goblins

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and people were playing around and dabbling, I guess,

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with the occult and witchcraft and things like that.

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My question for you is about the deception, okay?

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Because the Bible talks about a great deception.

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And you said that while you were in this experience,

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you were deceived, but that was like,

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it was a demonic thing that looked good,

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that felt good at the time.

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But now that you're on the other side of that

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and you know who Jesus is and you've had redemption

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and Jesus has become a Lord of your life,

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the savior of your life, the forgiver of your past

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and the leader of your future,

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now you can look at that and say, I was deceived.

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There's a lot of people that are deceived right now,

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especially with these things.

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How can you approach somebody and help them

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that they think that they're just having fun,

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they think that they're having a fun experience

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that feels good at the moment?

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How can you help them to get past the deception

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and know that this was, that's a demonic thing

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and we need to have the focus on the real?

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Well, actually, one of the basic things

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I always try to establish

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when I'm talking to a New Ager or a Hindu,

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it revolves around the idea of truth.

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Is truth subjective or objective?

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The whole generation we're a part of loves to come up

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with this supposed axiom, this pithy wise statement

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that you can have your truth and I can have my truth

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and we can both be right.

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Well, I believe that's both theologically

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and logically absurd because there's no way truth

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can just be personally developed or personally,

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how can I say it, personally created,

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that you create your own truth.

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And one of the ways I address quite often to prove that

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is the difference in opinion between the nature

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of the solar system by Ptolemy in the second century

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or Copernicus about a thousand years later.

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Ptolemy taught that the earth was a center and the sun

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revolved around the earth.

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Copernicus came along and said, no, the sun is a center

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and the earth revolves around the sun.

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If they were contemporaries, they never could have sat

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in the same room and discuss their beliefs

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and Copernicus would not have said to Ptolemy,

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you can have your truth and I can have my truth

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and we can both be right.

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One is right at the expense of the other being wrong

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and there's no other response to that.

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Well, in like manner, Eastern religions

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and New Age spirituality teach that the presence of God

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or an essence of divinity is already within every human being.

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So to find God, you look within.

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On the opposite end of the pole,

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Christianity teaches that God is external.

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He is outside of the physical universe and outside of us,

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our sins have separated us from God, Isaiah 59 verse two says.

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And so in order to come back into a relationship with God,

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he enters into us from with that.

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Those two scenarios are so contradictory,

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there's no way they can both be true.

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Either God is already in me or God is outside of me

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and will enter into me, but both cannot be right.

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And I contend when I share with New Agers

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about my experience that I found out when I invited

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the Lord Jesus Christ into my heart

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that the biblical approach was the correct approach.

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It worked, I had an experience of the true God

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for the first time in my life.

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And I was convinced by that encounter

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that the biblical way is the right way.

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So whenever there's people that are dabbling

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with the occult practices and things like that,

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what could we do as friends and family

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are playing around with this stuff?

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Other than just saying, no, don't do that, that's wrong.

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People aren't gonna necessarily understand that.

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How can we help people kind of come out of that?

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Well, there's a whole array of subjects

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that need to be addressed.

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And John, I have a website, thetrulight.net,

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that's T-H-E-T-R-U-E-L-I-G-H-T, thetrulight.net.

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And I address many, many subjects, especially

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in the section on podcasts, the archives of the podcast,

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and a section called writings where I have articles

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on subjects like, well, let me take one for instance,

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chanting mantras.

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Chanting mantras is something people think

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is totally harmless and very helpful

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and brings peace of mind.

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And some people think it can cause manifestations

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of what you desire in your life.

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But I do a teaching on what chanting mantras really is

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and how Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount,

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Matthew chapter six, verse seven,

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actually pinpointed that and said,

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"'Use not vain repetitions like the heathen do,

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"'for they believe that they'll be heard

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"'for their much speaking.'"

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Why did he warn against it when he was teaching

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the disciples how to effectively pray?

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Because the idea of chanting mantras is based on the idea

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that God is an impersonal force on the highest level.

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And if that were true, then chanting a mantra

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would make sense because it's like a computer code

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that you enter into your computer

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to bring forth the desired results.

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But God is not a machine and God is not a computer

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that you manipulate and control with the right incantation.

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If I was trying to communicate with you right now,

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and I repeated the same phrase 100 times

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in a monotone voice, you would say,

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we can't use this interview.

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There's no relevance to what you're doing.

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Because you don't communicate

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with a fellow human being that way,

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there's a flow of conversation

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that involves a creative expression of words

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that address certain ideas in a logical fashion.

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Well, if God is a person,

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we should approach him the same way.

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There should be a creative flow of praise and worship

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and petition to him that makes sense,

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not just a repetition of some monotonous sound

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to try and manipulate or control a power

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or a force into manifestation.

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Star Wars popularized the idea of God just being a force.

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And a lot of people who are into the occult believe that.

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They believe that God is really subordinate to man,

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that it's a power, a force that we are in control of

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and that we manipulate or control by certain occult practices.

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And that's just absolutely an insult to him.

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That's why in Deuteronomy 18,

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God forbade the involvement of his people

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in occult practices like contacting the dead,

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like witchcraft and so forth.

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Yeah.

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You know, Pastor Mike,

283
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I wanna give people hope right now too.

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And I'm gonna ask you to share your story

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of how you came out of that life and you met Jesus.

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And just a little bit of time

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that we have left for this segment,

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I just wanna let you share the gospel

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through your testimony.

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Oh, I love sharing it.

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I never grow tired of sharing it

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and I've been sharing it over 50 years.

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It was divinely orchestrated in a very remarkable way.

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I, as I mentioned, was teaching yoga at four universities

295
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and running a yoga ashram in Tampa, Florida.

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And I had about 300 students who considered me their guru.

297
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And the word guru comes from two roots,

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goo and rue that means out of darkness into light.

299
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But the problem was I wasn't in the light yet

300
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so I couldn't lead anyone else there.

301
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And I had left college to study under an Indian guru myself

302
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and then I became one of his subordinate teachers.

303
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And a friend of mine had left college at the same time

304
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for the same purpose, but studied under a different guru.

305
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And he writes me a letter

306
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with this very surprising announcement.

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He tells me that he walked in a church,

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heard an audible voice say, Jesus is the only way.

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And he was quote unquote, born again,

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which was completely new to me.

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I'd never heard that terminology before

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having been raised Catholic.

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And so it intrigued me.

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And he talked about how the spirit of God

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had entered into him from without.

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And so that immediately grabbed my attention.

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I thought that's a different approach altogether.

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So I pondered that letter that I received for days.

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Now simultaneously, something else was happening.

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The Tampa Tribune newspaper

321
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had done a half page article on me,

322
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which was a huge amount of advertisement for free

323
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in an area where, I don't know,

324
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a couple of million people probably got that paper.

325
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So I thought for sure,

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my classes were going to mushroom in attendance.

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Instead, God used that article

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to alert a spirit-filled prayer group in Tampa, Florida

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to begin praying for me.

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And they cut the article out of the paper,

331
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pinned it to their prayer board,

332
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and assigned somebody to be fasting

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and praying for me every hour of every day.

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They had a 24-hour prayer chain.

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So I'm being soaked with intercession, in a sense,

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for almost a month.

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Now I get this letter from Larry,

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and I'm already the object of intercessory prayer.

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And God just responded to that

340
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and used that letter to trigger a desire in my heart.

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So one day I just dedicated the day to Jesus.

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And instead of doing any of my yoga practices,

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my normal asanas, which are physical exercises,

344
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or pranayama, which are breathing exercises,

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I decided I wasn't gonna chant mantras,

346
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I wasn't gonna meditate.

347
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All I was going to do was read the Bible

348
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and pray to Jesus all day long

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that if He was the truth, He would give me a sign.

350
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And that afternoon I was hitchhiking

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to go teach a yoga class.

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And one of the members of the prayer group

353
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who just happened to be a former yoga student himself

354
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who had gone deeper than me into the experience

355
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was two miles away.

356
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And he was part of that prayer group praying for me.

357
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And he's walking into a laundromat

358
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with an armful of dirty clothes,

359
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and God speaks to his heart and says,

360
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"'Get back in your van and start driving.

361
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"'I've got a job for you to do.'"

362
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That's all the instructions God gave him.

363
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So he got behind the wheel obediently

364
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and started driving and turned whenever he felt an impulse

365
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and saw me hitchhiking about two miles down the road

366
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and felt compelled to pick me up.

367
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He pulled over and I'm still praying, John.

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I'm still saying, Jesus, if you're the answer,

369
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show me today, give me a sign.

370
00:19:00,060 --> 00:19:03,060
I opened the door to the van and looked in

371
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and my heart jumps because on the ceiling of the van

372
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is a picture of Jesus.

373
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And I knew this is my son.

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And a few minutes later, he began witnessing to me

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and within about a half hour,

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I was on my knees in the back of the van with him,

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praying, seeking God, asking Jesus for this experience

378
00:19:23,820 --> 00:19:25,160
of being born again.

379
00:19:25,160 --> 00:19:27,540
And the Catholics teach that it happens

380
00:19:27,540 --> 00:19:29,740
when a child is sprinkled at birth.

381
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That didn't happen to me.

382
00:19:31,560 --> 00:19:36,460
It happened when I consciously invited Jesus into my heart

383
00:19:36,460 --> 00:19:40,460
where I repented of my sins and claimed his blood,

384
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washing my soul clean from sin and told him I believe

385
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he had risen from the dead and that he was Lord of my life.

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That changed everything.

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I went back to my classes that week,

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told them that from that point forward,

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00:19:54,340 --> 00:19:56,420
they were no longer going to be conducted,

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that I had become a follower of Jesus.

391
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They were quite shocked.

392
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Most of them became Christians also.

393
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And I shut down my ashram within a day or two.

394
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I just backed out of my rental agreement

395
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and shut it down and no longer functioned in that realm

396
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because I don't believe in quote unquote Christian yoga.

397
00:20:17,860 --> 00:20:20,340
I believe that's an oxymoron.

398
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You cannot blend the two worldviews.

399
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It's like trying to put the Ark of the Covenant

400
00:20:27,580 --> 00:20:32,580
in the same building as Dagon, the false god.

401
00:20:32,900 --> 00:20:35,440
You can't mix two worldviews like that.

402
00:20:35,440 --> 00:20:40,200
Yeah, wow, so you had a tremendous,

403
00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:43,760
tremendous testimony of God had his,

404
00:20:43,760 --> 00:20:45,960
the hounds of heaven were after you for sure

405
00:20:45,960 --> 00:20:48,160
by that prayer and intercession group.

406
00:20:48,160 --> 00:20:51,760
And the thing that you thought was gonna bring you

407
00:20:51,760 --> 00:20:54,640
fame and fortune as a yogi, which I'm sure

408
00:20:54,640 --> 00:20:58,880
that's actually counterintuitive to what the yogi practices.

409
00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:01,960
But you were thinking that that was gonna grow,

410
00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:04,200
but God actually used that as an opportunity

411
00:21:04,200 --> 00:21:08,480
for you to get saved and then lead more people to Christ.

412
00:21:08,480 --> 00:21:11,800
And now you're a pastor and you've got these great podcasts.

413
00:21:11,800 --> 00:21:16,040
You've got books that are really helping people

414
00:21:16,040 --> 00:21:20,280
get past the deception points in so many different ways

415
00:21:20,280 --> 00:21:25,280
because you have a great just perspective of how

416
00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:28,920
and how to explain these things to people that,

417
00:21:28,920 --> 00:21:31,800
let's face it, there's so many other religions

418
00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:36,400
and strange beliefs out there that it's very good

419
00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:38,800
to have somebody like yourself that can help Christians

420
00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:41,520
understand that in a safe way for somebody

421
00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:43,560
that has been studied.

422
00:21:43,560 --> 00:21:45,840
And Pastor Mike, we just thank you so much

423
00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:48,200
for being a part of the Charisma family

424
00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:49,800
and being able to share with this.

425
00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:52,160
And I know we're gonna have another conversation,

426
00:21:52,160 --> 00:21:55,200
another point to talk about your book,

427
00:21:55,200 --> 00:21:57,760
the beliefs of the Catholic Church.

428
00:21:57,760 --> 00:21:59,280
You coming out of the Catholic Church

429
00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:02,560
is a big part of your testimony as well,

430
00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:06,400
but really you have a love for the Catholics.

431
00:22:06,400 --> 00:22:09,280
And so we're gonna talk about that in another conversation.

432
00:22:09,280 --> 00:22:10,520
But Pastor Mike, thank you so much

433
00:22:10,520 --> 00:22:12,880
for being here on Charisma News.

434
00:22:12,880 --> 00:22:14,320
May I mention one last thing?

435
00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:15,800
Yes, sir.

436
00:22:15,800 --> 00:22:18,840
I did not go into a lot of detail about my testimony,

437
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:21,920
but I have a free book, a free book available

438
00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:25,160
called The Highest Adventure Encountering God.

439
00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:28,440
And it's a mini book about 64 pages

440
00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:31,680
that's available on thetrulight.net.

441
00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:33,840
And it's there in 12 languages.

442
00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:38,120
In fact, it's Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese.

443
00:22:38,120 --> 00:22:42,240
And we've had thousands upon thousands of people worldwide

444
00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:43,400
download that book,

445
00:22:43,400 --> 00:22:45,720
The Highest Adventure Encountering God.

446
00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:48,320
And I would really appreciate it if people came

447
00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:50,240
and took advantage of that free book

448
00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:53,080
and shared it with people who are searching

449
00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:55,160
through New Age spirituality.

450
00:22:55,160 --> 00:22:56,000
Absolutely.

451
00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:58,520
I think for that will be in the description of this video

452
00:22:58,520 --> 00:23:00,320
and we'll put it up on the screen as well

453
00:23:00,320 --> 00:23:01,280
as we were talking about it.

454
00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:03,640
So Pastor Mike, thank you so much for being here with us

455
00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:05,080
today on Charisma News.

456
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:08,120
And we look forward to our next conversation.

457
00:23:08,120 --> 00:23:27,120
Thank you very much and God bless you, John.