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Consider this statement from Jude 1:8. Jude is talking about ungodly people, false teachers who are already marked out for condemnation, grace-perverters.
Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.
Look at the part of the verse which casts a negative light on their reliance on dreams, where I'd underlined. What kind of dreams are meant here? MacArthur Commentary,
In the clip, Moore fervently affirms that she just loves Jesus so much and the dream 'he' gave her just makes her love 'him' all the more. Moore's friend is Mary Beth Chapman, wife of Grammy and Dove Award winning recording artist, Steven Curtis Chapman. About a year and a half prior to Moore's dream, her friend Mary Beth had tragically lost her adopted Chinese daughter Maria to a car accident. Mary Beth had been in deep grief.
Moore opened by explaining that in all her 53 years she did not dream that vividly and she never had a dream from God. Though she'd repeatedly prayed and asked for Him to send her a dream, Moore explained that God 'said' to her that "some people are just safer with the Word on the page." (1:31 in the clip. By the way, this is an admission that Moore seeks extrabiblical revelation, and that she knows exactly that dreams are extrabiblical revelation).
Her dream involved seeing Mary Beth at a sound stage about to speak to an audience, with her dead daughter holding her hand, in a body and dressed in a white shirt with chunky bangs. At the time, Mary Beth Chapman hadn't written her book and was not touring sound stages speaking to audiences. Not yet.
The glaring problem with Moore's description of the dead child is that the redeemed of heaven do not have bodies yet.
As I said, Moore explained that every night she prays He would send her a dream or a manifestation, she seeks it earnestly. Luke 11:29 and Luke 11:16 state that an evil generation seeks a sign. So her first doctrinal mistake was to test the Lord by continually asking for a dream or a manifestation. (her words).
Her second doctrinal mistake was not recognizing instantly that the dream she'd had was not from the Lord. Why? God abhors communing with the dead. It is a practice that He strenuously forbade the Israelites to engage in (Deuteronomy 18:10-12), calling it an abomination. The New Testament is also firm against sorcery, divination, and necromancy. (Galatians 5:19-21, Revelation 21:8).
Chapman said in an interview that she had desired a dream, too. She and her husband desired to see their dead daughter.
For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their memory is forgotten. Indeed their love, their hate and their zeal have already perished, and they will no longer have a share in all that is done under the sun. (Ecc 9:5-6)
Jude disparaged 'dreamers' and their reliance on their 'dreams' because dreaming is a dangerous activity. Sin never sits still. It deepens. It begins with one little sin not repented of, and another and another. It continues with straying from church, the Bible, prayer. It deepens with increased satanic activity surrounding you, traversing the abominable territory into personal revelations. Once a false teacher is comfortable with constant alleged personal revelations, then come the dreams, and then the necromancy, and finally, death, either sooner or later.
In Saul's case, in the one and only case of communing with the dead, the Lord allowed a summoning of Samuel the Prophet through the Witch of Endor to demonstrate to Saul how far gone he was into the deep things of satan. You also notice that the witch already had a "familiar spirit."Samuel's appearance was only to confirm Saul's imminent doom.
This essay has a two-fold purpose. One, to show you again, how deeply Moore is apostate, and to warn you to avoid her. Secondly it is to remind you (and me) that sin never sits still, it is always on the move, prowling. (1 Peter 5:8). As sin moves, it deepens. It gets worse over time if unrepented of, never better.
There are only two ways to go in our walk on earth. One will be on the narrow road or on the broad road. One leads to destruction and eternal death, one leads to eternal life. Walk, or as Paul sometimes said, run, indicates movement. Sin never stays still. You either move toward the "deep things of God" (1 Corinthians 2:10) or you move toward the deep things of satan (Revelation 2:24). When one begins to seek voices and personal direct revelation from God and accept them, one is already far down the path of the deeper things of satan. When one dreams and believes the dreams are from God, it's a dangerous thing. You then begin relying on the dreams and not "the Word on the page" (as Moore admitted above). Jude says of those who rely on dreams "defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones." When dreams turn to summoning the dead, and interpreting their activity into future earthly events, you're already an abomination to God because you are a necromancer. Necromancers do not go to heaven.
Don't dabble in dreams, nor should we ask for them. Don't accept personal revelations, but repent of them. That Beth Moore did not recognize her necromancy dream as an abomination but attributed what was in fact the deep things of satan to God, just shows her blindness and abominable status before our holy Lord. Jude was serious, saying
Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. (Jude 1:3-4)
---------------------------------------------
End Note:
I'm posting these screen shots of the video with closed captioning in case the video is deleted (which Moore's criticized videos often are.) I also saved the transcript of the video and I'll post that if the video is deleted later.
Here, Moore admits she constantly asks God to show her a manifestation or give her a dream.
Here, Moore claims to see Mary Beth Chapman's dead child Maria in body and describes her face, hair and clothes.
Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.
Look at the part of the verse which casts a negative light on their reliance on dreams, where I'd underlined. What kind of dreams are meant here? MacArthur Commentary,
The wicked behavior of such men derives from their dreaming a term that Jude uses to identify these apostates as phony visionaries. The New Testament normally uses the noun onar to refer to dreams (Matthew 1:20, 2:12, 13, 19, 22, 27:19), but here Jude chose a form of the verb enupniazo, which is used only one other place int he New Testament, Acts 2:17. In that passage, Peter (preaching on the Day of Pentecost) declared, "‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams."At this point in writing the essay I decided to Google some quotes where a famous false teacher had mentioned dreams, and it it there. I started with Beth Moore because she's been around longest and had a higher likelihood of a quote somewhere regarding being a 'dreamer' as Jude puts it. I was absolutely shocked as this result came up on Youtube. It is a clip from the LifeToday program on television with James Robison from 6 years ago. At least, Moore mentions that she was 53 years old in the clip and she is 59 years old as of this writing. The 10-minute clip shows Beth describing a dream that she had had, and then its meaning and interpretation. But it's worse than just a revelatory dream. Much worse.
Joel's prophecy (Joel 2:28-32) and its affirmation in Peter's sermon show that the dreams in question may refer to revelatory dreams (rather than normal dreams). During the Tribulation, prophecies, revelations and visions that have now ceased will return, along with divine revelation. God will speak to people through dreams, just as he did earlier in biblical history )e.g., Joseph in Egypt, Daniel in Babylon, and others).
False teachers often claim dreams as authoritative divine source for their "new truths" which are really just lies and distortions. Such claims allow apostates to substitute their own counterfeit authority for God's true scriptural authority
In the clip, Moore fervently affirms that she just loves Jesus so much and the dream 'he' gave her just makes her love 'him' all the more. Moore's friend is Mary Beth Chapman, wife of Grammy and Dove Award winning recording artist, Steven Curtis Chapman. About a year and a half prior to Moore's dream, her friend Mary Beth had tragically lost her adopted Chinese daughter Maria to a car accident. Mary Beth had been in deep grief.
Moore opened by explaining that in all her 53 years she did not dream that vividly and she never had a dream from God. Though she'd repeatedly prayed and asked for Him to send her a dream, Moore explained that God 'said' to her that "some people are just safer with the Word on the page." (1:31 in the clip. By the way, this is an admission that Moore seeks extrabiblical revelation, and that she knows exactly that dreams are extrabiblical revelation).
Her dream involved seeing Mary Beth at a sound stage about to speak to an audience, with her dead daughter holding her hand, in a body and dressed in a white shirt with chunky bangs. At the time, Mary Beth Chapman hadn't written her book and was not touring sound stages speaking to audiences. Not yet.
The glaring problem with Moore's description of the dead child is that the redeemed of heaven do not have bodies yet.
As I said, Moore explained that every night she prays He would send her a dream or a manifestation, she seeks it earnestly. Luke 11:29 and Luke 11:16 state that an evil generation seeks a sign. So her first doctrinal mistake was to test the Lord by continually asking for a dream or a manifestation. (her words).
Her second doctrinal mistake was not recognizing instantly that the dream she'd had was not from the Lord. Why? God abhors communing with the dead. It is a practice that He strenuously forbade the Israelites to engage in (Deuteronomy 18:10-12), calling it an abomination. The New Testament is also firm against sorcery, divination, and necromancy. (Galatians 5:19-21, Revelation 21:8).
Necromancy is defined as the conjuring of the spirits of the dead for purposes of magically revealing the future or influencing the course of events. In the Bible, necromancy is also called “divination,” “sorcery” and “spiritism” and is forbidden many times in Scripture (Leviticus 19:26; Deuteronomy 18:10; Galatians 5:19-20; Acts 19:19) as an abomination to God. It is something that the Lord speaks very strongly against and is to be avoided as much as any evil. (source)
There is no reason to believe that a deceased person has any ability to leave heaven or hell in order to visit his living family members. Any such claim is a demonic deception (2 Corinthians 11:14-15). God declared such practices to be abhorrent to Him, and those who did practice such things in Israel were to be put to death (Leviticus 20:27; Deuteronomy 18:10-12). Satan would like nothing more than for people to dabble in the occult world of spiritism and necromancy. (source)Moore's third doctrinal error was interpreting the dream herself. Genesis 40:8 plainly says that interpretations belong to God. Moore went on in the clip to interpret the dream herself. She said that the dream meant that Mary Beth was being called by God to speak in front of audiences. She further interpreted that God sent the dream to Moore and not to Chapman because it was too soon after the accident for Chapman as a mother to be able to handle seeing her daughter.
After the accident, we avoided the house for several days. We were begging God to show us himself in this, because this was clearly the darkest place he had taken us, and we were drowning. We were like, God, please, let us see. Let us see Maria. Let us have a dream. Let us see something so we know that you're here. (Mary Beth Chapman)The scriptures say,
For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their memory is forgotten. Indeed their love, their hate and their zeal have already perished, and they will no longer have a share in all that is done under the sun. (Ecc 9:5-6)
The dead no longer have a share in what is done under the sun. As for the desire to see a dead person,
Scripture never indulges that desire. In the Old Testament era, every attempt to communicate with the dead was deemed a sin on par with sacrificing infants to false gods (Deuteronomy 18:10–12). The Hebrew Scriptures say comparatively little about the disposition of souls after death, and the people of God were strictly forbidden to inquire further on their own. Necromancy was a major feature of Egyptian religion. It also dominated every religion known among the Canaanites. But under Moses’ law it was a sin punishable by death (Leviticus 20:27). Dead Men Tell No TalesMoore's dream is the exact definition of necromancy. In OT times, doing what Moore did, summoning a dream or a manifestation of a dead person and basing personal interpretations of future events on that dream was punishable by death.
Jude disparaged 'dreamers' and their reliance on their 'dreams' because dreaming is a dangerous activity. Sin never sits still. It deepens. It begins with one little sin not repented of, and another and another. It continues with straying from church, the Bible, prayer. It deepens with increased satanic activity surrounding you, traversing the abominable territory into personal revelations. Once a false teacher is comfortable with constant alleged personal revelations, then come the dreams, and then the necromancy, and finally, death, either sooner or later.
In Saul's case, in the one and only case of communing with the dead, the Lord allowed a summoning of Samuel the Prophet through the Witch of Endor to demonstrate to Saul how far gone he was into the deep things of satan. You also notice that the witch already had a "familiar spirit."Samuel's appearance was only to confirm Saul's imminent doom.
This essay has a two-fold purpose. One, to show you again, how deeply Moore is apostate, and to warn you to avoid her. Secondly it is to remind you (and me) that sin never sits still, it is always on the move, prowling. (1 Peter 5:8). As sin moves, it deepens. It gets worse over time if unrepented of, never better.
There are only two ways to go in our walk on earth. One will be on the narrow road or on the broad road. One leads to destruction and eternal death, one leads to eternal life. Walk, or as Paul sometimes said, run, indicates movement. Sin never stays still. You either move toward the "deep things of God" (1 Corinthians 2:10) or you move toward the deep things of satan (Revelation 2:24). When one begins to seek voices and personal direct revelation from God and accept them, one is already far down the path of the deeper things of satan. When one dreams and believes the dreams are from God, it's a dangerous thing. You then begin relying on the dreams and not "the Word on the page" (as Moore admitted above). Jude says of those who rely on dreams "defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones." When dreams turn to summoning the dead, and interpreting their activity into future earthly events, you're already an abomination to God because you are a necromancer. Necromancers do not go to heaven.
Don't dabble in dreams, nor should we ask for them. Don't accept personal revelations, but repent of them. That Beth Moore did not recognize her necromancy dream as an abomination but attributed what was in fact the deep things of satan to God, just shows her blindness and abominable status before our holy Lord. Jude was serious, saying
Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. (Jude 1:3-4)
---------------------------------------------
End Note:
I'm posting these screen shots of the video with closed captioning in case the video is deleted (which Moore's criticized videos often are.) I also saved the transcript of the video and I'll post that if the video is deleted later.
Here, Moore admits she constantly asks God to show her a manifestation or give her a dream.
Here, Moore claims to see Mary Beth Chapman's dead child Maria in body and describes her face, hair and clothes.
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Comments
Do you know the method to discern real last days dreams, visions and prophecy? Does the bible give us an idea when the closed canon will be reopened to allow for new revelation? I have yet to delve into this yet, but I have basically just thought anyone is false if they speak for God outside of scripture.
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Emily
Hi Emily,
DeleteThanks for reading and that's a good question. I'll do my best to answer a complicated question succinctly. It has to do with Joel 2 and Revelation 6-18.
In Luke 4, Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah 61. In luke 4:18-19 it is recorded that Jesus read from that scroll the following,
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” and then Jesus stopped reading and told the shocked listeners, "“Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”" Luke 4:21.
What Jesus did not read is the actual next line in Isaiah's prophecy, "and the day of vengeance of our God;", because it would be over 2000 years until that part of Isaiah's prophecy would be fulfilled. There was a split of millennia between the two lines of the same prophecy, one part fulfilled in what we know as the past, one part to be fulfilled in the future.
It's the same with Joel's prophecy, chapter 2 verse 28
And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
29 Even on the male and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit.
Most interpreters understand that this prophecy has a dual fulfillment. It was fulfilled in total when the Lord was resurrected and His Spirit is poured out on all who He has called or will call to believe. Also, the apostles and a few others prophesied. Part will be fulfilled again in the future, the part about prophesying and dreams.
However when the canon was nearing completion the prophetic gifts died out, or ceased. They will resume after the rapture, as Joel 2 mentions.
The rapture is the dividing line of the end times. The event marks the end of the Church Age of Grace and triggers the resumption of the Old Testament times. Jesus told the Israelites that He decreed a certain number of years for their punishment. This is in Daniel 9:24-27. After the verse which says the Messiah shall be cut off and have nothing, there are still 7 weeks left to go. However the prophecy took a big pause in the order of events to make room for the Church Age, just like the pause in Joel's prophecy and the pause in Isaiah's prophecy.
When the rapture happens, the prophetic clock starts ticking again and the last 7 years of the decree will begin. Jesus' will be focused on fulfilling the last 7 years and finishing the 6 consequences of Daniel's prophecy in the aforementioned verses of chapter 9.
It's a resumption of the OT times, including prophesying, dreams, and visions. It is why you read that the sacrifices in the Temple will be ongoing that the antichrist puts a stop to, and why in Matthew 24 that Jesus told the disciples (who were Jews) that one had better hope that one isn't nursing or it happens on a Sabbath. The Jews will be keeping the Law. It will be OT times, in the future.
We know that there is prophetic activity, dreams, signs and wonders (Mt 24, Rev 13, Rev 16) in the Tribulation just as there was in the time of Jesus' incarnation and immediately afterward for a short while. Incidentally FALSE prophesying will mark the time, too (Matt. 24:4, 5, 11, 24; Rev., chapter 13; 16: 13; 19:20.)
In the Tribulation, Jesus sends the Two Witnesses to prophesy and do signs, Rev 11. The entire Tribulation is marked by a heightened supernatural activity, the likes of which have never been seen before on earth.
For all those reasons, dreams, visions, and prophesying as well as signs and wonders will be a hallmark of the Tribulation, but are not occurring now (true ones, anyway) and have not been since they ceased at the closing of the canon.
:) Hope I helped...
Hi,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your reply. I was wondering how you would reply to my mother in law regarding these visions that are occurring on the mission field with the IMB. Here is the email.
Dear Loved Ones,
I just read this report from one of our IMB colleagues. They are doing mobile medical clinics this week. Dr. Doug is a Dr. and runs a clinic outside of Bangkok. His wife, Cheryl is writing this post on FB today. I wanted to share it with you.
"I apologize for my lateness of updating you all on our mobile clinics this week. It's 4:30 am and we are about to start day 3 of our week. I couldn't wait any longer to share the miraculous things God has done in the past 2 days.
Day 1 WOW #1 was in Samutprakan partnering with a pastor trying to reach factory workers in his neighborhood. It was a little different set up then our usual motif. Only 90 patients and we stayed until 7pm for the workers to come. But God showed up in a mighty way just to show us we were right where we were supposed to be. The very first patient sat down with Dr. Doug and began to tell his symptoms. But soon he changed the subject and explained what had brought him to the clinic in the first place. The night before he had a dream. In the dream, there were 2 white vans that came to his house. He got into one of the vans and there was a white doctor inside with bread and water. He told him to take the bread and the water and he would be healed of all his diseases. He only took the water and then the van began to shake. He asked how can I be healed when I am shaken like this? The doctor said you must take both and you will be shaken but you will be healed of all your diseases. The next morning when he woke up 2 white vans went by his house and parked down the street. Amazed, he followed after them and met Jesus while sitting with the white doctor.
Please pray for Lung Sek's discipleship.
Day 2 WOW #2 was in Nakorn Phatom partnering with a pastor who's church has just joined the Thailand Baptist Convention.They were so excited for us to come so far to help with their work. As we worked along side each other the Lord saw fit to have us to inspire them to be bold about sharing their faith. They had never seen anything like this mobile clinic before and they loved it. They had a sweet congregation. 7 high school students they have been witnessing to came and helped out today. They heard the Gospel many times over. In our sharing time, one of their members shared about a women who came because of a vision she had the night before. She said she meditates every day. (you might say praying to an unknown God) The night before she saw a vision of Jesus with his arms outstretched on a cross. No one had ever told her about God before but she really wanted to know what this vision meant. The next morning, right across the street from her house, there were people getting out of 2 vans, wearing shirts that had a cross on them. She quickly got ready and went across the road to find out if they could tell her about her vision. And there, she met Jesus. Our little group of church members loved on her and shared with her and are excited to do her discipleship.
This reminds me of the verse in Isaiah 52:12 that says
For you shall not go out in haste,
and you shall not go in flight,
for the LORD will go before you,
and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
This of course was a promise given to the Israelites but it is a picture of what God can and will do for those who love and serve HIm. The Lord has truly gone before us. We have seen it and testify that God's Word is true and living and active in this day. Praise be the Lord our God for He is good."
Love you,
Vickie (MOM)
Hi,
DeleteI would say that experience never validates scripture. (2 Peter 1:19). Scripture validates scripture. Just because someone second or third hand (and these things are ALWAYS second or third hand, mysterious, that, since we are in the cell phone instagram age of immediate photo and video validation...) says something happened somewhere, does not mean it's valid.
Second I'd say, people lie. They do.
Third, Satan can do signs and wonders. (2 Thess 2:9, 2 Cor 11:14).
Here is a good sermon on the subject -Is Experience a Valid Test of Truth?
http://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/90-461/is-experience-a-valid-test-of-truth