Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / Should We Consult with Dead Ancestors?

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Should We Consult with Dead Ancestors? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Well, we serve an international audience on APJ. Listeners join us from across
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  the globe, whether through our English episodes or in the dozen or so languages
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  that this podcast gets translated into. Some of our questions might not make sense
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  to our listeners in the States, and that's likely true today, and that's
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  all right. Here's our email today. Hello Pastor John and Tony. This
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  is Takozani from the Gautting region of South Africa. I have listened to ask
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  Pastor John for two years. I'm grown a lot spiritually over that time.
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  My question stems from a popular belief that we have here in South Africa.
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  People here believe in ancestral consultation. When a person dies, their spirit or
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  soul doesn't go to God immediately, It roams around where they died. The
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  family must go to that spot and fetch the spirit using a tree. This
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  is a popular belief in several Christians here hold to these superstitions. Once the
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  spirit is fetched, the body can be buried and only then does the spirit
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  go to God and can the person finally rest in peace. Leader relatives will
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  visit the graver set up a shrine in their home where they consult with these
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  dead parents or grandparents, not to worship them, but to periodically establish communication
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  to receive from them messages through dreams or visions. Pastor John, what does
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  the Bible say about communicating with ancestors? What the Bible says may be summed
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  up like this, don't pursue communication with the dead because pursuing messages from the
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  dead is evidence that biblical truth about God is either not understood or not believed,
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  and in either case, God is dishonored by the practice of seeking messages
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  from the dead. Therefore, Christians should not do it, and they should
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  be taught from the Bible why this practice dishonors God and should be encouraged to
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  believe what the Bible teaches about God so that their practices honor Him glorify him.
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  So what's the biblical teaching about God that I have in mind when I
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  say, if you seek these messages from the dead, you either don't know
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  those teachings or you don't believe them. Here are four things about God that
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  needs to be taught and known. One, when a person dies, God
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  takes his soul out of the world immediately, either to himself or to a
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  place of torment. No soul separated from the body is allowed to remain on
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  earth and roam about after death. Jesus said to the thief on the cross,
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  today you will be with me in paradise. No intermediate state, no
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  roaming around Jerusalem. Luke sixteen describes the death of the poor man Lazarus and
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  the rich man. Immediately one goes to Abraham's presence in heaven, and the
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  other to a place of torment, and a great gulf is fixed between them.
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  Their souls are not left on earth. In Philippians one, Paul says
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  that his death puts him in the presence of Christ. In Second Corinthians five,
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  perhaps the clearest text of awe, it says apart from the body at
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  home with the Lord, no gap. It does not say apart from the
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  body at home in the neighborhood for a few days. So so that part
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  of the practice in South Africa is based on a misunderstanding of God's action in
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  dealing with the dead. Second, God explicitly forbids consulting with the dead Isaiah
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  eight, verse nineteen, when they say to you, inquire of the mediums
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  and the necromancers who chirp and mutter. Should not a people inquire of their
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  God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? And
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  the answer is clearly no. So we don't need to wonder what God thinks
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  of this practice. He says, don't do it, And behind the prohibition
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  is the rationale about God's sufficiency and his honor in communicating to us what we
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  need. Should not a people inquire of their God? That's the third point
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  about God that is misunderstood or disbelieved by those who seek messages from the dead.
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  So let's go to number three. So number two was just an explicit
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  prohibition. Number three. God has shown that he himself, not ancestors,
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  not angels, not mediums, He himself is the one who provides us with
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  what we need to know in order to live a fruitful, god honoring Christian
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  life. That's the point of Isaiah eight nineteen when the prophet says, should
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  not a people inquire of their God? He knows he's enough, he's wise,
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  he's willing. You can hear in that question. It's unthinkable, yes,
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  that you would treat your living God as somehow unwilling to tell you what
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  you need to know in order to live for his glory. That God would
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  be so unable or unwilling to give his people what they need that they are
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  forced to communicate with the dead, as if dead, sinful, finite,
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  fallible creatures could be more useful than God, who made heaven and earth and
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  knows all things, and is all wise, and rules all things, and
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  loves his children. The New Testament tells us at least three things about the
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  generosity of God's communication with his children. One Hebrews one, Verses one and
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  two. God has spoken to us by his son Jesus Christ is the decisive
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  word of God. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in him,
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  and he is gloriously portrayed in the New Testament for our understanding and our enjoyment
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  and our following. Number two, God told the apostles that he would guide
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  them into all truth when they taught the church what to believe and how to
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  live. And then he called their teaching the foundation of the Church Ephesians two
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  twenty. And he called their faith the faith once for all delivered to the
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  saints Jude one. Three. We have the fullness of the Apostolic teaching in
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  the New Testament. Third, God told us in two Timothy three sixteen that
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  all the scriptures are His inspired word, and that they are profitable to equip
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  the man of God for every good work. Through the scriptures, God has
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  given us the revelation we need to do the good works he calls us to
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  do. So. Seeking messages from ancestors, the Bible teaches is a dishonor
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  to God, who has communicated so lavishly with us about all the things we
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  need to live the way He wants us to live, and then finally,
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  seeking messages from ancestors implies an unbelief in the glorious implications for God's children that
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  God's providence is all controlling and all pervasive, namely, that He works all
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  things by that providence for our good as we trust him. The apostle Paul
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  taught us that since God did not spare his own son, but gave him
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  up for us all, he will certainly give us all things with him,
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  all the things we need to know, all the things we need to have
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  in order to honor God and do his will. And the whole Bible teaches
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  us that God is absolutely in control of all demons and all spirits, and
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  all locusts and worms, and viruses and bacteria and plants and fish and lions
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  and witch doctors and drought and famine and rain and floods and wind and earthquakes
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  and diseases and life and death. God's providence, his purposeful sovereignty, is
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  absolutely pervasively in control of all things. So there's nothing that messages from the
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  ancestors can do that would make it safer or better than what our heavenly Father
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  is pledged to do for us, because Jesus died for us. So the
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  biblical position is, don't pursue communication with the dead, because pursuing messages from
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  the dead is evidence that biblical truth about God is either not understood or not
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  believed, and in either case God is dishonored for truths we need to know.
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  God takes the dead immediately out of the world. God explicitly forbids communication
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  with the dead. God has shown that he himself is the one who provides
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  us what we need to know, what we need to know. God's providence
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  governs everything for our good. Yeah. Amen. It dishonors God as a
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  direct offense to him and the sufficiency of what He has said to us.
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  And if you want to study this theme more fully for yourself and make this
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  connection for yourself in the Bible. I would offer up to you Isaiah eight
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  nineteen, which we saw earlier, and within its context of Isaiah eight verses
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  eleven to twenty two. Study all that texts Isaiah eight eleven to twenty two.
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  You also consider studying Deuteronomy eighteen eleven in its broader context of Deuteronomy eighteen
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  verses nine to twenty two. These are our key texts here, Isaiah eight
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  verses eleven to twenty two in Deuteronomy eighteen verses nine to twenty two. Thank
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  you best, John, and thanks for joining us today. If you want
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  to ask pastor John, email your question to me at askbstor John at desiring
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  Good dot org. Well, is the hobby of watercolor painting a wartime waste
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  of time and money? That's the question up next time, And with it
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  I'll ask how many seashells does John Piper have in his house? It's a
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  related question. Trust me, Both of them are up next time. I'm
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  your host, Tony Rank. You will see you Thursday