Should We Consult with Dead Ancestors?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.000 | Well, we serve an international audience on APJ.
00:00:07.000 | Listeners join us from across the globe, whether through our English episodes or in the dozen
00:00:11.640 | or so languages that this podcast gets translated into.
00:00:14.920 | Some of our questions might not make sense to our listeners in the States, and that's
00:00:19.520 | likely true today.
00:00:21.480 | And that's all right.
00:00:22.480 | Here's our email today.
00:00:23.720 | Hello, Pastor John and Tony.
00:00:25.860 | This is Takozani from the Gatting region of South Africa.
00:00:29.040 | I have listened to Ask Pastor John for two years and grown a lot spiritually over that
00:00:33.460 | time.
00:00:34.460 | My question stems from a popular belief that we have here in South Africa.
00:00:37.960 | People here believe in ancestral consultation.
00:00:40.920 | When a person dies, their spirit or soul doesn't go to God immediately.
00:00:44.420 | It roams around where they died.
00:00:46.040 | The family must go to that spot and fetch the spirit using a tree.
00:00:49.320 | This is a popular belief, and several Christians here hold to these superstitions.
00:00:54.240 | Once the spirit is fetched, the body can be buried, and only then does the spirit go to
00:00:58.540 | God and can the person finally rest in peace.
00:01:02.680 | Later, relatives will visit the grave or set up a shrine in their home where they consult
00:01:07.320 | with these dead parents or grandparents, not to worship them, but to periodically establish
00:01:12.160 | communication to receive from them messages through dreams or visions.
00:01:18.080 | Pastor John, what does the Bible say about communicating with ancestors?
00:01:22.960 | What the Bible says may be summed up like this.
00:01:27.640 | Don't pursue communication with the dead because pursuing messages from the dead is
00:01:36.800 | evidence that biblical truth about God is either not understood or not believed.
00:01:45.920 | And in either case, God is dishonored by the practice of seeking messages from the dead.
00:01:55.840 | Therefore, Christians should not do it, and they should be taught from the Bible why this
00:02:03.680 | practice dishonors God and should be encouraged to believe what the Bible teaches about God
00:02:12.880 | so that their practices honor Him, glorify Him.
00:02:17.840 | So what's the biblical teaching about God that I have in mind when I say, "If you seek
00:02:25.600 | these messages from the dead, you either don't know those teachings or you don't believe
00:02:30.320 | them."
00:02:31.320 | Here are four things about God that needs to be taught and known.
00:02:36.440 | One, when a person dies, God takes his soul out of the world immediately, either to himself
00:02:48.200 | or to a place of torment.
00:02:50.900 | No soul separated from the body is allowed to remain on earth and roam about after death.
00:02:59.220 | Jesus said to the thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in paradise."
00:03:04.520 | No intermediate state, no roaming around Jerusalem.
00:03:08.800 | Luke 16 describes the death of the poor man Lazarus and the rich man.
00:03:14.200 | Immediately one goes to Abraham's presence in heaven and the other to a place of torment
00:03:18.760 | and a great gulf is fixed between them.
00:03:21.300 | Their souls are not left on earth.
00:03:23.760 | In Philippians 1, Paul says that his death puts him in the presence of Christ.
00:03:30.080 | In 2 Corinthians 5, perhaps the clearest text of all, it says, "Apart from the body, at
00:03:37.400 | home with the Lord."
00:03:39.800 | No gap.
00:03:41.200 | It does not say, "Apart from the body, at home in the neighborhood for a few days."
00:03:48.560 | So that part of the practice in South Africa is based on a misunderstanding of God's action
00:03:56.520 | in dealing with the dead.
00:03:58.960 | Second, God explicitly forbids consulting with the dead.
00:04:05.800 | Isaiah 8, verse 19, "When they say to you, 'Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers
00:04:14.760 | who chirp and mutter,' should not a people inquire of their God?
00:04:22.600 | Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?"
00:04:28.640 | And the answer is clearly no.
00:04:32.360 | So we don't need to wonder what God thinks of this practice.
00:04:36.280 | He says, "Don't do it."
00:04:39.040 | And behind the prohibition is the rationale about God's sufficiency and his honor in communicating
00:04:47.840 | to us what we need, "Should not a people inquire of their God?"
00:04:54.440 | That's the third point about God that is misunderstood or disbelieved by those who seek messages
00:05:01.200 | from the dead.
00:05:02.200 | So let's go to number three.
00:05:03.200 | So number two was just an explicit prohibition.
00:05:06.280 | Number three, God has shown that he himself—not ancestors, not angels, not mediums—he himself
00:05:19.240 | is the one who provides us with what we need to know in order to live a fruitful, God-honoring
00:05:26.200 | Christian life.
00:05:28.600 | That's the point of Isaiah 8, verse 19, when the prophet says, "Should not a people inquire
00:05:33.880 | of their God?"
00:05:35.820 | He knows.
00:05:36.820 | He's enough.
00:05:37.820 | He's wise.
00:05:38.820 | He's willing.
00:05:39.820 | You can hear in that question, it's unthinkable that you would treat your living God as somehow
00:05:45.680 | unwilling to tell you what you need to know in order to live for his glory.
00:05:52.640 | That God would be so unable or unwilling to give his people what they need that they are
00:06:00.560 | forced to communicate with the dead as if dead, sinful, finite, fallible creatures could
00:06:08.980 | be more useful than God, who made heaven and earth and knows all things and is all wise
00:06:16.520 | and rules all things and loves his children.
00:06:20.840 | The New Testament tells us at least three things about the generosity of God's communication
00:06:29.840 | with his children.
00:06:32.120 | One, Hebrews 1, verses 1 and 2, God has spoken to us by his Son.
00:06:41.760 | Jesus Christ is the decisive Word of God.
00:06:46.560 | All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in him, and he is gloriously portrayed
00:06:53.600 | in the New Testament for our understanding and our enjoyment and our following.
00:07:00.640 | Number two, God told the apostles that he would guide them into all truth when they
00:07:08.360 | taught the church what to believe and how to live, and then he called their teaching
00:07:13.320 | the foundation of the church, Ephesians 2.20, and he called their faith the faith once for
00:07:20.660 | all delivered to the saints, Jude 1.3.
00:07:24.520 | We have the fullness of the apostolic teaching in the New Testament.
00:07:29.600 | Third, God told us in 2 Timothy 3.16 that all the scriptures are his inspired Word and
00:07:38.240 | that they are profitable to equip the man of God for every good work.
00:07:46.320 | Through the scriptures, God has given us the revelation we need to do the good works he
00:07:52.520 | calls us to do.
00:07:54.840 | So, seeking messages from ancestors, the Bible teaches, is a dishonor to God who has communicated
00:08:05.040 | so lavishly with us about all the things we need to live the way he wants us to live.
00:08:14.280 | And then finally, seeking messages from ancestors implies an unbelief in the glorious implications
00:08:23.240 | for God's children that God's providence is all-controlling and all-pervasive, namely,
00:08:33.040 | that he works all things by that providence for our good as we trust him.
00:08:40.200 | The apostle Paul taught us that since God did not spare his own Son but gave him up
00:08:46.960 | for us all, he will certainly give us all things with him, all the things we need to
00:08:54.440 | know, all the things we need to have in order to honor God and do his will.
00:09:00.200 | And the whole Bible teaches us that God is absolutely in control of all demons and all
00:09:06.560 | spirits and all locusts and worms and viruses and bacteria and plants and fish and lions
00:09:14.560 | and witch doctors and drought and famine and rain and floods and wind and earthquakes and
00:09:22.020 | diseases and life and death.
00:09:25.360 | God's providence, his purposeful sovereignty, is absolutely, pervasively in control of all
00:09:34.480 | things.
00:09:35.480 | So there's nothing that messages from the ancestors can do that would make it safer
00:09:44.120 | or better than what our Heavenly Father is pledged to do for us because Jesus died for
00:09:50.800 | us.
00:09:51.800 | So, the biblical position is don't pursue communication with the dead because pursuing
00:10:01.280 | messages from the dead is evidence that biblical truth about God is either not understood or
00:10:08.400 | not believed.
00:10:09.400 | And in either case, God is dishonored.
00:10:12.640 | For truths, we need to know.
00:10:15.800 | God takes the dead immediately out of the world.
00:10:19.320 | God explicitly forbids communication with the dead.
00:10:23.280 | God has shown that he himself is the one who provides us what we need to know what we need
00:10:30.680 | to know.
00:10:32.440 | God's providence governs everything for our good.
00:10:36.760 | Yeah, amen.
00:10:37.960 | It dishonors God as a direct offense to him and the sufficiency of what he has said to
00:10:44.000 | us.
00:10:45.000 | And if you want to study this theme more fully for yourself and make this connection for
00:10:48.300 | yourself in the Bible, I would offer up to you Isaiah 819, which we saw earlier.
00:10:53.840 | And within its context of Isaiah 8 verses 11 to 22, study all that text, Isaiah 8, 11
00:10:59.600 | to 22.
00:11:00.600 | Also consider studying Deuteronomy 18, 11 in its broader context of Deuteronomy 18 verses
00:11:06.440 | 9 to 22.
00:11:07.680 | These are key texts here, Isaiah 8 verses 11 to 22 and Deuteronomy 18 verses 9 to 22.
00:11:14.880 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:11:16.960 | And thanks for joining us today.
00:11:18.560 | If you want to ask Pastor John, email your question to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:11:26.120 | Well is the hobby of watercolor painting a wartime waste of time and money?
00:11:32.480 | That's the question of next time.
00:11:33.920 | And with it, I'll ask, how many seashells does John Piper have in his house?
00:11:38.600 | It's a related question, trust me.
00:11:40.440 | Both of them are up next time.
00:11:42.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reike.
00:11:43.000 | We'll see you Thursday.
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