Which Crowd Are You In? :: By Nathele Graham

Published on: April 21, 2019 by RRadmin7 Category:General Articles, Ron & Nathele Graham

 

Jesus walked this earth at a time when travel was by foot or horseback. Nobody had Twitter, Facebook, or cell phones to spread news about things He did. Still, He was known around the area and people followed Him. Twelve men had been chosen by Him for the special purpose of being His close disciples. These men were just regular people, but Jesus knew they would learn from Him, spread the Gospel, and lead the lost to salvation.

Some were fishermen. “And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19).

One was a tax collector, which was a less than honest profession. “And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him” (Matthew 9:9).

Those men each left much behind to follow Jesus. It wasn’t always an easy crowd to be in. They traveled on foot to many places, and sometimes they faced danger. Jesus was straightforward with the disciples. “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).

Those twelve men had no idea how true those words were. Among that crowd of twelve men was one who followed Jesus, heard His words, and saw His actions. In spite of all he saw, Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

Jesus’ love and compassion drew crowds. He healed many infirmities and spoke words of hope. The people wanted to hear more. “And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things” (Mark 6:34).

The message Jesus shared was not one of condemnation or religious rituals. He gave hope. When He saw people possessed by demons, He didn’t send them to a psych ward, but cast the demon out. When a woman was accused of adultery and brought before Him for condemnation, He didn’t condemn her but forgave her and told her to stop living a sinful life. When He saw a widow whose only son had just died, Jesus brought that son back from the dead.

“Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise” (Luke 7:12-14). 

It’s no wonder that the crowds loved Him.

There were Pharisees among the crowd that followed Jesus. They kept a close eye on His activities because they wanted to find fault with Him. There was a feeling in that day that the Messiah was in the world, which troubled the religions leaders. They made it their duty to discredit anyone who claimed to be the Messiah. Their suspicion weeded out false messiahs, but blinded them to the true Messiah. Jesus threatened their control over the people.

One Pharisee decided to come to Jesus with an open mind and came by night to find answers. “There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him” (John 3:1-2).

Nicodemus was in a crowd by himself. While he was seeking truth, other Pharisees were looking to discredit Jesus. They followed Him and argued with Him. They called Him names and wanted to stone Him to death. Why did they want to stone Him? Jesus claimed to be God, which was blasphemy. Jesus didn’t just claim to be God…He was God.

“Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God” (John 10:32-33).

The Pharisees were too blind to see the truth and wanted to kill Him. When the time was right, Jesus would willingly go to the cross, but the Pharisees would have to wait.

Finally the time came for prophecy to be fulfilled. It was the time of year when many people crowded into Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. This year the Passover Lamb would change the world. A prophecy given by Zechariah described the Messiah entering Jerusalem:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, the King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass” (Zechariah 9:9).

Jesus fulfilled this exactly, as He rode to Jerusalem and the crowds praised Him. “And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way. And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest” (Matthew 21:8-9).

Had the people in the crowd seen the miracles Jesus had done? Had any of them been cured of deafness or received some other healing? They praised Him as “the Son of David” which is a title of the Messiah. This was not lost on the Pharisees who were in that crowd. They told Jesus to silence the people.
“And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out” (Luke 19:40).

What a day that was! The crowd praising their Messiah, the Pharisees becoming more and more angry, and Judas Iscariot plotting to betray Him.
It didn’t take long until the mood of the crowd changed. A few days after entering Jerusalem to the shouts of Hosanna, Jesus was arrested and illegally put on trial. It had to happen because the time had come for prophecy to be fulfilled. Another crowd gathered, and this time they weren’t praising their Messiah but calling for His death.

During the Passover celebration it was customary for a prisoner to be released. Barabbas and Jesus both stood before the crowd, and Pilate asked which prisoner he should release. “But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus… Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified” (Matthew 27:20 & 22).

How many of these people had praised Him a few days earlier? Had He healed any of them? On this day the cry of the crowd was “Crucify Him.” There was no court of appeals and no lingering on death row for years. Jesus was to be crucified that day. “Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers” (Matthew 27:27).

The crowd this time was a band of soldiers who proceeded to mock Him and abuse Him. They placed a scarlet robe on Him and crown of thorns on His head. “…and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews!” Matthew 27:30b. They spit upon Him and beat Him. Then they led Him away to crucify Him.

There was a small crowd at the foot of the cross. Of course, the chief priests and scribes were there to mock Him. The soldiers were there and gambled for His garments. Some of the crowd there didn’t mock Him, but were brokenhearted over this horridness event.

“Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home” (John 19:25-27).

The disciple was John, who cared for Mary until she died. Where was Peter? He was hiding in fear. Where were the other disciples? The crowd at the cross was thin.

The story didn’t end there. Jesus chose to die on the cross and shed His blood for the salvation of all who will accept His sacrifice.

“After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst… When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost” (John 19:28 & 30).

The nails didn’t hold Jesus to that cross… it was love that held Him there. He chose to give His life so we can live. The crowd who wanted Him to die felt they had won a victory. The crowd that loved Him would soon understand that He had conquered death.

“The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him” (John 20:1-2). 

The crowd at the tomb grew. The stone had been rolled away and the body was gone. All that was left were the grave clothes.

“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). 

Jesus had risen from the dead!

Each one of us today needs to ask, “Which crowd am I in?” The religious crowd should have recognized Him but their words and actions showed their true heart. Maybe you just follow the crowd and praise Him when you’re with Christian friends but yell “Crucify Him” when you join with your secular friends. Are you in the crowd of the disciples, but deny Him like Peter did? Maybe you’re more like Judas and outright betray Him. Whatever crowd you’re in, remember that there is forgiveness when you come to the cross. When Jesus looked down from the cross, He only felt love for the sinners there.
“Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34a).

Love held Him to the cross. No matter what sin has kept you from turning to Him for salvation, you will find forgiveness there. Come to Him and repent. Join the crowd of the redeemed.

God bless you all,
Nathele Graham

twotug@embarqmail.com
www.straitandnarrowministry.com
ron@straitandnarrowministry.com

The 2nd Chapter Of Acts - The Easter Song (1974)

Resurrection, Rapture, Reassurance :: By Terry James

Published on: April 19, 2019 by RRadmin7 Category:General Articles, Terry James

Reposted by the LightSeed blog author.

 

To preface this article is all-important. This is because I’m fully aware that many who read it will be skeptical of the validity of things herein represented.

I, myself, have been among the most skeptical when entertaining such reports as I am revisiting in thinking on the eighth anniversary of this profoundly strange event – an event that is constantly in the forefront of my mind.

The matter I am about to address is intensely personal, and I have striven over many years to keep the personal pronoun – “I” – out of my commentaries as much as possible. It is an especially difficult struggle to keep from insinuating one’s-self as a commercially published writer, because the writing process itself is such an intensively personal endeavor. But, in the case of the eighth anniversary of my visit to somewhere on the periphery of Heaven, it isn’t possible to avoid use of the “I” word.

So, off-putting as it might be, let me proceed with the most prayerful hope that the reader will consider things expressed here in the first person as not self-aggrandizing, rather as intended to give Glory and Honor to the only Person deserving of such adulation – that is, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dreams, visions and delusions
While not a secessionist in the purest sense, I have always viewed dreams and visions that are extra-Biblical (not in Scripture itself) with a very critical eye. That is, I have been most often prone to think of those reports as ingesting too much pizza before dropping off to sleep, overactive imagination, or deliberately manufactured stories to get attention for one reason or another. In the case of near-death experiences, I have most often thought of these as brain glitches caused by the dying process, not as true spiritual encounters.

So, it is with realization as I address this personal anniversary that you, the reader, might think of this in a way mentioned just above. Having been Prompted, I believe, by the Holy Spirit to write this, however, I do so without hesitation or apprehension that my motive will be construed as in any way impure.

Resurrection Day drama!
The approach of Easter this year is at the heart of the Prompt for revisiting my Heavenly visitation’s eighth anniversary. In addition to Easter as central to my writing are the consistent emails and other messages we receive that rail against the PreTribulation Rapture view we hold.

Recently, those rants have been mostly of the pre-wrath view. This is the belief that the Rapture will occur basically at the halfway mark of Daniel’s seventieth week. That is, God’s wrath will begin three and one-half years into that seven-year period that we term Tribulation. We, of course, believe and teach that the Rapture of the Church (all born-again believers of the Church Age) will take place before the seven-year Tribulation period begins. This is because God’s Wrath and Judgment begins when the Antichrist (prince that shall come) confirms the covenant of Daniel 9:26-27. This action sets in motion the entirety of Daniel’s seventieth week which then runs to the end of the seven-year Tribulation era that concludes at Armageddon.

Read more  at raptureready.com

Science Can’t Explain This! (2019-2020)

2019 04 14 John Haller's Prophecy Update "What is Going On?"

The Wise Shall Understand By Pete Garcia

 

By Pete Garcia

April 12, 2019 Originally written 12 June, 2013 (updated 2019)

 

But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end;many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase. Daniel 12:4

Imagine if you will that one-day scientists abandon the flawed and completely illogical theory of Darwinian Evolution.  Imagine all that science could accomplish without having that biased monkey hanging on their neck like a dead albatross?

For many of these men and women, it would revolutionize the way they analyze a problem.  Rapid advances in our civilization came because men like Isaac Newton, Nicolai Tesla, and Albert Einstein did not follow the status quo. 
Like the harnessing of electricity, or the invention of the printing press…mankind’s great leaps forward in time propelled understanding to a new level.  A new paradigm opens up and thus spins off subsequent discoveries like an endless Fibonacci Spiral.  What has largely kept men at bay was our own preconceived notions about what was logical, feasible, and possible.  Because of that reason, knowledge was often bottlenecked at various points throughout the course of human history.

A great discovery is made, and there is an explosion of new ideas that spiral out from that one and continue until it reaches a point when further progress becomes frustrated or stifled.  And whether that roadblock comes in the form of a government, a church, or just our preconceived notions about how to do something.  It would seem that man’s capacity for increased knowledge comes in brilliant, brief flashes…followed by long periods of darkness.

A great example of this is in our understanding of the prophetic scriptures, or in how we have come to know what we know.

Most of the Early Church Fathers (ECF) believed in a literal return of Christ and a literal kingdom that He would establish one day in the end times.  (Daniel 2:44-45, Isaiah 65:17-25, Revelation 20).  I imagine we would have had considerable more information about what their thoughts on the prophetic texts were, but the ECF soon became valiantly engaged in battling the Gnostics, Judaizers, pagans, and skeptics for the better part of 250 years against them making inroads into the Church.  They fought just to keep the basic tenets of Christianity intact.  They were able to do all that, and still face ten periods of intense persecution by a pagan Roman Empire. (Smyrna)

The Sealing
However, beginning in the year 313, Constantine legalized Christianity with the Edict of Milan.  Christianity went from being persecuted and fringe, to being accepted and legal.  Over the course of the rest of that century, instead of Christianity going out into the world, the world would come into Christianity.  (Pergamum)

As Christianity became more acceptable to the establishment (Roman Empire), political correctness got its toe in the door of the church. I imagine it was not very popular to be preaching that Christ would soon return and destroy all the kings and kingdoms of the world, while under the watchful eye of an Emperor.  Allegorizing scriptures provided a way for priests and bishops to remain politically correct and still keep their jobs.  This had begun in earnest by an early “Christian” mystic named Origen in the 3rd Century.  

A century later, a Christian priest named Jerome was commissioned to translate the Bible into Latin, finishing around the year 405 A.D.  Around that same time, a Christian theologian named Augustine of Hippo (who had been influenced by Origen), had begun applying that same method of allegorizing the scriptures to all of his interpretations of the Bible. This type of hermeneutics would create a new strain in Eschatology called ‘Amillennialism’.

Like Darwinian Evolution, Amillennialism (a= negative) clung around the neck of that Middle-Ages church like dead weight. For centuries, Amillennialism stifled the prophetic understanding of the Scriptures by dissuading the literal interpretation of the prophetic texts. It denied that Christ would literally return to earth, but that the Kingdom was spiritual and ever-present.  Since Augustine was in large part, the ‘doctrinal-father’ for the Roman Catholic Church (RCC), ‘Amillennialism’ became THE eschatology for most of Christendom.  Moreover, as the RCC gained power and authority, they retained their clerical power by making the Latin Vulgate the only legal and acceptable translation of the Bible.  The only people still able to read and speak Latin were the clergy within the RCC, which ensured that they would have a monopoly on anything that was called “Christian” for the better part of 1,000 years. (Thyatira)

Removing the Veil
However, the times they were a changing.  A scholar named John Wycliffe in the 1380’s had handwritten a new translation in English. He quickly came under the ire of the Roman Catholic Church. After his death, his works were burned and he was declared a heretic. Another man followed Wycliffe not long after named John Hus who also began handwriting Bibles in English. He did not fair so well as he was arrested and burned at the stake in Germany. 

The first printing press was invented around 1450 (Guttenberg) and the first book to ever be printed was the Guttenberg Bible in 1455 (in Latin). (The first English Bible ever printed was the Tyndale Bible [1526]) Now that the Bible was becoming more accessible, and eventually available in something other than Latin, there was an explosion of interest into Christianity. For the first time in over a millennia, people could finally read the Bible in their own language.  They did not have to rely on a priest to tell them what a Bible said.

The early 1500s brought about a long overdue desire for change within Roman Catholicism. The Reformation began as a protest-movement led by a Catholic monk named Martin Luther who was sick of how corrupted the system had become. With the selling of indulgences for the absolution of sins, the “good-works” salvation system, and the abuses by RCC clergy, Luther had finally had enough. On October 31^st, 1517, he nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle church in Wittenberg, Germany. The rest as they say is history. Protestant groups began popping up all over Europe as the word was put into the vernacular of the common-man. Although the “protesters” may have corrected many of the doctrinal abuses on orthodox Christianity by the RCC, their major failing was that they kept the Catholic Eschatological view point of Amillennialism. (Sardis)

The First Great Awakening occurred toward the end of the 1700’s, and Protestant Missionaries were being sent out around the world to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. An evangelistic movement broke out in Ireland in the early-1800s called the ‘Plymouth Brethren’.  They came together and began to study their Bibles in a literal manner shaking off the confines of dead denominationalism altogether.

Just as Martin Luther rediscovered the soteriological doctrine of salvation by grace through faith, so too did these Plymouth Brethren rediscover some long, lost truths. The result of returning to a literal understanding of the entire Bible, led them to the conclusion that the Bible is a) dispensational, b) Pre-Millennial, and c) that they were somewhere near the end times.  Therefore, it wasn’t that John N. Darby and company created Pre-Millennial Eschatology out of thin air, but really, only rediscovered what had been hidden in plain sight for almost 2,000 years. (Philadelphia)

“About the Time of the End, a body of men will be raised up who will turn their attention to the Prophecies, and insist upon their literal interpretation, in the midst of much clamor and opposition” Sir Isaac Newton

Precept upon Precept
Sir Isaac Newton wrote more about biblical prophecy than he did on any other topic.  He was particularly fascinated by the books of Daniel and Revelation.  Nevertheless, even with all his mental genius and boundless energy to write and study the prophetic word, he remained largely “ignorant” of prophetic events that even the average Bible prophecy student today takes for granted.

Back when I was at the Omega Letter where I had written for a number of years, many of us had looked (and still do) up to Jack Kinsella as not only a pastor, but also a mentor.  He provided a straightforward and simple understanding of not only Bible Prophecy, but of what it means to be a Christian living in these last days. Jack’s mentor was Hal Lindsey. Hal’s mentors were most likely men like Lewis Sperry Chaffer, Cyrus Scofield, and Clarence Larkin.  Larkin and Scofield picked up on what the Plymouth Brethren had been doing decades earlier, which was simply returning to a literal understanding of the Bible. Thanks to those men, we know that we are in that last church age that precedes the coming of our Lord.  (Laodicea)

Each group or generation of men learned from the previous, and that knowledge was passed on, built upon, and measured against the current events of that day.  So we here today, are the recipients of over a 150 years of accumulated learning and study. This learning has been greatly accelerated by the use of the Internet, study bibles, commentaries and teachings.  What had been hidden to many in Christianity only a century ago, has come to light with the return of national Israel to their ancestral homeland.  But even as early as 1919, Cyrus Scofield noted in his Scofield Study Bible, that Israel HAD to become a nation again because a literal reading of Ezekiel 36-37 demanded it.  I imagine he caught a lot of grief for including that in his Bible back then…that was…until 1948.

However, we only know what we know today, because we have stood on the shoulders of giants.  Not only do we benefit from their diligent study and willingness to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit, but also we have accumulated more history then them. We have had the privilege to see Israel become a nation again.  We have seen the formation of revived Roman Empire via the Europe Union, coming together into a single political and economic body.  We have seen the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reemergence of Russia.  We are now seeing Red China rising and the US declining.  We are seeing the push for a New World Order that will one day lead to a one-world currency, religion, and political body.  We are seeing the signs of increasing natural disasters in both frequency and intensity.  We are seeing technology moving at a frightening pace that allows men to play god and computers to become like men. Communications have become global with an instantaneous reach.  Artificial intelligence is leaving the realms of science fiction and becoming reality. There is in increased fascination with the supernatural, occultic, and unexplainable. 

Closing Thoughts

Although I heard, I did not understand. Then I said, “My lord, what shall be the end of these things?” And he said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, made white, and refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand. Daniel 12:8-10

Once again we are reaching that point in time where the prophetic text has been studied, preached, taught, and dissected so many ways…by so many great teachers, that it seems impossible that we could still pull any new information out of what we already know.  Any study, about any verse of the Bible is available many times over in either written, audio, or video formats.  I do not know what else can be brought out of the most intensely studied book in the history of the world. 

These are indeed exciting times, but the watchmen can grow very weary in seeing how rapidly the world is sinking into spiritual and moral depravity.  It weighs heavy on our hearts.  We are instructed to be ready, to watch, and to lift our heads up when these things begin to happen. 

Nevertheless, there is one other thing I do know, and that is we will have the privilege of seeing what the prophets, apostles, early church fathers, and those godly men of old, longed to see.  If we are patient, and watching, we will be that generation in the not too distant future who hears the shout, the voice of the Archangel, and the Trump of God calling us home.

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. John 14:1-3

Even so, Come Lord Jesus!

Signs of the Last Days! (2019-2020)

YWAM—Wants Every YWAMer to Practice Contemplative Prayer!

June 18, 2018 by Lighthouse Trails Editors

SCREENSHOT OF YWAM JUNE 2018PROMO FOR CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER (Used in accordance with the US Fair Use Act for purposes of critique and review)

  

YWAM (Youth With a Mission), an evangelical missions organization (founded in 1960  by Loren Cunningham) that trains about 25,000 people every year for world-wide mission trips, has issued an announcement regarding its commitment to teaching contemplative prayer. On Saturday, a reader alerted Lighthouse Trails to a June 2018 YWAM promotional audio piece on the YWAM website promoting contemplative prayer practices. While Lighthouse Trails has known about YWAM’s propensity toward contemplative prayer for over a decade, this month’s promo is one of the more blatant ministry-wide efforts YWAM has taken in bringing the organization’s participants fully on board with the New Age/New Spirituality contemplative prayer movement.  The promo begins:

Thank you for joining us this month as we take up “The Invitation” and join together with thousands of YWAMers from around the world as we pray and hear from God about Contemplative Prayer.1

It was in 2006 that Lighthouse Trails first alerted our readers to YWAM’s interest in contemplative prayer and the emergent church in an article titled,  “Red Moon Rising: An Army for God with a “Violent Reaction.”2 That article revealed that YWAM had partnered with the UK contemplative group 24/7 Prayer with Pete Greig and his mystical boiler rooms that were becoming part of many churches’ youth programs.
Over the years, Lighthouse Trails has observed that YWAM has seen nothing wrong with contemplative spirituality. As we saw with other organizations that have gone in this direction, we witnessed YWAM changing their philosophy on how to do missions (what we call “the new missiology”). In Roger Oakland’s 2007 book on the emerging church, Faith Undone, Oakland states:

A May/June 2000 issue of Watchman’s Trumpet magazine explains what this new missiology really entails:
“Several international missions organizations, including Youth With a Mission (YWAM), are testing a new approach to missionary work in areas where Christianity is unwelcome. A March 24, 2000, Charisma News Service report said some missionaries are now making converts but are allowing them to “hold on to many of their traditional religious beliefs and practices” so as to refrain from offending others within their culture.”
The Charisma article in which Watchman’s Trumpet reports elaborates:
“’Messianic Muslims’ who continue to read the Koran, visit the mosque and say their daily prayers but accept Christ as their Savior, are the products of the strategy, which is being tried in several countries, according to Youth With a Mission (YWAM), one of the organizations involved.”
The Charisma story reports that a YWAM staff newsletter notes the new converts’ lifestyle changes (or lack thereof):
“They [the new converts] continued a life of following the Islamic requirements, including mosque attendance, fasting and Koranic reading, besides getting together as a fellowship of Muslims who acknowledge Christ as the source of God’s mercy for them.”
When one of the largest missionary societies (YWAM) becomes a proponent of the new missiology, telling converts they can remain in their own religious traditions, the disastrous results should be quite sobering for any discerning Christian.3

The reason it’s important to mention this section by Roger Oakland is because this new way of looking at missions (viewing it in more interspiritual terms) is one of the “fruits” of contemplative prayer.  As Ray Yungen, who researched the contemplative prayer movement for over twenty years, often stated, when one begins practicing this mystical form of prayer, one’s views on the Cross, on salvation, and on God’s Word begin to be altered. In time, the contemplative practitioner begins to embrace a more panentheistic (God in all), interspiritual (all paths lead to God) view. This is why Lighthouse Trails keeps warning about contemplative prayer. We have been accused of being haters, dividers, bigots, and troublemakers because we do not let up. But when one realizes that practicing contemplative prayer puts a person in great spiritual danger, warning about it is actually an act of love, not hate, as some suppose.
Brennan Manning, a favorite contemplative of YWAM and other mission groups (such as Young Life), made the following revealing remarks in his popular book The Signature of Jesus:

[T]he first step in faith is to stop thinking about God at the time of prayer.
[C]ontemplative spirituality tends to emphasize the need for a change in consciousness . . . we must come to see reality differently.
Choose a single, sacred word . . . repeat the sacred word inwardly, slowly, and often.
[E]nter into the great silence of God. Alone in that silence, the noise within will subside and the Voice of Love will be heard.4

Lighthouse Trails believes that this “Voice of Love” reached during contemplative prayer is not the voice of God at all, but rather it is from the same source as that reached during Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, and New Age meditation. As most mystics teach, the methods are the same, and the results are the same. Consider this by occultist Richard Kirby from his book The Mission of Mysticism:

The meditation of advanced occultists [New Agers] is identical with the prayer of advanced mystics [contemplatives]: it is no accident that both traditions use the same word for the highest reaches of their respective activities—contemplation.5

The YWAM audio promotional on contemplative prayer continues:

In this edition of The Invitation, we invite you to consider what we can learn from the contemplative tradition of the global Church, and why contemplative practices might be a helpful balance to our busy, activity-oriented lives.

Steve Cochrane, one of YWAM’s leaders, spoke of his own journey into contemplative practices. “In the past decade, I’ve been on a more focused pilgrimage to listen to what Spirit is saying from a diversity of those that have walked the road before in deeper devotion to Christ.”  As Steve says, the work of “friends from the past” teaches us to sink down into the presence of God in the midst of our active lives.6

Contemplatives believe that in order for us to really hear the voice of God, we must remove all mental distractions and thoughts. Since the brain is always active and thoughts cannot be stopped, we need a method to “still the mind” (i.e., put it into neutral, so to speak). How can we do that? Through a mantric-like practice (repeating a word or phrase until we can get our minds into an altered state). When YWAM leader Steve Cochrane talks about “friends from the past” who teach us how to “sink down into the presence of God,” he is speaking of the mystics. Cochrane, who works with the University of the Nations, is the author of the 2017 book, Many Monks Across the Sea: Church of the East Monastic Mission in Ninth-Century Asia.  One of the books Cochrane mentions in his bibliography is Merton and Sufism. In A Time of Departing, Ray Yungen describes a story from Merton and Sufism where Thomas Merton is talking to a Sufi teacher (an Islamic mystic) about Merton’s desire for unity between Christians and Muslims. The Sufi teacher tells Merton that doctrines such as salvation through the atonement ( the Cross) keep that unity from happening. Merton agrees but suggests that unity can take place at the mystical level where such beliefs of “little value” can be ignored. Merton stated:

Personally, in matters where dogmatic beliefs differ, I think that controversy [of the Cross] is of little value because it takes us away from the spiritual realities into the realm of words and ideas . . . in words there are apt to be infinite complexities and subtleties which are beyond resolution. . . . But much more important [than the Cross] is the sharing of the experience of divine light . . . It is here that the area of fruitful dialogue exists between Christianity and Islam.7

For Merton, the “fruitful dialogue” that can be obtained (through mysticism) between Christians and Muslims was more important than preaching the Gospel that proclaims salvation through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross.
The YWAM audio continues:

Over recent years, a significant number of us in the YWAM family have, like Steve, been growing more familiar with contemplative practices.  . . . Since around the third century the people of God have been engaging in practices that we now call Contemplative . . . A few of these contemplative practices involve: breath prayers, which consist of praying a short phrase with your in- and your out-breath; lectio devina [divina], which is a meditative way of reading short passages of scripture; and silent prayer such as Centering Prayer.8

What is YWAM’s hope? To see everyone who is involved with YWAM practice contemplative prayer:

If you only have a few moments to pray, ask the Lord to convict each of our students and workers to experience God in deeper ways through contemplative methods.9

If you know someone who is working with YWAM, please ask that person to read this article and to reconsider working in an organization that believes mystical practices are the path to hearing God’s voice. As born-again believers, we have the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, neither of which direct us to repeat a word or phrase or focus on the breath to be led by God. God is much greater than that, and He can lead us faithfully without any help from teachings that lead people AWAY from the Cross rather than to it.
Endnotes:
1. https://ywam.org/blog/2018/06/11/contemplative-prayer/
2. https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=4009
3. Roger Oakland, Faith Undone: the emerging church—a new reformation or an end-time deception (Eureka, MT: Lighthouse Trails Publishing, 2007), p. 175; citing 1) “Youth with a Mission Experiments with New, Unscriptural Missions Strategy” (Foundation, Watchman’s Trumpet, May – June 2000, http://www.feasite.org/WTrumpet/fbcwt004.htm#Youth%20With), p. 39 and 2) Andy Butcher, “Radical Missionary Approach Produces ‘Messianic Muslims’ Retaining Islamic Identity” (Charisma News Service, March 24, 2000, http://web.archive.org/web/20010818051517/www.charismanew s.com/news.cgi?a=285&t=news.html).
4. Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 1996, Revised Edition), p. 212-218
5. Richard Kirby, The Mission of Mysticism (London, UK: SPCK, 1979), p. 7.
6 https://ywam.org/blog/2018/06/11/contemplative-prayer/
7.  From Ray Yungen in A Time of Departing (pp. 59-60) citing from Rob Baker and Gray Henry, Editors, Merton and Sufism (Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999), p. 109.
8. https://ywam.org/blog/2018/06/11/contemplative-prayer
9. Ibid.
Related Information:
5 Things You Should Know About Contemplative Prayer by Ray Yungen
So You Want to Practice “Good” Contemplative Prayer—What’s Wrong With That by Lynn Pratt
Oneness vs. Separation Heresy “Now” in the Church by Warren B. Smith
Focus on the Family STILL Defends Contemplative Prayer—Says Jesus and Disciples Practiced It

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