Praying to the dead - conjuring the dead

Deu.18:10-12
10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,
11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.

The Israelites were forbidden to have any contact with anyone who claimed to communicate with the unsen world. Eight means of communication with the sirit world are given in this passage. They are called abominations by God. They include:
"one who practices witchcraft"--a witch or a warlock.
"a soothsayer"--a seer, a false prophet.
"one who interprets omens"--a palm-reader, a fortune-teller, an astrologer.
"a sorcerer"--a witch-doctor.
"one who conjures spells"--a wizard.
"a medium"--spirit medium.
"a spiritist"--a seance leader.
"one who calls up the dead"--necromancer.
Some of these "professions" overlap.

Tragically this nearly 3,400 year-old prohibition is just as much needed in "enlightened" modern times as it was long ago. Henry G. Bosch writes:

--from the Believer's Bible Commentary.

Commnunicating with the dead in any form is wrong. It is communication with that unseen world. The only person that we are to communicate with is God alone. Any other communication is wrong. Do not be like the Shintoist in Japan who prays to his ancestors to give them honor. He also presents offerings to them. They are dead. What good will their prayers and offerings do? What good will your prayers to your so-called saints do. They also are dead. Jesus Christ alone has risen from the dead. He alone is our intercessor. "There is one God and one mediator between man and God, the Lord Jesus Christ."
DHK

 

"Commnunicating with the dead IN ANY FORM is wrong. It is communication with that unseen world. "

Gee, then I guess Jesus was wrong at the transfiguration with Moses and Elijah.

Matthew 17:3
Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, TALKING with Jesus.

Oh, I know, Elijah didn't die. But we know that the devil and the angel fought over Moses body so that one won't get you totally off the hook. Looks like by your definition Jesus was a sinner. (Jude 1:9).

And I can hear the words in Jerusalem after the resurection. "DON'T SAY A WORD TO ANY OF THEM. It's a sin."


Matt 27:53They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

Blessings

 

Sarcasm will do you no good here Thessalonian. Do you have a serious question to ask? Or are you here just to mock God's Word? If the latter you stand on very dangerous ground. God will not be mocked.

Miracles in Christ day were common, as the Scriptures testify. They testified of the deity of Christ. Jesus said if you don't believe me, then believe me for the very works sake. He raised Lazarus from the dead also. I suppose you can make a mockery out of that if you want to also. The miracle was a demonstration of His deity--a miracle that no mere mortal could do. It has nothing to do with speaking with the dead.

Likewise the transfiguration. It was a miraculous event that gave the disciples (Peter, James and John) a glimpse into that which was yet to come. Your question/snide remark, or whatever it was is akin to questioning the authority of Jehovah allowing Moses to see the hinder part of the glory of God. God can do that which he chooses to do that is within His naure to do. He chose to reveal His glorified nature to three of His disciples, as well as the transfigured nature of Elijah and Moses. The disciples never prayed to Elijah or Moses, never communicated to them either. It was only Christ that they had communication with. The whole scene was to glorify Christ, as the voice out of Heaven demonstrated: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

There was a miraculous event that is described in Mat.27:52,53. What became of these ones the Bible does not say. It also does not say that anyone oommunicated with them, prayed to them in any way. The only thing one may assume is that they saw that the graves were opened, the bodies were missing, and they appeared to some people. We know nothing after that.
This miraculous event has nothing to do with the subject at hand. It is wrong to pray to the dead.
DHK

 

Moses was resurrected. Elijah never died.

You aren't going to find a loophole in the Bible for this Thess. Jesus DID NOT SIN. TRYING to talk to the dead, is a sin. It isn't even possible. Those in heaven CANNOT see you or hear you! The saints that have died over the years CANNOT hear you. They ARE DEAD. They do not pray, they do not speak, they have no consciousness, and they CERTAINLY cannot praise God.

THE BIBLE SAYS SO.

God Bless,
Kelly

 

No DHK, I mocked you. Awfully bold of you to call your words (many of which are not in the Bible) God's holy word. You said "IN ANY FORM". Do you deny these words of yours? I know full well what he transfiguration was and of God's power. How arrogant of you to imply otherwise except by your disdain for me as a Catholic. Your posts exude hatred DHK.

Blessings

 

"Moses was resurrected."

So Jesus wasn't the first fruits?

" Elijah never died."

I think I said that.


"You aren't going to find a loophole in the Bible for this Thess."

I am not trying to. Just trying to show that DHK's arguements do not add up. Now you come in and argue from a different framework (soul sleep) and that is fine. DHK to my knowledge doesn't believe in it.

"Jesus DID NOT SIN. "

Amen. You are superimposing your SDA beliefs on what I am saying. I wasn't trying to prove he did, unlike you who try to prove that he was not divine till the cows come home. If he was not divine then from the Protestant perspective "all have sinned" would apply to him.

"TRYING to talk to the dead, is a sin. It isn't even possible. Those in heaven CANNOT see you or hear you! The saints that have died over the years CANNOT hear you. They ARE DEAD. They do not pray, they do not speak, they have no consciousness, and they CERTAINLY cannot praise God."

I seem to be having trouble finding the verses you just quoted above. Until I do, I feel free to reject your soul sleep dogma that they are based on and believe that our souls live on in Christ in heaven after this life. Therefore they are not dead.

Blessings

THE BIBLE SAYS SO.

God Bless,
Kelly

 

I did not take these words in any way personally. They didn't affect me as a person:

But to suggest that Christ is a sinner is pure mockery if not blasphemy. The tone in this post is one of sarcasm and mockery. However it is not me that is being mocked: it is Christ and His Word. I was having a serious discussion up until that point.
DHK

 

Ask Lazarus, he might know. Or perhaps the daughter of Jarius? Uh, maybe the other COUNTLESS people who were raised from the dead BEFORE Jesus was. The Bible said He is the first fruit from the dead. Does that mean He was the first person to ever be raised from the dead? Moses is most likely in heaven in the same fashion that Elijah is. Considering that Moses was sleeping awaiting the resurrection and he was awakened to be taken to heaven, He most likely was taken the same way Elijah was. Body and all. That's what Michael (Jesus) and Satan were arguing about.

I agree. You want to know why? He wants to 'have his cake and eat it too'. He wants to tell you that you are wrong for praying to the Saints in heaven, because they died, but he doesn't want to tell you that you are wrong for believing that they are there in the first place. The problem is solved. You are praying to NNE. Therefore you aren't really sinning, just wasting your time. Just pray to God. The dead people aren't in heaven yet, and they cannot hear you. When those prayers are answered it is because God sees your ignorance, and winks, and sees the sincerity of your heart and honors your prayers to them, as if they were His own. But He is jealous, and He is calling you to repent.

Nope, and that is why his argument makes NO SENSE whatsoever. Here it is, in a nutshell. "Dead people aren't really dead, they are in heaven, but don't pray to them, because they are dead and that's necromancy." Did I get that straight?

I'm sorry, but the only measure that I know to use when confronted with doctrine is the truth.

Divine? Diety? God? Do you think those words all mean the same thing? Jesus is divine. So is Michael.

Don't go there Thess.

Give me a break. Don't you have a concordance?

Psalm 146:3 (KJV)
3Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.
4His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.

Psalm 115:17 (KJV)
17The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.

Psalm 6:5 (KJV)
5For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?

Ecclesiastes 9:5 (KJV)
5For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

I have an extensive study that I have done on Soul Sleep, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little. In laymans terms. If you'd like to see it, let me know.

God Bless,
Kelly

 

"Conjuring up the dead is to communicate with and try to bring up the spirit of the dead."

This seems to be heart of your arguement.

Am I correct?

Ok then, is prayer to a Saint, let's just say Mary the Blessed Mother, asking for her intercession to Jesus on our behalf, communicating with her to try and bring up her spirit?

Is that what you are saying?

 

It's funny. Any protestant who agrees with Bob Ryan on this thread implicitly is agreeing with his dogma of soul sleep which if foundational to his line of reasoning. He calls praying to a saint conjuring them up because he thinks that they are not with Christ but are in the grave asleep. To be absent from the body is not to be present with the Lord according to Bob. Of course soul sleep is false.

 

Thanks, Thess.

Thats the missing piece to the puzzle.

I was trying to figure out where he was getting all this stuff about bringing up dead bodies and conjuring up the dead. It's all just so whacky.

No Catholic that I know expects any Saint or Angel to speak back or to appear before us.

Ron

 

Kelly,
"Dead" always refers to the body. You know as well as I, that when a person dies, the body is dead. It is taken and buried, and starts the process of decay. It is dead. What you don't believe is the spirit is alive. The spirit of the saved person is alive with Christ in Heaven. To be absent from the body is to present with the Lord. Yes "dead people are really dead," i.e. their bodies, but not their spirits.
When Samuel went to the witch of Endor to conjure up the "dead" it was the "live" spirit of Samuel that came, not the "dead"
DHK

 

Hey, DHK, don't worry about Samuel. He didn't do any conjuring. He was conjurred.

 

Yes, The circumstances there were highly unusual, and it was only by God's grace that God allowed it to happen at all. Even the witch was suprised by it.

 

Kelly,
"Dead" always refers to the body. You know as well as I, that when a person dies, the body is dead. It is taken and buried, and starts the process of decay. It is dead. What you don't believe is the spirit is alive. The spirit of the saved person is alive with Christ in Heaven. To be absent from the body is to present with the Lord. Yes "dead people are really dead," i.e. their bodies, but not their spirits.
When Samuel went to the witch of Endor to conjure up the "dead" it was the "live" spirit of Samuel that came, not the "dead"
DHK </font>[/QUOTE]Eze 18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Eze 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

The SOUL that sins shall die.

Do you sin?

Your soul DIES.

You are a soul, DHK, when you die, the spirit, that God gave your body to animate you will go back to God, and the dust which makes up your body will return to the earth.

This is what the Bible says.

Show me a verse that says 'death is always talking about a body'.

Jesus isn't coming back for a 'body', He is coming back for PEOPLE. Souls.

1 Thessalonians 4:15 (KJV)
15For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
16For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: (note that it doesn't say come back and be reinserted into their bodies)

John 5:28 (KJV)
28Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,
29And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

Your doctrine doesn't make any sense. There are people who are dead that Jesus is coming for. If they were already in heaven, why on earth would He be COMING for them??????

God Bless,
Kelly

 

Just a thought: "soul" doesn't always mean that nebulous, intangible spiritual identity. It sometimes means simply the physical life. The Hebrew word is "nephesh" and is used often just as physical life, even of animals. Even in the words of Gen 1:21, ("And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind..."), the word translated as "creatures" is "nephesh" - the same word translated "soul" in Ezek 18:4 that you are using in your argument. Thus, unless you can show that the passage is NOT talking only about the physical life, it doesn't carry much weight.

As for Christ "reinserting" into resurrected bodies, consider the verse immediately prior to the passage you quoted. It says "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." Here we see Jesus bringing with him those that have died, even though their bodies stayed on earth. He brings them *with* him, and yet also resurrects their bodies which were not with him, but are with us.

 

You have made your point Kelly, as Brian has made his. My statement should have read "Normally death refers to the body," instead of using an all inclusive word as "all." Brian is also right in that soul is not always confined to that nebulous definition that approaces that of "spirit."

you poor soul! If you could just see that truth.

James 2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
What is death? Separation. When the body is separated from the spirit that is death. The body is put in the ground and begins a decaying process. The spirit (if of a believer) goes to be with the Lord in Heaven. This is what most people think of death. The death of the body. Normally the body is referenced to when speaking of death. Jesus spoke of the body of Lazarus when he spoke of his death. It was his body that rose from the dead. The spirit was still alive.

There are three types of death in the Bible:
1. Physical death: separation of the body from the spirit as described above in James 2:26.

2. Spiritual death: separation spiritually from God. Example--Eph.2:1
Eph.2:1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins:
--The unsaved are spiritually separated from God. When saved God makes them alive in Christ so that they are no more apart from God. They have been reconciled through the blood of Christ. They were once alienated by sin. Separated spiritually.

3. Eternal separation. Rom. 6:23: The wages of sin is death--eternal death. Some day the unsaved will day and stand at the Great White Throne Judgement and be eternally separated from God--tormented, day and night forever and ever (Rev.20:10,15).

Death means separation.
DHK

 

I agree with what you said about a soul. Problem is, in order for anyone to prove that a person goes to heaven when they die, you must first prove that they have something that can go to heaven in the first place. When God made Adam, He gave the exact formula, that ALL mankind is made by. He took clay (or elements of the earth) and BREATHED on it, the Breath of Life, or the 'ruach'. The combination of dust and breath make a living soul, a 'nephesh' as you have noted. That nephesh is the same for ALL the creatures that God has made! The Bible goes on further though to tell us what the reverse of that process is, and tells us that when a 'man' dies, the dust (elements of the earth) return to the earth and the spirit (ruach) return to God who gave it. NOW, unless you want to assert that ALL men go to heaven, that passage DOES NOT say that a PERSON goes to heaven when they die, but rather the spirit that animated them, the breath of life from God's own nostrils is what goes back to God.

Do you plan on spending eternity in the body you are in now? I would hope not, and since I can assume you don't think that I must ask you what you think Jesus is going to resurrect? If YOU are already in heaven, WHY would He resurrect your old decaying dead body? There is a reason. Because you are in it. You are not a mixture of spirit and body, but a mixture of clay and breath. When that breath leaves you, you are clay again, and no longer a living soul. The soul that sins, dies. It is a natural process due to sin. We die. When Jesus returns those who were faithful to Him will be given LIFE again. Those who were not will await the second resurrection. WHY would Jesus come to the earth, and take those who are ALREADY in heaven to their old bodies and put them back, only to turn around and give them new bodies? That just doesn't make sense.

Here is what makes sense. Jesus is coming for the DEAD in Christ. Those who died, and are waiting, in an unconscious sleep for His return. He will 'bring' those with Him to the Living in Christ because He is going to raise them from the dead before the living are caught up! It is simple. He is going to raise the dead first, just as the passage says, for we who are alive will not PREVENT those who are 'asleep'. NOW, unless you think you are going to be sleeping in heaven, that word is referring to the dead in Christ.

Not the living in heaven.

God Bless,
Kelly