Mike Shreve used to be a Kundalini Yoga teacher, but a prayer group started praying for him. He was hitchhiking and the man who picked him up led him to Jesus. Today he shares how to reach people who are in the New Age Movement.
Questions for Mike Shreve:
How did you get saved?
How did you get started in your evangelistic ministry?
What are some of the characteristics of the “New Age Movement?”
How can Christians reach people who are fascinated with the New Age Movement and mystical Eastern religions?
Are adherents of all religions worshiping the same God?
What is the Jesus method of evangelism and what is the Pauline method of evangelism?
Quote:
Jack London: Bring thoughts in and entertain them royally for one of them may be king and may exalt you to honor.
Websites:
Download a FREE copy of Mike Shreve’s book: Encountering God
Check out Daniel King, The Evangelism Coach, on The Evangelism Podcast every day.
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Mike Shreve used to be a Kundalini Yoga teacher, but a prayer group started praying for him. He was hitchhiking and the man who picked him up led him to Jesus. Today he shares how to reach people who are in the New Age Movement.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:19):
Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, be welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King we’re Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:55):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King and I’m super excited to have with me, my special guest pastor Mike Shreve. He used to be a yoga teacher, but now he got saved. Thank you so much for joining me, my friend.
Mike Shreve (01:14):
Well, it’s my blessing, my honor to be with you. I’m looking forward to the interview and I believe we’re going to cover some very important territory.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:22):
Well, let’s start out with your testimony. How did you get saved?
Mike Shreve (01:27):
Well, someone had to be very evangelistic in their mindset to win me to the Lord. As you mentioned, I was a yoga teacher, but I was not just teaching a class on the physical aspect of yoga. I was all the way into the deep philosophical side of yoga was teaching Kundalini yoga at four universities in Florida and running a yoga Ashrom, and this was back in 1970 and the temperature Beaune newspaper did a big article on me. I thought it would increase my class attendance dramatically. Instead it alerted a local prayer group to start praying for me. And they had a 24 hour prayer line, a prayer group where they assigned somebody to be fasting and praying for me every hour of every day. So I was being soaked within her session. And about three or four weeks later, I got a letter from a friend of mine in college, and we had both left college for the same reason to search for God through Eastern religions.
Mike Shreve (02:34):
He had gotten connected to a different group and he wrote me a letter telling me how he had walked into church and heard an audible voice saying Jesus is the only way. And he said, the Holy spirit fell on him. And he experienced being born again, which was the term I was unfamiliar with having been raised Catholic. So that in itself was an evangelistic outreach to me personally because after Larry got saved, he started writing every friend. He had an address for, to share Jesus with them. And so there is a means there is a way to win souls if you have a passion to do it. Well, I pondered that letter for about a week or two. It seemed a logical to me that Christianity was the only path amid all the other religions of the world. But then finally I decided, Hey, I’m a truth seeker.
Mike Shreve (03:34):
I’ve got to deal with this. I’ve got to at least open my heart up to it. If Jesus died on the cross for the sins of humanity, I owe it to him to at least a focus on that for at least a day and see if there’s validity to it saved there’s truth to it. So one day I decided, instead of doing my normal yoga disciplines, which started at three 30 every morning, we would start the day with two hours of meditation and yoga and then various regimens after that, that day. Instead I just decided all it was going to do was read the Bible and talk to Jesus. And, and so for the next 10 hours, all I did was shift between reading the Bible and then praying to Jesus. I didn’t use any mantras. I didn’t use any other far Eastern methods of meditation.
Mike Shreve (04:31):
And then nothing happened. I was expecting a supernatural visitation over and over again. I said, Jesus, if you’re the only way, if you’re the answer, give me some kind of supernatural sign today that afternoon, I was hitchhiking to go teach at university of South Florida. And I had to hitchhike everywhere because I’d renounced all material possessions and owned nothing except a couple changes of clothes. And that afternoon, while I was hitchhiking, I was still praying Jesus, if you’re the answer, if you’re the only way to heaven, give me a sign today. And the man that God had chosen to reach me was two miles away. He was part of the prayer group that was praying for me. But the amazing thing about it is he had a background in yoga. He was a personal student of a man named Yogananda who I respected at that time.
Mike Shreve (05:28):
And so he was two miles away walking in a laundry mat and the Holy spirit spoke to him to get back in his van and start driving. And he had no idea what God wanted him to do, because God doesn’t always give you all the instructions all at once. You have to act on what you hear. And all he knew to do was get in his van and start driving. He didn’t know that the yoga teacher he’d been praying for for several weeks was two miles down the road, hitchhiking. He never picked up hitchhikers, but he felt that compulsion again to pull over when he saw me. And when I opened the door, my heart jumped because on the ceiling of the band, he had taped a picture of Jesus and I knew it was my answer. And so I was sitting on the edge of my seat with expectation and a few moments later, he said, friend can ask you a question.
Mike Shreve (06:20):
And I said, yes. He said, have you ever experienced Jesus coming into your heart? I said, no, but when can I? And he looked at me with utter surprise because he wasn’t expecting me to surrender or to give in that quick we discussed it for about 15 minutes and then I knelt down with him in the back of the van and received Jesus into my heart, kind of a halting prayer. I felt the whole time I was praying it, that it was too simple. It was too easy just to say, I receive you into my heart. Be Lord of my life, wash me in your blood. But I was open and I was I was not only open. I was very hungry, spiritually, very thirsty for reality. And when Jesus came into my heart, it was so powerful. It was so real that I knew I had found the truth.
Mike Shreve (07:11):
And so I asked this man who just wanted me to the Lord to go with me to the yoga class that day. And I announced to all of my students that unknowingly, I had misled them. And that Jesus really is the only way most of my yoga students became Christians. And then all of that week, I went to my yoga classes and instead of teaching yoga, I announced my salvation, shut the classes down, shut my Ash from Dan and went to live in a Christian community in central Florida. So that’s the nutshell presentation of my testimony, but somebody had a heart to be evangelistic one at a time. Phillip did it one at a time with the Ethiopian eunuch. And we’re told historically that Ethiopia was the first nation to proclaim itself, Christian. And who knows if that unit was the main driving force behind it.
Mike Shreve (08:06):
So you’ve gotta be willing to go one to one to one. In fact, God showed me in the book of revelation a number of years ago, how that it starts off saying the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him. And he sent his angel to his servant, John, and then John began to expand the revelation. So the revelation came from the father to the son, to an angel, to John from one, two, one, two one, two one, and then it expanded to the seven churches. And then of course, globally, ultimately, and I’ve gotta be willing to be one of the ones in that link of events and that chain of events, rather, I’ve gotta be willing to be one link sometimes as well as preaching mass crusades like you do. And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:01):
Yeah, that’s tremendous. You know, you mentioned Ethiopia and we’ve done six or seven crusades over there. And every time we’ve seen thousands of people come to Jesus. Our last crusade, we had thousands of people that gathered together on a field. It was just in December and, and just a tremendous time of ministry. The people there are very open to God because of that testimony of the Ethiopian unit going all the way back 2000 years ago to fill up the evangelists the first and the only evangelist mentioned in the new Testament. All right. So you’ve got a really tremendous evangelistic ministry. You have a website called the true light.net where you are writing articles, reaching out to people who are interested in Eastern religions, trying to show them that the truth of Christianity, how did your evangelistic ministry get started?
Mike Shreve (10:01):
Well, that’s kind of a unique story to most likely, but after I lived at the Christian commune for about three months I just felt this, this deep desire to just dive into the work of God without reservation. And I was sitting around a campfire with one other brother who lived there at the commune, and he was very excited about a scripture found in Luke chapter 14. He said, have you ever seen this? And he showed me the passage where Jesus said, except a man for say, call. He cannot be my disciple. He said, do you know anybody doing that? I said, no, I don’t think I do. He said, let’s do it. I said, I’m game. Sure. Let’s go for it. And so the next day we gave away everything we owned, which was a greater commitment for him because he owned a car.
Mike Shreve (10:56):
All I owned was about $1,500 worth of music equipment, and a lot of clothes. And I gave away all my clothes and my music equipment. He gave away his car. We gave away all our money. We didn’t keep not a nickel, not a penny because Jesus said all and all means all we did, we did keep one change of clothes and a Bible when we felt a little bad about having a change of clothes. But we found out later on, that came in real helpful when we washed our first set. But anyway, we’d just set on hitchhiking and hitchhiked about 500 miles. I think it was no, no. It was probably double that from Ovida Florida all the way up to Bloomington Indiana. And we had an invitation from a little country church and bless their hearts. They were very fundamental, strong, fundamental folks that had invited us.
Mike Shreve (11:55):
And when they realized we were kind of ex hippie types they got scared and closed the revival before we even got a chance to preach the first sermon, which was very disconcerting to me to give away everything you own hitchhike a thousand miles, and then your first revival canceled before you preach one sermon. That’s that’s discouraging, but it was God. It was God Daniel. And I have found out in 50 years of evangelism, and this is my 50th year, by the way, I’ve found out that often when you deliver your life and the steps you’d take into the hands of Jesus, disappointments become divine appointments. And you’ve got, you’ve got to look past the initial disappointment and say, now what’s God doing here. Well, I didn’t see readjusting here. And so I was discouraged at first and the other guy had been saved five years.
Mike Shreve (12:50):
So he slapped me on the back and he said, Mike, we came to Indiana to preach. So we’re going to preach. And so we started walking down through that college town, university of Indiana is there. And we pass by an open field that was purchased by the Yippies. Now not everyone remembers the MPS. They were hippies that got politically oriented and, and socialist Stickley and communist tickly minded in their philosophy. And so they had a big sign out in the middle of the field that said, it’s the people’s park. It’s right. Downtown Bloomington, near the university. It’s still there, by the way, it’s been built up some, but there was a large sign that said it had been purchased by the hippies for the free use of anybody that wanted to use it. So Bob looked at me as a man. That’s our church.
Mike Shreve (13:43):
The communist bought my first church for me, praise God. So we set up church on that property and he said, Mike, we’ve got to have advertisement. If we’re going to have a meeting here. I said, man, we don’t have any money. How can we get advertise me? He said, sh I’ll show you. We walked across the street and bought a 25 cent magic marker. We had 50 cents. So we had enough money for a magic marker, a red magic marker. I remember the color. And then he said, follow me as I follow Christ. And it walked across the road to a pizza joint. And when we went around the back and I’m wondering, what’s the guy into, you know, and he said, Mike, I feel led for you to climb up in that dumpster. And he was a big heavy guy. So I’m sure he felt led for a logical reason for me to do the dirty work.
Mike Shreve (14:31):
But he said, I feel led for you to climb up in the dumpster and get a bunch of old pizza boxes so that we can run our advertisement on it. So we got these pieces of boxes, folded them backwards and roll wrote on them, revival, old fashioned street preaching in the name of Jesus, miracle signs and wonders healing, the sick prophesies and casting out devils every night at seven 30 and then down at the bottom in parentheses, we put no snakes. And if you know, Mark 16, 16 through 18, then you know why I referenced that. And I’m sure you do. And then he said, Mike, we gotta have pews. The ground’s wet. The Dew falls, nobody’s going to want to sit on wet grass. So let’s go back to the dumpster. And we got a bunch of paps blue ribbon beer, cardboard boxes that we busted down and flattened out and, and set pews.
Mike Shreve (15:24):
So to speak all over the field, sit down pews or something to keep them from getting wet. And so the communist bought my first church and a beer company provided the pews. And I preached my first sermon except a man loses his life for my second for the gospels. They shall not find it. That was my main text we had about 70 people show up that night. Most of them hippies druggies. There was a guy there that played in the lead group that worked with led Zepplin. I preached my message probably about 90% of them gave their hearts to the Lord. And that’s how my evangelistic ministry was launched. Because from that point forward, I never quit traveling. And eventually it opened up to churches. Open-Air crusades like you do in foreign countries and tent meetings. I, I took a tent around the United States for about 25 years and we had some incredible meetings, but if you have a heart to win souls, you’ll find some way to do it.
Mike Shreve (16:27):
And you’ve got one of my favorite quotes. Daniel is by Jack London. I don’t know if he was a Christian or not, but I read his book when I was a boy, the call of the wild. And he said this, he said, bring thoughts in and entertain them royally for one of them may be the King and may exalt you to honor. And I like to alter it a little bit, bring thoughts in and entertain them royally for one of them may be from the King and may exalt you to honor. And God will give you innovative thoughts, creative thoughts about things to do in order to reach the loss. And I did that with the website that you mentioned a while ago, the true light.net. And God’s really blessed in that. And maybe we can talk about that some too,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:17):
Let’s jump into it a little bit. Now you got saved out of a mystical Eastern religion and you have a heart for reaching people that are involved in that same type of a philosophy. And so let’s start by just defining like the new age movement. What would you say are some of the characteristics of the new age movement and how can we recognize when people get involved in that?
Mike Shreve (17:47):
Well on the, on the website, the true light.net, there’s an article about, I think it’s 15 different characteristics of the new age movement, and there’s no way on this podcast.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:01):
Yeah. I’m looking at it here. You have like fascination with a supernatural pluralism believing in an impersonal God pantheism monism sacredness of nature, the divinity of man, the power to personally and subjectively create reality. You have a weak view of Satan and sin a week view of salvation and forgiveness, enlightenment, reincarnation, evolutionary optimism, the coming of a Messiah, and then a global family outlook. So let’s just pick a couple of those to look at what is enlightenment
Mike Shreve (18:38):
Well, enlightenment within the framework of new age, spirituality or Hinduism is achieving a place where you have realized, and not all Hindus, believe this. Let me preface the statement with this. The majority of Hindus do believe in monism and Mona ism is the idea that everything is of one essential substance. And most of them believe in pantheism which is the belief that everything is an emanation of God or a manifestation of the Godhead. And the Godhead is an it not a, he it’s an impersonal lifeforce. So enlightenment comes when I realize my oneness with the one Hindus would call Brahman, who is this ultimate reality, this cosmic level of consciousness, this force that flows through the universe. And when I realized my oneness with God within the framework of Hinduism, that means you realize that you are God, which is the total opposite of the truth, the antithesis of the truth because it was an original lie that Satan presented in the very beginning in the garden of Eden.
Mike Shreve (19:52):
And of course has tried to perpetrate that same line ever since. And that has one of the primary points in that list. You just read because it, everything else hinges on that, I believe that you are divine. Now, why do I have a problem with that? Because if we say that we are God, and if we say everything is God, then the next step of logic is to believe that we are God. And if we say we are gone, that statement includes monsters like it off Hitler and benevolent people like mother Teresa. And so it reaches out and gathers all the wicked and the righteous into one group and says, we are all God. Well, the next step of logic you have to take, if you believe that is that God is both evil and good. If God, if the God hadn’t manifested itself in expressions of darkness and light, and God has darkness and light, but the Bible says God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
Mike Shreve (21:04):
So there’s a disconnect there. How could that be? Because within the Christian worldview, the biblical worldview, God exists apart from the physical universe. And so in order to come into a relationship with God, he enters into you from, without, it’s not an awakening. You asked me what enlightenment is. Enlightenment is something that’s according to new agers, according to Hindus achieve through various rituals, meditation processes yoga, and not only the meditative part of yoga, but the physical exercises are all designed toward this desirable goal of being enlightened and coming to the realization that you are God. Now the scary part, Daniel is that in Hinduism, it is taught that this happens when you have something called a Kundalini awakening and the word Kundalini means serpent power. And I’m sure anyone who has any knowledge of the Bible knows that a serpent is symbolic of evil, not so in Hinduism because the serpent power is a description of what they believe is a coiled energy, a dormant source of energy at the base of the spine that is awakened through meditation and like a serpent striking.
Mike Shreve (22:36):
It rises up through the spine through something called shock shockers, which I believe do not exist now, but shockers are supposedly energy centers spinning wheels of energy up through the spine. The one that’s most famous is the third eye. That’s the sixth chakra. And then the seven chakras called the crown chakra. Well, when you come to enlightenment, this serpent power rises up through you and then merges with the crown chakra. You leave your body, you become one with the infinite. So why do I have a problem with that? That’s the demon possession because Jesus said, I am the way the truth and the life. And no one comes to the father except by me. And, and so you’ve got to go through the Lord Jesus to come into a valid and genuine oneness with God. And one is with God within a biblical framework is much different than what a Hindu call oneness with God.
Mike Shreve (23:36):
But yeah, that’s a very concise view, but most new agers believe in chakras. Most new agers believe in the Kundalini. And I have people call me from all over the world, Daniel, desperate for prayer and deliverance because they’ve yielded to this force. And now it’s out of control that going to yoga classes and then started having spontaneous Kundalini awakenings, where they feel these energy surges through their bodies. And it drives them to the point of insanity because there’s an invasion spiritually that happens in soullessly where they come under the control of these dominating demons that want that, that want to possess them completely and give them psychic experiences in the process where they think that they’re having a genuine encounter with supernatural things, but it’s all, it’s all leading them in the wrong direction.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:35):
So let’s get down to the really important question. You’ve explained some about what people who believe in the new age movement would, would practice what they would believe. But the important question is how can we, as Christians reach people who are fascinated with the new age movement, with mystical Eastern religions, you said you’ve had people call you because they’ve been entangled in this deceptive, demonic belief system. How are you able to reach them? How can we set them free?
Mike Shreve (25:10):
Most new agers will not respond to any kind of language like are just used. I’m using it with you because you’re a believer and you shook her hand what I’m saying, and you deal with the deliverance all the time. I’m sure in your ministry but most new agers recoil from the idea of Satan or demons or hell. And if you tell someone that their belief system is wrong and they’ll end up going to hell, they’ll shut down on you immediately. I use what I call the Jesus method. And sometimes the Pauline method in reaching people who are involved in the new age, what do I mean by that? Well, Jesus met the woman at the well, and she was a Samaritan Samaritans had all kinds of false doctrine in John four. Yeah, right? Absolutely. And he could have easily nailed her and started enumerating all the things that were wrong that she believed.
Mike Shreve (26:13):
But he saw past this massive false doctrine that she was entangled by as a Samaritan and saw thirst in her heart. And he said if you ask water me, I’ll give you water where you’ll never thirst again. She said, Oh Lord, give me this water. And he said, it will be in you a well of water springing up into everlasting life that never got involved in a doctrinal squabble. He just saw she was thirsty for reality. And he appealed to that. Usually when I witnessed the new ages, we always hit an impasse where they start picking out certain things they don’t believe. And thankfully about Christianity. And thankfully the men who wanted me to the Lord avoided that because right before I prayed, I told him, I said, Kent. I said, listen. I said, I gotta be honest with you. I said, I don’t, I, I don’t believe the Bible is the inspired word of God.
Mike Shreve (27:16):
I can’t believe that. And he just looked at me with this big beaming smile. And he said, don’t worry about that. Just try Jesus. I said, well, I’ll never believe in a literal hell. I can’t believe God would send anyone to hell. He said, don’t worry about that. Just try Jesus. And I said, Oh, one other thing, I gotta get off my chest. I said, I’ll never quit believing in reincarnation. I said, it seems to me the only fair and just way to look at life. He said, don’t worry about that. Just try Jesus. He knew that if I ever had a genuine personal encounter with Jesus, then the spirit of truth would come in my life and lead me and guide me into truth in all three of those areas and many others. And I think sometimes Christians try to prove doctrine before they empower a person with an encounter.
Mike Shreve (28:12):
And it’s more important to get people to Jesus. And then they have the God of truth. They have the spirit of truth within them. They have the one who said I am the truth. And so they come under the influence of truth and they’re much more able to comprehend it once they have a genuine born again experience. And so that’s one thing I would encourage people if you’re going to reach out to new agers, then don’t try to slam them over every belief that they have kind of navigate around their favorite beliefs and find an entry point. Find something that you know, would create a curiosity in them. And that’s the Pauline method. And that’s found in the book of acts where he was on Mars Hill. And he said, I saw this statue to the unknown God. Well, that’s the God. I know he appealed to their intellectual curiosity.
Mike Shreve (29:10):
And the other way that I reached new agers is by following a line of logic that causes them to think because most of them are very Hetty and very I won’t say proud, but is not that they’re proud in a bad way, but proud of intellectual reality. Like they don’t just receive something because somebody teaches it to them, which can be good because I was raised Roman Catholic and if I’d persuaded easily, then I would still be in that belief system. And there’s a lot of beautiful, wonderful people in the Roman Catholic church, but none of them ever told me how to be born again. And thank God, there’s a huge movement in Catholicism. Now people discovering that. But Paul of course reached the Athenians by appealing to their intellectual curiosity. And sometimes I’ll do the same. And like the statement I made a little while ago about pantheism.
Mike Shreve (30:12):
I often when I preach in India apply that somewhere in my sermon because I tell them that that if this is true, if we are all God, and if the universe is an emanation of God, and if God is an impersonal force, then our ultimate destiny would be to become impersonal. Because they believe after over a million reincarnations, you merge with this oversoul. And and I said, that’s not progress. That’s not progression that’s digression to move from being a personal beam to an impersonal beam where you blend in with an impersonal force. I said, that’s not progress. And Oh, one other thing most Hindus have you witnessed to them. And, and if you say, have you ever experienced Jesus coming into your heart? If you’re on a one-to-one witnessing thing with a Hindu person, usually they’ll say, well, there is only one God and most Christians have no idea how to get over that.
Mike Shreve (31:18):
Most new agers will say, well, there’s only one God and most Christians are kind of brought to a standstill by that statement because that’s true. There is only one God, but a Hindu means something completely different by that short statement than a Bible believer would mean when a Hindu says there is only one, God is a way of reaching out and embracing pluralism, which is a sign of new age belief system. Pluralism is the idea that all paths are legitimate paths to ultimate reality. And so Hindu, when he says there is only one God is saying is presenting an all-inclusive view that every spiritual path is legitimate. When a Christian says there is only one, God, a Christian is indicating that there’s only one correct revelation of the Godhead. And of course we believe in a triune God, father, son, and Holy spirit.
Mike Shreve (32:18):
And these three are one God, you don’t find that anywhere else in any other religious group or religion in the world. And so we are distinguishing Christianity as being unique when we present that view of the Godhead and it is, it is completely unique. And so my point from that point in the discussion is usually the truth has got to be objective. It’s not subjective because most new agers can say, Hey, you can create your own reality. You can have your truth. I can have my truth and we can both be right simultaneously, which to me is completely illogical because no scientist would apply that rule to the process of discovering truth. In the natural realm, you discover truth by experimentation and observation, and you reach some results that cause you to distinguish truth from error and as the same, a good example that I use often as an analogy is how Ptolemy in the second century taught that the earth was the center of the solar system and the sun revolved around the earth.
Mike Shreve (33:40):
A thousand years later, the Copernicus came along and said, no, no, no. The sun is at the center and the earth revolves around the sun. What if they were contemporaries and discussing their views? Would it even be remotely possible that Copernicus can say to Ptolemy, Hey, you can have your view and I can have my view and we can both be right. Simultaneously. One view is right at the expense of the other view, being wrong and Daniel I believe it’s the same way in Eastern religions. There’s a spark of divinity within every human being to find God’s you look within in Christianity, God exists outside of us. And to experience God, you invite the Lord Jesus Christ to come into you from, without both of those views cannot be right. Simultaneously one is right. The other is wrong. And of course I contend as having embraced both belief systems at one time or another in my life that the Christian biblical path is the only correct one.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (34:41):
Yeah. I find it valuable if you’re going to go into preach in a Hindu majority nation or a Buddhist majority nation that knowing some of these things about how they think is really valuable in communicating the gospel. And even when you’re preaching the gospel to be aware of how they think, what they’re thinking. Like, for example, if you preach on you must be born again, a Hindu may interpret that as you need to be reincarnated. And so you can preach on being born again, that’s a very biblical concept, but it’s important to define it as your preaching from the biblical standpoint. And so when I go preach in different nations, I try to think through everything. I’m saying how I’m saying it in, put it in terms that they can understand. So if you say, God is one God, well, you need to define that within a Christian context, a Christian meaning so that you can, and, and I think a lot of evangelists, they just go and preach the same message on the other side of the world that they might preach in America, but is not always understood the same way. So first you have to XG the Bible, understand what the Bible is saying, but then you have to XG your audience and understand what your audience is hearing when you’re speaking. And so that’s why some of the research that you’ve done, some of the, the articles that are on your website are so valuable and can help evangelists who are ministering to these regions of the world.
Mike Shreve (36:26):
And you have to win a person friendship before you can win their soul. And, and I love what you just brought out about being culturally and religiously sensitive to what people believe predominantly in certain regions of the world, because you can’t go in with with spiritual guns on your hips, shooting down everything. They believe you have to find an entry point. Yes,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (36:52):
Jesus is the entry point. Jesus says, I’m the way the truth and the light. And so if you can bring people to Jesus to have an encounter with Jesus, then later on, you can start dealing with some of their different beliefs and different systems of thought. But I, like you said before, I think Jesus is that entry point that brings people to salvation,
Mike Shreve (37:16):
Right? And that’s why when I preach in India, normally I don’t preach against their gods. I may suddenly mention things to try and bring them a little at a time to the understanding of the real nature of God. Of course you have to, to open up their minds, but I don’t blast them over their present belief system. I had somebody sharing an analogy with me years ago, many, many years ago when I first began winning souls. And they said, if you have a starving dog, that’s knowing on an old bone that has no meat on it. If you try and pull the bone out of its mouth, that will fight you for it. But if you plot down a juicy steak next to that dog, it will leave the bone without any coaxing. And, and so that’s what we need to do with our preaching, present Jesus in such beauty, empowering and love that they automatically turn from their false beliefs and want to know this Jesus.
Mike Shreve (38:17):
And so I emphasize that the beauty of who he is and how he wants to heal. And of course in our meetings, we emphasize healing in because that, that, that really draws people to the Lord when they don’t understand all the doctrine biblically, they understand that there’s a real God that will heal me in a real way. In fact, one of the greatest revivals I’ve ever held over in India, and it should have been my last revival or my last I like to call them gatherings, not crusades because of the negative connotation of the word crusade. But I had a prayer gathering in Kumba Kona, India. I was actually the first Western missionary to hold an outdoor meeting in the middle of that city, which is a Hindu center. And thousands upon thousands of people gathered to this open air meeting and I’ve preached, but it was such a labor because most of the people were completely ignorant about biblical things. And when you have a crowd of people that don’t understand anything hardly about the Bible is, is very challenging to lay the groundwork effectively, just within a 45 minute to an hour period of time.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (39:35):
Let me give you an example on being careful with your vocabulary. You’re talking about the Bible, but someone who’s not a Christian May not even know what the Bible is. So when I hold up my Bible, I don’t call it a Bible. I say, this is God’s book. And so I’m defining it within it. And then I begin to read from God’s book. So if someone doesn’t know the word Bible, they’ll still know what I’m reading.
Mike Shreve (40:01):
That’s awesome. That’s a fantastic point. But anyway, I labored through an hour long of teaching and felt like I got nowhere. In fact, there was such demonic opposition. I was right in the middle of seven, huge Hindu temples all around the field. And it was a such a thick, dark, demonic atmosphere. I felt like I was being choked the whole time I was preaching. And then right at the end of my message, God dropped a word of knowledge into my spirit. And he said, call for the death. And if what, and tell them if what you’ve taught is true, every deaf person will hear again. And so I’d like to say, I boldly acted on that word without any sense of in trepidation, but I was shaking like a leaf inside. I thought hinge and the whole night on every single deaf person hearing again, wow, this is a step of faith, but I did it.
Mike Shreve (40:58):
And they brought seven people. Four were totally deaf, three had one deaf ear. I said, bring me somebody totally deaf first, not knowing that was the key to that whole night. And they brought me a 23 year old young man who had been deaf for five years. I did not know that simultaneously there was a group of six radical Hindus climbing up the stairwell behind the platform. And there was a big 20 foot high gate that normally was supposed to prevent break-ins. And it had a huge padlock about this big on the gate. Well, they had a sledgehammer and right when I started to pray for this young man to get his ears open, I hear this crunching crashing sound. I didn’t know it was six guys with a sledgehammer hitting that lock. And, and one of the guys would just hitting it again.
Mike Shreve (41:54):
And again, finally it clattered to the concrete, right? When I was about 20 seconds, 30 seconds into praying for this guy and the gate swings open, and six guys come running my direction. Now let me interject something here. Most Hindu people believe in tolerance and gentleness. And it’s a very very peaceful approach to relations with other people, but there’s radical elements in every religion, every society. So anyway, the six guys came running me with this fierce look on their faces. And I turned around thinking to my horror. I can’t afford to get distracted right now. What’s going on. And right when I turned around to see who they were, the guy jumped out of my hands and started screaming that he could hear again. And the head of the radical Hindu group stopped wide-eyed he walked over and started whispering in the guy’s ears and getting him to repeat it back.
Mike Shreve (42:57):
I did not find out until the next day that the guy that got healed was the next door neighbor of the guy who was the head of the Hindu radical group. God set that up in such an amazing way. And I, I thought, well, this must be a pastorally appointed checking committee because they all started checking the guy on verify and he can hear, he can hear. And so I prayed for the second one and the second one heard again, and I asked them to check the second one. And they ended up verifying all seven people, getting their hearing. And I gave an invitation and everyone on the platform was amazed when those guys fell to their knees and repented and got right with the Lord. And about 500 people came out of the audience and gave the hearts to the Lord. And the next day they met with me and told me what their intentions were.
Mike Shreve (43:52):
They had planned to beat me up publicly timing to the bumper of their car and drag me through the city and in order to stop missionary activity in their town. And it, and, and the victory that not hinged on following the directive that God gave me in the form of a word of knowledge. And I tell you what, you know, this, if anybody knows that, you know, when you function on foreign fields, you’ve got to have divine direction. And you’ll face situations like that where God God came out with the enemy in amazing ways.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (44:26):
That’s a tremendous testimony, Pastor Mike, I want to say, thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast. Your website is the true light.net. And on there you offer your book, encountering God for free. If someone just goes and gives you some information, and it looks like a really wonderful book, I was going through it earlier, and you also have Shreve ministries.org. And so you’re available to go minister at churches to do evangelism, to help churches with evangelism. And you also do crusades overseas. So if someone wants to support you or help you out with what you’re doing go visit his website. And if you want more information about the new age movement, mystical Eastern religions check out his website, the true light.net brother, Mike, thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast. It’s a great honor to have you here.
Mike Shreve (45:32):
Hey, it’s been quite a blessing and I respect what you’re doing for the kingdom, and I’m so glad to get connected with you, Daniel. Thank you, God bless you. God bless you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (45:43):
Thanks so much for listening to the evangelism podcast today. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. And what we found is that as we go to different nations of the world, it takes us an average of about $1 for every person we’re able to reach with the gospel. And so some countries are more expensive. Some countries are a little bit less expensive, but on average, we’ve invested about $1 for every person we’re able to lead to Jesus. So today I’m asking you to go to my website, King ministries.com and give $1, $2, $5, become a monthly partner, help us to lead people to Jesus. Imagine you can start a party in heaven with just $1. Also go to Apple iTunes, leave us a review for the evangelism podcast with Daniel King. So lots of people can find this evangelism podcast. God bless you
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (46:36):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches. Visit King ministries.com. Again, that’s King ministries.com.
