MYSTICISM AND RICHARD FOSTER: IS IT POSSIBLE TO TRUST GOD TOO MUCH?

While it is not possible to trust God too much, it is possible to trust Him wrongly and unbiblically. David had trusted God in the wrong way. He had been celebrating the return of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem – a good thing – but he was trusting God in the wrong way. Instead of appointing Levites to carry the Ark, as God had instructed, he thought he had a better way to convey the Ark – in an ox-drawn cart:

·       And David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the LORD, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God. (2 Samuel 6:5-7; ESV)

We find this very disturbing. Often, we too do things that we think will honor God, but instead, we are disciplined. We had thought that we had been led by right motives, but we weren’t. When we violate God’s concerns and His Word, we are not led by the right motives but by our own. Scripture gives us many warnings against departing from His Word:

·       And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. (Isaiah 8:19-20)

·       I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. (1 Corinthians 4:6)

When we violate the Word or go outside of it in ways that compete against God’s counsel, we incur His needful discipline. Jesus therefore taught:

·       “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4)

I bring this up because many, in the Name of God, go beyond the Word of God to the detriment of the people of God. For example, the “Christian” mystics add many things to the Word, which they claim are essential for our Christian life. However, the Bible claims that whatever is essential is already contained in Scripture:

·       All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

However, in Celebration of Discipline, the mystic, Richard Foster, proposes many “essentials” that go far beyond anything that Scripture has to say:

·       “Often we assume we are in contact [with God] when we are not…Often people will pray and pray with all the faith in the world, but nothing happens. Naturally, they are not contacting the channel [of God]. We begin praying for others by first centering down and listening to the quiet thunder of the Lord of hosts. Attuning ourselves to divine breathings is spiritual work, but without it our praying is vain repetition. Listening to the Lord is the first thing…(34)

Often, “nothing happens” for many years. Abraham had to wait 25 years for the birth of his promised son, Isaac. Moses had to wait 40 years until God appeared to him in the burning bush. Therefore, the Bible counsels us to wait patiently:

·       For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. (Hebrews 10:36)

However, Foster suggests that there is something wrong if we don’t promptly receive from God. Yes, we can create barriers against God that can cause us to miss “the channel.” Unrepented sin creates such a barrier, for example:

·       Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. (1 Peter 3:7)

Our motives can also create a barrier:

·       You ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:2-3)

However, failure to implement Foster’s unbiblical practices presents no barrier whatsoever.

Foster also promotes the use of imagination in meditation and prayer:

·       Hence, you can actually encounter the living Christ in the event, be addressed by His voice and be touched by His healing power. It can be more than an exercise of the imagination; it can be a genuine confrontation. Jesus Christ will actually come to you.

According to Foster, we can imaginatively visual Jesus coming to us, and “Jesus Christ will actually come.” This is little different from idolatry. In one instance, we create a physical idol; in another, we create a mental idol to do our bidding, something strictly forbidden by the Ten Commandments:

·       "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” (Exodus 20:4)

Foster is instructing us to make for ourselves a mental idol, one that will actually serve us. Instead, Jesus requires us to worship God in “spirit and in truth,” rather than in our imaginations. We do not have the privilege to imagine or conjure up the God that we want. The KJV translation brings out the fact that many have hardened themselves to God by creating for themselves a god of “their imaginations”:

·       Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. (Romans 1:21-23; KJV)

Instead, we are to expose such false imaginations which oppose the “knowledge of God”:

·       For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:4-5; KJV)

Nevertheless, Foster insists that:

·       Imagination opens the door to faith. If we can ‘see’ in our mind’s eye a shattered marriage whole or a sick person well, it is only a short step to believing that it will be so. (36)

Perhaps our imaginations do open the door to faith, but to which faith:

·       Imagine the light of Christ flowing through your hands and healing every emotional trauma and hurt feeling your child experienced that day. Fill him or her with the peace and joy of the Lord. In sleep the child is very receptive to prayer since the conscious mind, which tends to erect barriers to God’s gentle influence, is relaxed. (39)

Not only is this practice unbiblical, it is also assumes that we can coerce God, through the use of our imaginations, to give us what we want and when we want it. This represents both a serious debasing of God and an exaltation of our own manipulations. Against such presumptions, James warned:

·       Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13-16)

Foster’s teachings are no less boastful. We cannot presume that we can manipulate God to give us what we want and when we want it. This is how Satan tempted Jesus:

·       Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” (Matthew 4:5-7)

Foster is also putting “God to the test,” assuming that He must perform in accordance with Foster’s techniques. Instead, blessing doesn’t depend on such manipulations but on God’s specifications:

·       Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. (Joshua 1:8)

·       But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:33)

Foster is teaching an unbiblical God, one who cannot bless “since the conscious mind, which tends to erect barriers to God’s gentle influence.” Instead, God is all-powerful and is not impeded by our conscious mind:

·       But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)

·       "To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.’” (Rev. 3:7)

Foster also suggests that our minds are an impediment to receiving the grace of God. Instead, we are taught that our minds are a tool that enables us to connect to God:

·       And he [Jesus] said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)

Foster has imagined an unbiblical God. How does God react to us when we go beyond Scripture? Here is how He addressed his most righteous servant:

·       “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2)

·       “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.” (Job 40:2)

After Job repented of his foolishness, God turned His anger upon Job’s three friends:

·       “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7-8)

We must speak of God correctly. However, after Job repented in dust and ashes, it was as if he had never sinned at all.

WORSHIP, PRAYER, AND ALLURING GIMMICKS

 The Christian life isn’t easy. In fact, we are promised that if we want to reign with Christ, there is a price – suffering (2 Cor. 4:10-11). Consequently, when we suffer, it often feels like our world, along with our faith, is coming apart. We become convinced that something is terribly wrong, either with us or our attempts to draw close to God in faith.

Our despair makes us vulnerable to the allurements of false teachers like the Quaker Mystic Richard Foster:

·       Often we assume we are in contact [with God] when we are not…Often people will pray and pray with all the faith in the world, but nothing happens. Naturally, they are not contacting the channel [to God]. We begin praying for others by first centering down and listening to the quiet thunder of the Lord of hosts. Attuning ourselves to divine breathings is spiritual work, but without it our praying is vain repetition. Listening to the Lord is the first thing…(Celebration of Disciplines, 34)

Such teaching serves to undermine our confidence in the Lord. Foster insists that if our prayers go unanswered, it means that we are not in contact with our Savior. Once Foster is able to convince us that we are missing out, we become vulnerable to adopting his set of unbiblical techniques.

Meanwhile, Scripture assures us that everything we need to serve the Lord is contained in Scripture:

·       All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17; ESV)

If Scripture is able to make us “complete, equipped for every good work,” then to teach that we also need additional techniques and gimmicks is to violate Scripture. In this sense, Foster is adding to Scripture (Deut. 4:2) by claiming that his techniques are necessary to make contact with God.

In contrast to Foster, Paul warned “to not go beyond what is written” (1 Cor. 4:6). Similarly, Isaiah 8:19-20 taught that we must go to God’s Word for our guidance:

·       And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. (Isaiah 8:19-20)

If we want to glorify God, we must speak according to His Word:

·       Whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles [the Word] of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 4:11)

There are no scriptural warnings about not having the right prayer techniques. Instead, Jesus warned against the use of various pagan gimmicks:

·       “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matthew 6:7-8)

Gimmicks should not be of any concern. Why not? Because, the “Father knows what you need before you ask him.” Therefore, the techniques are of no consequence. Besides, He will give us beyond what we ask for:

·       Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. (Ephesians 3:20)

God is able to compensate for us when we pray wrongly (Romans 8:26). Well then, what does God want from us if prayer is not about using the right techniques? Knowing and trusting in our Savior and not in gimmicks:

·       "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD…But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him.” (Jeremiah 17:5-7)

·       What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31-32)

·       "To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.’” (Rev. 3:7-8)

Gimmicks will not open the door to God’s grace. God is not looking for techniques but for “truth in the inward being” (Psalm 51:6). He wants to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, as Jesus explained to the Samaritan woman at the well:

·       "But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:23-24)

Nowhere does Scripture require the popular mystical techniques of repeating one word, visualizations, imaginations, analyzing dreams, changing our brain-states, practicing silence, or listening intently for the voice of God. Instead of such practices, Scripture instructs to know and obey His Word:

·       Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly…But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. (Psalm 1:1-3)

·       “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him." (John 14:21)

Instead of gimmicks, it is God’s Word that must direct our prayers and worship. However, we must always put God and His Word first in our lives:

·       But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:33)

He will provide for our needs and honor us as we honor Him. No room for gimmicks here!

THE USE OF THE IMAGINATION IN WORSHIP

Mystics often claim that if we imagine that we are in contact with God, then we will be. In Celebration of Disciple, mystic Richard Foster insists that:

• As with meditation, the imagination is a powerful tool in the work of prayer. We may be reticent to pray with the imagination, feeling that it is slightly beneath us. Children have no such reticence. (172)

• Since we know that Jesus is always with us, let’s imagine that he is sitting over in the chair across from us. He is waiting patiently for us to centre our attention on him. When we see him, we start thinking more about His love than how sick Julie is. He smiles, gets up, and comes over to us. Then, let’s put both our hands on Julie and when we do, Jesus will put His hands on top of ours. We’ll watch the light from Jesus flow into your little sister and make her well. (173)

Do we have scriptural permission to imagine and channel Jesus in this manner? According to the renowned theologian, J.I. Packer, we do not:

• How should we form our thoughts about God? Not only can we not imagine Him adequately, since he is at every point greater than we can grasp; we dare not trust anything our imagination suggests about him, for the built-in habit of fallen minds is to scale God down. (Growing in Christ; 243)

Although the imagination can be used profitably in other areas, Scripture never gives us the freedom to use imagination in worship, as Jeremiah warned:

• This is what the Lord Almighty says: "Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise me, 'The Lord says: You will have peace.' And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts [“walketh after the imagination of his own heart;” KJV] they say, 'No harm will come to you.'” (Jeremiah 23:16-17; Ezek 13:2; Luke 1:51)

Packer points out that the prohibition against the use of imagination is actually inscribed in the Ten Commandments:

• Hence, the second commandment, “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything.” This forbids… imagining the true God as like yourself or something lower. God’s real attack is on mental images… If imagination leads out thoughts about God, we too shall go astray. No statement starting, “This is how I like to think of God” should ever be trusted. An imagined God will always be more or less imaginary and unreal. (244)

How strange the theology that insists that we shouldn’t worship material images but then encourages us to worship the images of our imagination! Consequently, we are not free to worship our God in any manner that feels right to us. The Israelites had to learn this lesson early on:

• “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. (Deuteronomy 4:15-19)

 Israel understood that they were absolutely prohibited from bowing before any of these objects. There was no allowance to the rational, "I am just directing my worship to God through these images. However, some branches of Christianity have made allowance for these unbiblical practices:

• The icon [an image of Jesus used in worship] points us to something beyond itself; we recognize it and are expected to respond. ... The icon insists that we respond as much with the mind as with the emotions. Icons are not directed only to the gut; they are the thinking man’s art....The Orthodox Church teaches that an icon is a two-way door of communication that not only shows us a person or an event but makes it present. When we stand in front of an icon we are in touch with that person and we take part in that event. ... What we call ‘our world’ and what we call ‘the spiritual world’ are opened to each other. (Sacred Doorways: A Beginner’s Guide to Icons)

However, pagan religion make a similar case for their idols. Instead, worship must be grounded in scriptural truth and not our imagination, as Jesus insisted:

• But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:23-24 (ESV)

We must worship God in truth, according to who he is. This is not optional; it’s a requirement. There is no room to imagine the God we would like to have. Likewise, I am not free to love my wife using the mental images of my first flame. Instead, I must love her for who she is!

Packer redirects the reader back to the second commandment for another look:

• “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.) (Exodus 20:4-6)

Our God but is a protective and jealous God. He wants our complete love and, as a husband demands of His wife, our complete allegiance. Packer therefore concludes:

• And how should we keep this one [commandment]? By reining in our disordered imaginations and reverently accepting that God is as he says he is. How unready and slow we are to do that! Yet we must learn to do it; for it is only as rose-colored fantasy is abandoned, and realism takes its place, that true worship – worship, that is, in truth – can begin. (245)

We might not like such a God in every respect, but there is no other Creator and Redeemer. Better to fear Him than to ignore Him.

Prayers: What does it Mean when they Go Unanswered

 

We tend to equate unanswered prayer with failure and fault. Years ago, my wife had been told that her mother died because she hadn’t prayed with enough faith.

We are surrounded with apostles of blame. The popular mystic, Richard Foster, also lays the blame on us, when our prayers aren’t answered:

• Often we assume we are in contact [with God] when we are not…Often people will pray and pray with all the faith in the world, but nothing happens. Naturally, they are not contacting the channel. We begin praying for others by first centering down and listening to the quiet thunder of the Lord of hosts. Attuning ourselves to divine breathings is spiritual work, but without it our praying is vain repetition. Listening to the Lord is the first thing…(Celebration of Disciple, 34)

For Foster and the mystics, unanswered prayer (UP) is the result of failing to use the prescribed mystical techniques. However, the Bible often associates UP with wrong motives:

• You ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:2-3)

Other sins will also block us from receiving God’s mercy. However, “contacting the channel” is not a matter of clever techniques but of confession:

• He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. (Proverbs 28:13)

However, often times we do not receive because what we ask for is not according to God’s plan for our lives – His will:

• I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him. (1 John 5:13-15)

Sometimes His will might be a matter of the last thing we’d suspect – death. Jesus informed the faithful church of Smyrna that martyrdom was what God had willed for “some”:

• “I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander[a] of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” (Rev.2:9-10)

Our Lord had informed Peter that he would glorify God in this manner, and no amount of prayer would make a difference:

• “When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) (John 21:8-9)

This might sound strange, but, from our present perspective, I am glad that Peter and the Apostles had suffered martyrdom. Martyrdom would serve, better than anything else, to prove that they really believed what they had preached – that Jesus died for our sins and rose again.

Paul wrote that this would also be the way that we too would have to glorify the Lord:

• All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. (2 Tim. 3:12)

This is God’s will, and it won’t be changed by prayer. Nor would He answer Paul’s prayer to remove his “thorn in the flesh.” Instead, God had revealed to him that this affliction was necessary to keep Paul humble. We want strength, but God gives us weakness through which to bless us, according to His will (2 Cor. 12:7-10). Prayer will not remove all of our afflictions!

Sometimes, God expects us to wait, even for many years, for our prayers to be answered (Psalm 27:14). Abraham had to wait 25 years to receive the promised son, Isaac. Moses had to wait 40 years for God to recall him to Egypt to fulfill the calling that He had originally put in Moses’ heart – a calling of which Moses had long since despaired. God has His own timing.

Sometimes our prayers are answered, but God strangely refuses to reveal this to us. Abraham had intervened with Yahweh on behalf of Lot and his family, then residing in wicked Sodom. He finally got Yahweh to agree to spare Sodom if there were only 10 righteous people in the city. A done-deal, right? Wrong:

• And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord.  And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and he looked and, behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace. So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. (Gen. 19:27-29) 

God had answered Abraham’s prayer, but Scripture gives us no evidence that He had ever made Abraham aware of this fact. Instead, Abraham packed up his tent, left the area, and fell into sin once again in his new country of residence (Gen. 20), perhaps discouraged by his apparent UP. I wonder how many of our own UPs have been mercifully answered without our knowing it.

We have to walk by faith and not by sight! This is my hope for my two deceased parents. Neither of them had given any indication that God had heard my prayers for their salvation. Yet I continue to hope in the unseen grace of our Savior.

Sometimes, we are afraid of praying for the wrong things. However, if we are walking with the Lord, seeking His will, we need not be afraid. Instead, the Holy Spirit makes up for our deficits:

• In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27) 

As long as we do not willfully and unrepentently continue in sin, we are covered. However, Scripture warns us that sin can close the prayer-channels, for example:

• Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. (1 Peter 3:7)

Unrepented sin will hinder pray. Meanwhile, our Lord is determined to give us the world (Romans 8:17; 31-32; 1 Cor. 21-22), but in His time! He’s already paid the price.