Chris, I greet you, because I speak to you, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is THE Truth, Whom I know and serve.
I will tell you about A Course in Miracles (ACIM). This is not an opinion but what is true. You may not like to hear what I have to say but I must tell you.
Almost anywhere I read in this book, I find clear contradiction of the Lord. I find confusion, psychobabble, intellectual acrobatics, and a sinister, mischievous playfulness throughout, whereby the entity, laughing at those it impresses, says much, looks deep and wise, but is full of utter foolishness and treachery. The source of the inspiration for this book and its contents is not God, of course, but a demon, a deceptive entity, that is having a gleeful time of brashly leading people away from the Source and Essence of Truth, the Lord Jesus Christ. Adding to the deception, it claims to be Jesus Himself.
Demons, by the way, are not the fairytale, red, naked, little guys with nasty glowing eyes, serpentine tongues, pointy ears, squeaky voices, long nails and pointy tails. No, they can be “intelligent,” educated, apparently upright beings, sometimes well-mannered, groomed, businessmen in suits, shirts and ties. They can often quote the Scriptures better than most people on earth by far, and they “believe in God,” which makes things rather tricky, yea, impossible, for those who do not know God personally.
I know Him, and by knowing Him, I know what is true and what is not. A Course in Miracles is a piece of devilry that has deceived many. It has come by channeling as you said, and God has never worked that way, and never will. It is not Him; it is not His way. Devils come to deceive those who unwittingly seek illegitimate, easier, cheaper, self-preserving ways to fulfilment. Those who indulge in séances and channeling open themselves up to a vicious delusion, the very opposite of that which they seek, though initially they may believe and enthusiastically claim otherwise, experiencing supposed revelations, healings, spiritual enlightenment, and a sense of “arrival,” with attending euphoria. I have been there, in part, but being or having been there is not my basis of authority. I speak from knowledge and experience of God.
I visited the website of ACIM. The contradiction and confusion are obvious. They say, for example that death and hell are but illusions:
“The Holy Spirit teaches thus: There IS no hell. Hell is only what the ego has made OF THE PRESENT. The BELIEF in hell is what PREVENTS you from UNDERSTANDING the present, because YOU ARE AFRAID OF IT.”
If they are saying that by believing in Hell, I am afraid of it, then they are wrong, because I am not afraid of Hell. I have been there, gone through it, never to return. Yet I know it exists. If they are saying that by belief in Hell, I am afraid of the present, they are also wrong, because I know Hell exists, though not for me, and I am not afraid of the present, though I once was.
“The Holy Spirit leads as steadily to Heaven, as the ego drives to hell.”
What is referred to as the “ego” is the carnal man. He surely exists; I have been him, and he is still with me. The Holy Spirit of God exists; He lives in me now. Heaven exists; that is my domain. Now they speak of Hell as though it exists. Does it or does it not exist to them? They know it does but say it does not, because their intention is to deceive.
I find it almost humorous that those who deny the Biblical testimony of Jesus Christ often quote the Bible and Him for their own ends. They take what they will of His words and use them as they see fit, and they reject other words as “having been tampered with.” Where and how the Bible is tampered with and changed to lies, they don’t know. They simply say it because some other ignorant clown has said it. So whom should one believe, those who personally witnessed these things and laid down their lives to bring us the Bible, or those who ignorantly speculate that it is “tampered with,” without hard evidence? How convenient an excuse to reject God’s testimony! However, it is a very lame excuse, and when it is all said and done, it “won’t wash.”
However, the Biblical record is true, like it or not, tampered with or not, and I refer to it as authoritative, as did Jesus. Has it changed since His day? The Dead Sea Scrolls were recently discovered and it is found that the record is virtually unchanged over nearly two millennia. Will that be good enough for those who choose to believe whatever? I don’t think so. It is not proof that is needed, but the grace and gift of God. I don’t need that proof. I know by the Living God, and not by some scrappy findings, no matter how authentic or verifying. They can find a whole Bible that refutes the present one and it would not matter to me because I am not a Bibliolater (one who makes an idol of the Bible). I know my God and He tells me what is true and what is false. However, all that He tells me does not contradict the Bible and the Bible does not contradict Him.
Back to Hell… in discussion, not in reality. The Lord Jesus appeared to an apostle and prophet, John, telling him He held the keys of Death and Hell. Does He hold keys to illusory places? In this instance, “Hell” comes from the Greek word “Hades,” or “unseen,” a place for departed souls. Hell, in the Bible, is known as a place of unconsciousness and darkness. It is a state, and the whole world is in it. Read The State and Fate of Hell.
Here are some excerpts from the website on which I will comment. The website and book are one in nature. They write, “quoting God”:
“March 20, 1977
…we will ask what the problem is, and what is the answer to it.
PROBLEM: You have denied the Love of your life because you have denied your Self.
ANSWER: Accept him back, and you will recognize your Self again. He represents your Self to you. He is your healing and your salvation. He comes as a thief, to steal away your “sins.” He comes as a Savior, to save you from your false ideas of what you are. He comes as a Son of God, because that is what he is, along with you.
You need him now, but his need for you is as great as yours. Together you can save the world. Alone, he cannot fulfill his function any more than you can. Deny him not. He stands for you. What he represents is God’s gift to you and to him. Take it of him, and all the world is saved.
See me, then, who comes to save you. I stand for your holiness, and your holiness is the holiness of God. The cost of denying this gift is hell. The answer to your receiving it is Heaven.”
There are truths here and there with the falsehood, forming a vile mixture. Often one will find much truth, mixed with a little falsehood, thus becoming effective deception, but here, we have a lot of dog droppings, coated with some organic chocolate to make one wonder if it isn’t legitimate food. I marvel at how many consume dog droppings like they were “Clodhoppers.”
There are indeed two natures, Chris. They can only be reconciled by the Lord Jesus Christ and not by any effort of our own. The lower nature can no more raise itself from the dead than a pig can make itself human. We are that lower nature, sold out to complete darkness and bondage, which appears as light and freedom, until, and only until Jesus Christ, the Light of men, raises us from the dead and restores us to our original calling. He said He is the Resurrection and the Life. He raised me from the dead, and has reconciled my flesh and spirit, to be one in Him.
As naïve, simple and silly as it sounds, Chris, and as maligned and misrepresented as the truth of the Good News of Jesus Christ has been, we are “sinners,” and we cannot "save" ourselves. By sinners, I mean that we, by nature, oppose Him, breaking His laws. Jesus Christ, by His deliberate, sacrificial death and resurrection, has redeemed us from sin, darkness, bondage, hell, death, Satan and self. He has DONE it. All that is left for us now is to believe Who He is and what He has done.
In believing, which comes from God alone, we are turned from our sins and are saved. We come to have fellowship with God, directly and personally. He comes to reside within by a new birth. Sophists will persuade you otherwise (you may choose to be one yourself) but in their “wisdom,” they are wrong, dead (and I mean, “dead”) wrong. Jesus didn’t come merely to be an example to emulate. He alone could do what He did and nobody else could. That is why He did.
They write, presuming to quote God:
“April 6, 1977
Thank you for changing your mind. Nothing will happen. I told you he is in my charge. I do not promise lightly. And remember what I said about the test. Let this be your Eastertide along with mine. Give me the gift of all your worries, and I will give you the gift of peace and joy in exchange. What else could Easter mean?”
They would have you believe that God speaks to and by them, yet the colors and elements of falsehood are blatantly obvious. “Easter” is the English of “Ashtoreth” or “Astarte,” the one known as the “queen of heaven” in Jeremiah. She is the pagan goddess of love, prosperity and fertility, the “many-breasted one.” As a prophet of God, His mouthpiece, hearing from the true God, Jeremiah condemned the worship or even acknowledgment of her and other many gods. Why would God speak in honor of her now, Chris? He wouldn’t. It would be tantamount to giving an occasion to stumble. “Well, if God mentions her name, then she can’t be all that bad! Praise the Lord! I guess Jeremiah was wrong, or God has changed His mind! We can worship her now! Yahoo! Let’s have some old-time religion, that is, religious sexual orgies! Won’t that be grand! Whooeee!” “What else could Easter mean?” it asks, playfully. I just said. It is a celebration and worship of a false god. That pagans have mixed it with Biblical details, events and Christ, does not discount its true nature.
The website A Course in Miracles presumes to quote Jesus Christ saying:
“Was There a Physical Resurrection?
My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it. The last one had gone. It was laid in the tomb, but there was nothing left to bury. It did not disintegrate because the unreal cannot die. It merely became what it always was. And that is what “rolling the stone away” means. The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond. It merely ceases to interfere with vision. To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body’s nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear.”
Paul the apostle preached that if there is no bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, there is no Christianity, because true Christianity is all about restoration to life from the dead of the whole world through Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Paul suffered deadly persecution for this message, and suffered it willingly, because of its validity and power, as he and many others personally experienced it. He brought many others to that experience of resurrection from the dead, not bodily but inwardly, as with me, although there will be a bodily resurrection as well.
Jesus Himself, speaking of His body, said: “Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up.” He also said that as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so He would be in the “bowels of the earth” three days and three nights (hell). He was not a liar or a fool; He was not merely a decent human being; He was not a mere prophet; He was the Son of God, God in the flesh. Unbelievers laugh and mock at these things, and at believers, for taking these truths literally, but literal they were and are. I have seen “the other side” and have witnessed the impossible. I AM on the other side while I am here. I am a witness to and from Him of these things.
Their website says:
“But the belief in guilt MUST lead to the BELIEF IN HELL, and ALWAYS DOES. The only way in which the ego allows the fear of hell to be experienced is to BRING HELL HERE, but ALWAYS as a foretaste of the future. For no-one who considers himself as DESERVING hell, can believe that punishment will end in peace.“
Sorry, I am an exception then. I came to the place where I was indeed deserving of the very worst. I was guilty, I knew it, God showed it to me, and I knew that God showed it to me. I came to the bottom of myself, in hell. When I did, God had mercy on me. There was no punishment for punishment’s sake. I had and was suffering the consequences for my own ways. But God, in His mercy, demonstrated His love to me, delivered me and showed me that His judgments would end in peace. Hell and death serve their purpose, and when done, there is peace, true, real and everlasting peace.
The authors of A Course in Miracles speak of perception and reality. They presume to tell you the difference, and thus perform miracles in and for you. Allow me to ask you some questions, Chris:
1) If perception is so real, which is perception and which is reality? Do you know?
2) If you don’t know, do the authors of ACIM know?
3) How do you know that they know?
4) Are you prepared to trust them? Can you trust them?
5) On what basis? What are their credentials? Degrees? Joseph Mengele had degrees too.
6) If their opinions and declarations are contrary to the Bible (which they are, very much so) then on what basis do you decide which is worthy of your faith?
7) Because religious people have misrepresented Jesus Christ (and they have…they crucified Him and continue their work today), does that mean that anybody else who has a different understanding is right?
8) Is THEIR teaching out of reality or perception?
9) Is your judgment of their position and stance reality or perception?
10) How do you know?
Let me ask you more questions:
1) Whom would you rather trust, Jesus Christ’s abilities and virtues, or your own?
2) Would you rather trust me, or your daughter or your tenants, or the Mayor of Lethbridge, or a native, or university professors, or some spirits, before Jesus Christ? If your life depended on it, where would you cast your vote, Chris, honestly?
3) Perhaps you would prefer Buddha? Krishna? Mohammed? They are all in their graves to this day, with nobody to testify otherwise. Not so with Jesus Christ. Nor is there any hint or claim that these others laid down their lives for us. Many witnesses have testified to the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Bible is teeming with prophecies that came to pass in Him. You cannot say this of any other man, can you? No other book has such content that is verifiable, and proven historically, perfectly accurate.
4) Tell me, can a child understand this book (ACIM)? Can you? Of course not. But God does not bar children. He said, “Allow little children to come to Me, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” He also said, “I thank You, Father in Heaven, because You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes, for so it seemed good in Your sight.”
5) Do you want true life or don’t you? Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man can come unto the Father but by Me.”
There it is. I have just given you the TRUE “Course in Miracles.” By the way, while hell is real, it is not some place where people will literally burn forever. That is another lie, in case you are wondering. As to its reality, it, along with death, will one day be done away, never to be again. That is the day the Christ reigns in one’s being. I am in that day.
Victor Hafichuk
Hi Chris,
This is Paul, a friend of Victor’s and brother in the Lord. I once lived at the farm (I am from the States) and have heard about you. Victor shared his letter about A Course in Miracles, and I am adding a few thoughts for you to consider.
Victor asked you towards the end of his letter if a child could understand A Course in Miracles. The answer, he said, is “Of course not.” Even an adult with a high IQ can’t. However, the things we are given to know and have in God are, thankfully, not attained by mental effort, and we do know them with certainty. They are a gift of faith, wherein we are given to know the things of God, which are not seen by sight. Sight includes relying on mental acuity, carnal reason, deliberations of metaphysics, etc. That is not the way to life, faith, or the love of God which one must have to be forgiven and to forgive. So, it is in vain that you are being taught to do these things in your own power. You may as well light up a second sun in the sky as to find life by your own power.
A Course in Miracles takes you back to the serpent that tempted Eve with eating from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. He said to her:
“For God does know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5).
Indeed, upon eating their eyes were opened, and they did know good and evil. Here is what God said:
“Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden…” (Genesis 3:22-23)
Is not A Course in Miracles an exercise of, and trust in, knowledge gained by the sweat of man’s brow? Of course it is. Another woman, like Eve (with a man following her), was offered knowledge, which she went for hook, line and sinker, and now some several hundred pages of study later we can graduate from her course to partake with her of what? The course manual declares:
“At the end, the reader is left in the hands of his or her own Internal Teacher, Who will direct all subsequent learning as He sees fit” (Preface: ix).
Ironically, the internal teacher is none other than that “edified” person, the ego, sitting on the throne of God, showing him or herself that he or she is God! Attained by the knowledge given by a spirit entity coming through people, history does indeed repeat itself! We are all destined to live by the sweat of our own brows until brought into the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, through HIS forgiveness of our sins, which will then enable us to truly forgive others.
At the end of the course you are told: “This Course is a beginning, not an end… No more specific lessons are assigned, for there is no more need of them. Henceforth, hear but the Voice for God…He will direct your efforts, telling you exactly what to do, how to direct your mind, and when to come to Him in silence, asking for His sure direction and His certain Word.”
The Lord Jesus Christ, did He compose a manual for His disciples to learn how to hear His voice? Certainly not! Did He send forth His disciples, witnesses to His power and glory, to write such books and sell them? No way! But He did say He would be with them always, even to the end of the world. (Matthew 28:20) This means He was with them also at the beginning. They did not need to graduate from A Course in Miracles. They had the Miracle Himself living in them, and they preached Him to others that they too might receive the same Living Water and Bread from Heaven. We are preaching Him to you as well; the same Lord is here with us to set you free from these horrible bondages and ego-inflating traps which lead to despair and disappointments, heartbreak and emptiness.
Jesus also said that His sheep hear His voice. He did not say it would take much work and study to accomplish this, or that they could finally depend on hearing God at the end of His “Course in Miracles.” What is more, He said:
“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish…” (John 10:27-28)
It is not a matter, either, that this “course” can help you with the true faith from Heaven that brings life. It is quite the opposite, and antagonistic to true life. Eating from the Tree of Knowledge brings death.
The matter is that you put your trust in Jesus Christ, and His work for you, looking to Him and not to your own understanding. You can’t eat from the Tree of Knowledge, Chris, and the Tree of Life at the same time. We see that God excluded man from doing this, even from the beginning. Return to God. Hear what He says:
“Ho, every one that thirsts, come to the waters, and he that has no money; come, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which does not satisfy? Hearken diligently to Me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come to Me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have given Him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people” (Isaiah 55:1-4).
We do bless you in the Name of the Lord Jesus, that faithful Witness given to the people. We need to follow and obey Him, and cease learning to be gods unto ourselves, following our own whims and fancies to death. Enough.
Paul
A note here from Victor: Chris, we have what A Course in Miracles promises, and more. We also know that it cannot produce what it promises. Finally, we know that it will produce nothing but failure and disillusionment.