SID: Hello, Sid Roth here with Mike Shreve, and Mike, you have this encounter with the Holy Spirit. It actually turns out to be what you were looking for your whole life. You had a sincere quest to know reality in the spirit realm. You find it, then what did you do with your 400 students at four different universities and the classes you’re conducting?
MIKE: Well, the man that won me to the Lord went with me to all of my classes, and I told them that, unknowingly, I had misled them, and that Jesus really is the only way, and that those classes
would be dismissed from that time forward. And of course, that was very shocking to them, but also my primary students became Christians also.
SID: Now just out of curiosity though, this was your income base. Weren’t you concerned?
MIKE: No, I never really considered that. I, inwardly, intuitively, knew that God would take care of me. But definitely, I was without a home for about 7 or 8 days. Thankfully though, this is a little bit humorous, one of the members of my ashram was an owner of a barbershop, and he let me sleep on the floor of his barbershop the first 6 or 7 days I was saved, which was a hairy experience, to say the least.
SID: You’ve come a long way. You pray for people and miracles transpire.
MIKE: Oh yes.
SID: But what I want to know, and what a lot of our audience wants to know, is because you have this understanding but you treat it, I must say, in your book, with so much love, that anyone
in any of the areas we’re going to be talking about will read it, as opposed to trash it. But the question I have is, what is the major difference, in your opinion, between Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, new age, Christianity?
MIKE: That’s a big question. Islam, let me start with that. Islam has such a view of a distant and austere and holy God that man could never have a relationship with God. Man worships God from afar, but can’t ever offer his heart as a place that God could indwell. Much the opposite, new ager’s not only say that God is already indwelling us, but that we are God, and as I mentioned earlier, that’s based on a pantheistic idea that the whole universe is an emanation of God. God avails Himself in the appearance of physical matter so that that’s not really a tree, that’s not really a dog, or a cat, or a flower – that’s God appearing as those objects. So if the dog and the cat are God, it’s not a quantum leap of logic to say that we are God. And then Hinduism, is very similar to that in their mindset. But most of the religions of the world, including Judaism to a certain degree, base their sense of being right with God on justification by works. You achieve a place of perfection, you achieve a place of acceptability. The guru I studied under taught us that it may take 20 or 30 years to reach God-consciousness, and then again, he said it may take 2 or 3 lifetimes. And the whole idea of reincarnation is based on achieving salvation or liberation through self-effort, because you have to rid your life of all evil karma and achieve a place where you’re free from it.
SID: So would you say all of the ones, outside of Christianity, are based on self-effort to obtain intimacy – they wouldn’t even say intimacy, but to obtain being right with God?
MIKE: For the most part. Now Sikhs do talk some about the grace of God, but I earnestly believe
that’s through the influence of Christianity that they’ve absorbed that into their belief system. But for the most part, it’s all self-achieved salvation. See, all of the religions of the world are men’s effort to reach God, but Jesus was God’s effort to reach man. And God came down to this earth in the form of His Son in order to bridge the gap, and when we go to Him at the cross, it’s not about us achieving salvation through our works, but through the atonement that Jesus provided through His blood. You know, one thing I might mention, Sid, is that the guru I studied under used to tell us that Jesus was an avatar.
SID: What’s that?
MIKE: Avatar, it’s a Hindu word for a manifestation of God. Of course, they teach that Buddha was an avatar, Krishna was an avatar, and they put Jesus in the group. But, he said, because Jesus was an avatar, He could only speak the truth. Well that triggered my curiosity later on, and I thought, “I’d better inspect what Jesus had to say.” Now the guru I studied under also taught us
that Jesus’ death on the cross was just a tragic death of a good Man who showed us how far we should willing to go in order to fulfill our destiny, but it did not provide atonement. Then I looked at the words of Jesus, and Jesus, at the last supper, passed the cup to His disciples and said “This is the New Testament in My blood which is shed for many for the forgiveness for sins”, or for the remission of sins. He did not say as an example of obedience. And so, I take Him as the final authority on why He died.
SID: And from their belief, if He spoke the truth… You’ve just heard the truth. You know, as Mike is sharing this with us, I’m thinking about myself. You know, Mike, coming from a Jewish background, I got a little booklet, it was called “The Four Spiritual Laws.” Have you ever seen that? And so I read… I was by myself, and I read, one, man is sinful, two, man’s separated from God, three, Jesus came, just like you were saying, and paid the price for it, and then say this little prayer. Well, so what? I’ll say this little prayer. Yeah, that’s the way I felt. What have I got to lose? And I read that little prayer, and the same thing happened to me that happened to Mike.
Nothing. No lightning, no feeling. I mean I had feelings when I was involved in the new age. You had feelings I’m sure, lots of things you were doing.
MIKE: Out of body experiences, yeah.
SID: But nothing! However, God heard your prayer. God heard my prayer. And guess what?
God is going to hear your prayer. And whether you feel anything or not, the Creator of the universe will begin to move on your behalf. If you will say this prayer with me, and mean it to the best of your ability, I don’t care whether you feel wonderful things or you feel nothing, you have made a divine connection with the Living God, who has been waiting all your life for you to do this. And you’ve been waiting all your life. You might not have been as aggressive as Mike in seeking God in the way that he did, but in your heart of hearts, if you’re honest, there’s no audience out there, you can say life is pretty hard. Life isn’t what Hollywood says it is. There must be something more. Would you say this prayer with me? And let this be the same start that Mike had, the same start that I had. And I’m going to tell you something; God is not a man that He should lie. You’ve been lied to by man. God would not lie to you. Repeat after me: Dear God… Say it. Out loud. Very important to say it out loud. I’ll teach on that sometime, but the spoken word created this earth, the spoken word is going to move the hand of God. Say out loud: Dear God, I am a sinner. Against You, and You alone, have I sinned. And I’m so sorry. I believe that Jesus died for my sins. And by His wounds, by His blood, I was healed. My sins are forgiven. I believe that Jesus now, because I’m clean, can live inside of me. Jesus, come inside of me. Become real. In the best way I know how, I make You Lord of my life. Well, what happened to me, by the way, after that prayer is several days later, I was at the end of my rope and I yelled out a two word prayer: “Jesus, help!” And the same thing happened to me, Mike. His Spirit invaded my room. And I’m going to tell you something, He hasn’t left me since. And I am so excited to say that Jew and Gentile, one way to God. No other name in which we must be saved,
but the name of Jesus, Yeshua – our King.
