Sid Roth - New Age Guru Gives Jesus ONE DAY, What Happens Next is Shocking
Sid Roth: Welcome, Holy Spirit. I am so glad You're here with us, and to God be not the glory. To God be all the glory. My guest, Mike Shreve, was raised in the Catholic Church but felt no power, so he left the church. Then he knocked on all the wrong doors, seeking truth. He searched into the occult, the New Age. He actually ran a yoga ashram. Then he found the authentic supernatural power of God. Mike, why did you leave the Catholic Church?
Mike Shreve: I loved the people. I served as an altar boy underneath priests who were real models of character, and they were gentle and good and self-sacrificing men. But none of them ever taught me how to receive the Lord Jesus into my heart or how to be born again. And consequently, I felt that's all there was to Christianity. See, in the Catholic Church, they teach when a child is sprinkled in baptism... Of course, Biblical baptism is immersion, but they teach that that little baby, that little infant, is born again. The gift of eternal life is granted to that child. That child becomes a member of the church, and original sin is washed away, and that child receives the gift of eternal life, none of which is true because none of those things happened to me until many years later. So I had a system of religion with pleasant people, good people, kind people, loving people, but we need more than that. We need the supernatural reality of God.
Sid Roth: Is that what attracted you to the New Age?
Mike Shreve: Yes, absolutely, because the guru I met after I had a near-death experience at the age of 18 that shook me up and made me realize my life was very shallow, I was living for vain things. I decided I was going to search for God until I found Him. He promised that if I would follow his regimen, his yoga disciplines of meditation and asanas and pranayama, which are breathing exercises, and do the specific designed practices that were supposed to awaken the divine power in me, that I would achieve God consciousness. And, whoa, that attracted me. I thought, "God consciousness, that's what I want, a supernatural awareness of the reality of God".
Sid Roth: But at age 19, what happened?
Mike Shreve: Well, that was the turning point in my life. I'd been involved in yoga, kundalini yoga, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, all the Eastern...
Sid Roth: You didn't leave anything out.
Mike Shreve: No. New Age spirituality, I was delving into everything. I was so hungry, so thirsty. I believed one of the next great waves of the Move of God is New Age, or in fact, it's not next. It's right here, right now, New Agers coming to the Kingdom of God. They contact me on our website, thetruelight.net, from all over the world because they're not getting what yoga and meditation promises. Of course, in that realm, they teach you that God Consciousness means a conscious awareness that you are God, which is the absolute opposite of the truth because they believe in pantheism, which is the idea that everything is a manifestation of God. So if everything is God, we are God. But God exists apart from the physical universe. And that's what attracted me because when I was teaching yoga at four universities and running the yoga ashram, I got a letter from an old friend telling me he had been born again. And the way he described it was intriguing. He said he walked into church, and he heard an audible voice say, "Jesus is the only way," and the Spirit of God came into him, and he was spiritually reborn. And that grabbed my attention because in Eastern religions and the new age, they teach there's a spark of divine nature already within you, so to find God, you look within. But Larry was talking about an external God that entered into him, and that God was personal. The God of Eastern religions is an impersonal life force, so I saw some significant differences. And because of that, I'm a truth seeker. I don't want to overlook anything that might be the truth, so I dedicated one day to Jesus. I said, "If You are the Savior of the world, and if You've died on the cross for the sins of humanity like Larry said, and if You rose from the dead and You are the only incarnation of God, then give me a sign today". And God met me. I did not know there was a prayer group in town that had heard about me because there was a half-page article in the Tampa Tribune. They pinned it to their prayer board, and because they had a 24-hour prayer chain, they assigned somebody to be fasting and praying for me every hour of every day.
Mike Shreve: And, wow. How do you escape intercession like that, right? And that day that I dedicated to Jesus, I didn't do any of the yogic disciplines. I started 3:30 in the morning, and all I did was read the Bible and pray to Jesus, read the Bible and pray to Jesus until 5:30 that night. And then I stepped out on the road hitchhiking. I had to walk everywhere because I'd made a commitment not to own any material thing. And as I was hitchhiking, I was still praying, "Jesus, if You're the answer, this is Your day. I believe You'll show me today". I did not know that 2 miles away from me, one of the members of that prayer group was walking in a laundromat with an armful of dirty clothes, and God told him to get back in his van, not to wash his clothes, and start driving. That's all the instructions he got. And kind of disturbed that God would interrupt his plans, he got behind the wheel and started driving. And whenever he felt an impulse, he turned. He saw me hitchhiking. I looked a lot different back then with the long hair and a long beard, and he felt that impulse again, so he pulled over. I'm still praying, "Jesus if You're the only way to heaven, give me a sign". I opened the door to his van, and my heart jumped because on the ceiling of the van, he had taped a picture of Jesus, and I knew this was my sign. And within a few moments, he invited me to receive Jesus into my heart. And I said, "When can it happen? I'm ready". He was quite surprised that I was that responsive that quick.
Sid Roth: Now, you were running four yoga groups at different universities.
Mike Shreve: Yes, yes.
Sid Roth: Now that you're a believer, what did you do about these yoga groups?
Mike Shreve: Well, I believe the idea of Christian yoga is an oxymoron. I don't believe you can mix Hinduism and Christianity, and yoga is inextricable from Hinduism. It is a part of that plan that supposedly takes you to what they call samadhi, which is ultimate enlightenment. And so I went to all my classes and told them that I had become a follower of Jesus, that there would no longer be any yoga classes conducted, and I was shutting down my ashram, and most of my main students became Christians as well. They became followers of the Lord, so praise God.
Sid Roth: What a way to start. So you decide, "I'm really going to go all the way," within what you knew as Christianity, Catholicism. You're hitchhiking to a monastery to become a monk, and you were almost murdered. What happened?
Mike Shreve: For a few months, I lived in a Jesus commune in Central Florida, and I had a 9-to-5 job in a construction group, and I just tired of that and thought, "I want total, absolute, 100-percent commitment to God, nothing less, nothing else". And so being raised Catholic, I thought the best way to do that was to become a monk, and I had heard that there was a charismatic monastery outside of Atlanta in Conyers, Georgia. So I decided, "I'm going to hitchhike". I gave away everything I owned because I wouldn't need it if I was a monk.
Sid Roth: Right.
Mike Shreve: And I started hitchhiking. The first couple of rides I got were okay. And then this guy picked me up hitchhiking, and he kind of put on a ruse. He said, "I've got to go pick up my check at the company I work at first, but let me show you around the grounds". It was a construction crew. And before I knew what was happening, he had taken off in this field at a high rate of speed, and I was getting really suspicious because that just seemed like strange behavior. And he got out in the middle of the field where there was a big grove of trees and slammed on the brake and pulled out a knife about this long and held it to my neck and told me he was going to rape me. Then he was going to rob me. Then he was going to kill me. And I had two choices. The first voice that went through my mind said, "Run," but I knew he could run me down with his car, so that wouldn't work. And the next voice said, "Preach". I had never preached a sermon before, but I got a preaching degree in about 2 seconds. And I let loose on him. I didn't even take time to breathe. I said, "Fellow, you better get right with God. You're going to face God on the Day of Judgment and give an account for every deed done in your body, and apparently you're going to spend eternity in hell because of the wickedness and the evil in your heart". And I went on like that about 2 or 3 minutes, and much to my surprise, all of a sudden this guy breaks down sobbing. Not just crying, sobbing, and he hands me the knife. I thought, "What in the world am I going to do with this"? And I rolled the window down real quick and threw it as far as I could, and then he said, "You sound just like my mama. I need you to pray for me". Mothers, don't give up hope. I don't care how far gone your children get. And he turned around and knelt down on the floorboard and started repenting and giving his life to Jesus. I had never cast out a demon before, but I learned real quick, and I started casting those evil spirits out of him. He got a genuine conversion experience where he knew without a shadow of a doubt God had forgiven him and set him free, and he let me out on the road.
Sid Roth: So what happened with this monastery and becoming a monk?
Mike Shreve: Well, two things dawned on me. First of all, I figured I was out of the Will of God because the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy. Right? So I thought to myself, "Well, maybe it's not the Will of God for me to be a monk". And then I realized, he's one of the first people I won to the Lord. And it dawned on me, Jesus didn't tell us to hide ourselves behind the wall of a monastery and live a cloistered life. He said to his chief disciples, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature". And so I decided, "I'm not going to the monastery. I'm going to the streets of America". And with another brother in the Lord, I took off hitchhiking preaching on college campuses after that.
Sid Roth: Now, Mike prayed for his Jewish cousin to know Jesus. What happened exceeded his wildest expectations.
Mike Shreve: Absolutely.
Sid Roth: Be right back.
Sid Roth: You had an encounter with the Holy Spirit at one of my favorite types of stores: an ice cream store. Tell me about it.
Mike Shreve: Ice cream is my weakness. Yeah. I had been seeking God for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit for about a year and had been very frustrated in it because no matter what prayer meeting I participated in, hundreds of them, that never happened to me, and I never felt the power like other people said. So I got to the point where I told God, "If I never speak in tongues or feel the power or sense the fire, I'm still going to serve You with all my heart, and I'm going to win every person into the kingdom that I can win". And I believe that was important for me, to cross that decision-making line. And so one day I was walking over to the Dairy Queen restaurant, and there was a lady sitting there with a back brace on. And I could tell she was in pain, and I'm a believer in healing and miracles. And by that time I was preaching and praying for the sick in our meetings. And I walked up to her, and I said, "I'm a minister. I'd like to pray for you that the Lord Jesus Christ would heal you". And she said, "Well, I'm a believer, too. You're welcome to pray". And I reached out and grabbed her hand and lifted the other hand to heaven, and, Sid, it was like the Fire of God hit me in the palm of my hand, traveled down my arm, exploded in my chest with a joy that Peter said was unspeakable. It's indescribable, no way of telling it. And I started leaping and jumping and talking in tongues at the top of my voice, jumping around that Dairy Queen parking lot, and it was a phenomenal day, a fantastic day. And from that point on, even though I never felt the power of God prior to that, from that point on there's never been a day when I haven't felt the power of God and sensed the presence of God in my heart and in my life, and I'm very thankful. And I believe that's why thousands of Catholics are going to be turning to God again because they hunger for this experience.
Sid Roth: In Mike's newest book, he shines the light of scriptural truth on many unbiblical traditions he learned at the Catholic Church. Mike, you wrote resources for us. One is brand-new. Why did you do this?
Mike Shreve: Because about the turn of the millennium, I realized that the majority of Christian television and literature was written or produced by Christians, for Christians. That's one thing I love about your program. It reaches so many people that don't know the Lord yet. And I thought, "I am going to write books that not only appeal to believers and instruct them, but reach those outside of Christianity". So I wrote "In Search of the True Light," which compares over 20 religions, and in great detail I respond to every New Age belief that I used to hold to, like 13 reasons I no longer believe in reincarnation. Right after I published that book, I felt from the Lord to send a copy free to every yoga teacher in Los Angeles County.
Sid Roth: Oh.
Mike Shreve: That was about 850 books. Two yoga studios shut down, and the leadership found the Lord because they got that book and realized, Jesus is the only way. Now, at this juncture in my life, I feel like God has said, "It's time to reach out to beautiful Catholic people that love God. They already know the Gospel. They know the story of Jesus. They embrace faith in the Cross and the Resurrection, but they need to learn about being born again, baptized with the Holy Spirit," and I address every one of the major Catholic doctrines, 25 of them, that I no longer embrace as a born-again, spirit-filled believer.
Sid Roth: And you know what I love about his brand-new book? It's written in such a loving fashion, I decided, personally, to take a leap of faith. A friend of mine, a female Jewish medical doctor and raised in the Catholic Church, like you, and I took a chance because I didn't want to offend her, but I took a chance because I knew it was such a loving book. And I gave her a copy of the book, and this is what she said right after she got a copy. "I could not put it down. It's fascinating". She said, "In fact, I read some chapters twice. I have it at my night table, and it put me at peace over so many issues". Now, Mike, briefly teach on your new book. SM: I think one of the most important things to realize is that Catholicism has evolved. What is Catholicism now is not what it was many centuries ago, and there have been many traditions developed through the centuries that are not Biblical. But that's not a problem for Catholics because they believe in something called the Three Legs of Catholicism. Just like a little table sitting on three legs, they're of equal height, and that's Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium. The word Magisterium refers to the leadership of the Church, the Pope and all the ruling bishops, the hierarchy of the Church worldwide, and it refers to what they teach. Well, according to Catholic doctrine, if the Magisterium teaches something that's not found in Sacred Scripture, it's still equal in authority. It doesn't have to agree with the Bible. The same thing with Sacred Tradition: If a tradition is accepted within Catholicism that is not found in the Bible, that's all right because it's of equal authority if it's approved by the Magisterium.
Sid Roth: Actually, you slipped a little from Judaism. According to the Talmud, the rabbis believe that they have the authority over humanity on Earth as opposed to even a voice from Heaven, but go ahead.
Mike Shreve: And so that gives way for a lot of deception to come in. And a lot of what people think has been with Catholicism all along are just recent developments.
Sid Roth: I'll tell you what because time is slipping away: I must hear about your Jewish cousin very briefly.
Mike Shreve: Oh, I am so happy to tell you. Yes. I won just about my entire family to the Lord after I got saved. I called every cousin, uncle and aunt that I had, and my cousin that lived in Tampa was kind of a... Well, he loved Elvis Presley. He was into music. He was that kind of guy. And I called him because he had an arm that shriveled up and shrunk up and drew to his side, lost his job at the Post Office. The doctors could not figure out what was wrong. And I called him, and I said, "Chip," I said, "God can heal you". "I don't believe in that healing stuff. That's a bunch of junk on TV". I didn't expect him to show up. Not only did he show up. He showed up with his Jewish wife, and they were rapt with attention, and I preached on salvation and healing and miracles. And when I gave an invitation, it was like God grabbed him and jerked him out of his seat and brought him up to the front, and I reached out to pray for him. I've never seen anything quite like it. When I touched him, he fell out under the power, and he was saved, baptized with the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues. His arm came out normal and natural scared his wife to death. She had never been in a gentile church before. She jumped up to run out of the building, and right before she ran out, she happened to glance at the back wall, and there was a cross on the back wall. And she heard the audible voice of the Lord say, "I am Yeshua. I am your Messiah. Surrender your life to me," and she ran to the altar instead. Listen to this Scripture, Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned, and come short of the Glory of God". That means there's not one righteous on earth. That means that if you've found a righteous God-man that would die in your place but would walk as a man, that your penalty would be covered by His Blood. That means if you say, "Jesus, I'm a sinner," since all have sinned, "I repent. I make You my Lord and Savior. Live inside of me. Amen". All have sinned. And because of sin, you've fallen short of the Glory of God. Do you want the glory, the presence, the goodness of God to surround you? Repent and believe. It's that simple. Repent and believe.