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April 17, 2017 - Praying Medic
50:13
081 Michael King - Faith to Raise The Dead

The power of the resurrection is our subject, as Michael King joins me in a discussion of his new book Faith to Raise the Dead.  Resources The Kings of Eden Faith to Raise the Dead

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- Hi, I'd like to welcome you to our show.
I'm your host, Prang Medic.
We're talking about life as a child of God and all things related to His Kingdom.
Thanks for joining us.
If you're a new listener to the show, you can find articles and books and other resources on my website www.prangmedic.com.
Now let's jump into this week's show.
So, Mr. Michael, it's been a while since we've done a podcast.
Yes, it has.
And you have a new book out.
I do.
Called Faith to Raise the Dead.
I'm pretty excited about it.
This is a little interesting because now you've written two books on raising the dead and I haven't written any.
And you're putting me to shame and you're making me feel insecure and inadequate, so what the heck is up with you writing two books on raising the dead before I get a chance to write one?
If it makes you feel better, your books sell better than mine do.
Yeah, but you're still making me look bad, man.
So, you wrote and published Practical Keys to Raising the Dead.
That was a couple months ago.
Yeah, that was... I want to say, like, October, November.
I forget exactly when.
But that's a short book.
Yes.
It's essentially just kind of down and dirty.
Here are some practical tips and keys to raising the dead.
Not a lot of theology, not a lot of in-depth teaching, I'm guessing.
It's meant to be something that hopefully, unless you're a super slow reader, you could read in 30 minutes or less.
And the goal is, because especially to, like, let's say somebody dies, you weren't expecting it, what do you do?
Well, if you hop on Kindle, you can find it, read the book in less than 30 minutes, and all of a sudden, you now know what to do.
And so, I mean, I wrote that specifically geared towards, I don't have months to redevelop a theological belief system and whatever else.
I need to know what to do right now.
Right.
Whereas Faith to Raise the Dead, it's 290 pages long, basically.
It's much more of a, I've got time to look at this, sit with it, study, read, and really start delving into the situation, and kind of be prepared in advance.
So, I mean, there's geared towards two different things.
And I will say, too, that Practical Keys, all of the stuff contained in Practical Keys to Raise the Dead is in Faith to Raise the Dead.
So, Faith to Raise the Dead is a longer work, and what kind of topics do you cover in that book?
So, we cover a lot of stuff.
The book is split into two parts.
The first part, The Theology of Resurrection, has to do with altering our belief systems in ways that basically help promote faith and help us engage spiritual principles to be successful based on changing the way we view God, changing the way we view our authority, kind of changing our perspectives as a whole.
And then the second part of the book is geared more towards, okay, what do I actually do now?
So, the first part is changing our belief systems, changing our understanding of God, changing the way we view death and resurrection and eternal life.
And I'm guessing that it's your view that a lot of us are not raising the dead because we have faulty belief systems that inform us of things that are not actually God's heart for death and resurrection.
I think that's probably a good way of putting it.
I mean, I don't know that I would have said it that way, but I mean, I think that's basically it, yeah.
I think there's a lot of factors that influence whether we raise the dead, but I think the main one is that we have what I call a death culture.
We believe and expect people to die.
And that's not just in the church and the body of Christ.
I mean, that's worldwide.
We expect people to die.
We have involved rituals of how people die, what to do when they die.
So we've got really deeply entrenched beliefs surrounding an expectation of death.
And so what we have to start doing is we have to start changing kind of a corporate consciousness, if you will, or a world consciousness surrounding death and life.
Because until we start transforming our beliefs, it's really hard to expect to get different results.
Right, because your practices are going to be an outworking of what you believe to be true.
Exactly.
You're not going to pray for people to be healed if you don't believe in healing.
You're not going to have faith to raise the dead if you don't believe that God wants people resurrected.
The thing is, too, like there are times where people generally believe that God wants to raise people in general.
But the question is, does God want to raise this specific person in front of me?
And you actually talk about it in Divine Healing Made Simple.
You talk about, on one of the chapters you write about faith, you talk about general faith and you talk about specific faith, and how people grow in general faith for things that God generally wants to heal people, but that on some level we also need to grow in specific faith for specific things.
And this is kind of one of those things that's like, yeah, we generally believe, oh, God wants to raise somebody somewhere, but we need to transform to understand when and who God specifically wants to raise.
That's really where the rubber meets the road when you're in front of a dead body and you need to say, okay, is it God's will for this person to come back?
How do I know that?
So how can I pray in faith to believe that this is what God wants?
And the only way you can do that successfully is if you already know God's will.
So Christians understand, okay, Jesus raised people from the dead.
The disciples raised people from the dead.
Elijah raised people from the dead.
So we, as a culture, we understand the concept that yes, God every once in a while will raise somebody from the dead.
But we haven't yet gotten to this point where we think that it should be natural or expected.
I mean, I worked as a medic.
You work as a nurse.
We see people die all the time.
And I have prayed for people to come back from the dead.
I haven't had that great of success yet.
But, you know, I've seen the miraculous and I've seen healing and I've seen a lot of supernatural things happen.
I don't think my faith has gotten to the place yet for resurrection where I'm really, truly expecting people to get up from the dead without dumping a bunch of epinephrine and shocking them a few times.
Yes, exactly.
You know, I know of stories.
I mean, I talked to Jesse Berkey, and he's seen a bunch of people raised from the dead in his ambulance, just through faith, without defibrillation, no intubation, no epinephrine.
He has demonstrated amazing faith for raising the dead.
And I point to people like him as forerunners.
Like, here's a guy who's doing it.
He's out there.
He's got faith.
He's seen people raised from the dead.
I know that it happens, and I'm trying to wrap my mind around how do I get to that next place where I'm expecting people to be resurrected when I pray for them.
Well, easy.
You read my book.
No, more seriously.
More seriously, though.
I think some of it is, like I said, I really do think it's kind of a mindset shift, but some of it is that we kind of get sometimes what we expect, and if we're not used to expecting to raise people from the dead, Then, when all of a sudden we're in a situation where it needs to happen, and I say needs to happen in every situation where somebody dies, it basically needs to happen, is my opinion.
When we're in a situation, we don't really know if we quote-unquote have enough faith, and that's where we just have to step out and assume we do.
Because there's no convenient faith-measurer tool, and it would be really nice if there was, like I actually mention in the book, and it's fun to me, but like in the cartoon anime show Dragon Ball Z, They've got these like power level measurers where it's like this Bluetooth thing that sits here on your eye almost that can measure how much power somebody's got.
Well, if we had a convenient little faith measure that we could just pop on and measure it, that would be really nice.
But lacking that on some level, we just have to assume that God's equipped us with what we need in that moment and just step out.
And sometimes that's how miracles happen is at least the first time you just step out with kind of a wing and a prayer, if you will.
And say, you know what, God, this is what your word says, so I'm going to put action to it and we'll see what happens.
And whether it happens or not, I think as we go, we start to realize more and more that there's a need.
And I think that's kind of where the, it's a gradual transformation process.
And so I think sometimes it's not necessarily, oh, do I have enough faith for that?
I've got faith for healing.
Do I have faith for resurrection?
Well, it's all based in the abundant life of Jesus Christ.
And I think I think sometimes we separate things and we chop them up a little too much and when we say, well, I've got faith for healing for lungs but not for eyes.
I mean we do and we're all guilty of it on some level.
It's human experience too because we're used to what we've experienced and so we get comfortable with that.
I'm great with headaches.
There's different stuff that I'm really good with when it comes to healing and there's other stuff I just don't get as good results in.
Why is that?
Who knows?
It doesn't really matter.
But the fact is, if I can see results in some area, then I'm seeing the life of Christ released into that condition.
Well, it's the same life of Christ that's going to raise the dead.
It's the same life of Christ that's going to solve financial problems.
It's the same Jesus, and it's the same power.
So sometimes, like I said, I think we complicate things too much by setting things into these divided mental boxes.
I don't know, it's hard for me not to do that.
You know, I look at people like you, and the people you hang around with, and a lot of them see gemstones manifest.
I have never seen a gemstone manifest.
Well, not that many!
No, but I mean, you know what I'm saying.
You have a gemstone collection.
You've had gemstone parties.
You've had people there when gemstones have fallen.
You have a history with that.
I don't.
And it's not like I'm envious or jealous.
For me, and for a lot of people, it's common for us to look at these experiences and go, okay, why does this guy have gemstones manifest?
I have this friend on Facebook named Sherry.
She has seen dozens and dozens, possibly hundreds of dental miracles.
She has, what I would say, great faith for dental miracles.
I wouldn't say she has an anointing for dental miracles, but when she prays for someone who needs a root canal, when she prays for someone who's got chipped teeth, she expects that they're going to receive a miracle, and many times they do.
I don't know that I've seen more than one or two dental miracles in all the time I've been praying for people.
I'm not like a super analytic person, but I do like to Here you are!
I like to look at these situations and go, okay, what is that person doing?
What do they have?
Where is their faith at?
Why are they seeing this manifest and I'm not?
Or why am I seeing something manifest and another person isn't?
Why do I have crazy dreams and other people don't?
I'm always trying to understand, is it just a gift?
Is it a higher level of faith?
What is it that makes these things common for some people but not for others?
Yeah, I think that's one of the things that you and I both do.
And I would say that you are a fairly analytic person in that regard, because we're always trying to break down and understand the functional parts behind why things work, as opposed to... There are some people that it's like, oh great, God said it, I believe it, that settles it.
And I'm like, well, God said it, I believe it, but I'd like to understand why it works, how it works, and how I can increase the frequency of it working.
And you're the same way.
Like you said, you know, you want to understand, so what is it about Sherri that's getting dental miracles that we're not?
I mean, when I say, like, I think we break things up too much, there's a measure to which, yes, we do break things up for a reason.
It's because we see that people consistently have results in one area and not another.
And so if you want a dental miracle, go to Sherri, not me.
Not because you couldn't maybe get a result if I pray for you, because I do believe in divine healing and I do get results with things, it's just I don't know that I've ever seen a dental miracle and she's obviously getting good results, so go where the results are, you know?
At the same time, I'm just saying I think there's a measure to which sometimes we also can simultaneously overcomplicate, which is that I've never seen it before and therefore I don't have any likelihood of seeing it now or in the future.
Right.
And that's kind of how I've approached this in the past.
Like when someone comes to me and says, Hey, you got some cracked teeth.
I'll tell them, okay, well I'll pray for you.
And by the way, you should send a message to this friend of mine who has a really good record for dental miracles because she just, she just seems to have that.
But when it comes to raising the dead, I've heard a lot of testimonies of people who have seen the dead raised and many times they'll get some prophetic revelation about something they're supposed to do to make that happen.
And the person does get raised from the dead.
Well, I think sometimes it's the difference between acting out of a protocol versus being spirit-led, and I'm a fan of both.
I mean, I know you are, too.
You're a fan of both.
Let's do both.
I mean, I don't have to wonder, can I go address this situation?
The answer is yes, and I'll start with protocol, and for those who don't know what that means, In the medical field, we have certain things that we're allowed to do because a physician somewhere has signed a piece of paper in advance that says, when these types of things happen, you are allowed to do these sets of things.
If it goes outside of that set of circumstances, then we're not allowed to do it.
We have to get immediate permission first.
Spiritually speaking, a protocol is where We can go take care of situations, you know, pray for the sick or whatever it is without having to seek guidance specifically from God on, God, am I allowed to do this?
What do I do?
It's essentially a formula.
Yeah, essentially.
But I mean, it's it's a formula based on, I mean, it's not like legalistic in that you have to do it this way.
It's more that it's permissive in the sense of we know that because we have authority as children of God, that we can take care of these things.
And we figured out ways that tend to be effective.
So we just start with that, but then, like you're saying, from there you have to be led by the Spirit, and adjust as you go with the revelation that God's given you.
My protocol for physical healing, I have a protocol, I have a formula.
When you talk about healing, everyone says, oh, you don't ever use a formula for healing.
Well, actually most of us do.
I have some steps that I routinely do every time I'm praying for someone to be healed.
I release power.
I exercise authority.
I ask God to bring His presence.
All right?
I have these steps that I routinely use because I know that they work.
And the thing is, I don't know in each case, is it going to be a release of power, or is it going to be exercising authority, or is it going to be, oh, need to go to the court of heaven, or is it, oh, they just got healed in God's glory.
Casting out a demon.
Oh, hello, there's a demon there.
Right, so I command spirits of pain to leave.
I have like five or six steps that I use routinely when I'm trying to do healing because I don't know which one is going to be the one that works.
So I use all of them.
That's kind of my protocol for healing.
I do the same thing.
I usually start just by commanding and or you know power and authority.
I'll command and I'll pray.
And I usually have them check if it's something that like pain or something they can test out just to see did that take care of it.
If not from there I'll usually just go immediately to commanding demon.
What I describe as they supernaturally empower natural problems.
So I just assume instantly if you've got a problem there's a demonic manifestation somewhere involved.
So, if it didn't get fixed first off, command the demon off.
Oftentimes their pain will instantly decrease, or they'll have a weird sensation.
Sometimes the pain will get worse.
So, I mean, I deal with that, and then from there, if I'm praying a couple times and nothing's happening, from there I go into emotional healing.
Exactly.
I've actually put emotional healing higher up on the protocol, especially with people who have received a lot of prayer and they haven't been healed.
If they have gone to churches and gone to places that have a good track record for healing, and it's been a long time and they're still not healed, I kind of start with emotional healing at that point.
Because I assume people have released power, people have tried authority, she's been through deliverance, they've been through this, they've been through that.
And what I found is a lot of people haven't been through the emotional healing process that I use.
So I kind of moved that up the protocol and I use that a lot more often now.
And I'm seeing pretty good results with it, actually.
Well, that's because it works.
And I think that's the key is, I mean, there are times that I talk to people that are like, oh, you have to be led by the Spirit.
I'm not saying don't be led by the Spirit.
I'm just saying that the Holy Spirit's given us wisdom.
And insight, you know, as we've analyzed and looked at these things, we know some of what works, we know some of what doesn't work.
So instead of trying a bunch of stuff that probably won't work, we start with the things that tend to be effective and they take care of 50% or more of the problems when we do it this way.
And I think really resurrection, I mean, I'd like to say that it's the same way in that, oh, if you do these things, you know, you'll get, you know, people getting raised 50% of the time or more.
I can't say that that's true.
Otherwise, I'd have a track record of 50% instead of zero.
And I've tried on close to 20 people, animals, whatever.
I mean, I've tried it with enough people that, trust me, if it was batting close to 50%, I'd be aware of it.
But there are still protocols, I think, and things that we can do.
There are spiritual principles that they work because they work.
And so, just continue to work them, unless God brings something more clear and specific along in the situation.
Right, because sometimes you're not going to get divine revelation.
And if you're not getting divine revelation, you need to go through the protocols.
And you start with this, and you try this, and you try that, and you try that.
And then, if you are getting divine revelation, then you can throw the protocol book out and go, oh, this is what the Holy Spirit's saying.
Let's do this, and let's do that.
And sometimes what is in the protocol will actually be what the Holy Spirit's telling you to do.
He'll just tell you, go to step five and forget the other four steps, because this is what they need.
In any situation, I think it's key to listen to what God's saying, but God also wants to train and teach us, and that's kind of some of my heart with this subject, is that we have a lot of really good teaching about healing.
We've got a lot of good teaching about emotional healing.
It's just a lot of people haven't necessarily run into that teaching, but there's a lot of good teaching on the subject.
There's a lot of good teaching out there, but I think really the Church has been in a really unhealthy place.
In regards to our understanding about resurrection and abundant life.
And it shows in the results we get, really.
I mean, if you think about it, if we really understood the depths of the abundant life that God has for us, then the health of people in the church would be drastically different than the health of people who aren't followers of Jesus.
A lot of leaders talk about what great faith they have, or what great teaching they have, or what great programs they have.
But if you look at the fruit that those ministries are bearing, the fruit says what they're doing isn't all that good.
You've got a lot of really sick people.
You've got a lot of people who die too young.
You have people that are relatively powerless and don't understand their authority.
It's kind of a mess in the body of Christ.
If we were walking in a true knowledge of our identity and who we are as sons of God, the fruit that we would be bearing would be a lot different.
I think most of us are just still in the shallow end of the pool.
And I would probably put myself in there too.
Look, I'm not seeing a lot of people race from the dead right now.
I'm not seeing gemstones manifest, you know, at will.
I'm not seeing oil and gold dust all over the place.
And I'm not just this walking signs and wonders guy like I could be.
And I think a lot of that comes around to the fact that I still need to get my mind renewed and my spirit renewed, and I need a better understanding of what God's heart really is for the abundant life.
I mean, I feel the same way.
I feel like, I mean, I kind of, really the Church as a whole is in the shower.
I mean, I've written two books on different signs and wonders already, and I mean, sure, I see feathers and stuff.
I mean, I had one show up yesterday or the day before while I was having an argument with my wife and typing something on the computer, and I felt like it was God just kind of helping me shift.
Where I was at.
But as a general whole, it's not like every time I turn around, wow, there's just some manifestation of glory.
I wish there was.
I wish it was that way, but I believe that God is collectively taking the body forward, and I think we're all in the shallow end of the pool.
A simple example is obesity.
Obesity in the United States, as I'm sure you know, is huge.
It is one of the major problems, and if you look at all of the death-related issues that obesity is linked to, you've got hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, neuropathy.
So, like, for people who don't know what that is, but basically your nerves stop working right in your extremities, so you get a bunch of pain in your feet and your hands, and they stop working right.
If you're diabetic, like, your feet basically get ulcers and then fall off.
Once you get into the diabetes, It is circling the drain with worse and worse illnesses.
You get into kidney failure, you get into glaucoma, you get into peripheral vascular disease, heart failure.
But all of that stems from too much weight.
I mean, if you had to take a lot of that back to its primary issue, it's from being overweight.
And not to harp on people being overweight, because I have a lot of compassion for people that have difficulty losing weight.
It can be very hard.
The point remains that even when we have people preaching about divine health, if you look at a lot of the people who are preaching and teaching on divine health, they're not exactly thin themselves.
And the reason I say that is not to poke fun at anybody, it's that there's something we're missing in the manifestation of the life of Christ in our lives.
Because if we were walking it out and living it out to the extent that I think we could, Then I believe that it would be manifesting in our own bodies at a higher level.
And the reason I pick obesity is because it's visible from the outside, like it's not something, it's not very subjective, it's kind of an objective thing that you can just see by looking at people, if that makes sense.
And it's so connected with health problems.
And so I don't think it's just, I mean, yeah, there's a measure, okay, maybe we need some diet change or something or exercise, but I don't think that's all of it, because those are all natural solutions to a natural problem.
And we're talking about a supernatural God who supernaturally gives us abundant life.
So I believe there has to be a supernatural manifestation that keeps us healthy, regardless of whether we have access to the healthiest, raw, fresh, vegan, organic food or not.
You know what I mean?
Yep, I agree with you.
Well, and this is where you start getting into things that people don't talk much about, especially in mainline churches.
Things like healing DNA.
I had a dream not too long ago.
Where the Lord told me that Denise needs healing of her DNA to get healed of gluten intolerance Adam came into the earth with intact perfect DNA from the father and ever since then the enemy has been Corrupting our DNA corrupting the seed and every generation that comes out farther from Adam is a one more level of magnitude off on our DNA so we're developing more and more health problems and
Because our DNA is getting more screwed up as time goes on.
And I think that's one of the things that in the realm of healing and miracles in the next few years, I think there's going to be a lot more understanding that we're going to receive on healing things like generational issues and DNA problems.
And hopefully that will take care of some of the things like obesity and hereditary problems.
Oh, and I think it will.
I mean, because the thing is, even with Some of the toxins and just things in our environment and atmosphere, you know, exhaust from cars, plastic and food, just all of that stuff, it's all there, whatever.
But our bodies, you know, are amazingly created by God to heal and to fix that kind of stuff.
So it's like you're saying, once we get the things in place that are supposed to fix everything, once they're working right, once the DNA is telling our bodies what to do properly, Our bodies are able to fix those things and compensate and adjust for them better than they are right now.
If you think about it, that's the issue that sin causes as a whole.
Like in Romans 3, verse 23, it says that the wages of sin is death.
Well, the whole issue is that sin causes death, and that's kind of this manifestation over time that we've seen.
It's not like sin causes immediate and instantaneous death.
John G. Lake talked about how sickness, he said, is incipient death.
Incipient means gradually leading up to.
So basically, sickness is death that is in the process of manifesting fully that just hasn't completely come to fruition yet.
So it's almost like you plant the seed of death, and then it's growing into a tree, that tree blossoms and then bears fruit, and then you die.
But the problem with sickness is, sickness is the part where the tree's about a foot and a half tall and just hasn't produced fruit yet.
Right, so you're going along thinking that everything's okay, and you don't realize that you are moving toward death a little bit faster every day because of your lifestyle.
That's part of the problem, though, is because we've gotten used to this incipient death.
I mean, that's normal in our minds.
That's why you and I both work in health care, is because we know there's a need for health care.
But the problem is, we've gotten used to our solution is, well, you go see the doctor.
Well, the doctor at the end of the day cannot keep you from dying.
That's just a fact.
And you know me well enough to know that I believe that the end goal is actually never dying.
So for me, resurrection is even kind of a step in a road that goes on even further than that.
But if we believe that God wants us to live an abundant life, Jesus said in John 10.10, I've come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.
Then it has to look like something, which means when people are getting old, getting frail, they're dying, there has to be a solution for that problem, because no part of death is abundant life.
The Bible says that the last enemy to be destroyed is death.
So in the same sentence, we have death equals enemy.
Jesus is coming till he places everything under his feet.
Well, death is a thing.
Therefore, it's being placed under his feet.
He came to destroy.
He took over the power of death, hell, and the grave.
So Jesus took dominion over those things.
Now, Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost.
Well, what is the very first thing we lost in the Garden of Eden?
Exactly.
Right?
He said, if you eat of this, you'll die.
It's really scary if you just look through the Gospels and look at the way Jesus viewed life and death.
And don't frame it in the context of what mainline Christianity teaches, but just take Jesus literally at his word, how he says, anyone who believes in me shall not die, they'll have eternal life.
Okay, what does that mean literally?
That literally means you're never going to die.
And we say, you know, we say, no, no, he's talking about spiritual life, not physical life.
Oh, heavens, no, we're all going to die physically.
But if you look at what he says over and over again, he doesn't say spiritual life.
He just says you will never die.
It's very difficult.
People don't understand how difficult it is to say that Jesus did not teach that we should live forever.
That he came to destroy death that he came to defeat death that life is our inheritance and we just have kind of accepted death as inevitable and Jesus all throughout the Bible teaches that death is not inevitable.
That's the enemy and I've defeated it.
So I we have these discussions and you are a lot farther down the road than I am.
I'm still wrestling with the whole yeah, but I've never met anybody who's 500 years old.
No, that's the thing that I struggle with.
But my thought is, and this is kind of where I go with that, is have you met anybody who has had leaves of the tree of life appear to them and they've eaten them and gotten healed of something?
Oh sure, throw that in my face.
No, no, no, it's a real question.
No, no, I'm not giving you a bad time on it.
That kind of thing is what I would expect.
If God is going to give us a key to eternal life, I would expect him to do that.
I would expect him to say to me in a dream one time, hey, so you know that tree that when you eat the leaves of it, it is for the healing of the nations?
Yeah, so I want you to eat some of the leaves from this tree because I want you to live forever.
That's the kind of thing that I would almost expect God to teach me about in this discovery of eternal life and immortality.
I haven't run across that yet, though.
Yeah.
I have had some very interesting dreams that, speaking on that subject, I just have kind of filed them away because they make me uncomfortable.
Well, that's why you know me!
But, I mean, it's one of those things, and I think the thing that gets me, and it's around the whole subject of life and death and immortality, is I was taught, you know, my dad's an Episcopal priest, and I was always taught, you know, heaven when you die.
And I'm not anti-heaven, but the problem is, death is not a form of healing.
And that is one of the most irritating heresies to me, and I call it a heresy because that's what it is.
Death is not a form of healing.
Your body has to fail.
Everything has to break down for you to die.
You can't die if you're healthy.
It's physically impossible.
Healthy people do not die.
Oh, well, they got hit by a car.
Well, right at that moment they got hit by a car, they stopped being healthy.
Right.
They went into multi-system organ failure in the next two minutes, which is why they died.
Exactly.
Their brain got smashed in four seconds.
Whatever it is, they died because in that moment, they instantaneously, through a traumatic event, became unhealthy.
You can't be healthy and die.
They are mutually exclusive.
Jesus was very clear.
He actually said, I am the door, I am the gate.
They said in John 14, Lord, we don't know how to get to where you're going.
You come with me.
He said, follow me to where I'm going.
They're like, Lord, we don't, we don't know the way you're going.
He said, I am the way.
All right.
In John 10 or 11, he goes on to say, I am the door.
I am the gate for the sheep.
Well, you can either have death be the door or you can have Jesus be your door, but you can't have both.
So you have to pick between Jesus and death as to which one's going to be your door.
We have examples of Enoch and Elijah who chose Jesus as the door and everybody else just dies.
Well, If Jesus is anti-death, death is an enemy, then he's already shown us in Scripture that there is another way, then that's the way we need to be going.
I'm not saying we can't go to heaven.
I'm just saying you can't die to go to heaven.
Well, I think the point is, we should be going to heaven right now.
That too, but... Like, every day.
At least more often than we are.
But I mean, I'm even saying for people who are like, oh, well, I'd like to be in heaven and not be on the earth anymore.
That's fine.
Live a couple hundred years and then pop off to heaven like Enoch and Elijah.
But, but the thing is, you can't, you're not allowed to die to do it according to the scriptures, according to God.
Because, because even the thing that God came to prevent, he came to, Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost.
And that's why Jesus went around doing good, healing all who are oppressed of the devil.
He went around raising the dead.
He commanded his disciples in Matthew 10 verse 8 to do the same.
Because he's anti-death.
He's against destruction.
He's against death.
He's against all of the things that are opposed to his will.
The thing is, when you see what is happening in the Garden, it was obvious that God's plans for mankind did not include death.
Death was a plan that the enemy brought in.
It wasn't part of God's plan.
In order for you to arrive at some kind of a theology, that says that God's plan for us is to physically die, you have to go down some pretty strange roads, because that really has never been God's plan for us to die physically.
But one of the problems, and this is where I believe mind renewal is so key in this, is we have developed a very keen theology that tells us that not only does God want us to die, but that he kills certain people at certain times, certain places, and in certain ways.
The reason that's an issue is because the moment you start believing that God kills people, it's really hard to know when you're in front of a dead body, does God want this person dead?
Like, did he kill this one?
Or am I supposed to bring them back?
Because, you know, if they died and I'm supposed to bring them back, that's fine.
We want to pray into God's will.
But if God took them home, i.e.
if God killed them, like, let's take the pretty flowery language out of it.
That's really what you're saying.
So either God kills people and you shouldn't raise them.
And then you can't operate out of protocol because you don't know what God wants, because there is no protocol in the situation.
Or you can, because God doesn't kill people.
But the Old Testament has tons of references where it seems like God kills people, and that's what trips people up.
That's true, because if you look at the Old Testament, where God seemed to be smiting just about everybody who got near him, and then, you know, Jesus shows up on the scene in the Gospels, and he's raising all these people from the dead and healing everyone.
You're like, okay, wait a minute.
What's going on here?
And that's just it.
We have to reinterpret.
like I believe the Bible we need to start reading it with Jesus and everything else forward and backward around that becomes subservient and secondary to the perfect revelation of Jesus Christ and how he reveals the Father and that's a little sketchy for some people to hear and to say because yes I am prioritizing some of the Bible over other parts of the Bible I I believe that Jesus is the exact representation of God's glory.
Hebrews 1.3 sustains all things by His powerful word.
He and the Father are exactly the same.
There, you know, He's in the image of the Father.
What that means is He's an exact copy.
He's alike.
They are the same.
Jesus himself said, in John 17, I and the Father are one.
That means one.
It doesn't mean two people alike.
It means they're literally one.
So, if Jesus and the Father are the same, then you can't have Jesus being this nice, lovey guy who raises people from the dead, and God being this Zeus-like figure who's about to smite you with a lightning bolt if you step out wrong, like Ananias and Sapphira.
Well, Ananias lied.
Death to you!
Okay, so does everybody who lies deserve to die?
Like, how does that work?
And that's just the thing is we have this schizophrenic view of God because we have really a schizophrenic view of the Bible.
And I would suggest that because we don't understand some kind of key important details about how the Bible was written and who was writing it and their perspective as they wrote it, that it totally changes the way we read when we read that God killed people.
Well, let me kind of interject something here.
There's nothing wrong with emphasizing some parts of the Scriptures over others.
Some parts of the Bible are more important than others.
Jesus said, and this is in Matthew 23, 23, He said to the scribes and Pharisees, when He's basically reaming them out, Woe to you, Scrabs and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, but have neglected the weightier, the weightier, the heavier, the more important matters of the law, which are justice and mercy and faith.
These you should have done without leaving the other things undone.
So what the Pharisees and Scrabs were doing was they were picking out the little parts of the scriptures that they wanted to obey.
And ignoring the more important, the more serious, the weightier matters.
And Jesus kind of nails them on it.
There are things in the scriptures that I think are more significant and more important.
And things that are less significant and less important.
Again, when you look through the Gospels and you look at what Jesus was doing, healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, those become the weightier matters.
And other things, like tithing, become not quite so important.
Well, I mean, I think it's so true, and I mean, it comes down, it really does come down to a redefinition of God, and it's not a redefinition of God in the sense of, oh, we're going to create a brand new God in our own image, we're going to just throw out certain scriptures.
All of the scriptures can stay fine, but some of them are translated poorly, that's a fact.
Some of them could be translated multiple ways, and because translation is not, it's not a science, it's an art.
The translator, whoever's translating it, has to make critical choices depending on the words they're translating.
I speak two and a little bit of a third language.
So like I understand, depending on when I'm translating something, you know, from one language to another, there's not always a good way to say one word.
And so I have to use multiple words to say that same concept or object or whatever in a different language.
So sometimes you have to communicate something differently because the language just doesn't, it doesn't have the right way to say it when you put it from one language to another.
So there are a lot of phrases and ideas and idioms in the Greek.
that we do not have an English equivalent for.
There are a lot of ideas in French and German and other languages that do not translate into English.
And the same is true in Chinese and Japanese.
There are some concepts that just don't translate into other languages very well.
All you get is a close approximation and it doesn't really capture the idea.
Yeah, well like in Spanish, an easy example is El mundo es un panuelo.
It means the world is a handkerchief.
It basically means it's a small world.
It's a small world is an English term.
The world is a handkerchief.
It's a small item, but that's a phrase in Spanish.
Well, but I mean, it doesn't translate well.
What do you mean the world's a handkerchief?
Like, is that some metaphor?
Like, yes, it is a metaphor, but if you don't understand the saying, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Right.
And always remember, a metaphor is like a simile.
It's amazing.
So grammar nerds unite.
You know what?
You opened it and I went there.
It's great.
The reason that's key is because when we look at scriptures that we say, this means this.
Well, sometimes it means that, except when it doesn't.
And the only way you can know that is when you go back.
I like blueletterbible.org is my friend.
I love Blue Letter Bible.
Because you can look up the exact actual words in Greek and Hebrew, see what they mean.
It gives you, like, lists of the varying, like, meanings.
It's almost like reading into the Amplified Bible, except you can see where the Amplified Bible got the pregnant meaning it has.
Like, it's much more clear than just reading a verse in the Amplified.
And the reason I like reading it is because it tells me when I—I feel like God's giving me a revelation about something in Scripture.
I'll go back and check it in the Blue Letter Bible, check out the Greek, and say, does it really say Or can it really say, I should say, what the Lord's showing me?
And usually it does.
I mean, usually it is.
It can be interpreted one of multiple ways.
The interpreter chose it one way.
And what the Lord's telling me is basically, look, this can be correctly and accurately read a different way.
And when you do read it a different way, it totally changes the view you get of God when you read that same verse, because it says something different.
Like you have to actually change words, but you can change them because it's still correct to do that.
So when you have God, you know, smiting somebody in a situation, you've got a situation where God actually isn't smiting somebody.
You've got the devil smiting somebody, because the Hebrew belief is that the devil worked for God.
So, you know, in a situation where you believe Satan's God's employee, then everything gets attributed to God, because God's the owner of the company.
Right.
Well, and that's part of the problem with taking too much of your theology from the Old Testament.
And the problem there is Moses and the prophets didn't understand Satan and the kingdom of darkness.
They didn't understand demons.
They didn't really have much of understanding of how that all worked.
So most of the Old Testament writers attributed both death and life to God.
Inaccurately, I should say.
And Jesus comes along.
in John 10 10 and says, hang on a minute, guys.
I have come that you may have life and that more abundantly.
The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
So he's telling people, wait a minute, there's two kingdoms.
There's the kingdom of darkness, death, destruction, sickness, disease.
All right?
There's a kingdom of light that is life and that more abundantly.
And that we're representatives of one kingdom or the other.
And so he goes and casts out demons and heals the sick and raises the dead to show his power and authority over the kingdom of darkness.
And that kind of messed up the Old Testament theology for people who thought, well, God was just into killing everybody.
Hey, you live, you die.
It's all in God's hands.
And God kills some people for some reasons and lets other people live.
And Jesus really flipped that understanding upside down.
He didn't kill anybody.
He went to funerals.
He raised people from the dead and healed a lot of sick people and cast out a lot of demons.
And I think a lot of us still are struggling to come up with a proper understanding of the nature of God and His kingdom and the nature of the kingdom of darkness.
Well, for sure.
And it's difficult because we've all been taught a certain way and we're discovering more and more that the way we've been taught just isn't how it is.
I mean, that's not a condemnation on anybody because I think most of us have learned it quote unquote wrong.
And I'm not even saying we've got it all right now.
It's just I feel like we've advanced from where we started.
If you think about Moses, when Moses said to God, you know, I want to see you, I want to see your face, whatever it was he said, show me your glory.
What the Lord said to him, he didn't say, I am the vengeful God, let me cause my vengeance to pass before you.
He didn't say, I'm the almighty smiter, let me smite you because that's who I am.
He said one thing and one thing only.
He said, I'm going to cause all my goodness to pass before you.
So you want to know the essence and core of God's nature.
In the Old Testament, he made it very clear.
He said, I'm going to cause my goodness to pass before you.
So God's, the very nature of God's essence is goodness, it's love, it's light.
In him there is no darkness, no darkness at all.
You know, there is no agreement between Christ and Belial, light and darkness.
The two are as separate as separate can be.
I mean, and the New Testament only confirms this revelation that God gave to Moses.
So the Bible says how Jesus of Nazareth went around doing So it's the goodness of God that allows for healing.
all his goodness to pass before Moses.
He ran on doing good and healing all who are oppressed of the devil.
So it's the goodness of God that allows for healing.
It's the goodness of God that allows for resurrection, because Jesus is a manifestation and the emulation, the perfect example of the goodness of God.
I think you can never go wrong if you teach people about the goodness of God.
You can't exaggerate the goodness of God.
I think if you really want to understand God and if you want to represent Him well, start by understanding His goodness and plumb the depths of the goodness of God.
Before you go into the other end of things and start looking at The dark side of God, the anger of God, the wrath of God, the vengeance of God.
I think you should first understand God's goodness, because I think that's where a lot of people go wrong.
I think they understand or they study God's anger and wrath and judgment and all these negative things, side of God, and never really get around to understanding His goodness, which is, I think, much more prevalent.
It's much more useful.
It's a much more practical theology.
If you ever hope to operate in the supernatural, you have to have an understanding of God's goodness.
Not only that, but it's, like you said, it's more practical, it's more effective, but it changes the way you view judgment, vengeance, blah, you know, all of this other stuff when you start from His goodness.
And that's some of what happens is if you start with a God who's out to get you and occasionally He'll throw you something in a little, I don't know, token of something.
Versus, if you who are evil know how to give good gifts, how much more will your Father in Heaven, who's good, give good gifts to those who ask?
It totally throws it on its head, because you start to understand this quote-unquote vengeance of God is against everything that hinders love.
His vengeance, His wrath, everything that is quote-unquote out to get you, it's not actually against you, because all wrath was poured out on the cross, but it's against everything that hinders His light and His life and His love being displayed in and through you.
We have gone down some really good rabbit trails here, Michael.
But I do have to get myself going in the direction of getting Denise something to eat tonight.
I have a couple more questions I want to ask you real quick, though.
Are you going to be at the Gathering this summer in Tacoma in July?
I will be.
I would not be caught otherwise.
My wife and I will be there.
We'll actually have a table where you can buy all of our books.
And we'll be helping out, helping assist with the conference, too.
Well, that is going to be epic, and I'm looking forward to that.
You have a future book coming up on Traveling in the Spirit that you're working on?
Yes.
So it's kind of a tight deadline because we've got to have it done by the end of the July conference.
Not by the end of the conference, but by the end of July for the conference.
So you're going to try to have that book ready so it'll be available at the conference?
Oh, it will be available at the conference.
I've already planned a couple days to take off of work just to have extra time to work on it.
Oh, right on.
Well, I'm going to wish you good luck with that, because writing that book for me, my book on Traveling the Spirit, was, ugh, man, it almost killed me.
It was such a difficult book to write.
Well, God's been very kind, and I already have, I think, five or six of, like, 14 or 15 chapters written, and I wrote most of them at work, at night, while nothing was happening.
I love it when you get those quiet nights when you can just write and write and write all night long.
Well, I've been praying and saying to God, because I've said to God, I say, God, I feel like this is what you've given me to do right now.
If this is going to happen, you've got to make a way.
And then I go to work the next night.
I get like two patients the whole night who are super easy.
They sleep all night.
You know, I wake them up occasionally.
I do my job.
I mean, I do what I'm supposed to do.
But there's, you know, two to three hours at a time of nothing in between.
And so I just get a bunch of writing done.
So you got to love it.
Looking for God has benefits big time.
That's something I'm working on.
It's something I'm excited about, and I'm just kind of pushing towards that.
I mean, it's going to happen.
It's just one of those things.
I just got to keep putting time into it, and it'll be done for the summer.
So I'm excited.
And then your lovely wife is going to do an amazing cover like she always does.
Well, she is pretty good at book covers.
I like the work that she's done for me so far.
And she's done really nice covers for you, too.
Yes, yes.
So, tell people where they can find you on social media.
Website?
Facebook?
Any other places where they can get you?
So, thekingsofeden.com is my website.
You can find... I put out a blog every week.
I started, actually, in January to put out a Word of the Week every week.
So, at the beginning of your week on Monday, if you want a prophetic word to start your week, that's a good place to go.
I put out blogs every Wednesday.
You can find my books there.
Amazon.com Michael C. King is me.
If you go on Facebook it's Michael C. King as well.
You're on Twitter?
I'm on Twitter.
I'm on Twitter.
I think it's the Kings of Eden or the Kings of Eden 1.
I forget which.
I think on Instagram maybe it's the Kings of Eden 1.
People took names so I had to add a number in the end.
But basically if you search for the Kings of Eden Anywhere you go, you should be able to find me one way or the other.
So yeah, I mean, I'm active on Instagram somewhat, sort of, kind of on Twitter.
Best place is on Facebook.
And always at thekingsofeden.com.
You're another one of those Facebook people.
I like Facebook.
My people on Twitter and Periscope are giving me a bad time about being so active on Facebook, and I'm like, well, that's kind of where my tribe hangs out at.
Well, I am so glad I got to talk to you again and do another podcast.
I wish you well, and I'll be praying for success on this next book, and if you want to increase your faith to raise the dead, I would really recommend checking out Michael's new book.
Michael, thank you for being on the podcast.
I'm looking forward to our next interview.
Me too.
Thank you again as always.
Always a pleasure talking to you.
Well, folks, that is our show for today.
I hope you enjoyed it.
Thanks for dropping by.
If you're new to the podcast and you haven't been to my website, you might drop by and check out the articles I have there.
If you have any questions or comments about the show, you can contact me at admin at prayingmedic.com.
That's A-D-M-I-N at prayingmedic.com.
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I'd like to thank you again for dropping by.
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