We serve an international audience on APJ.

Listeners join us from across the globe, whether through our English episodes or in the dozen or so languages that this podcast gets translated into some of our questions

might not make sense to our listeners in the states and that's likely true today and that's all right

here's our email today. Hello, Pastor John and Tony. This

is Takozani from the Gating region of South Africa. I have listened to Ask

Mr. John for two years and grown a lot spiritually over the time. My question stems from a popular belief that we have here in South Africa.

People here believe in ancestral consultation. When a person dies, their spirit or soul doesn't go to God immediately, it roams around where they died.

The family must go to that spot and fetch the spirit using a tree.

This is a popular belief in several Christians here hold to these superstitions.

Once the spirit is fetched the body can be buried and only then does the

spirit go to God and can the person finally rest in peace. Later, relatives will visit the grave or set up a shrine in

their home where they consult with these dead parents or grandparents, not to

worship them, but to periodically establish communication to receive from them messages through dreams or visions.

Pastor John, what does the Bible say about communicating with ancestors?

What the Bible says may be summed up like this.

Don't pursue communication with the dead

because, pursuing messages from the dead is evidence that biblical truth about God

is either not understood or not believed.

And in either case, God is dishonored

by the practice of seeking messages from the dead.

Therefore Christians should not do it and they should be taught

from the Bible why this practice dishonors God and should be encouraged to believe

...