It Is Written

The Ghosts of Gettysburg

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: John Bradshaw

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Series Code: IIW

Program Code: IIW001356A


00:12 It has stood the test of time, God's book,
00:18 the Bible. Still relevant in today's
00:23 complex world. It Is Written...sharing hope
00:30 around the g I'm John Bradshaw and this is
00:44 It Is Written. Thanks for joining me today.
00:46 I'm here behind the GAR Hall, the oldest church building in
00:52 the City of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
00:54 It was built in 1822 by Methodists.
00:57 It was the first church in this area to allow Blacks and
01:00 Whites to worship together. The church is still in use
01:03 today. In 1863, during and after the
01:07 Battle of Gettysburg, most public buildings and most
01:09 church buildings were pressed into emergency service.
01:13 Many college buildings, seminary buildings, even
01:16 private homes were converted into hospitals to take care
01:20 of the many wounded and dying.
01:22 Behind the GAR Hall here you find this little cemetery.
01:26 There is no shortage of cemeteries here in Gettysburg
01:30 and that is because so many people died in battle.
01:33 During the course of the American Civil War, more than
01:35 700,000 soldiers died, almost 8,000 alone during this one
01:42 battle here and more following the battle
01:46 If you plan to make a trip to come and visit Gettysburg and
01:49 you do a little bit of research you are probably
01:53 going to discover this interesting fact.
01:56 The number one money making tourism enterprise in
01:59 Gettysburg is ghost tours. In fact, one company that
02:05 operates ghost tours here in Gettysburg has this to say on
02:08 its website: Of all the forlorn countless souls awash
02:13 in time, none reach out to us more than those of the dead
02:17 at Gettysburg. They were young men, mostly,
02:20 with hopes for a bright future and moved by sincere,
02:24 patriotic dreams, caught up and cruelly thrown down again
02:29 in that great hot world of mortal combat.
02:32 Their presence on earth was silenced forever by death, or
02:38 maybe not. What's really going on here?
02:44 Are the ghosts of dead soldiers really wandering
02:47 around Gettysburg? Lost in some sort of
02:50 purgatory? And if they really are, what
02:52 stranded them here? Was it the tragedy of war?
02:55 Or was it as the website says, their intense desire
02:59 for a bright future? Did nobody tell them that the
03:02 battle of Gettysburg ended a century and a half ago?
03:06 When it comes to the subject of what happens to the dead,
03:09 the only place you can go to for reliable answers is the
03:13 Word of God. It is the only thing we can
03:16 really trust. The Ghosts of Gettysburg.
03:20 I'll have more in just a mome
03:24 In Matthew 4:4, the Word of God says, " It is written,
03:28 man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that
03:32 proceeds from the mouth of God.
03:34 Every Word is a one-minute Bible-based daily devotional
03:37 presented by Pastor John Bradshaw and designed
03:40 especially for busy people like you.
03:42 Look for Every Word on selected networks or watch it
03:46 on-line everyday on our website, itiswritten.com.
03:50 Receive a daily spiritual boost.
03:52 Watch Every Word. You'll be glad you did.
03:55 Here's a sampl Abraham Lincoln's son,
04:06 Robert, was on a railway platform in Jersey City,
04:09 New Jersey, when he slipped between the platform
04:11 and a moving train. But someone behind him
04:13 grabbed his coat collar and lifted him to safety on
04:16 the platform - saving him from serious injury and possibly
04:18 death. The man who saved young
04:21 Robert Lincoln\ was Edwin Booth, the brother
04:25 of John Wilkes Booth - who later murdered
04:26 President Lincoln. The brother of Lincoln's
04:28 assassin saved Lincoln's son. Coincidence?
04:32 You decide, but when God is at work in our lives,
04:37 THAT'S "providence". Ecclesiastes 11:5 says,
04:40 "As you do not know what is the way of the wind, or how
04:43 the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child,
04:46 so you do not know the works of God who makes everything."
04:49 Even when you don't discern it, God is at work.
04:51 When some see a coincidence, you can know that God
04:54 was there. Let's live today by every word
05:00 Today, we're talking about the ghosts of Gettysburg.
05:05 The idea of people dying and leaving spirits here on the
05:09 earth to wander to and fro is an old idea.
05:13 As a matter of fact, people have been believing in ghosts
05:17 since before human beings started leaving written
05:19 records. Today, most people fall into
05:23 one or the other of two main camps when it comes to this
05:25 question of what happens when you die.
05:28 Many people believe that when you die, you go straight to
05:30 heaven or straight to hell or perhaps purgatory.
05:33 In other words, you survive bodily death.
05:36 You go on living after you die and then there is a
05:38 school of thought that says that when you die your spirit
05:41 goes back to God like your hopes and dreams and thoughts
05:43 and desires and aspirations all cease to be.
05:48 As Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 9:5, the dead
05:52 know not anything. Well, whatever you believe
05:55 about that, there's one thing everybody ought to be able to
05:58 agree on and that's this. That when you die, you don't
06:03 leave a spirit behind that roams the earth.
06:06 The dead don't come back to visit their families or haunt
06:09 houses. In the Bible, the only spirit
06:13 beings that roam the earth, at least in the Old
06:16 Testament, were angels. Interestingly, even in the
06:20 Bible there were people who believed in ghosts.
06:25 Let's consider a New Testament Story.
06:27 We get it from Matthew, Chapter 14:25, 26.
06:33 Now in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went to them
06:36 walking on the sea, and when the disciples saw him walking
06:39 on the sea, they were troubled, saying 'It is a ghost',
06:43 and they cried out for fear." Did I read that right?
06:48 Did the disciples actually believe in ghosts?
06:52 The ones who spent many of their waking days, in fact,
06:55 every day for several years with Jesus, the divine Son
06:59 of God, did these guys believe in ghosts?
07:02 Evidently so. And it wasn't just the disciples
07:07 who believed this either. There is a very curious story
07:11 found in the Old Testament concerning a man named Saul,
07:14 that is, King Saul, the King of Israel.
07:18 King Saul believed that he had an encounter with a ghost
07:21 as well. You find the story in
07:24 1 Samuel 28 and the fact is, it's the only real ghost
07:28 story that you find in the Bible.
07:31 Understanding this story gives us some real insight
07:34 into the supernatural. Let's pick it up in
07:37 1 Samuel 28:8. So Saul disguised himself and
07:40 put on other clothes and he went and two men with him.
07:47 And they came to the woman by night and he said, "please
07:50 conduct a séance for me and bring up for me the one I
07:54 shall name for you. Then the woman said to him,
07:57 'look, you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the
08:01 mediums and the spiritists from the land.
08:03 Why then do you lay a snare for my life to cause me to
08:07 die? And Saul swore to her by the
08:09 Lord saying, as the Lord lives, no punishment shall
08:13 come upon you for this thing. Then, the woman said, whom
08:16 shall I bring up for you? And he said, bring up Samuel
08:20 for me. When the woman saw Samuel,
08:23 she cried out with a loud voice, and the woman spoke to
08:27 Saul, saying, 'why have you deceived me?
08:30 For you are Saul!' And the King said to her, 'do not be
08:34 afraid. What do you see?' And the
08:36 woman said to Saul, 'I saw a spirit ascending out of the
08:40 earth.' So he said to her, 'what is his form?' and she
08:44 said 'an old man is coming up and he is covered with a
08:47 mantle,' and Saul perceived that it was Samuel and he
08:51 stooped with his face to the ground and bowed down.
08:55 Now, Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by
08:58 bringing me up?" Interesting, isn't it?
09:03 Now, the question we want to ask ourselves is this.
09:06 Was that actually the ghost of Samuel?
09:11 Evidently looked like Samuel, apparently talked like
09:14 Samuel. This Samuel figure evidently
09:17 recognized Saul and Samuel wasn't too happy about having
09:22 been brought back from the dead.
09:23 So how do we understand this? First thing you want to do is
09:26 consider the context in which this took place.
09:29 King Saul was talking to a medium and this was something
09:33 that God had expressly forbidden his people from
09:35 doing. Leviticus 19:31, "Give no
09:39 regard to mediums and familiar spirits.
09:42 Do not seek after them to be defiled by them.
09:45 I am the Lord your God." Then we read this in Deuteronomy
09:48 18:9-13, "when you come into the land which the Lord your
09:52 God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the
09:57 abominations of those nations.
10:00 There shall not be found among you anyone who makes
10:02 his son or his daughter pass through the fire or one who
10:05 practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who
10:08 interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures
10:11 spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls
10:15 up the dead, for all who do these things are an
10:20 abomination to the Lord and because of these
10:23 abominations, the Lord your God drives them out from
10:25 before you. You shall be blameless before
10:29 the Lord your God. And then Leviticus 20:6,
10:34 "And the person who turns to mediums and familiar spirits
10:36 to prostitute himself with them, I will set my face against
10:39 that person and cut him off from his people."
10:43 Spiritualism is one of Satan's most overwhelming
10:47 and most effective deceptions and it was cooked up in the
10:51 theological seminaries of hell itself.
10:53 There is no question something was going on and
10:57 what was going on was this: Saul the King was speaking to
11:01 the medium and the medium was communicating with the devil.
11:05 It's important that we know this, especially in this
11:09 world where psychics are big business and mediums have
11:14 their own television programs.
11:16 It wasn't that long ago that a cable TV channel came here
11:19 to Gettysburg and they filmed the show on paranormal
11:22 activity in Gettysburg. They brought high tech
11:26 electronic equipment that they hoped was going to help
11:29 him capture communication with spirits from the other
11:32 side. How successful were they in
11:35 doing so? Well you and I both know.
11:38 People say Gettysburg is haunted.
11:40 People refer to hearing strange things and seeing odd
11:43 things from time to time. Activity they can't really
11:47 adequately explain. But you know, that's true for
11:49 just about anywhere in the United States.
11:52 You hear something, you see something, if you hadn't been
11:56 told that there are spirits roaming around, you'd never
11:59 have even thought it was a spirit.
12:01 You would have thought that noise in your attic was a
12:04 racoon, you would not have been worried about some
12:06 departed Gettysburg soldier. It is said that Gettysburg is
12:10 the most haunted place in the United States.
12:14 True or False? Well, it's true that it's
12:16 said that, but I think we both know why it is said.
12:20 You know why? Because it's good for
12:24 business, that's why. Now, God does have a means of
12:30 assisting those of us living on the earth, even sometimes
12:34 communicating with us here on earth.
12:37 How does God doe that, supernaturally?
12:39 1) Through the Holy Spirit; 2) Through the Word of God;
12:43 and 3) Through angels. One thing that is consistent
12:51 in the Bible about angels is that when angels interact
12:55 with human beings, they have this tremendous capacity to
12:58 be able to fill human beings with awe.
13:01 They are awe-inspiring. I will share with you a
13:03 couple of verses from the Bible that make that point
13:06 very, very clear. Matthew 28:5, the angel
13:12 answered and said unto the women, "fear not for I know
13:15 that you seek Jesus, which was crucified." These are the
13:21 women who came down to Jesus' tomb.
13:23 The angel appeared and they were awestruck.
13:26 Now, the word used is "fear" and I've got to be honest
13:29 with you and tell you that I'm not sure how much terror
13:31 filled these people as much as wonder and awe ... a
13:35 heavenly being. We are in the presence of
13:37 somebody who has come from God.
13:40 They didn't have to be terrified of God, but I tell
13:42 you, the word is not inappropriate any how, they
13:45 were afraid, they were awestruck.
13:48 I'll give you another verse that makes the same point and
13:50 we'll discuss a couple of others again.
13:52 Luke 1:12, when Zacharias, that's the father of John the
13:58 Baptist, saw him, the Angel, he was troubled and fear fell
14:05 upon him. So the angels of heaven have
14:08 this ability to instill fear or inspire awe in those
14:13 people who encounter the angels of heaven.
14:15 You read in Daniel 8, Daniel said "when the angel appeared
14:19 to him, he was afraid and he fell on his face." So point
14:24 #1, angels inspire, let's say fear or awe.
14:28 You choose which word works best for you.
14:32 Point #2 angels are powerful. I want to share a little
14:36 story with you from Isaiah 37, how powerful are the
14:40 angels? Well, let's look at this.
14:44 At Gettysburg in 1863, the Battle at Gettysburg ended
14:48 with 8000 or thereabouts deaths.
14:51 Many more casualties when you take into account the wounded
14:54 and the missing and so on, and then about another 8000
14:57 people died shortly after the battle of Gettysburg and it
14:59 is interesting to just say that as though it is of no
15:02 consequence but it was of colossal consequence.
15:05 Then you had the battle of Antedum, the bloodiest single
15:07 day in the history of the American civil war.
15:11 But look at this. How powerful is an angel of
15:14 heaven? I'll read in Isaiah 37
15:16 starting in verse 33. Listen to this.
15:19 God says, therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the
15:22 King of Assyria. He shall not come into this
15:24 city nor shoot an arrow there nor come before it with
15:28 shields nor cast a bank against it.
15:30 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return and
15:33 shall not come into this city, saith the Lord.
15:35 For I will defend this city to save it for mine own sake,
15:39 and for my servant David's sake.
15:42 And then what did God do? God commissioned an angel who
15:47 went forth and ... well, let's read.
15:51 Let's read and see what happens in verse 36: Then the
15:54 angel of the Lord went forth and smoke the camp of the
15:57 Assyrians 185,000 and when they arose early in the
16:06 morning, behold they were all dead corpses.
16:11 One angel, so powerful, that 185,000 soldiers were killed
16:20 in one fell swoop. How powerful are the angels
16:25 of God? They are tremendously
16:28 powerful. Now there is another point I
16:30 want you to look at concerning the angels of
16:33 heaven. God's messengers sent to this
16:35 earth, and that's this. 2 Kings 6:13, He, the king,
16:40 said, go and spy where he is that I may send and fetch
16:45 him. And it was told him saying
16:46 behold he is in Dothan, therefore he sent there
16:48 horses and chariots and a great host and they came by
16:52 night and encompassed the city about and when the
16:55 servant of the man of God was risen early and gone forth
16:58 behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and
17:02 chariots. And his servants said unto
17:04 him, Alas my master, how shall we do?
17:07 And he answered Fear not for they that be with us are more
17:11 than they that be with them and Elisha prayed and said
17:16 Lord, I pray thee open his eyes that he may see and the
17:22 Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw and
17:27 behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of
17:32 fire round about Elisha. In 2 Kings 6 the angels
17:36 appeared as brilliant beings. What a display to see the
17:41 mountain full of horses and chariots of fire sent from
17:47 God and angels. The word of God said a great
17:50 host was there. How impressive that must have
17:54 been to the view of Elisha's servant, to walk out there
17:57 and look out and see what God had sent, all sent by God to
18:02 assist and aid and help God's people and bring
18:05 encouragement and assure God's people that he was with
18:08 him. God was there with his people
18:10 and the angels appeared as messengers of God to bring
18:14 strength and hope. Now, about the way angels
18:20 appear. The word of God makes clear
18:23 that angels are able to assume other forms.
18:27 Now, here is what I mean by that.
18:29 I will give you a couple of very Biblical examples.
18:31 In the NT, the Word of God says that Satan is able to
18:34 appear as an angel of light. Now, he is an angel of
18:37 darkness. He is the Devil.
18:39 Nevertheless, he can disguise himself in such a way as he
18:44 can appear to be an angel of goodness, an angel of light.
18:49 Let's get an even more graphic example than that.
18:51 We go back to Genesis. The creation story just after
18:55 the creation story in Genesis 3. In Genesis 3:1, the Bible
19:00 says "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of
19:05 the field which the Lord God had made and he said unto the
19:09 woman, Yay, hath God said you shall not eat of every tree
19:13 of the garden? And the woman said unto the
19:15 serpent, "we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the
19:19 garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the
19:22 midst of the Garden, God has said ..." and so on.
19:25 The devil appeared as a snake.
19:30 Must have been a very beautiful creature, because
19:33 Eve was enticed. She was beguiled.
19:36 She was drawn. She was attracted to what was
19:38 taking place. And maybe there is something
19:40 about a talking snake. A little hard for me to
19:44 relate to because I was raised in one of the very few
19:47 countries in the world where there are no snakes.
19:49 There are only three of them and I was raised in one of
19:51 those three countries ....no snakes at all.
19:54 I wasn't raised with any affinity for snakes in any
19:58 way, shape or form. Now I've developed a working
20:02 toleration with them. I can't imagine what I would
20:06 ever have done if I would have heard a talking snake.
20:08 I'd like to think that I would not have hung around.
20:12 Eve heard the voice, looked and saw the snake, the
20:16 serpent, it must have been a beautiful creature and she
20:21 entered into a discussion with it and where did that
20:24 discussion lead? It led to where we are today.
20:26 Plunged into misery and sin, and depths of despair as a
20:30 planet hoping for a better day and we know that better
20:33 day is the return of Jesus. Lucifer, now Satan, changed
20:39 his form and he did that to draw Eve and Adam and this
20:45 whole planet into the depths of the misery of sin.
20:50 Now, there is another point I want to make about angels,
20:54 and that's this. You know God created us in
20:57 such a way that we can be inhabited.
21:00 The Bible says that we are the temple of the Holy
21:02 Spirit. We were created to be filled
21:04 with the presence of God. In Revelation 3, Jesus says
21:09 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
21:12 If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come
21:15 into him and dine with him and that person will dine
21:18 with me. Jesus wants to come into us
21:21 and live his life in us. We read that again and again
21:25 and again in the word of God. We were made to be inhabited.
21:31 However, you have also read in the Word of God that there
21:34 are people who have been inhabited by the wrong spirit
21:39 and there are probably several places we could go in
21:41 the Bible to illustrate that, but I want to go to Luke 11
21:45 and there is an interesting passage in Luke 11 that
21:49 demonstrates this. Luke 11, I'm going to read in
21:54 verse 24 and on. When the unclean spirit is
22:00 gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places seeking
22:04 rest and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my
22:09 house whence I came out and when he cometh, he findeth it
22:12 swept and garnished. Then he goes and he takes to
22:16 him seven other spirits, more wicked than hiself and they
22:21 enter in and dwell there and the last state of that man is
22:26 worse than his first. Isn't that something?
22:31 You wee, we were made to be inhabitated, inhabited by a
22:34 spirit. God is a spirit and that is
22:36 who we want to fill us up. Jesus wants to live his life
22:39 in us and he would do that today through the Holy
22:42 Spirit. But if we are not filled with
22:45 the Holy Spirit, we are going to be filled with something.
22:49 Notice, the demon was cast out or went out of a man, he
22:53 came back to that person and found the man empty ... empty
22:58 and because he was empty, there was room inside that
23:02 person's mind or heart or life for that demon and many
23:05 of his associates. We were made to be filled up.
23:09 We were made to be filled with the Spirit of God.
23:12 However, if we are not, we can be filled with the Spirit
23:17 of Satan. We can be filled with demons.
23:19 People can be possessed. You know, that's one of the
23:22 reasons why it's so very, very important not to go to
23:26 mediums, not to consult mediums, not to consult with
23:28 psychics, to stay away from psychic phenomena, to stay
23:32 away from that dangerous, unbiblical paranormal
23:35 activity. Why?
23:37 Because it is not of God. And if you will give the
23:39 enemy of Saul a toehold, he will take it.
23:42 If you give him an inch, he will take a mile.
23:44 If you give him access to your life at all, before you
23:46 know it, he has taken over our life completely.
23:50 The only safe thing to do is to stay away from that dark
23:53 side, to stay away from the mediums and the psychics, to
23:57 stay away from the ghosts and the ghost stories and run to
24:01 Jesus and hang on to Jesus and just don't let g
24:08 You can't always explain things that go bump in the
24:11 night, except you can know this.
24:13 The Devil is a liar. Jesus called him the father
24:16 of lies and to get a world full of people to believe
24:20 that the spirits of the dead come back to the earth and
24:22 roam the streets and haunt houses, really ... that's quite
24:26 an achievement, especially when the Bible says plainly
24:28 and simply in the Book of Job 7 that the dead return no
24:33 more to their house. So, are there demons roaming
24:38 the streets of Gettysburg? I wouldn't doubt it for a
24:41 moment, not for a moment. But are they the spirits of
24:46 dead soldiers wandering around, troubling people and
24:48 bothering lives? It absolutely cannot be that
24:52 way, at least, not if you want to believe the Bible.
24:56 I will never forget the experience I had visiting a
24:58 lady in her home a number of years ago and she told me
25:01 this story: She said that her uncle lived with her family
25:06 in the last years of his life and that he died right there
25:09 in her home. It was not but a couple of
25:11 days after the funeral and she went back into uncle
25:14 Larry's bedroom to straighten something up or return
25:17 something or retrieve something and as she stepped
25:20 into that room, music started playing.
25:24 She looked around. She didn't know how to
25:27 explain that. She stepped out of the room
25:30 and the music stopped. So she stepped in and it
25:32 started and she stepped out and it stopped, and she had a
25:35 little fun with this for a while and she wondered what
25:37 was going on and she wondered if she was hearing things and
25:39 then she realized that's the kind of music Uncle Larry
25:43 used to live. That's what is going on here.
25:46 Uncle Larry is back and he is telling us everything is
25:49 okay. Well, you can believe that if
25:53 you want to but it's not what the Word of God says.
25:56 The Bible does not tell us that the dead come back to
26:00 the earth, haunt houses, scare people and roam the
26:05 streets of cities like Gettysburg.
26:07 In fact, that's far from the truth.
26:10 It just doesn't happen and we have that on the authority of
26:15 the Word of Go The Mystery of Death is a
26:32 book that will help you discover the truth of the
26:34 after-life, death whenever it happens is a tragedy and
26:38 people wonder what happens next.
26:41 In this week's free book, the mystery of death, pastor
26:44 Bradshaw explores this often misunderstood subject
26:47 and provides answers directly from the Bible.
26:52 Just call 1.800.253.3000 and ask for the book
26:57 The Mystery of Death. You can call anytime,
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27:13 Please note this free book is limited to the supply on
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27:18 download a free electronic version of the book, The Mystery
27:21 of Death, from our website itiswritten.com.
27:26 It Is Written is a faith-based ministry made possible
27:28 by viewers like you. Thank you for your letters
27:31 and your continued support. Our toll free number
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27:38 itiswritten. Thanks for joining me today.
27:46 I look forward to seeing you again next time.
27:49 Until then, remember, it is written, man shall not live
27:53 by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the


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