If you somehow were to have a conversation with the devil—one on one, up close and personal—what would he say to you? And if you were largely ignorant of what the Bible says and what it really means, how could you figure out whether he was telling you a pack of lies?

If you were listening to someone who claimed to be divinely inspired, how would you know if it was true? How would you recognize its ultimate source?

Most powerful tool in history?

On the cover of the newest New Age best seller The Moses Code, author and movie producer James Twyman promises to give you a secret for "the Most Powerful Manifestation Tool in the History of the World."

The book borrows heavily from the ideas presented in the 2006 books The Secret and The Law of Attraction (see "Do You Know the Real Secret?" The Good News, May-June 2007). It claims that a powerful secret code that would solve all of our problems has been long hidden—until now.

So what's the big secret about, and why didn't Moses tell us?

The big secret is "an ancient technique that has existed in the world for more than 3,500 years," Twyman writes, "but was hidden away long ago because authorities decided it was too powerful to be arbitrarily wielded" (p. 1).

He says that although ancient authorities didn't want the Moses Code in the Bible, you need the power it will give you.

Twyman gives a new, creative meaning to the Exodus in relating the details of his Moses Code. It was not Almighty God, with independent supernatural power outside the Israelites' control, who freed them from the slavery and genocide of Egypt, he says—rather, by practicing the code they freed themselves.

But so powerful a tool was this code that it had to be hidden. "When the Moses Code was first revealed to the Israelites, some of the greatest miracles in history were performed. Shortly afterward, influential leaders decreed that the inherent energy was simply too vast and potentially dangerous to be used by anyone other than the highest initiates" (p. 2).

In other words, the leaders responsible for the Bible decreed that the Moses Code not be included in it.

Later, the story goes, other "spiritual masters who evolved to the point where they not only understood the Moses Code" but practiced it had "extraordinary results." Chief among them, Twyman says, was Jesus of Nazareth (p. 2). Yet the code, though allegedly practiced by Jesus, is not found in the New Testament writings either—so great, it is asserted, was the need to keep it hidden until now!

Counterfeit truths?

Since this secret Moses Code is not laid out in the Bible and you can't perceive it through using your mind in reading the Bible, how does Twyman say you can really know his secret is truth?

"The key is to follow your heart, not your mind. Your heart is always a better barometer of what Heaven is choosing to add to your life" (p. 159). He is telling you to just believe him by following "your heart, not your mind."

But this is a big problem! Is that how we are supposed to arrive at spiritual truth?

Belief in merely what your heart tells you has been an endless source of agony and self-delusion—deception and counterfeits being the norm for the human heart.

Notice God's summary of the human heart in Jeremiah 17:9: "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick" (New American Standard Bible). Deceit means hiding, denying and rejecting the truth. God added that we human beings are not even the ultimate judges of the heart. "Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds" (verses 9-10, NASB).

So listening to a man selling the claim that the Moses Code is true through appeal to your heart and not your mind—meaning feelings and emotions without reason—is like hearing a used-car salesman's pitch without examining or even considering how well the engine runs under the hood. Instead of using your intellect and mind to prove the value of the product, you are presented a soothing and convincing emotional talk about how great the car will be when you sit in it and feel its power.

But mere emotional assertions of truth will never lead you to what is actually true, whether it be in material science or pursuit of spiritual understanding. Just remember this: The Good News will never tell you God expects you to suspend your critical thinking skills to receive the knowledge of God.

Why?

Because the Bible never tells people to give up the power of sound reasoning to develop a relationship with God. In fact, conversion to the truth of God, while certainly including an emotional component, is a mental activity, a convicting recognition of facts and reality perceived by the mind. "Come now," God urges, "and let us reason together" (Isaiah 1:18).

Similarly, the apostle Paul told people to "test all things" they are taught to prove whether these things are truthful (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Seeking the truth never means you leave your brain at the door.

Secret "Moses Code"—truth or lie?

The Moses Code, says New Age author Twyman, is the secret for you to become the creator of your universe and to exercise your divinity. "You possess all the qualities of God," Twyman writes. "You're about to explore a code that's been locked inside your soul; and in doing so, you'll discover that you're the child of the Divine, possessing the same power to create as God" (p. 20).

This is not what the Bible says.

Twyman goes on to present what you must do to exercise the power of the code in your life: You must take to yourself the name God used for Himself at the burning bush.

When Moses was in the desert before going back to Egypt, God talked with him from the burning bush. Here is supposedly where Moses learned the secret law of attraction to make every good thing happen that followed. As stated in the Bible, God revealed His name here as "I AM THAT I AM." Twyman says that this happened, but that the knowledge of what Moses did with the name was lost.

He contends that Moses was to, and did, apply this divine designation to himself.

Twyman concludes: "By using the name of God, Moses is able to turn his walking stick into a serpent, transform the Nile into a river of blood, create plagues of frogs, lice, flies, locusts, and other terrible things, kill the firstborn of every Egyptian, part the Red Sea and destroy the pursuing Egyptian army" (p. 22).

Of course, this is not what the Bible says either. God used His supernatural powers to devastate Egypt. Moses could do nothing of himself, no matter what words he repeated to himself.

But that was then. What Twyman says he wants is for you to apply this newly improved and recently discovered technique now.

For you to realize you are the God of the universe, he says, you need to start practicing his recently created yoga exercises of slow, deep breathing while staring at a piece of paper and repeating the words on the paper, "I AM THAT I AM," applying them to yourself. That, he claims, will bring to you the energy of the universe so you can exercise divine power as the creator of the universe.

And if you believe that, I think you can plan an early retirement from the real world.

Of course, there was no such directive for Moses to apply God's holy name to himself or for anyone else to do so. Nor did he practice yoga breathing, as advocated in The Moses Code, to part the Red Sea so the Israelites could walk through while the Egyptian chariots and army were destroyed.

Calling yourself God is forbidden in the Bible, both then and now. It's an act of blasphemy, which was punishable under the law God gave to Moses by immediate death.

Can the devil speak today?

The Bible starts with the first five books, known as the Law, written by Moses. At the very beginning, it describes the original lie that Satan the devil, as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, sold Eve. This lie had the same claims and assertions of Twyman's Moses Code—a lie that, if believed, would kill you as it did Adam and Eve.

Here is essentially what the devil said: You can get everything you want in life, including eternal life, by simply willing it and doing what you want, because you are already as God. In the garden and through the devil's representatives today, the message remains the same: There is no need to acknowledge God as your Creator and Jesus Christ as your Savior.

New Age people don't need to believe the "nonsense" of the Bible as written—or so they think. They don't need a savior because, to them, their only problems come from not believing they are already divine.

People need the revelation of truth. That's why the Bible defines truth in the teachings of Jesus Christ, and the law of Moses before Him (John 1:17).

You need to understand that the devil still promulgates the same lie that he has since the beginning, packaging it in various forms throughout human culture. It's appealing; and in our age of ignorance of the Word of God, it's easy to understand why so many buy into this not-so-New Age thinking that contradicts what Moses actually believed and what the Bible really teaches. GN