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Beware the Occult, August 26
And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar
spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a
people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?
Isaiah 8:19
.
Spiritualism is the masterpiece of deception. It is Satan’s most successful
and fascinating delusion—one calculated to take hold of the sympathies of
those who have laid their loved ones in the grave. Evil angels come in the
form of those loved ones, and relate incidents connected with their lives,
and perform acts which they performed while living. In this way they lead
persons to believe that their dead friends are angels, hovering over them, and
communicating with them. These evil angels, who assume to be the deceased
friends, are regarded with a certain idolatry, and with many their word has
greater weight than the Word of God. Thus men and women are led to reject
the truth, and give “heed to seducing spirits.”
The Word of God declares in positive terms that “the living know that
they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more
a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their
hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion
for ever in any thing that is done under the sun” (
Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6
). This
plain scripture directly contradicts the teaching of Spiritualism, and if it were
heeded would save souls from the snare of the enemy.
Many are investigating Spiritualism simply from curiosity. They have
no real faith in it, and would start back horrified at the idea of becoming
mediums; but they are venturing on forbidden and dangerous ground. When
they are fast in the toils of the deceiver, they find they are in the power of him
who makes the most abject slaves of his servants, and nothing can deliver
them but the power of God. The only safety for us is in trusting implicitly and
following faithfully the instruction of the Word of God. The Bible is the only
chart that marks out the narrow path which shuns the pitfalls of destruction....
What love, what wonderful love, that God bears with the perversity of His
people, and sends help to every soul that desires to do His will, and forsake
sin! If man will but cooperate with the agencies of Heaven, he may come
off more than conqueror. Fallen creatures as we are, capable of the most
revolting crimes, yet we may become victors.
The Signs of the Times, August
26, 1889
.
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