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Spiritual Gifts, Volume 4b
living. In this way they deceive, and lead the relatives of the dead to
believe their deceased friends are angels hovering about them, and
communing with them, which they regard with a certain idolatry. What
they may say has greater influence over them than the word of God.
These evil angels who assume to be dead friends will either utterly
reject God’s word as idle tales, or if it suits their purpose best, will
select the vital portions which testify of Christ and point out the way
to Heaven, and change the plain statements of the word of God to suit
their own corrupt nature, and ruin souls. All may, with due attention
to the word of God, be convinced if they will of this soul-destroying
delusion. The word of God declares in positive terms that “the dead
know not anything.”
Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6
. “For the living know that they
shall die; but the dead know not anything, 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 forever in anything that is done under the sun.”
Deceived mortals are worshiping evil angels, believing them to be
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the spirits of their dead friends. The word of God expressly declares
that “the dead have no more a portion in anything done under the
sun.” Spiritualists say the dead know everything that is done under
the sun, that they communicate to their friends on earth, give valuable
information, and perform wonders.
Psalm 115:17
. “The dead praise
not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.” I have been
shown that Satan, transformed into an angel of light, works with all
deceivableness of unrighteousness. He who could take up the Son
of God, who was made a little lower than the angels, and place him
upon a pinnacle of the temple, and take him up into an exceeding
high mountain to present before him the kingdoms of the world, can
exercise his power upon the human family, who are far inferior in
strength and wisdom to the Son of God, even after he had taken upon
himself man’s nature. In this degenerate age, Satan holds control over
mortals who depart from the right, and venture upon his ground. He
exercises his power upon such in an alarming manner. I was directed
to these words, “Intruding into those things which he hath not seen,
vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind.” Some, I was shown, gratify
their curiosity, and tamper with the Devil. They have no real faith in
Spiritualism, and would start back with horror at the idea of being a
medium. Yet they venture, and place themselves in a position where