Ancient and Modern Sorcery
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they would but trust in God, and watch unto prayer, they would find
divine consolation. Their spirit would be calmed by communion with
God. The weary and the heavy-laden would find rest unto their souls
if they would only go to Jesus; but when they neglect the means that
God has ordained for their comfort, and resort to other sources, hoping
to learn what God has withheld, they commit the error of Saul, and
thereby gain only a knowledge of evil.
God is not pleased with this course, and has expressed it in the
most explicit terms. This impatient haste to tear away the veil from
the future reveals a lack of faith in God and leaves the soul open to
the suggestions of the master deceiver. Satan leads men to consult
those that have familiar spirits; and by revealing hidden things of the
past, he inspires confidence in his power to foretell things to come. By
experience gained through the long ages he can reason from cause to
effect and often forecast, with a degree of accuracy, some of the future
events of man’s life. Thus he is enabled to deceive poor, misguided
souls and bring them under his power and lead them captive at his will.
God has given us the warning by His prophet: “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? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak
not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”
Isaiah 8:19, 20
.
Shall those who have a holy God, infinite in wisdom and power, go
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unto wizards, whose knowledge comes from intimacy with the enemy
of our Lord? God Himself is the light of His people; He bids them fix
their eyes by faith upon the glories that are veiled from human sight.
The Sun of Righteousness sends its bright beams into their hearts; they
have light from the throne of heaven, and they have no desire to turn
away from the source of light to the messengers of Satan.
The demon’s message to Saul, although it was a denunciation of
sin and a prophecy of retribution, was not meant to reform him, but to
goad him to despair and ruin. Oftener, however, it serves the tempter’s
purpose best to lure men to destruction by flattery. The teaching
of the demon gods in ancient times fostered the vilest license. The
divine precepts condemning sin and enforcing righteousness were set
aside; truth was lightly regarded, and impurity was not only permitted
but enjoined. Spiritualism declares that there is no death, no sin, no