Do you believe that the dead communicate with us? Do you go through your day and perhaps see a symbol of something you shared with a dead loved one and believe they are communicating with you through that symbol. Perhaps you believe it's just their way of saying hello, or that they are there to comfort you, that they know what's going on in your life and they are there with you in some way? I don't know about you but I've seen many memes online that are created with that very sentiment. The sentiment being that the dead loved one is still alive just in another realm. The realm of choice being - heaven, that better place most people seem to want to someday go to when they die.
Did you know that spiritualism is basically considered communicating with the dead? I personally do not know of anyone who uses a Medium to call on the dead for them. I DO know a lot of people who believe they receive communications of sorts from their dead loved ones. I say communication of some sort because I don't know anyone who says they talk to their dead loved ones in a literal sense. Sure, they may talk to them, but not with them as if having a real conversation with the dead loved one talking back to them. Still, they believe their dead loved one is listening, that their dead loved one knows this, that and the other thing about them and their life.
What's my point here? My point is, while spiritualism in the sense of people holding seances and trying to communicate with the dead through mediums isn't all the rage in our day and age, it still exists in many various forms, and in the many beliefs of the majority of people.
Spiritualism- lies upon the foundation of the immortality of the soul- and the immortality of the soul is the concept of eternal life- that we go from losing our physical body to living in a spirit body INSTANTLY upon death. Don't get me wrong here, I BELIEVE IN ETERNAL LIFE, just not in this sense.
While you may refuse to be called a Spiritualist based upon the fact you don't go to a medium to converse with the dead, you STILL believe as they believe- that the dead are alive, just not alive in their former bodies. You are by default, a Spiritualist, believing in the immortality of the soul, a concept not found in the Bible.
How can our Bible tell us plainly that the dead know nothing, and then people insist they do, that in fact, the dead know everything. How can our Bible tell us death is a sleep and then people insist the dead are awake and very active in their new awake state most likely not needing any sleep whatsoever? How can our Bible tell us that when Jesus Christ returns the dead that are His will rise to meet Him in the air and people believe they are already with Jesus and have been since their deaths? How can our Bible tell us Jesus remained in the tomb - not rising in any spirit form instantly upon death and yet, people still believe death means instant spirit life- a life Jesus wasn't given instantly upon His death?
People are deceived. Most are NOT deceived intentionally. They've been given this tradition of man through their churches, through the faith their parents have passed down, through stories on tv, and in books. They believe it because people have used near death (obviously NOT true death) experiences to convince them of this fallacy. Anyone who has ever had a truly horrifying nightmare of crazy convoluted things, or seeing their dead loved ones in the dreams and such can attest to their minds giving them these nightmares, these dream, and yes, some of those dreams have felt extremely real to us. The dreams don't convince anyone that dream images are real, yet people allow people who have NOT truly died to convince them by telling them things they've seen in the near death state.
As a rule most people who believe in instant heaven upon death are good hearted, well intentioned, loving, kind, wonderful, sincere people. They simply want to imagine those they love who have died are in a better place. They simply want to feel connected to them still because it's so devastatingly heartbreaking to lose their presence in their life.
The thing is, Satan's first lie to mankind was that they wouldn't die. And guess what, all those who believe in instant heaven after death are believing that lie.
People can received immense comfort in the Biblical truth of death being a sleep. A sleep. Think about the last time you slept. What happened while you were sleeping? Were you aware of things going on while you slept? Sleep cuts us off from all knowledge, from all interaction. We don't know what's happening while we sleep. We aren't feeling in a conscious way of knowing, while we are sleeping. We have to wake up to become aware again. Death is the best, dreamless sleep ever and when Adam and Eve died and entered death's sleep they lost all knowledge of the thousands of years that have passed since then. The next thing they are going to know is Christ's Returning and calling them from their graves- their dead/sleeping state. Jesus waking them up! How glorious! There was no death awareness, they haven't spent thousands of years watching humanities horrors. For if dead loved ones can see us and comfort us and so on, they can also witness all the trials and tribulations we go through- what heartbreak!
Unfortunately people have their eyes glazed over by Satan and are spiritually blind unable to search out the truth of God's word, because they choose to believe the lies and traditions handed down by man. They refuse to listen to common sense, logical reasoning, sound exegesis, clinging instead to their misguided beliefs. These beliefs may very well keep them forever blind to the truth only to recognize it when it is too late to change, too late to accept truth. The scales will fall from their eyes too late when they hear the words of our Lord telling them to get away from Him, that He doesn't know them. He won't know them because they never chose to know the real Him from His word. They will have believed in a false messiah perpetrated by the churches they go to, encouraged by ministers and preachers likewise deluded. The Bible they claim to believe will have been falsely read, falsely interpreted, and they will have been deceived. God is reaching out to all who would truly be His! There will not be a single person lost who didn't turn their back on God's truth when it was offered to them. Not a single person will be able to refute Jesus' claim that He never knew them, they'll know in that moment where and when they rejected Him knowingly, willingly choosing not to follow Him and His truth. They might cry out they were deceived and not to blame, but they'll know they made the choice from their heart and that heart wasn't right with God.
Don't follow Satan through deception, don't follow Satan unwittingly, you have a chance to know truth.
Please LORD, please, we would KNOW YOU and BE KNOWN BY YOU! PLEASE! Let all the scales on our eyes fall away and let us see Your truth and LIVE in Your truth- by You, for You! Please! We don't want to be deceived, please! All through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior!!!!!!! Right NOW and FOREVER!!!!!!! AMEN!
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CHAPTER XIII. THE BEAST WITH TWO HORNS
continued… ((Note- when this was written in the late 1890's Spiritual Mediums and seances and the like were all the rage. Spiritualism since then has taken on a great disguise as noted in the section above))
The foundation of Spiritualism is the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
And as nearly all professed Christians regard that as one of the leading doctrines of Revelation, and inasmuch as they had no direct proof for it in the Scriptures, and Spiritualism proposed to demonstrate that it is true, it was easy to foresee that a compromise between the parties would not be difficult to effect. And the consequence is just what was anticipated. Tens and hundreds of thousands of members of all the leading denominations, who would yet be unwilling to be known as Spiritualists, are following it.
Many hold social circles, where neighbors meet to converse with their supposed friends, and where mediums are developed. These parties suppose that their conduct is innocent; but they do not consult the word of God in regard to the nature of Spiritualism. They take it for granted that it is the spirits of
their lost friends with whom they hold converse, and are unwilling to be aroused from their delusion. If they would turn to the Bible they would learn better. This work is well characterized by the prophet of God, in these words:--
"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? To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Isa. 8:19, 20.
Shall men turn away from the word of God, to seek knowledge of the dead? Shall a living man go to inquire of the dead? That is done in these days, but the Scriptures utterly condemn the practice.
Thus the Lord said to the children of Israel:--
"There shall not be found among you anyone that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer." Deut. 18:10, 11.
A necromancer, literally, and as the original plainly reads, is one who inquires of the dead. The Lord said to his people that they should not learn to do after the abominations of the nations that dwell in the land of Canaan. He then enumerated the prohibited works, as here quoted, and added:--
"For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord; and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee." Verse 12.
The Lord declares that inquiring of the dead is an abomination in his sight; but this practice is the very life and front of Spiritualism. But it has been argued that this law was for Israel, and for no other people, and cannot bind us. But mark this: The Lord did not say that these things were the abominations of Israel. They were the abominable practices of the nations in Canaan, whom the Lord drove out before Israel. And he said it was because of these wicked practices that he destroyed them out of the land. "For," said he, "all that do these things are an abomination to the Lord." And the folly as well as the wickedness of this practice is shown in the Bible, which plainly declares that "the dead know not anything." Eccl. 9:5.
But one replies: If the dead know not anything, as, indeed, the Bible plainly says, what can be the harm of inquiring of them, seeing they cannot hear or know what is said? But the facts of Spiritualism abundantly prove that somebody or something hears and answers the inquiries. The scripture under investigation (Rev. 13:13, 14) says that these miracles are wrought to deceive; and one part of the deception is this, that the spirits consulted profess to be our dead friends, when they are not. God has stored the treasures of knowledge in his word--in the law and in the testimony. They who neglect this word, and seek knowledge from forbidden sources, must expect to be deceived. Jesus, speaking of the last days, the days preceding his second coming, says:--
"There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." Matt. 24:24.
They profess to be Christs, sent of God; but they are not. They profess to be prophets, commissioned of God to speak to the world, and to instruct mankind concerning the future, but they are not. They are living spirits, the angels of the adversary, Satan. Compare Matt. 25:41; 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6.
Mat 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels
2Pe 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment
Jud 1:6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
But again it is asked, How can we be deceived? We have heard the familiar tones of the voices of our friends, and some have beheld their very faces. They must be what they profess to be. But this reasoning is not good. All Spiritualists confess that spirits have not material forms nor visible faces. They say that these are materialized for the occasion. And if they have power to assume forms which do not properly belong to the nature of a spirit, they can certainly assume one form as readily as
another, and can personate whom they will. And that they do so we are well assured. The apostle says that Satan is transformed into an angel of light. And if he can assume the form and appearance of an angel of light, it is no marvel that his ministers profess to be the ministers of righteousness; that his angels assume to be Christs and prophets. 2 Cor. 11:14, 15.
2Co 11:14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
2Co 11:15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
To be continued…
