Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?"-i.e., Should the living seek unto the dead! What inconceivable folly! "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." And thus also speaketh He in the New:-"Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up BY HIS FLESHLY MIND, and NOT holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God." Surely these Scriptures are even, of themselves, alone sufficient to settle the whole question!

But can we wonder, when men are so deluded as to reject such precious storehouses of Divine wisdom and experience, as are treasured up in God's Word; and to think that their own natural "darkened understanding" is sufficient to guide them in such matters; that they should, in the judgment of God, be given over to believe in lies! "O Jehovah, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." "Yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.”4

And I would solemnly warn my unbelieving readers, that if they once yield themselves up to the power of the demons and, in consulting them, they do this by

1 Isa. viii. 19, 20. 2 Col. ii. 18, 19.

3 Jer. x. 23.

4 Eccl. ix. 3.

yielding up their will to them-they will ultimately find it impossible to free themselves from them: as many a poor deluded creature has subsequently discovered to his cost. "I know," says the Rev. A. R. Fausset, in the "Silver Morn," for October, 1885, "from the testimony of a strong-minded Christian witness in London, that the spirits haunt, and are with great difficulty driven from, persons who, and places which, have for a time been given up to them"; and I have been told the same thing by several other persons also myself. Indeed, there is only one infinitely blessed One, who can truly "cast out demons "-He who was "anointed" "with the Holy Ghost, and with power," and "Who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil." And if the Lord, in sovereign mercy, pardoned a Manasseh, who "caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom ;" and "observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards; and 'wrought much evil in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke Him to anger: "3 I doubt not that if such persons, when "in affliction," would, as he did, under the Spirit's influence, also "humble themselves greatly before God," confess their iniquity, and "beseech" Him for mercy, that He would in sovereign grace restore and pardon them likewise.

66

2

1 See page 94. 2 Acts. x. 38.

3 2 Chron. xxxiii, 6,

2. I have before referred to the text in 1 Cor. x. 19, 20; as teaching that the Gentiles in their worship did in fact worship demons: but I must now open it out more fully, in connexion with another text, in order to shew the bearing of both of these passages of Scripture also upon modern Spiritualism. "As concerning therefore," says the Apostle, "the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world"—that is, that the supposed being worshipped under the image of the idol, i.e., Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Venus, Adonis, Diana, &c., has no real existence-" and that there is none other God but one. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) but to us there is but one God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom are all things, and we by Him." "What say I then? that the idol is anything, or that which is sacrificed unto idols is anything; No: I do not say this: but I say that "there are beings, behind these idols, who have an existence," i.e. "seducing spirits"! And this "I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons," Sapovíos, "and NOT to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with demons."2

[ocr errors]

Now these texts have a very important bearing. upon the matter in hand: for just as the demons in

[blocks in formation]

those days, personated the individuals whom they represented themselves to be; when there were no such persons in existence: so do they, in these days, personate the deceased relatives and friends of those who consult them: when such persons are not, and cannot be, present themselves on such occasions!1

For "what saith the Scripture?" Speaking of the wicked dead, it says:-"For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything," i.e., of what transpires on earth; "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 anything under the sun." 2 And so Job

speaks:-"His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them."3 Again, when our Lord represents Dives and Lazarus in Hades; and the former "seeing Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom," besought him to "send Lazarus, that he might dip the tip of his finger in water," to "cool his tongue," Abraham replied, that there was "a great gulph," xáoμa, a chasm, "fixed" between them, "so that they that would pass from one to the other could not do so. And when he further besought him, that he “would send" Lazarus to his "father's house," "to testify

[ocr errors]

1 See also page 107. 2 Eccl. ix. 4-6. 3 Job xiv. 21.

unto them," "lest they also should come into" that "place of torment," his request was refused.1 Nay, we are told that such persons, on dying, "in a moment go down to Sheol"; 2 and that they will not again come up from thence until their day of judgment, at the close of the Millennium.3

But some of my readers may perhaps remark, "But do not the first four texts you have quoted in this connexion, refer to a time, anterior to our Lord's descent into Hades; when He took out from thence all His own loved ones, and placed them in the third heaven, where Paradise now is?" They do: but this does not affect the question, quoad the wicked dead, for they are in Hades yet. And as to the righteous dead, we have a text in Isaiah lxiii. 16, which throws light on this subject for there repentant Israel is heard praying, just before the second coming of the Lord, "Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of Thy holiness and of Thy glory: where is Thy zeal and Thy strength, the sounding of Thy bowels and of Thy mercies towards me? Are they restrained? Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel," i.e., Jacob, "acknowledge us not: Thou, O Jehovah, art our Father; Thy name is from everlasting." Moreover the false

1 Luke xvi. 23-31. This case is fully gone into in my "Outlines of Prophetic Truth," under the Section "Sheol."

[blocks in formation]

4 See the whole subject of Sheol, or Hades, dealt with in my "Outlines of Prophetic Truth," Chap. xi., sec. 2, pp. 625-667.

« AnteriorContinuar »