The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE: Spiritualism’s Role in Earth’s Closing Conflict

I. Latter-Day Eruption of Renegade “Spirit” Activities

“Now the Spirit [singular, the Holy Spirit] speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Timothy 4:1). CFF2 1243.1

This text locates the time, identifies the character, and pictures an onslaught of “spirits” in a momentous “latter-times” development. Their influence is seductive and disastrous, for they have departed from “the faith.” A sweeping departure, by such, from “the faith”—note the definite article, the true Bible-based Christian faith—is to characterize the “latter times” of earth’s history, the epoch that culminates in the Second Advent. And that is the period in which we now live. The supreme apostasy of the ages is to manifest itself in the church just before the return of Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:3-10). And this departing from the revealed truths of Scripture is bound up with the paralleling dissemination of “lies in hypocrisy” (1 Timothy 4:2). Such is the prophetic picture. CFF2 1243.2

As we have already seen, Spiritualism has radically departed from the Christian faith. It has renounced every fundamental tenet and provision of Christianity. Note this departure again, for it is fundamental, and fatal. It has rejected the Bible as the Inspired Word of God. It has departed from belief in God as a Person, substituting pantheism. It has spurned the deity of Christ, His atonement, His second advent, the resurrection of the body. It has repudiated the moral law, individual accountability and punishment for sin, and Life Only in Christ-to list but a few of the more flagrant digressions. CFF2 1243.3

Picture 1: Statesmen Moved by Demonic Forces.
World to be swept into final cataclysm as statesmen are moved by demonic forces.
Page 1245

Christians are therefore warned against these supernatural “principalities” and “powers,” against the “rulers of the darkness of this world,” identified as “wicked spirits” (Ephesians 6:12, margin). For warfare with such, it is imperative that we have the “truth” of God, His “righteousness,” His “gospel of peace,” the “shield of faith,” the “helmet of salvation,” and the “word of God”—in other words, the “whole armour of God” (Ephesians 6:12-17). That is our only hope of victory and survival in this final conflict with error. CFF2 1245.1

1. DEPRAVED SPIRITS EVER SEDUCE TO DESTRUCTION

These “spirits” are not good spirits, but depraved, “seducing spirits,” bent on deception and operating with the sinister intent of drawing as many as possible down to destruction. According to Inspiration they are in fact “devils” (daimonia), or demons, and their teachings are consequently “doctrines of devils,” sedulously propagating “doctrines” or tenets inspired by Satan. And whatever is opposed to Scripture is of the adversary. We are also forewarned that incontrovertible miracles will be wrought in a supreme effort to deceive the elect. The Scriptures repeatedly predict an increase in supernatural manifestations in the last days to implement their deceptions and give them plausibility (Matthew 7:22, 23; 2 Thessalonians 2:9; Revelation 13:13, 14; Revelation 16:14). CFF2 1245.2

The message of 1 Timothy 4:1 comports with that of Revelation 16:14, which predicts earth’s great final deception, as these “spirits of devils, working miracles,” “go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world” to suck them into the last great whirlwind of destruction that will eventually sweep over the world. This development constitutes Satan’s consummating assault against the human race. It is clearly foretold in Holy Writ, so all may be forewarned, and avoid the disaster of deception. This will be noted separately. But, we repeat, Spiritualism, with its attendant occult wonders, is simply the consummation of Satan’s original twofold lie of Eden —“Ye shall not surely die,” and “Ye shall be as gods” (Genesis 3:4, 5). The two ever go together. CFF2 1245.3

2. PROMISES LIFE BY DENYING DEATH

Ever since that first lie in Eden (“Ye shall not surely die”), when Satan denied that death would result from man’s sin, he has sought to persuade men that death is only a transition to a fuller, more exalted life (“as gods”)-that the dead are not dead, that men do not die. Nearly all false religions, be it observed, deal principally with the question of death, which in itself affords the clue to their nature. They promise life by denying death. That is basic, and that is pre-eminently true of Spiritualism. It seeks to sustain Satan’s lie by the machinations of evil angels representing themselves as the spirits of the dead and speaking lies. But it is all a cruel deception. It is the masterpiece of seduction, coming to consummation in the “latter times.” CFF2 1246.1