This Day With God

Beware the Occult, August 26

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? Isaiah 8:19. TDG 247.1

Spiritualism is the masterpiece of deception. It is Satan's most successful and fascinating delusion—one calculated to take hold of the sympathies of those who have laid their loved ones in the grave. Evil angels come in the form of those loved ones, and relate incidents connected with their lives, and perform acts which they performed while living. In this way they lead persons to believe that their dead friends are angels, hovering over them, and communicating with them. These evil angels, who assume to be the deceased friends, are regarded with a certain idolatry, and with many their word has greater weight than the Word of God. Thus men and women are led to reject the truth, and give “heed to seducing spirits.” TDG 247.2

The Word of God declares in positive terms that “the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, 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 any thing that is done under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6). This plain scripture directly contradicts the teaching of Spiritualism, and if it were heeded would save souls from the snare of the enemy. TDG 247.3

Many are investigating Spiritualism simply from curiosity. They have no real faith in it, and would start back horrified at the idea of becoming mediums; but they are venturing on forbidden and dangerous ground. When they are fast in the toils of the deceiver, they find they are in the power of him who makes the most abject slaves of his servants, and nothing can deliver them but the power of God. The only safety for us is in trusting implicitly and following faithfully the instruction of the Word of God. The Bible is the only chart that marks out the narrow path which shuns the pitfalls of destruction.... TDG 247.4

What love, what wonderful love, that God bears with the perversity of His people, and sends help to every soul that desires to do His will, and forsake sin! If man will but cooperate with the agencies of Heaven, he may come off more than conqueror. Fallen creatures as we are, capable of the most revolting crimes, yet we may become victors.—The Signs of the Times, August 26, 1889. TDG 247.5