PAYING THE WAY FOR THE GREAT DECEPTION.
ONE of the great, overmastering delusions of the last days is, according to the Bible, that which finds its fulfilment in Modern Spiritualism. Spiritualism claims that the dead do not die; that they still consciously live with greater power and intelligence than before death; that they can and do come back to earth and mingle among those who live in the flesh; and that this is the greatest evidence, if not the only certain evidence, which we possess of the immortality of the soul. Many Christians have been unwilling to concede the evidential value of Spiritualism for the immortality of the soul, believing it substantiated by the Bible. But the Bible explicitly declares that God “only hath immortality;” that “the dead know not anything;” and that immortality is to be obtained only through Christ at His coming. And this is driving those who will not relinquish the unscriptural theory—built on Satan’s falsehood, “Thou shalt not surely die”—to look more and more kindly upon Spiritualism. As an instance of this we take the following from an article in the Homiletic Review of May, by the Rev. H. R. Rae, a minister of influence in the Congregational Church in England. Mr. Rae says:— “Our souls live forever in indestructible personality. Where? Heaven is not exactly ‘above the clouds,’ as our childish imaginations led us to think. The departed may, in their disembodied condition, dwell at no great distance from the living, tho unseen to fleshly eyes. Such an idea has taken hold of many minds. It may be based on fantasy; but the notion, when it does not go too far, is neither un- pleasing nor unprofitable. . . . If we admit this to be more than fancy, and add to it some more or less clumsy rehabilitation of the flesh and blood frame under the name of resurrection, it takes but a little leap to reach the view-point where we behold spirits appearing so as to be known to us, especially if some critical occasion justifies the appearance.” Mr. Rae further on expresses his belief that God sent Samuel to meet with the wicked Saul. After enlarging upon the incident he remarks:— “There is no reason why we should not readily admit the possibility, and even the probability, of God sending His servant on such a mission.” But we do; “the dead know not anything.” The entire hope of the dead rests in resurrection at the second coming of Christ. See 1 Cor. 15:14–23. Such teaching as this of Mr. Rae’s but paves the way for Modern Spiritualism, with its foul brood of “seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.” It is the product of the first falsehood to Eve. Gen. 3:4. It can be met only by the truth of the Word of God, and the second-advent hope.