p. 10 | Obeying the Spirits by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 30, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 29.

Obeying the Spirits

By T.

A FEW days ago, a man walked into a doctor's office in a Pacific Coast city and requested that his heart be sounded with a stethoscope. After examining his emaciated figure, the doctor told the man that what he needed was food, and prescribed something for him to eat. The man immediately told the doctor, "I haven't eaten in three weeks, upon the advice I got from the spirit world. The spirits told me not to let food touch my mouth until the coating disappeared from my tongue."

No amount of persuasion could induce the man to eat anything, and he left the doctor's office muttering that he would trust to the spirits' promptings.

It is barely possible that "the spirits" had told him all that he claimed. It is quite as possible and more probable that the man was a bit deranged and had created this spirit communication in his own imagination. But in either case his condition was due to the false belief he holds in regard to the immortality of the soul. If the man did not believe that the spirits of the dead could return to talk with him he would have no confidence in these spirit communications.

NEARING THE TERMINAL. THE TRAIN OF HISTORY, ALWAYS ON TIME, WILL SOON COMPLETE ITS LONG JOURNEY

When Satan met Eve in the Garden of Eden, he assured her, "Ye shall not surely die." Gen. 3:4. But she did die just the same; and hence, to make it appear that he had not told a falsehood, his satanic majesty had to invent the fiction of the immortality of the soul. He had to lead the world to believe that there is something in man that escapes at death and that knows more after he is dead than it did when the man was alive. It is not strange that the heathen world, that has forgotten God, and that consequently does not know His Word, could be led into such delusions as are embraced in the natural immortality of the soul. But how is it that professing Christians can hold to the doctrine in the face of such plain texts as the following?

"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, 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 forever in anything that is done under the sun." Eccl. 9:4-6.

"Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." Ps. 146:3, 4.

Since the dead "know not anything;" and since "their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished;" and since they do not have "any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun;" and since, when man dies, "in that very day his thoughts perish,"—how can it be possible, in view of all these Bible statements, for the man to appear to any one after he is dead? How is it possible to believe the Bible and still hold to the doctrine that there is any way by which dead people can communicate with us?

The Bible plainly teaches, however, that there are good angels sent from God that do appear to men. "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them." Ps. 34:7. And again we read: "But to which of the angels said He at any time, Sit on My right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" Heb. 1:13, 14.

But we also read of angels that fell.

"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." 2 Peter 2:4. Another passage reads in almost identical language, "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." Jude 6. And still another scripture tells some of the things that these fallen angels will be doing as the great war of Armageddon is drawing on: "And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits, as it were frogs: for they are spirits of demons, working signs; which go forth unto the kings of the whole world, to gather them together unto the war of the great day of God, the Almighty. . . . And they gathered them together into the place which is called in Hebrew Armagedon." Rev. 16:13-16, margin.

The foregoing, as well as many other scriptures, make it plain that God teaches that there are spiritual beings that are unseen visitors to the children of men. These unseen visitors may be either the good or the evil angels. If they are good angels, they bring messages from God and are working in harmony with Him. If they are the evil angels, they can not bring messages from God, neither can they be in harmony with His government.

In the very nature of things, the character of the message must determine the character of the angel, and the source from which it comes.

The texts quoted in the first column of this article teach most clearly that the dead can not communicate with the living. So we may be sure, when "spirits" come to us, that they are not our "departed friends." Then the only thing left that they can be is that they are the angels, either good or bad. We submit this question for the candid reader: Will a good angel come to us with a falsehood, claiming to be a dead friend?

Speaking of Satan, the Master says he "standeth not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof." John 8:44. It is in perfect harmony with the author of lying to claim that his fallen companions are spirits of our dead friends.

And in view of the plain testimony of the Scriptures, we are shut up to the conclusion that the only spirits that can visit us with such silly instruction as was given to the man mentioned in the beginning of this article are these spirits of demons. Our dead friends are dead, and hence they can not come to us.

And what a comfort to us it is to know that our dead friends can not know all that is going on in this earth! They are peacefully resting in the tomb, awaiting the call of the Lord Jesus at the resurrection. Time does not drag on their hands, for they are in the unconsciousness of the sleep of death. To them it will seem as if they had but closed their eyes to the things of this life only to have them immediately opened to the scenes of eternity. A thousand years would pass by to them as only a second.

But nothing should cause us to overlook the fact that the "spirits" are very active in this time, and this activity is significant. "Wo for the earth and for the sea: because the devil is gone down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time." Rev. 12:12. Just before and at the time of the first advent, the spirits of devils were very active. And this prophecy from Revelation shows that Satan is again intensely active when he knows "that he hath but a short time." And in view of this, we should heed the injunction of God's Word, "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world." 1 John 4:1. We "prove the spirits" by God's Word. And if a spirit come to us saying that it is one of our dead friends, we know that such a spirit is that of a demon, for God's Word teaches us plainly that the "dead know not anything."

If we become anchored to this definite truth, we are saved from the fanaticism and superstition into which the spirits lead men continually by trying to make them believe that a dead friend is striving for their welfare.