THE WORD OF GOD VERSUS DECEPTION.
By G.
IT is only when men turn away from God that they are persuaded of things contrary to His Word. In looking away from the Source of truth, the perceptive faculties become so dull that the truth is obscured from them. Looking away from the Light of the world, they must necessarily walk in darkness. It was when Eve neglected the counsel of God, and gave ear to the words of the adversary, that she "saw" that the fruit of the forbidden tree "was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise." In the darkness of falsehood, this delusion seemed to be truth; but it was a sad delusion, nevertheless, and opened the way for sin and death to become dominant throughout the earth. The witch at Endor, whom Saul consulted when the Lord would no longer have communion with him, "neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets," was possessed by a "familiar [or evil] spirit." Therefore she could be made to believe that she "saw gods ascending out of the earth." And when she told Saul that she saw an old man coming up covered with a mantle, he, in his spiritual blindness, "perceived that it was Samuel." "Now Samuel was dead," and buried at Ramah, several miles from Endor (1 Sam. 28:3); and "the dead know not anything. . . . neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun." Eccl. 9:5, 6. Yet there are people to-day so blinded by the idea that men are conscious after death, that they actually believe that Samuel came out of his tomb at Ramah and appeared to a witch at the distant town of Endor. This, too, in face of the fact that the Lord had forbidden His people to have anything to do with such characters. They had express command to "regard not them that had familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them." Lev. 19:31. The further command was, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Ex. 22:18. Yet the Spiritists would have us believe that the Lord permitted the dead Samuel to do two things which He had forbidden the living Samuel to do—namely, to obey the call of a woman controlled by the devil, and to hold communion with Saul. To believe this we must believe one of two impossible things—either that God changes, or that the devil is sufficiently powerful to raise the dead at will. And a persistent believer in the conscious state of the dead will eventually become susceptible to either or both of these delusions. It is a logical and inevitable conclusion. But the superior power of God was manifest in that the fictitious "Samuel" could only emphasize the Lord's condemnation of Saul. As in the case of Baalam, when he was desired to speak contrary to God's decree, he was obliged to repeat that decree. Satanic agency was not permitted to give Saul the momentary comfort of even a delusive consolation. And it was a mercy that it should not be allowed. All the way down from the deception in Eden, men have been persuaded to say and do things contrary to God's Word just because they first turn away from that Word. "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:7. So "the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils." 1 Tim. 4:1. This is but a natural consequence of departing from the faith, and the first doctrine the devil ever announced to the human race was, "Ye shall not surely die." Through this doctrine (the natural immortality of man) has evolved the delusion of Spiritism in all its deceptive and destructive forms. Therefore we are warned of "the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." 2 Thess. 2:9, 10. This accounts for all the deception and consequent delusion that ever has come upon mankind. Rejecting the Word of God, which is the truth, there is nothing left for them but lying deception, the end of which is to perish. Before every human being lies the choice between belief of God's Word, or the fatal delusions of the adversary. Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." And here are the consequences plainly set before each one: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him."