Its Message to This Generation — The Demons and War — Asleep in a Crisis
By WALTER E. GILLIS
SPIRITUALISM is antagonism to God. The Word says, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” But man, dominated by the “father” of lies, “the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,” retorts, “We . . . were never in bondage to any man: how sayest Thou, Ye shall be made free?” John 8:32; Eph. 2:2; John 8:33.
Modern spiritualism is the ripening fruit of six thousand years of deception. Yea, more: modern spiritualism is “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.
A MESSAGE THROUGH WONDERS
Spiritualism to-day has a message for all the earth. It is a message of perversion of truth. It is a message which makes man believe that “preparedness for war is the bulwark of peace,” and destroys his faith in the Book that says, “When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them.” 1 Thess. 5:3.
The wonderful appeals to man. Mystery charms him. And so history is embellished with the life stories of alchemists and charlatans whose dealings in the occult have caused their fellows to regard them with awe and fear.
WHY NOT THE BIBLE MYSTERIES?
Why is it that the Bible, so full of mystery, so replete with the wonderful, has had comparatively a small following? What alchemist has raised the dead? What occult worker has healed the leprous? What spiritist has taken the sting from a heart, and left peace in its place? Yet all these, and more, come to us with the Bible. And to-day one of the marvels of the ages challenges the admiration of all nations; namely, the Bible to every man in his own native tongue.
Why is it so? — It is because men have been captivated by the words, instead of giving attention to the power. 1 Cor. 4:19, 20. The worldly man has little relish for the power of an endless life received by faith, which transforms a profligate sinner into a humble commandment keeper. True humility has little charm for the one whose spiritual vision is eclipsed by mundane joys. And so we can but conclude that the forces of spiritism have rightly gauged the caliber of the present generation.
Asleep! “A form of godliness,” without the power that regenerates the life, is what the world wants to-day. And that is what it has. The Scriptures, foreseeing this age, outlined in detail its most prominent characteristics: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” 2 Tim. 3:1-5.
Self-deceived! As the Saviour wept over perverse Jerusalem, so He weeps over the world to-day. “They willingly are ignorant.” 2 Peter 3:5.
LOVE IS THE LOADSTONE
Love is the loadstone by which God draws man to obedience. The counterfeiting spirits play on this cord, and induce men to believe that love without obedience is a true harmony; and so the world is filled with such sentiments as, “My country, right or wrong,” and such conditions as arsenals, breweries, and drug manufactories leading the world’s activities.
Photograph by Underwood & Underwood A VIEW OF THE FIVE-MILLION-DOLLAR DAM NEAR BOISE, IDAHO
The Saviour’s mission is to transform lives, and implant in the hearts of men the peace that results from harmony with God, the same peace that is seen in the harmonious action of the laws of the universe — no friction, all working together to form perfection. As the scripture says, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matt. 5:48.
TO OVERTHROW GOD’S PURPOSE
To circumvent this purpose of God is the work of the fallen cherub and his impious crew. Spiritualism is at bottom the united effort of “the angels which kept not their first estate” (Jude 6) to thwart God by destroying the earth and slaying the people. Isa. 14:16, 17.
We who are living to-day are witnessing the final development of the enemy’s plans. That same spirit of whom the Saviour said, “He was a murderer from the beginning,” is the archrebel leading the van. It is of his final defeat that the prophet sings in rhapsody: “Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; that made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house [grave] of his prisoners?” Isa. 14:15-17.
The present momentous war crisis well illustrates the whole history of the controversy. Looking back a little more than one year, we find that when the nations, with their rulers, were692professedly and actually exerting themselves to the utmost to secure the permanency of peace, anxieties and alarms were all the more multiplied. No more contradictory condition ever existed. There were the rulers of the world, with their counselors, like a band of lovers strolling down the highway of time — a highway paved with the material, scientific, and mechanical triumphs of the golden age of human invention.
But lo, we examine the foundations only to find them mined to the deepest hell with lyddite shells and monster guns charged for the destruction of the race. Who could conceive of such a hellish project, or, having conceived, so maneuver the nations that a catastrophe monstrous as that now claiming the attention of mankind could be attained? Ah, the Scriptures reveal the fearful issue. “They are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle.” Rev. 16:14.
THIS WAR NO ACCIDENT
This colossal folly to which nearly all the nations have been committed, is not the result of accident, but is the fruit of seed sown and cultivated. As the Saviour says: “While men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares. . . . The enemy that sowed them is the devil.” Matt. 13:25, 39.
And so it is. An anaesthesia of pleasure seeking and money getting has given to the world a feeling of security, while the spirits of devils have entered into the hearts of certain ones, who have been made to guide men’s minds enthusiastically in the channels that must finally culminate in the utter breaking down of all moral restraint. Useful inventions have been prostituted to accomplish man’s ruin. Scientific triumphs have been made to warp man’s judgment, and prejudice him against the truth.
ASLEEP IN A CRISIS
As the disciples, on the mount of transfiguration and in the Garden of Gethsemane, were made to slumber away the precious moments when light and truth would have armed them for future conflict with error, so isms have been multiplied, and carnal pleasures intensified, until the moral equilibrium has become most unstable.
The message of the spirits to this generation is one of slumber, and then — the abyss. Even the church of Christ is on the enchanted ground, for we hear the message proclaimed: “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem”—the beautiful wedding garments of Christ’s righteousness.
The Saviour, looking forward to this time, saw the church as virgins sleeping, half of them utterly unprepared for the waking time. And what an awakening! It will be the day of exhausted patience, the day when the angel of mercy has finally winged her sorrowful way to the city of God, with the message that man has passed the boundary line, and retribution must be visited on him. It is that time of which the prophet wrote: “The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung.” Zeph. 1:14-17.
Reader, make haste. The day of probation is surely closing. “Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened.”
THE UNITED STATES NAVAL ADVISORY BOARD
False Notions About Meat
THE Journal of the American Medical Association is recognized as a leading authority on all questions in its line. The results of the latest research in the healing art are brought into its columns. Because of the standing of the Journal, the following paragraphs are of more than ordinary interest and importance:
“In common with other modern writers, Rubner contends that the conventional diet of the well-to-do is not even healthful; for, on account of false notions of the strengthening effect of meat, too much meat is used by young and old and by children, and this is harmful. But this meat diet is publicly sanctioned. It is found in all hotels. It has become international, and has supplanted almost everywhere the characteristic local culinary art. It has also been adopted in countries in which European culinary art was unknown. Long ago, the medical profession started an opposition to the exaggerated meat diet, even before the vegetarian propaganda was started. It was maintained that flour foods, vegetables, and fruit should be eaten in place of the overlarge quantities of meat.
“The situation created by the war, accordingly, is likely to enforce on a large, national scale the experiment of a reduction in meat consumption and an increase in vegetarian directions which many physiologists have advocated. Schmidt has remarked that it will be interesting to observe whether the contentions of the former enthusiasts prove true — whether the incidence of obesity, gout, kidney disorders, arteriosclerosis, neurasthenia, constipation, and related disturbances becomes reduced as a consequence of the new standards of living.
“Several factors stand in the way of the successful introduction of the new dietary regimen. It is not easy to bring an intelligent appreciation of the situation to the attention of all classes of people in the countries involved. The lower strata in particular will object to the withdrawal of food privileges they had begun to enjoy. There may be danger of undernutrition where really palatable food is not readily available.
LACK OF TRAINING THE CHIEF OBSTACLE
“The chief obstacle to the successful adjustment to the new standards is not in the nutritive inadequacy of the rations as such, but in large measure in the neglect of the art of cooking among the lower classes. It is far easier to prepare a service of meat or an egg dish than a really palatable course of vegetables. Boiled potatoes, sauerkraut, turnips, and fruits become far more monotonous than a repetition of cooked meat with bread and butter. Schmidt points out that few housewives understand the art of preparing a hundred and one acceptable concoctions involving the use of the cruder vegetables, nuts, and fruits. Indeed, he looks on the education of the housewife in the details of a vegetarian cookery as a great national need in Germany to-day. Here in the United States . . . we may do well to read the lessons derived from the European situation. Practical dietetics has not attained the high regard and the consideration which it deserves among us. . . . We ought not to wait until an unexpected necessity drives our American homes to learn the uses of the kitchen, and to discover that it can often convert the coarsest products into table delicacies.”
