SPIRIT'.'
Spirits
Multitudes are turning to psychic science in the hope of finding some mystic solution to personal and international problems. Parapsychology, the study of extrasensory perception (abbreviated E.S.P.), has gained considerable prestige. An attempt is being made to apply foolproof laboratory methode-lof investigation to spiritistic phenomena. Much attention has been attracted by the studies into the supernatura) conducted by Dr. J. B. Rhine of Duke University.
Shaw Desmond, founder of the International Institute for Psychic Research, confidently asserts that, "our statesmen of tomorrow, like some of our leading statesmen of today, will habitually consult the statesmen of the Other World." He says further, "I wilt even dare to stress my forecast that we shall use our places of worship...for the demonstration of life after death, and that we shali find before us the Teacher and Priest combined in the etheric form, which will materialize before our astonished eyes." Shaw Desmond, Psychic Pitfalls, (London: Rider and Company, 1954), p. 268.
Another writer says, "Doctrine, dogma, and form of organization all become secondary to the witness and power of the inner, supersensory life. Parapsychology will help unite Christendom by emphasizing that supernormal element that all denominations have in common and minimizing those divisive elements that have their roots in time obsession." Alson J. Smith, Religion and the
New Psychology (Garden City, L. I.: Doubieday 6 Co., Inc., 1951,) pp. 163, 164. ThTs amounts to saying that feeling is more important than true doctrine.
In an article in "Psychic News," Shaw Desmond says, "My spirit informants teil me, and theyy have never let me down, that the orthodox Christian churches are to become spiritualist through the paths of healing."
A Roman Catholic book, Communion with the Spirit World, says, "There do occur manifestations. Apparitions of holy men and women who have departed this life have occurred all through Catholic history."
Another Catholic book, M r Speaks to Us, says, "We are not forced to rely solely upon human leadership. We have the word of the Mother of God. Mary hes pointed the way. We have only to follow."
Many clergy of the Church of England invite spiritists to come into their churches to heal. Many ministers have developed the ability to heal under the instruction of spiritist mediums.
Mr. Gordon Turner of England, conducts large-scale healing campaigns after
the order of evangelistic meetings. A recent survey revealed that an average of only ten people out of each three hundred in attendance were actual spiritualists., Mr. Turner estimates that 50 percent of all patients treated at healing services eventually become spiritualists. This is the very reason why it is so very important to determine the source of any supernatural healing. But you say," Surely the Devil can't heal! No, not in the true sense of healing, but the Devil can bring sickness and disease upon humans as he did in the case of Job. If the Devil can cause sickness to come, he can also take it away and the apparent
result is healing. It is not tree healing, but from our human viewspoint we can't teil. And that is the point. We cannot teil by what we see. We cannot teil by
what we feel. Our only safety lies in what God says in the Bible. The healer may even coma in the name of Christ and give Christ the credit for the healing, but this alone does not prove it to be of God. Jesus warns us of just such clever deceptions in Matthew 7:21-23. Be sure to.look up these verses and notice that it is only those who do the will of the Father that shall enter the kingdom of heaven. Don't leave this text until you understand it.
The Spiritualist Lyceum Movement was organized in England as a means of conditioning children for the acceptance of Spiritualism. An animal seance makes a tremendous impression upon the mand of a child. A young boy told the story of his pet dog, Prince, killed six months before by automobile. Imagine this child's feelings when in the midst of a children's seance, Prince suddenly materialized to perform favourite tricks and to enjoy the affection of his little master. Just how successful would we be in convincing this little boy that what he saw and heard was not his dog at all, but bne of Satan's angles masquerading in the foren of a dog?
A minster friend of mine went to hear Joseph Benjamin in London. On the way to the meeting place my friend became acquainted with a couple from Cape Town, South Africa, who were going to visit the spiritualist meeting for the first time in their lives because of a printed announcement delivered to their door.
My friend was seated next to this couple in the auditorium. A period of hymn singing was followed by a ten-minute devotional. At the end of his talk Mr. Benjamin propounded the belief that spiritualism is quite in accord with evolution. "Spiritualism," said he, "extends the doctrine of evolution right beyond the grave. All believers in evolution must be considered as obvious candidates for the eventual. belief in spiritualism." Consider how one error paves the way for the acceptance of other errors.
About half-way through the evening program the speaker paused and said, "Among the many newcomers in our audience tonight are a lady and gentleman who arrived on April 6 from Cape Town, South Africa. The name is coming through now R--. Yes,Mr. and Mrs. John R--. Less than six weeks ago the beloved sister of Mrs. R--'passed over to the other side. In this morning's mail she received a long air-mail envelope with a letter and enclosed snapshot of her sister. This picture was taken on the beach at Cape Town two days prior to her death in an automobile accident. Mrs. R-- has the picture with her this evening in the right-hand pocket of her brown purse. And how do I know these things? Because your sister is standing right beside me on the platform this present moment!" Mr. Benjamin then proceded to relay comforting messages from the "departed" sister.
My friend watched the amazed couple. With trembling hands Mrs. R-- took
the picture from her purse, along with the letter in which it had arrived that very morning. After the meeting my friend tried to give them the Bible evidence regarding the state of the dead, but he found that as a result of what they had heard that evening they were soundly converted to the basic premise of spiritism. Are you well enough established upon the truths of the Bible that you could resist such an appeal to your senses? Would you rely
upon the Word of God even in a situation where it seems to be contrary to the very things your eyes see and your ears hear? Are you controlled by feith or by feeling?
Let me teil you of an experience that happened to a Seventh-day.Adventist lady in Michigan. She was active in her church and well thought-of in the coimsunity. She was the church treasurer. She had a son who was preparing for the ministry. 'War came. He was drafted. Some months later this mother, like many others, received a telegram from the War Department. "We regret to inform you that your con was killed in action."
She was emotionally unprepared for the shock. She expected God to protect her boy.,and carry him through safely. She had such high hopes for him. She becamè'ill. For a number of days she was in bed. Months went by and she heard a rumor that other bereaved mothers in the neighbourhood were able to wake contact with their sons who had been lost in the war. Immediately she thought of spirit ism. She knew it was contrary to the Bible and she would have nothdng to do with it.
One day a neighbour lady came to visit. She said, "What kind of a mother are you anyway? Your son is trying to contact you and you are not even willing to make en effort to relieve his lonesomeness." The visitor then told how she had received word that this boy was very lonesome on the other side and he wished so much that his Mother would come and talk to him.
The Adventist lady got her Bible and read save of the texts that explain that the deal cannot communicate with the living. Hut her visitor said, "I don't care what you say about the Bible. You're allowing a narrow religious prejudice to keep you from a wonderfut experience. As soon as you are willing to give that up you are going to be happy and you are going to make your son happy. I think it is fust terrible what you are doing to him," and she walked out.
The poor woman became tormented with the thought. I wonder if it could
be possible? It would be so wonderful to see her son again. She couldn't eet. She couldn't sleep. -She went to talk to the pastor of her church. She told him that even though she didn't believe in it, she had decided to go to this house where the mothers were meeting to see for herself what it was all about. The pastor said, "Look, don't do it. You would be stepping on Satan's ground. Stay away from it." But she went anyway.
Her con appeared at the meeting and for two hours they talked together. They discuseed things that no one else knew anything about. She made an appóintment to~see him again in a month. She resigned her church office-and asked to have her name dropped from the church membership books. Every month she went to mee her son.
After about a year she answered the door one day, and there stood her
son dressed in his uniform. She said, "What are you doing here?" He said, "Why, Mother, aren't you glad to sec me?" She said, "I jugt saw you two weeks ago and our next appointment isn't until two weeks from now." He said, "Mother, what are you talking about anyway? I have just returned from overseas. I have fust been released from concentration camp. What do you mean you saw me two weeks ago?"
The poor woman was almost in hysterics. The son inquired and found
that his mother had been going to this spiritualist medium and seeing what she thought was her son. Of course, it wasn't her son at all. Frj.ends took the matter to court. Do you know what the medium's defense was? "I must have been talking to a lying spirit." And that was all that he could say.
We are going to open the Bible to some texts which will give you a
broader, deeper conception of that wonderful love which God has for each one of us. As we enter into our subject this evening, I do so with the tenderest sympathies in my heart. If there be someone here tonight who has placed his confidence in spiritism, I think I understand. We realize that many of those who have delved into spiritism have done so under stress of great sorrow, attempting somehow to establish contact with loved ones who have been snatched away by death. During wartime, spiritism flourished. Broken-hearted mothers and wives desperately reached out for something that would give them a tangible hope. Many times such lonely hearts would turn to spiritism.
Webster defines spiritism as, "The theory that mediumistic phenomena are caused by the spirits of the dead."
Modern spiritism had its beginring in the year 1848. A farmer by the name of John Fox moved to a certain house in Hydesville, New York, with his wife and two daughters, Margaret, aged 12, and Kate who,was 9 years old. After they had moved into this house they heard mysterious noises. At first they attributed them to natural causes--some loose boards, or perhaps rats
or mice at play. On the evening of March 1, in 1848, the strange noises were more pronounced than ever before. They seemed to be distinct rappings and the younger girl, Kate, having an adventurous spirit, said, "Come on, old Split-foot, do as I do." She snapped her fingers and there came an answering rap. Then she snapped her fingers three times. This time there were three distinct taps. Mother Fox was a witness and her curiosity was aroused, and she began asking questions of this phantom spirit. "How old is Margaret?" The mother and the two girls heard 12 raps. "How many children do I have?" and there were six raps. One of the children had%passed.away a few years before. Word spread through the community. People interested.in the supernatural came from miles around. Within two or three years', there veere 30,000 spiritualistic meetings all from this small beginring.
But, while this may mark the beginning of modern spiritism, it was actually a reappearance in our day of something as old.as history. Spiritism is as old as the world. From the spiritualist manual we take this quotation: "Spiritualism is the science, philosophy and religion of continuous life."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a well-known advocate of spiritualism and an ardent believer in spiritism, said: "The thing itself (spiritism), in one form or another, is as old as history." The Vital Message, pp. 30.
And as we turn to the Bible we are amazed to see how accurate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's pronouncement is. We open the Bible to Genesis 3 4: "And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die."
God said, You are not to touch the fruit of that tree lest you die, and
the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. A voice speaking through a serpent contradicted the very thing that God had deliberately and specifically said.. God said, If you eat this thing you are going to die. The voice speaking through the serpent said, You shall not surely die. Two voices, the one diametrically opposed to the other. The Bible says in Ezekfal 18:4: " the soul that sinneth, it shall die."
God said, If you take that forbidden fruit you will surely die, but the voice speaking through the serpent said, Thou shalt not surely die. And the wonder of it is that even today the statement of the serpent, the one who challenged the authority of. God, is being echoed and re-echoed--even from pulpits, not only in this country but all over the world.
It was Jesus who said of the Devil in John 8:44," he is a liar, and
the father of it." Do you see how this harks back tothe experience there in the Garden of Eden? It was Satan speaking through the serpent who told the first lie of which we have any record in all of God's Bible. That is the first lie, those works of Satan coming through the mouth of the serpent saying, You can disobey God and yet you will not die. God said, "Sinners will die,-..the wages of sin is death."
Now we need a little more background if we are going to understand the spirits of spiritism. We need to understand a little more of the story of creation. Look at Genesis 2:7: "And the Lord God formed man of the duet of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
Many of us have been brought up to believe that when God made men he
put a living soul into us. I remember when I was a boy at home being brought up to feel that way. I can remember my mother talking about the spirit of
her gra'dmother. She told of one time when it seemed her grandmother appeared at the font of the bed. I can remember as a boy, a consciousness that all the while my ancestors were somewhere up above looking down--their spirits, their souls veere watching over us. I grew up believing that way and that has been the case with many of you. But when we are confronted with Bible truth we have to be willing to revise our opinions. If God shows us that what we thought was truc isn't according to the Bible, then we must let God's wordd be the deciding factor. It doesn't mean that God is condemning us or saying that we are wrong. Many times it is simply the result of being partially informed on a subject. When God gives us more information we move into line and there isn't any problem at all.
God tells us that in the creation of man he formed the body of the dust
of the ground, but there was no life until God breathed into the nostrils of Adam his own life-giving spirit or breath. God breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life and man became a living soul. Now, Eccl. 12:7 tells us what happens when the body made of the dust of the ground, and the breath which God breathed into it are separated. This telas what happens when God separates the two: "Then shall the duet return to the Barth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." 1
Back in Genesis 2:7 it said God gave the breath. Here it says the spirit goes back to God. It is the thing that God gave originally that returns to Him at death. Here is another verse that makes the other two more clear. It
is fascinating to see how one text sheds light on other texts. Job 27:3 "All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils." The margin explains that the spirit is the breath from God.
In other words, the Bible says that the spirit which goes back to°God
when a man dies is the breath which God gave to him. The Bible teaches that the spirit returns to God regardless of whether the man has been a good man consciousness apart from the body. It is simply the life-giving breath. It was not conscious before it was put in man; it is not conscious after it leaves. See how clear this truth is made in Psalm 146:4 "His.breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish."
Perhaps this little illustration will be helpful. Over here on this
side we have a pile of boards and over here a pile of nails. Now, I don't want the boards and rails laying-around, but I would have use for a little box. I drive the nails into the boards to fashion a box. The boards and the nails have been used up. Now I have a third thing made out of these two. So the Lord took two things, the dust of the ground,'and the breath of life, and what resulted is what God calls a living soul. The soul is all that there is of a man, body plus breath. Now, going back to the box, let's say I get tired of the box and I want to do away with the box. I take the nails out and put them over here `and put the boards over there. Where is the'box? No more box! We separated the two things that made the box, and now there isn't any box, but if 1 choose to, I could take the nails and the boards and put the box together again.
Dear people, that is what the Bible teaches that God is going to do in
the resurrection. God has the perfect plan from which each of us was made originally, and God'can make us again. The Biblè teaches that God is going
to do that very thing. In the resurrection God is once again going to fashion a body that will never grow old. This time it will be immortal life. Men and women who have accepted Christ as their Saviour will live forever.
Now spiritism claims that these spirits that leave the body come back
to this world to visit people at times and to bring messages. The Bible says that when a man goes down to the grave he will come back no more until, of course, the time of the resurrection. The Bible makes it clear that when the voice of Jesus calls, these who sleep in Christ will respond and come forth.
2 Samuel 23. Until the resurrection, however, they remain asleep. Isaiah 26:19.
David said when his little son died, "But now he is déad, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." 2 Samuel 12:23. You see, the men and women of God in the Bible understood God's teaching on this thing. "For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything " Eccl. 9:5.
How then can the spirits of the dead come and give advice and give messages to men and women if they don't know anything?, Verse 10 says" there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest." No knowledge in the grave. No wisdom after death. `Nów, again to the words of Jesus, John 5:28, 29. "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth...."
That is what the Bible teaches. The Bible certainly doesn't teach that
the spirits of our departed dead are.waiting the beek and call of the spiritist medium on receipt of a certain sum of money. The Bible teaches rather that when Jesus speaks all the Bood, all those who died with faith in Christ, will come forth together. In Acts 2:29, 34, the Bible tella us in no uncertain terms that David has not yet ascended into heaven.
Now, to some of you that may come as a surprise. But it lines up with all the other texts of scripture.
You see, when we take God at His word, all of these scriptures, some of which have been difficult to understand, fit together into a beautiful picture that gives us a deeper conception of the love of God. Now, let's go back to the Psalmist and understand something that David wrote in Psalms 17:15, "As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." David understood God's plan. He understood the sleep of death. He didn't believe like so many people do today that the moment a good person dies he immediately goes to heaven. David was satisfied to believe God's way--that he would sleep for a time, but he rested in the assurance of a resurrection. He rested in the assurance of the day coming when he would hear the voice of Jesus and see the face of his Saviour. David said, I shall be satisfied then. When you understand it in the light of the Bible, you will find it is the most satisfying truth in all of God's word.
I shall never forget an elderly couple to whom it was my privilege to minister very early in my ministry. Their church was temporarily without a pastor. Friends urged that I go and offer comfort; the husband was dying. After the husband.has passed away, 1 shall never forget this dear Christian lady saying, "Pastor Knowles, please read to me from God's word and tell me where my husband is." And as I opened the word of God and read some of the texts that we are reading together tonight a smile brightened her face as she said, "I'm so glad that God says it is going to be that way. The reason .1 was so broken-hearted, others had told me that Axel had gone off to heaven but, you know, all our Jives since the day we were married, we have done everything together. As we studied together from the Bible we often talked of how we would go hand in hand into the kingdom of God. I know that if Axel had gone on alone he would be so unhappy to see me here in my grief and sorrow. I am so glad for what you have read to me from the Bible."
Dear people, in the years of my ministry over and over again my heart
has thrilled as I have had the opportunity of sharing"the.truth,of God's word on this very vita]topic that touches every heart. All of us have faced death, or will, in our experience--the death of a loved one. In that hour we will want to know.. We will want something in the Bible that we can place our hope and confidence upon. God's way is always the best way when we understand it. Sometimes there have been misunderstandings.
God's word says that the unjust are reserved unto the day of judgment to be punished. 2 Peter 2:9.
You sec, in some of the things that have been taughtthere are so many inconsistencies. Many there are who teach that a wicked mar9 immediately goes to his punishment at death. That would mean that Cain, who killed his brother Abel, has been burning for some six thousand years. And yet, the Bible teaches that the day of judgment is still in the future. Really, these are,some of
the things that the youth of our investigative age can't reconcile in their minde. There are inconsistencies in traditional religion, but there are no inconsistencies in the Bible. This Book is our only hope, but men have gotten away from the Bible. During the Dark Ages tradition crept into the church and much of the popular thinking on the nature of man and the punishment of the wicked is based on the writings of Plato and Aristotle rather than upon the Bible.
What purpose would there be in a day of judgment to come if the wicked are already burning and the righteous have already gone to glory? How,can we explain the statement, "I will come again and receive you unto myself,"if the righteous one by one go to where the Lord is? Do you see?
The most familiar verse in all the Bible gives us a clue to an understanding. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not ep rish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16.
What did Jesus say would happen to those who rejected him? He said they would erish; but those who do accept Jesus will have everlasting life. Satan says everyone will live forever. Do you see how Satan contradicts the Bible? "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 6:23. Do you see how clearly the Bible puts it? There is no need for anyone to be confused on this matter.
The Bible even pictures descriptively the final destruction of Satan and the angels who led this great rebellion against the government of God. "I will destroy thee, 0 covering cherub I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth." Ezekiel 28:16, 18.
Surely, God isn't going to destroy Satan and eternally torment mortal
men who have been lured into sin by Satan. And yet a minister writes, "Should this eternal punishment and this fire be extinguished, it would in a great measure, obscure the light of heaven, and put an end to a great part of happiness and glory of the blessed." The Work of Samuel Hopkins, D. D., p. 537.
Friends, this is the type of thing which dishonors God and which causes unbelief and skepticism in the hearts of inquiring youth. You know as well as I do that there is no place in all of God's Word where God tells us that heaven is going to be lighted by the fires which torment the wicked. There is no such teaching in all of God's book. It was originated by philosophers and adopted by an apostate clergy as a means of forcing men through the motive of fear to support an apostate church. How thankful we should be tonight that the great motivating force in true Christianity is not a fear of hell but a deep, profound love for God.
The Bible teaches of a hell, but it isn't the heli of the Middie Ages with a devil armed with a pitchfork roasting human beings like marshmallows over the flames.
At this point, in a study of this subject, one lady who had been dabbling in spiritism said, "If all these things which you have read from the Bible are so, who has been writing on my slate? If the spirits of the dead are not able to come, who does appear in the seance chamber?" That is the question you want an answer to tonight, and the Bible holde the answer. It is so clear that no one of you will fail to see it.
Revelation 12:7-9 tells about a rebellion in heaven. Lucifer, or Satan, the rebel angel and his angel followers were cast out. Where was Satan cast? To the earth. His angels were cast out with him. The angels.who joined Satan in his rebellion against God's law veere expelled from heaven. The spirits of spiritism are not our departed loved ones coming back. They are not the spirits of dead'men. They are not living people. They are not people at all. According to the Bible, they are the spirits of devils, the spirits of the fallen angels who were expelled from heaven, masquerading as the spirits of our departed loved ónes. No wonder Revelation 12:12 says, "Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but ashor time."
Now we understand something of what the apostle,Paul meent when he said, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood." Do you get the significance of those words? "For we wrestie not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Ephesians 6:12. These spirits are not flesh and blood. Not real people at all, but the spirits of evil angels. Does that answer some questions for us tonight? Let's go on. Paul says, "And no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also-be transformed as minis= tem of righteousness; whose end shail be according to their works.
Do you see now how it is that these phantom spirits which appear in seance chambers have an intimate knowledge of the lives of individuals who come there for information? Satan, the master mind, knows these intimate secrets of our lives and his angels share this information with him. This is the pover working behind the ouiji board. The power of fallen angels. This is the power that operates in those darkened chambers. I will grant you tonight that there is much fraud perpetrated in the name of spiritism, but if you believe that it is all fraud it is only because you haven't witnessed the thing first-hand. And to brush it all aside as trickery is to leave ourselves vulnerable to Satan's deceptions to be directed at us at some future time, because the Bible tells us that Satan "deceiveth the whole world" through one manner of deception or another. Multitudes are being deceived through the avenue of spiritism. Human bodies floating in the air with nothing tangible beneath. The powers of fallen angels can be responsible for such miracles. Rev. 16:14. "For they are the spirits of devils working miracles "
And yet we live in a day and age when people are carried away by anyone who can perform miracles. They don't stop to investigate the Bible teachings of the man behind the miracle. So much emphasis is put on what we see, but we live in a day when we can't trust our five senses. Satan can deceive us through the avenue of our senses.
I want to tell you, if someone should come to your city and perform miracles the multitudes would be there, and if he appeared as an angel in white he would be proclaimed as a servant of Christ. Let me warn you, the spirits of devils in these very days in which you and'I live, are abroad in the earth with their miracle-working powers to deceive men and nations, and they are having an astounding degree of success.
Often these messages supposedly sent by our departed loved ones appear to be comforting and helpful. Remember, friend, the Devil is a deceiver. He might send apparently good, encouraging messages in order to win our confidence
in the origin of the messages. That is why it is not safe to go by our feelings. Proverbs 16:25 warns us: "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."
It is dangerous to go by what may seem right to us if it comes froin'a source that God condemns.
Repeatedly men and women who have put their hopes in these spirits of spiritism have had their hopes dashed on the cruel rocks of disappointment. How well does the prophet Isaiah say, "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. The next verse says, "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Isaiah 8:20.
My friends, we can't afford to be where there is no light. Spiritism denies the authenticity of the Bible. It denies the death of Jesus Christ, the atonement of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, and the second coming of Jesus. It denies the resurrection of the dead, for there isn't any need of a resurrection when spiritism teaches that the dead are already alive on a far higher plane.
Tonight, here in Canada, spiritism is gaining followers more rapidly than any church. It is an evidente of the deceitful working of Satan on the hearts and minds of men in preparation for his final deception. The last great delusion will come when Satan attempts to impersonate the second coming of Christ.
The Bible says, "God only hath immortality." I Thimothy 6:15, 16. We are candidates for immortality. It will be bestowed when Jesus comes. I Cor. 15:53. The Bible teaches "The soul that sinneth it shall die," Ezekial 18:4. Spiritism and many popular churches teach that the soul that sins will go on living somewhere.
All pagan religions are based on the immortality of the soul. The Bible teaches that, "He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." I John 5:12. It's just that simple. Just that clear is the message of God's word. If we have Jesus Christ as a living Saviour in our hearts, we have eternal life, but the man or woman who rejects Jesus and turns,his back upon Calvary's cross has not life. To him the wages of sin is death.
The cross of Calvary, dear people, is God's answer to spiritism. The cross of Calvary is our safety against the tremendous deceptions that are sweeping multitudes of men and women down the road to ruin. Men and women swayed by their senses. Men and women putting their trust in feeling rather' than in faith. If I have ever had a burden to urge upon you the importante of implicit faith and trust in the inspiration of the Bible, dear people, I have that burden tonight, for only implicit confidence in God's word will protect us against the deceptions to come in the days that'lie ahead. May God help each and every one of us to place our trust fully in His Word.
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