SPIRITISM - A TIMELY WARNING FROM THE RECENT PAST

[JEM]

SPIRITISM - A TIMELY WARNING FROM THE RECENT PAST

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Edited by John E Maddams

Published on this site January 30th 2013

You can download it if you wish .

BEWARE SPIRITUALISTS OR SPIRITISTS AND ALL THEIR EQUIPMENT INCLUDING TARROT CARDS, SEANCES, AUTOMATIC WRITING, CRYSTAL BALL READING, OUIJA BOARDS ANGEL CARD READINGS

SECTION 1
INTRODUCTION
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This article includes quotations from a booklet now out of print
“Modern Spiritism Briefly tested by Scripture”
by the late A J Pollock published in the 1930's by the CENTRAL BIBLE TRUTH DEPOT

Unless otherwise stated as e.g:- AV, The Bible Translation used in this article is The NIV which stands for the New International Version published by the American based International Bible Society which has been revised 4 times.

It is easy to read in English but it is far from the most accurate regarding it's source texts. Indeed it could be part of the subtle trickery of Satan to mislead us, There are over 120 versions of the New Testament now in so called modern English which only goes to confuse us.

I would recommend you consult the Authorised Version in common use, which is the 4th revision of 1769; and the New King James Version, a modern English version based on the same original manuscripts.

Or the new ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION 2007 [ESV ] for greater clarity of the English, and greater accuracy


Section 2
THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IS THE WORD OF GOD
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The Source of Christian Teaching is
1.from the Life, Example, and teaching of Jesus Christ
contained in the four Gospels written by Matthew the converted tax collector, Mark the teenage eyewitness who interviewed the apostle Peter, Luke the physician of Paul and John, one of Christ's closest Apostles

2.from the teaching of the Apostles chosen, called and commissioned by Jesus Christ including contained in the letters of Peter, and John,

The first Apostles [ meaning Sent Witnesses, or today :- Ambassadors appointed by the King [ Jesus Christ ], were the first men invited to become Disciples of Jesus and after them Paul whose teaching is contained in his letters to Christian congregations and to some individuals Philemon, and Timothy.

The teaching of the Apostles is also contained in the written letters of James the Righteous, eldest brother of Jesus, and Jude another of the brothers of Jesus, along with the unknown author of the Letter to the Hebrews,and the writer of the Revelations to John.

3.from the teaching of the pre-Christian prophets whose lives and teaching are recorded in the Bible from Enoch and Noah in Genesis, the lives of the Patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob [renamed Israel, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, the Judges, Ruth, Esther, Samuel, Nathan, Elijah and Elisha recorded in the Bible books entitled Samuel, Kings and Chronicles.
David the king, through his Psalms, the collection of Wisdom attributed to Solomon, the book of Job, the other literature or wisdom books and from the prophets named by all the books of the rest of the OT.

4. from therefore the two parts of the Bible, the Old and New Testaments

The older Church denominations also drew upon the teachings of the Fathers, they were the great leaders of the churches of first century and the apologist writers of the 2nd - 5th centuries of the Churches.

The post Reformation Churches from 1500 onwards threw up new leaders in whose writings were applied Biblical teaching to the culture of society in their days.

Section 3
SPIRITUALISM OR SPIRITISM
IS CONDEMNED BY THE BIBLE
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Spiritualism or Spiritism as it maybe more correctly called is condemned as wrong in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.

The Bible as the Sword of the Holy Spirit and the Power of the Name of the LORD JESUS CHRIST are our main weapons of defence against this phenomena

Those who have studied psychiatry and mental health may regard all this subject as so much mumbo - jumbo, claiming that spirits don't exist. If that is so then they have become part of the problem rather than the solution as they are in denial the malevolent forces that exist.

Paul wrote to the Christians at Ephesus, where he had toiled as a pastor-evangelist for 3 years, probably more there than anywhere else in his travels, [ Ephesians 6 v 12 ] “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers and the authorities against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”.

Spiritism is trafficking with spirits, or ghosts. If it makes it easier to understand, what is called these days, “ the paranormal.”

Some are attracted to it by sheer curiosity The love of the unknown allures them Some believing it to be mere trickery think they can detect the fraud and get entangled with it. That there is trickery in it is certain, it is part of the skilful deceit of the system.

To throw people off their guard is half the battle. Without this ability Modern Spiritism would make slow progress

Seeing that neither Satan, nor his agents are Omnipotent. Omniscient or Omnipresent as God is, trickery is necessary to cover lack of knowledge and other deficiencies
Omnipotent means all powerful.
Omniscient means knows everything
Omnipresent means present everywhere

Hence their stock in trade is darkened rooms, luminous material secreted in the tips of a mediums fingers nails grown long for the purpose, so that a shadowy appearance of materialisation may be produced.

It is well known that innocent looking cabinets used by mediums conceal clever devices for deception.

But with full allowance for these things there are powers that are not human but can only be attributed to the influence of impersonating demons.
Their powers as those of their prince and lord Satan [ otherwise called The Devil ] are limited.

Also the vagueness of replies given by mediums suggests a cover for their ignorance

Once again — and for this class wee have genuine sympathy and pity – are drawn into it with the deep desire to fill the aching void the death of a loved one has made
Their heart is bound with grief and their cry is

“Oh for the touch of a vanished hand
and the sound of a voice that is still”


Such are in a frame of mind too susceptible. Alas! To the suggestion made by a friend [?] that it is possible for them to have communication with the spirit of a departed relative.
Section 4
CAN I BRING HIM BACK AGAIN?
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When David, after agonising prayer, to God for the life of Bathsheba's child, heard of his death he asked the above question in the rhetorical sense of affirming a strong negative. NO”.

“Now he is dead why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him. BUT HE SHALL NOT RETURN TO ME” [ 2 Samuel 12 verse 23 ] David evidently knew nothing about communication with the spirits of the departed.

Bible teaching is plain on the point

The Spirit of the believer – a person is always identified with his spirit – goes at once to be ever with the Lord.

“Absent from the body, ...present with the Lord”
[ 2nd Corinthians 5 verse 8 is the statement of Scripture.

The spirit of the unbeliever is in Hades, in torment awaiting the resurrection of the body and the judgement of the great white throne, and the doom of the lake of fire for eternity. { see Luke 16 verses 19-23 and Revelation 20 verses 11 – 15 ] A terrible prospect for every unsaved man or woman.

The Bible teaches no larger hope, no second chance, no change in the intermediate state, no purgatory
“as the tree falls, so shall it be
All through the years of eternity”

Never any prospect of change.

Modern Spiritism utterly refuses the test of Scripture
It's antagonistic attitude to the Bible is notorious.

A well known Spiritist writing under the nom-de-plume “Oxford M A “stated “So long as you reply to our arguments with a text we cannot teach you. Anyone who can so reply is beyond reach of reasonable teaching”

Section 5
INTRODUCING A TEXT BOOK
“OUTLINES”
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In 1889 was first published a text book for use in Lyceums – Spiritist Sunday Schools 185 pages long it was revised in 1894 and again in 1906. It was called OUTLINES OF SPIRITUALISM FOR THE YOUNG” Today it probably has a briefer title.
The author of OUTLINES had a sub paragraph entitled “The Bible is not opposed to Spiritualism” after it had made this statement

“That to assert that the Bible is a holy and divine book, that God inspired the writers to make known His divine will is a gross outrage on, and misleading to, the public. The truth is the Old Testament is neither more than less Jewish history and the New Testament is made up of traditions and theological speculations by unknown persons A book so full of errors requires to be read with care” [ OUTLINES page 13 and 14 ]

It is true the Old Testament [ OT ] contains Jewish history but it also contains prayers, wisdom. poetry, and discourses.

It is true that some traditions did occur in the New Testament - [ NT ] eg; baptism, the Lord's supper, but it also contains the teaching of Jesus, the actions and deeds of Jesus, the eye witness accounts of the the life, death and resurrection of Jesus; a diary [ The Acts ]; much Christian teaching by people well known,
Matthew the converted tax collector,
John the fisherman a friend of Jesus,
Paul the converted Saul who was present at the stoning of Stephen the first martyr.
Luke the physician of Paul,
Mark a young man - a teenager – present when Jesus was arrested who later accompanied Paul on one of his missionary tours and , Peter , one of the leading apostles Commissioned by Jesus,
James the Righteous, brother of Jesus,
Jude another brother of Jesus.

There are other people mentioned in Paul's letters who are known historically including 3 people from the Court of the king of Britain overthrown by the Romans. These are not unknown people but people for whom there is historical evidence'

Section 6
MODERN SPIRITISM FORETOLD
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The rise and progress of Modern Spiritism is clearly indicated in the Bible, the Word of God.
As here in 1 Timothy 4 verses 1 – 3


1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.
3They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.

The gravity of the warning is emphasized by the way it is introduced “The Spirit clearly says”

( Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, were dogmas of Roman Catholicism the “Counterfeit Church” which dominated Europe from about AD500 – AD1500.

A denomination polluted by evil practices from dabbling with Satanically inspired pagan beliefs from non-Christian religions.

This is but one example of how Spiritism has infiltrated the Christian Church and has led to the martyrdom of millions of Christians who rebelled against and rejected the religious dogmas or non-Christian teaching of that “Counterfeit Church”and were labelled heretics by that “Church” )


Section 7
SEDUCING SPIRITS
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And yet so crafty is the enemy, that demons often advise the uninitiated to pray and to read the Bible. While the immediate purpose of such advice is to gain the victim's confidence for themselves the ultimate object is to undermine faith in the Scriptures. The demons giving such advice are well described as “seducing spirits” and their doctrines as “the doctrines of devils”

A man after much persuasion attended a spiritual séance The spirit spoke through the medium advising him to give up smoking and drinking, to read his bibles and pray The advice was good but the object of giving it was as wicked as could be. Thrown off his guard it had the hoped-for effect. The gentleman put confidence in spiritism and became a regular attender. Little by little he became ensnared, until, under it's advanced teaching, he was led to give up belief in the Bible. He became a confirmed atheist.

We know a man, now a grandfather, who was brought up in a Presbyterian home. He went to Church of England school, joined a Church and was a representative in ecumenical discussions but now is a confirmed atheist, who taught his children and grandchildren to be so too.

A lady, a Christian worker, was persuaded to attend a spiritist meeting. She too was advised to red the Bible and pray. This led her to believe that the spirit of a Christian was speaking to her. When the seducing spirits had thus gained her confidence, they led her to question certain parts of the Bible as true. The result was that she became a complete atheist and became spiritually and morally bad. “By their fruits you shall now them”

It is not uncommon these days for parents to introduce boys particularly and maybe girls too, at an early age to small amounts of alcohol in the belief that if this is done within the family they wont grow up to do so in secrecy away from home and become addicted to it. It may have that effect but it is dangerous as it presents them with the picture of what their parents are and convinces them that it is OK, which in small amounts it maybe, but lacking the experience of their parents they may not know at what point to stop, and go too far, and drunken do things they would not normally do becoming inhibited.

Similarly we may be induced to do things out of personal choice and convince ourselves that they do not present a problem, when in fact to others it is a problem and by the time we recognise we have a problem it is too late to arrest the decline.

In the temptation of Jesus Christ in the wilderness we see how Satan the prince of demons, quoted Scripture leaving out the essential part of the quotation for his own evil purpose and we see how a test of Scripture sufficed for his defeat Scripture clearly indicated deceitfulness as his chief characteristic

“We are not ignorant of his [ Satan's devices “ [ 2 Corinthians 2 v 11 AV] and Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.....his ministers also.....transformed the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. [ 2 Corinthians 11 verses 14 & 15. AV ]

Section 8
THE BIBLE, IS, OPPOSED TO SPIRITISM..
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Spiritists affirm their belief in God as Creator and Sustainer
Deny that the Lord Jesus was and is divine
Deny that His death was an atoning death
deny the existence of the Devil and demons
Spiritists affirm their belief in the existence of an impersonal God
and of human beings, either incarnate [ that is in their human bodies in this world.] Or discarnate [ that is disembodied in the spirit-world, as they term it ]

Their system is simplicity itself. If there be no Devil, Spiritism cannot be Satanic. If there be no demons, there can be no truth in the charge that the spirits that communicate with the living, claimed by them to be the spirits of of departed friends,are in reality impersonating demons or “seducing spirits”. In short, if er are visited by discarnate friends, whom we did not fear when in their bodies, why should we fear them when they are without their bodies.. Thus the way is cleared for Modern Spiritism.

Under the heading of Biblical Spiritism the author of “Outlines” quotes a number of passages of Scripture in the vain endeavour to prove that the Bible is not opposed to Spiritism.

In every passage he quotes but one [ the well-known case of the witch of Endor,] we are given instances of angelic visitation. Mark well: in no instance does he quote the plain condemnations of Spiritism in the Bible. He completely ignores them, This is hardly honest. As he appeals to the Bible, to the Bible we are well content to turn. Let us quote a few Scriptures for his benefit.

Section 9
THE OLD TESTAMENT CONDEMNS SPIRITISM
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Leviticus 17 verse 7
. 7They must no longer offer any of their sacrifices to the goat idol demons to whom they prostitute themselves. This is to be a lasting ordinance for them and for the generations to come

Leviticus 19 verse 31
31" `Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God

Leviticus 20 verse 6
6" `I will set my face against the person who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute himself by following them, and I will cut him off from his people.

Leviticus 20 verse 17
27" `A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.'
Deuteronomy 18 verses 10 and 11
10Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft,
11or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead.
12Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you.
13You must be blameless before the LORD your God.
14The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so.
15The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him

Deuteronomy 32 verse 17

Read it in context verse 15 -
15 Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; filled with food, he became heavy and sleek.
He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Savior.
16They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols.
17They sacrificed to demons, which are not God-- gods they had not known,
gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear.
18You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.
19The LORD saw this and rejected them
because he was angered by his sons and daughters.
20"I will hide my face from them," he said,
"and see what their end will be;
for they are a perverse generation,
children who are unfaithful.
21They made me jealous by what is no god
and angered me with their worthless idols.
I will make them envious by those who are not a people;
I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding.

Psalm 106 verse 37
37 They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.
38They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood.
39They defiled themselves by what they did; by their deeds they prostituted themselves.

Section 10
The New Sodom
Isaiah 1:14
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Is God finished with Israel? He denounces them as "Sodom and Gomorrah" (verse 10), judging their worship worthless, and their prayers an insult. But just when his tirade reaches its peak, God invites the Israelites to "come . . . reason" with him. Sins "like scarlet" shall be "as white as snow" (verse 18). God judges his people not to destroy them, but to bring them to repentance, forgiveness, and redemption

Isaiah 1 v 9 - 13 MAKE SURE YOUR CHURCH WORSHIP is what God wants.

Liturgies, Vestments , Long prayers and chants in a high pitched religious voice, incense, interviews, profiles, repetitive choruses, video films and DVD cartoons , are these what God wants or needs from us

Yes, The last 2 may be useful forms of communication for some people.

Is what He really wants is repentant souls, trusting souls, obedient people who exercise His love and justice with grace and mercy. Thankful people, obedient people, kindly people.

Isaiah 9 Unless the LORD Almighty had left us some survivors,
we would have become like Sodom,
we would have been like Gomorrah.

10Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the law of our God,
you people of Gomorrah!
11"The multitude of your sacrifices-- what are they to me?" says the LORD.
"I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
12When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts?
13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations-- I cannot bear your evil assemblies.

Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates.
They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
15When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you;
even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood;
16 wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight!
Stop doing wrong,
17 learn to do right! Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.
18"Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.

From these passages we see that

1.Spiritism is sternly forbidden by God
2.It is defiling
3.It's followers God would destroy
4.It's mediums the people were commanded to stone to death
5.It is not a new thing it is referred to in the story of Adam and Eve where Satan is present as the Serpent who misled them into doubting God and then disobeying God. His myriads of demon spirits have been busy ever since at their works of deception.

6.Spiritism is not a denomination of the Christian Church nor a new religion, nor an advance on Christianity as some affirm, but a backward movement to the worst features of heathendom and paganism

[JEM]

Section 11
THE CONFUSION OF MANY FORMS OF RELIGION
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It should be borne in mind too that many forms of religion, over 15,000 worldwide in these days, have come into existence since Jesus Christ came. All of which do not lead anyone to the true God, but to Satan the liar who was an Angel in Heaven who led a rebellion against God there and was banished from Heaven for ever and came to Earth and created Hell.

These other religions include

Unitarianism
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that appeared as Arianism in Egypt in the 4th century and did much damage, and reappeared in the 18th century in Britain.

Romanism or Papalism
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that developed from the 5th century whereby the Bishop of Rome asserted his right to rule over all the churches and was appointed as head of the Roman Catholic Church and which dominated that “Church”at least until the Second Vatican Council in the 20th century,

Islam,
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that arrived some 6 centuries after Christ, and has become our greatest competitor ever since. It has to be borne in mind that their leader Mohammed was concerned about the diversity and superstition of much that went for religion amongst the Arab tribes and nations. He sought to abolish reliance upon some 300 idols and get people to submit willingly to one supreme supernatural person Allah.
Allah is the Arabic word for the supreme God, whom Jews call Yahweh or Jehovah, depending on whether they are using Hebrew or Greek, and whom we call The LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, and recognise as the Supreme Supernatural Spirit who created and owns the Universe, to whom all things belong and to whom all humans should submit.
That is what they tell us, but their favourite symbol is the Crescent Moon the emblem of the Moon God of ancient times.

Judaism
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even atheistic Jews, claim themselves to be descendants of the great patriarch Abraham, who was known as the Friend of God, because he trusted and obeyed God.
Moslems make a similar claim to Abraham as the Arabs are descendants of Abraham's first son Ishmael, who was about 13 when Isaac, Abraham's second son, was born.

The claim of the Bible is, that the covenant blessing of God on Abraham passed down though Isaac who was Abraham's son by his wife, where as Ishmael was his son by their servant girl Hagar. This was a surrogate marriage humanly contrived by Abraham and Hannah to fulfil God's promise of 25 years earlier that had not happened yet. Isaac was God's fulfilled promise. According to Jewish tradition as recorded in the Old Testament, the Holy Scriptures of Judaism, Abraham tried to send Hagar and Ishmael away, but it did not work out, as God had plans that from Ishmael would descend 12 kings of nations.

I saw somewhere that if we just declare “Allah Akbar!” meaning in English “God is Great” we can become a Moslem. But that is not true, becoming a Moslem is much more complicated than that, just as it is to become a Jew.
To become a Christian we must confess and forsake our sins, ask Jesus Christ to forgive us, and trust that He by his sacrifice of his life forgives and saves us. That however is just the start, the threshold. We can and do declare “God is Great” but in English.


Other religions that do not themselves lead us to God include:-
Atheism that existed in Roman Times and gave rise to
Humanism and Secularism from the 18th century

Hinduism
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which has a college of gods with a trinity at the head some elements of which appear to descend from the Babylonian religion of Nimrod and his successors, and from other descendants of Noah. Noah worshipped the one true God the Creator of the World known by Adam and his descendants. From Noah there come 7 commandments which are embedded in the 10 commandments of the Jews. Hindus worship House gods – idols – of which there are more than 300,000,000.

Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism.
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meditative religions of rotary prayers, incantations, fasting, based on the teachings and practice of Far Eastern teachers – Buddha, Tao, and Confucius

Followed by a whole range of sects and movements that have arisen since the 19th century including
Darwinism and Evolutionism, which have dominated the Natural Sciences and Geology where many things are now taught as facts which are in fact theories and have deluded millions.
Naturism
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– that gives rise to Naturists in Britain, that in other countries are known as Nudists who are people who believe that there are therapeutic values in living without clothes with the body open to the elements of sunshine, rain, wind, and in small amounts snow and ice. They arose in 19th century Germany and have spread to many millions world-wide, they take a strong disciplinary line of sexual misbehaviour, have a strong moral code and nowadays are aware of the risks of radiation;
Jehovah's Witnesses,[see our web site for their history]
Seventh Day Adventists
Mormons, Moonies, Christadelphianism,
Millennial Dawnism.
Christian Science, Scientology,
the New Age Movement, [ which is throw back to the Gnosticism heresy of the Second Century, ]
the Hari Khrishna movement,
the New Theology arising from 19th and 20th century Biblical criticism, much of it from German universities
Modern Homosexualism and the Gay Movement that has developed from it during the 20th - 21st centuries and the New Morality which developed in Britain from the 1960's.


Isaiah 8 verse 19 - 20
19When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?
20To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.

This last passage shows plainly that it is wrong for the living to seek to contact the dead rather than God himself.
Spiritism is the setting aside of God Himself and therefore also the setting aside of morality, uprightness and every true principle

Section 12
THE NEW TESTAMENT CONDEMNS SPIRITISM
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Let us now see what the New Testament says on the subject, weighing over the evidences as we proceed.

Matthew 4 v 1 “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the Devil.”

This proves that there is a personal Devil. Indeed only one person is called in Scripture THE DEVIL, the Greek word meaning THE ACCUSER

Demon is really the correct description of the myriad of fallen spirits who own Satan as their prince as here mentioned in Matthew 12 v 24
“24But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, "It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons."

If we read the whole passage of Matthew 4 vv 1-11
It further proves Satan's knowledge of Scripture and his use , or rather misuse of it, even for his own evil ends

1Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.
2After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
3The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
4Jesus answered, "It is written: `Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
5Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.
6"If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written:
" `He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”
7Jesus answered him, "It is also written: `Do not put the Lord your God to the test."
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.
9 "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."
10 Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: `Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only 11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him
So we may not be surprised if his agents, the demons exhort their dupes to read the Bible, or if spiritist books craftily quote from the Bible, when it suits their purpose.

Matthew 4 v 24 is most important

24”News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them.”
As from it and other Scriptures it is plain that demon-possession is distinct from disease, but the Scripture just quoted shatters that contention, as it differentiates between them .We read further

Matthew 8 v 28 - 32
When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way.
29"What do you want with us, Son of God?" they shouted. "Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?"
30Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding.
31The demons begged Jesus, "If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs."
32He said to them, "Go!" So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water.
33Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men.
34Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region

Mark 1 v 23 - 28
23Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out,
24"What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are--the Holy One of God!"
25"Be quiet!" said Jesus sternly. "Come out of him!"
26The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.
27The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, "What is this? A new teaching--and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him."
28News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.

Section 13
DEMONS RECOGNIZE THE AUTHORITY
OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST
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These passages prove that demons know and recognize the authority of the Lord Jesus as the Son of God.- a Divine person. - that they are aware of their future, and dread it. Yet they seduce their victims into a belief that the Lord Jesus was, and is not, divine, and there is no hell to dread.

In the Nov 4th 1965 edition of The Banner of Truth it was reported that at a seance the controlling spirit through the medium, Mrs Connant, was asked “ Do you know of any such spirit as a person we call the Devil? And the reply was “We certainly do and yet this same Devil is our God, our Father” The truth slips out in spite of themselves.

John 8 v 44 [ we read it in context 42 - 46 ]
42Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here.
I have not come on my own; but he sent me.
43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say.
44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
45Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me?


Mark 9 vv 24 -29 Note particularly verse 25 and 26,
24Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"
25When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the evil spirit. "You deaf and mute spirit," he said, "I command you, come out of him and never enter him again."
26The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, "He's dead."
27But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.
28After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"
29He replied, "This kind can come out only by prayer.

Revelation 18 verse 2
181After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor.
2With a mighty voice he shouted:

"Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!
She has become a home for demons
and a haunt for every evil spirit,
a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird.
3For all the nations have drunk
the maddening wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her,
and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries."
4 Then I heard another voice from heaven say:

"Come out of her, my people,
so that you will not share in her sins,
so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
5 for her sins are piled up to heaven,
and God has remembered her crimes.
6 Give back to her as she has given;

From these passages we learn we learn the unclean character of these seducing spirits Further that they are stern and sullen and vicious and can hurt their victims physically to a dangerous degree. This is corroborated with the testimony of those who have tampered with spiritism

Section 14
THE CHARACTER OF
THESE SEDUCING SPIRITS
////////////////////////////////////////////////

Often such began with having exalted and beautiful thoughts and ended with unclean and foul thoughts and language being pressed upon them and by experiencing rough treatment at the hands of the demons

A certain Nonconformist minister took up automatic writing as a hobby, at first the messages were pure and pleasant but gradually obscene indecent words predominated Then he began to hear voices and things so preyed upon his mind that he became insane and died after 3 months on the very day he was to lay the foundation stone of a Christian building.

The following paragraph from Spiritist literature is significant referring to spirits or demons polluting human lives

“They come, the door once open, in crowds, in riotous invasion They run, they leap, they fly, the gesticulate, they sing, they whoop and they curse, Mind, body, soul, memory, and the very heart are polluted by the ghostly mob, the and dregs of the rabble, in a word the canaille.”

May God preserve the writer and readers from ever opening the door to such diabolical wickedness or if open already in the case of any reader of these limes may he or she seek the power of Him who is stronger than the strong man armed, even of the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is able to deliver.

Luke 8 verse 2 [ 1 - 3 ]
8 1After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him,
2and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out;
3Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod's household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means

Jesus faced with a man who was insane asked him “What is thy name?” He replied “Legion” because many devils were entered into him [ Luke 8 v 30 ]

[ We relate it in it's context ]
Luke 8 verse 26 – 33
26They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee.
27When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs.
28When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don't torture me!"
29For Jesus had commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.
30Jesus asked him, "What is your name?"
"Legion," he replied, because many demons had gone into him.
31And they begged him repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.

Here is evidence that more than one demon may take possession of the human body. Mediums admit that at times several spirits control them, and thence the incoherency of the messages. They describe how one spirit, more impudent and masterful than the rest, ill often assert full control, and as it were switch off the others.




Section 15
MISUSING THE AUTHORITY OF JESUS
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Let us consider 2 more passages

Acts 16 v 16 -19
16.Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling.
17This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved."
18She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!" At that moment the spirit left her.


Acts 19 v 13 - 16
13Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, "In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out."
14Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this.
15One day the evil spirit answered them, "Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?"
16Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.
17When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor.
18Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds.
19A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas.
20In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power”

The contrast between these scriptures is deeply instructive The damsel possessed by the evil spirit advertises Paul and his companions as “the servants of the Most High God which show us the way of salvation”

Her conduct very like that of modern mediums who advise the reading of the Bible and prayer, did not deceive the Apostle

Observe how the Apostle uses the name of One whom he knew and about whose lord-ship he had no question;
whereas the exorcists mere imitators said "In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out”

That is One of whom they knew nothing themselves
The consequences were disastrous, for instead of resisting the demon and the evil spirit fleeing, as in Paul's case of exorcism, the demon urged his victim to deeds of violence

The would-be exorcists, seven of them , were roughly handled, their clothes torn off their backs, their bodies wounded, and they scarce escaped with their lives.

Consider 1 Corinthians 10 verses 20-21

20No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons.
21You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons.

This passage proves that behind heathendom idol worship, sun worship, there is demon-power. That heathendom, with it's frightfully wicked, base and voluptuous customs is a vast system of spiritism from a Satanic source

But equally much of the church suffers under Satanic delusion too. The notion that the bread and wine change into flesh and blood at communion by the so called method of transubstantiation is clearly untrue and part of Satanic inspired heresy.

Then there is baptism. No one is saved by baptism whether by being splashed with cold water at a font as a baby or by being totally immersed as an adult believer.
We are saved by the willing action of Jesus Christ to suffer for the sins of all mankind and die to save us. We are saved thus by the undeserved goodness of God towards us, that we call grace.

We benefit from that by repenting our sins, confessing to God that we have sinned against him. Trusting Jesus Christ alone as our Saviour, seeking to obey God and serve God relying upon the help and power of God the Holy Spirit

Our salvation is all of God and effected by him, not by us.
Baptism as believers by total immersion is a way of committing ourselves as a Christian to the service of God, following the example Jesus Christ set at the beginning of his 3½ year public ministry

Religion of any kind wont save us or make us better people, only a personal relationship born of trust can do so

Out of that relationship and trust we should do good to other people That is the impetus for serving God by serving other people. We are saved to serve.

Pentecostalism which developed from the late 19th century in America and spread to Britain around 1902 and has grown worldwide with millions of converts as a modern outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

It seemed evident again in the Charismatic movement of and since the 1980's that involves “speaking in tongues” and manifestations of rolling about on the floor and loud laughing. But is that the real thing or a counterfeit. Some Christians thing one way, and some the other.
Who may be right?

When on the Day of Pentecost the Church was born by the coming of the Holy Spirit, many believers spoke in languages other than the one they normally used, and people from other countries present recognised God speaking to them in their own language.

But in modern times there appears to be a tendency of congregations singing in tongues, where as Paul taught that such activity should be limited to a small number of people and talking individually, not altogether and some one being present enabled by the Holy Spirit to interpret the message in the local language.

There have been instances of people from overseas hearing a person speaking in tongues and discovering it is their national or native language and what is being said is swearing and blasphemy.

This is a phenomenon all too easy for Satan to counterfeit.

Section 16
SATAN IS A PROFESSIONAL AT ADAPTING
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


When a frenzied mother throws a shrieking baby under the wheels of a Hindu Juggernaut to appease her idea of God and it is crushed to death that is a form of spiritism where the Devil is seen for what he is a liar, a deluder, vicious and cruel.

We can easily trace common features between ancient and modern spiritism, it is all part of the Satanic delusion to mislead humans.

We see it today in the teaching as fact of the theories of evolution, and all the theories about how the universe works and has come into existence. It is all based on speculations.

It is all one cult, or collection of cults, the same in form suiting itself to it's environments.

Heathendom, the kingdom of the heathen, idolatry
“The Table of Demons” is a system of Satan whereby his victims are ensnared by pandering to their lusts and personal desires on the one hand and taking advantage of their ignorance and superstition to keep them in the bondage of fear on the other.

In sophisticated western civilisations where Christianity in one form or another has existed for centuries, as in the case of Britain, replacing earlier forms of superstition and beliefs, Satan has to adapt to reach people through specious disguises such as seances, palmistry, hypnotism, mesmerism, astrology, magic, illusion, horoscope reading, reading tarot cards and angel cards, use of crystals.

Some palmists simply trick the public but they often serve as decoy ducks for Spiritism. Shintoism in Japan and in other forms elsewhere based on worshipping the ancestors. Animism that believes there are evil spirits to be placated in the winds, the currents, the rivers, the rocks, the trees, etc all to be appeased and bribed into being friendly is all part of the fabric of Spiritism

Superstition, like throwing salt over your shoulder, not breaking a mirror because of getting 7 years bad luck, crossing your fingers for luck, wearing good luck charms, are all part of entrenched spiritism as is every evidence of “luck”

Even wearing a crucifix or an empty cross, if in so doing you depend upon it to ward off evil, is part of the problem rather than the solution.

In hypnotism and mesmerism it is necessary to yield yourself to the hypnotizer or mesmeriser as resistance renders you proof against their powers.

This indeed should remind us we are taught to resist the Devil and he will flee from us”


Section 17
THE BIRTH OF MODERN SPIRITISM
////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Modern Spiritism claims it's birthday as being March 31st 1848 at Hydesville Wayne County New York USA but it is in reality another form of that which is almost as old as world history and will go on to it's close

Revelation 9 verses 20 - 21
20The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood--idols that cannot see or hear or walk.
21Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts

Revelation 16 v 14 “They are the spirits of devils working miracles

Revelation 9 vv 20 and 21 clearly identifies the worship of demons with that of idols of gold, etc and shows how violence and immorality are it;'s accompaniments; while Revelation 16 v 14 adds “the power of working miracles”.

OK modern man does not worship idols of gold. Does he not? Speculating in bonds and shares, amassing huge sums of money, empire building businesses, gambling at casinos or on the lottery, amassing large quantities of clothing, CD's, DVD's or anything in excess that we don't really need is worship of the god Mammon.

Owning large flashy cars just for show, rather than for need, and large houses with much land unless we use that for the work of the Kingdom of God is all part of the delusion of wealth.
The Pop Star culture, is also part of idolatry indeed as is anything we regard as more important than God and doing what He wants us to do.
So Satanic inspired delusion widely effects human beings these days.

We have before us now ample testimony and evidence from Scripture – The Word of God, as to the source of Spiritism, it's wickedness and powers and of the utter condemnation meted out to it by God.

We have seen how our blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, when on earth, went about “healing all who were oppressed of the Devil” showing what He thought of spiritism and how He acted towards it

Yet in spite of this plain testimony a noted Spiritist some decades ago, Dr Wisse, declared “All testimony received from advanced spirits only shows that Christ was a medium, or reformer in Judea that he is now an advanced spirit in the sixth sphere, but that he never claimed to be God and does not at present.

Evidently the Pharisees of the time when Christ walked this earth, clearly understood that the Lord Jesus Christ claimed to be God, when the Jews picked up stones to stone him,

John 10 verse 32 “But Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?"
For they said “We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."

In the Good News as reported by John chapter John 10 v 34-35 we read

34Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, `I have said you are gods'?
35If he called them `gods,' to whom the word of God came--and the Scripture cannot be broken--
36what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, `I am God's Son'?
37 Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. 38 But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."
39 Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.

Dr Hare, a scientist and a Spiritist too,said “The spirits of Washington and Franklin had brought Jesus Christ to him, with whom he had communicated and had heard from the high and holy spirit that he was not the character Christendom represented him to be,but that he was when on Earth a medium of high and extraordinary powers, and that it was solely through his mediumistic capabilities that he attained so great knowledge and was enabled to practice such apparent wonders”

So self deluded and deluded by Satan, Dr Hare was able to utter these blasphemies.

Section 18
MEDIATION
////////////////////

The late Gerald Massey, poet and Spiritist wrote “I do not find that Christ claimed for Himself more than he held out as possible for others . When He identified Himself with the Father it was in the oneness of mediumship. He was the great Medium or Mediator”.

To that we can only say that if Gerald Massey ever read the Bible he read it with culpable carelessness or else made an utter dishonest use of his reading. The Lord Jesus Christ again and again claimed for Himself that which he could share with none other.

Paul writing to Timothy as recorded in I Timothy 2 v 5 and 6 declared

5For there is one God and ONE MEDIATOR between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
6who gave himself as a ransom for all men--the testimony given in its proper time

This passage shatters Massey's contention The daring profanity of confounding MEDIUM with MEDIATOR is awful. A blow against redemption is thus aimed.
It is not philosophy but profanity and knavery.

Nor is the late Massey alone in his attempt Amongst man other Spiritists was Dr J M Peebles who wrote

“As God is Spirit, that is the Infinite Spirit's presence acting by the law of mediation, the Apostle Paul, with a singular clearness of perception pronounced the Nazarene a Mediator, that is a Medium, between God and man”

We may well ask Why cannot Spiritists leave Christ's name alone? They seem bound to write about Him. They seem impelled to endeavour to get His support for their system.
They treat the New Testament as tradition and speculative theology yet speak of it's principal character in terns of highest respect and awe
It only proves most conclusively that Spiritists feel the reality of Christianity and of Jesus the Christ, and are forced to these attentions.

They are not continually fighting against Islam and Hinduism
For either, as we believe the Lord Jesus was what He said that He was, or words fail to describe the blasphemy of His claims.
Spiritists deny these claims and yet describe him as the most wonderful Medium the world has ever seen.
It is all childish chatter. That such nonsense should deceive so largely, only proves what the Scriptures state again and again, the awful power of Satan and his legions.

Section 19
THE ONE EXCEPTION
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In the Bible Scriptures there is only one place where God permitted one who had departed from the Earth to return to it It occurs in 1 Samuel chapter 28

28 verse 1 In those days the Philistines gathered their forces to fight against Israel. Achish said to David, "You must understand that you and your men will accompany me in the army."
2 David said, "Then you will see for yourself what your servant can do."
Achish replied, "Very well, I will make you my bodyguard for life."
3Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in his own town of Ramah. Saul had expelled the mediums and spiritists from the land.
4 The Philistines assembled and came and set up camp at Shunem, while Saul gathered all the Israelites and set up camp at Gilboa.
5 When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was afraid; terror filled his heart
6 He inquired of the LORD, but the LORD did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets.
7 Saul then said to his attendants, "Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her."
"There is one in Endor," they said.
8 So Saul disguised himself, putting on other clothes, and at night he and two men went to the woman. "Consult a spirit for me," he said, "and bring up for me the one I name."
9 But the woman said to him, "Surely you know what Saul has done. He has cut off the mediums and spiritists from the land. Why have you set a trap for my life to bring about my death?"
10 Saul swore to her by the LORD, "As surely as the LORD lives, you will not be punished for this."
11 Then the woman asked, "Whom shall I bring up for you?"
"Bring up Samuel," he said.
12 When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out at the top of her voice and said to Saul, "Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!"
13 The king said to her, "Don't be afraid. What do you see?"
The woman said, "I see a spirit coming up out of the ground."
14 "What does he look like?" he asked.
"An old man wearing a robe is coming up," she said.
Then Saul knew it was Samuel, and he bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground.
15 Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?"
"I am in great distress," Saul said. "The Philistines are fighting against me, and God has turned away from me. He no longer answers me, either by prophets or by dreams. So I have called on you to tell me what to do."
16 Samuel said, "Why do you consult me, now that the LORD has turned away from you and become your enemy?
17 The LORD has done what he predicted through me. The LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors--to David.
18 Because you did not obey the LORD or carry out his fierce wrath against the Amalekites, the LORD has done this to you today.
19 The LORD will hand over both Israel and you to the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The LORD will also hand over the army of Israel to the Philistines."
20 Immediately Saul fell full length on the ground, filled with fear because of Samuel's words. His strength was gone, for he had eaten nothing all that day and night.
21 When the woman came to Saul and saw that he was greatly shaken, she said, "Look, your maidservant has obeyed you. I took my life in my hands and did what you told me to do.
22 Now please listen to your servant and let me give you some food so you may eat and have the strength to go on your way."
23 He refused and said, "I will not eat."
But his men joined the woman in urging him, and he listened to them. He got up from the ground and sat on the couch.
24 The woman had a fattened calf at the house, which she butchered at once. She took some flour, kneaded it and baked bread without yeast.
25 Then she set it before Saul and his men, and they ate. That same night they got up and left.

Consulting a medium or spiritist was forbidden (Leviticus 20:6,27; Deuteronomy 18:10-12), as Saul knew well. Earlier, he had banned mediums in the kingdom. But through his disobedience Saul had lost contact with God, and was desperate to know the future. Whether Samuel actually appeared or whether the woman faked it, the results were the same: Saul left more fearful than when he came

King Saul after a long course of evil was in dire straits
The Philistines were threatening him, and in his dilemma he enquired of the Lord, but He did not answer him. “neither by dream, nor by Urim, nor by prophets”
Although he had purged the land of those who had “familiar spirits” now he sought their aid.

Disguised, with 2 companions, Saul asked the witch of Endor to bring up Samuel.
God then intervened. He restrained the personating spirit from appearing at the command of the medium and allowed the spirit of Samuel to appear
The medium was astonished beyond measure

“When the woman saw Samuel she cried with a loud voice” charging Saul with deception that having threatened with death all those with familiar spirits and destroying all he could find, he had sought her aid.
This is the only case in the Scripture when one departed has been permitted to revisit the Earth for a specific purpose, apart from at Christ's transfiguration.[ Read of that in Matthew 17 vv 1-13 ]
Whereas Spiritism claims that there is continual intercourse between living persons and departed spirits.
And note Samuel did not come at the call of the medium at Endor. God will not allow the spirits of the departed to be at the beck and call of any medium, who may be, and often is, of questionable character .

Reading we find that 1 Chronicles 10 v 13 – 14 specifically tells us that Saul died for his transgressions, including his invoking the demon's aid.

Verse 13 Saul died because he was unfaithful to the LORD; he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance,
14 and did not inquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.

[JEM]

Section 20
MODERN SPIRITISM DENIES:-
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1.The inspiration of the Bible
2.The Fall of Man, human sinfulness,
3.The Deity of the LORD JESUS CHRIST
4.The existence of a personal Devil
5.The existence of demons
6.The existence of angels
7.The existence of Heaven
8.The existence of Hell*

All spiritist people of wisdom, knowledge and love say that there is no burning hell..no fearful devil' and yet Jesus acknowledged that there is.

Enough has been written to prove the above statement but it is as well to place in clear format

so we may all see that Spiritism is the absolute negation of Christianity

Some spiritists are members and even ministers, of churches and chapels and call themselves Christian spiritists. This is not honest.

About a hundred years ago a Rev H. R. Haweis MA of St Jame's Marylebone, a special preacher at Westminster Abbey and a Lecturer of the Royal Institute said in a speech which was published and widely circulated”

“Spiritism fitted very nicely on to Christianity; it seemed to be a legitimate development, not a contradiction, not antagonist. Spiritism had rehabilitated the Bible....Spiritualistic phenomena occurred every day in London as well as in the Acts of the Apostles”

The spiritist author of OUTLINES, maintained that there is a class of individuals within the spiritist body, who...wish to retain their theology, in one hand, and
spirit communion in the other and give the world an amalgamation of the two in the form of Christian spiritualism. It is the old story over again, that of striving * “to put new wine into old bottles.” But all such efforts are futile, and only end in disaster”

This * reference to a Bible verse in a book used by a spiritist to counsel and teach young people, is in a flagrant attempt to dislodge every trace of the Bible's teaching from their minds, yet again that author used the striking imagery of the Bible in order to deny its truth;- ** “Spiritualism [ Spiritism ] has bridged the distance between “Abraham's bosom and the rich man in Hell” – another biblical text from the teaching of Jesus.

How ? By a mixture of trickery and demonology. Honest people will ask for proof, of which spiritism furnishes none.
The above statement ** was made at a conference at Providence Rhode Island by that author Dr Child in 1866 at which 18 States and territories were represented when the following daring resolutions were passed

.1.To abandon all Christian ordinances and worshipping .2.To discontinue all Sunday Schools
.3.To denounce sexual tyranny [ the perceived tyranny of the inequality of what we now know of as Gay Sex ]
.4.To affirm that animal food should not be used

The first 2 are like the thinking today of the Humanists, Secularists, and Marxists. The third is the attitude of the Gay Sex lobbyists and the last, the teaching of vegetarians and vegans.

We have so far had ample Biblical proof that 1 Timothy 4 v 1-4 applies to spiritism in it's prediction that in the latter times some people wood pay heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy with conscience seared as with a hot iron.

Added to this the above resolutions 3 and 4 carry us on to “forbidding to marry” and “commanding to abstain from meat”

Forbidding to marry is not to be confused with the practice of celibacy practised by Roman Catholic clergy, but refers to spiritist teaching of spiritual affinity by which the marriage bond is derided and scoffed about, and in it's practical working, men and women are seduced from their lawful partners, to form unholy alliances and unlawful links with their so-called spiritual affinities.

This during the 20th century developed into the game of wife swapping parties where couples attended a date and put their house keys on a table and then the men present picked up someone else's house keys and drove off with their wives for a weekend of sexual enjoyment with them.

Also in modern times this idea has become endemic in the widespread culture of co-habitation, of living together and enjoying sexual stimulation and intercourse without getting married

Further more it has developed into Gay marriage where same sex couples have elicit indecent and unnatural sexual intercourse, oral and anal and have the audacity on grounds of the European Union's and American laws of equality, to expect to have such relationships that only a hundred years ago were criminal acts, solemnised in churches. That far has the teachings of Satanic spiritism seeped into human society by ignoring the teaching of the Bible and relegating the Bible as old fashioned and unscientific to the dustbin of past history.

“By their fruits we shall know them” is another Biblical text apt to the situation.

Modern Spiritism is the enemy of truthfulness, morality, law, and order, stable society, democracy. and family values.

It is the polluter and poisoner of the minds and hearts of men and women and the destroyer of their bodies.
The late Rev Frank Swainson in an address about Spiritism spoke of the “Three Black I's” - Infidelity, Insanity, and Immorality.

Section 21
“Three Black I's” -
Infidelity, Insanity, and Immorality.
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INFIDELITY
ooooooooooo

In a spiritist book “ What ever is, is Right” circulated amongst advance Spiritists last century and maybe still this may be read :-

What is evil? Evil does not exist. Evil is good.
A lie is the truth intrinsically; it holds a lawful place in creation; it is a necessity.
What is vice? Vice and virtue too are beautiful in the eyes of the soul.
What is virtue? Virtue is good, and sin is good.

The woman who came to the well of Sychar was just as pure on spirit before she met Christ even though she was a harlot, as she was afterwards when she went ti live a different life. There is no difference between Herod the murderer of the babies in Bethlehem, and Christ the Saviour of men.
What is murder? Murder is good. Murder is a perfectly natural act.
What are evil spirits?
There are no evil spirits. There is no Devil and no Christ. Christ and the Devil are both alike

“For not a path on earth is trod
That does not lead the soul to God”

No matter how bad that path maybe whether it is the path of the liar, the murder, it is the path of Divine Ordination and Divine Destiny”

Is this not the general likeness with the teaching on New Theology, and a strong touch of the New Age Movement of the 20th century peddled by a network of spiritist and spiritualist shops around our country and similar stalls and tents around our fairs, festivals and even county agricultural shows and church fetes.

Modern psychology teaches that there are no evil spirits. That it is all superstition.

Modern morality since the swinging 60's of the 20th century has changed the meaning of the words wicked and evil to represent things which are good, great and exciting.

INSANITY
oooooooooo

Dr Forbes Winslow, last century, once Oxford Lecturer on Mental Health at Charing Cross Hospital said that the prevalence of madness owing to Spiritism was on the increase,

The Late Reader Hariss KC wrote “The most remarkable case of medium-ship I have met was that of a lady who commenced with a little seemingly innocent table-turning at a children's party and finished up by death in a mad house asylum.”

A doctor, who was once a noted Spiritist medium, who was afterwards converted to Jesus Christ said
“ I believe Spiritualism to be the greatest enemy of religion and morality that has ever found foothold
in this world. I was a medium for 8 years. During that time my health of mind and body suffered tremendous consequences and I have only gained both since I abandoned Spiritualism.
Today I would rather have cholera in my house than be a Spiritist medium.
During those 8 years the demoniacal side of Spiritism deprived me for a time altogether of my reason, during which time a terrible madness overtook me and during that time, with suicidal intent I cut my arms in four places, and was only saved by superhuman efforts.”

Sir William Crookes claimed by the Spiritists as an adherent, wrote:-

After witnessing the painful state of nervous and bodily prostration in which many of the experiments have left the medium, – after seeing the medium lying on the floor in almost a fainting condition, pale and breathless – I cannot doubt but that the violence of psychic forces means a corresponding drain in the vital forces”.

Surely the above is ample testimony under this heading. Sir W Crookes ' description of the condition of a medium does not attract any right minded person to such a revolting spectacle,
Is this the high and holy substitute for Christianity?.
Is this the glorious effect of truth?.

IMMORALITY
oooooooooooo

T L Harris once a spiritist medium testified that the marriage vow imposes no obligation on the spiritist husband They have been known to abandon their own wives and prefer the company of those whom the spirits told them had a closer spiritual affinity to them.

Mrs Woodhill, elected 3 years running as President of the Spiritist Societies of America, in last century, often lectured in favour of free-love and advocated the abolition of marriage, stigmatising virtue, and responsibility, as the two thieves on the cross.

She said that it was the sublime mission of Spiritism to deliver humanity from the thraldom of matrimony and to establish sexual emancipation

Of that last century it was asked “Sublime mission forsooth, what sort of pandemonium would this world become if Mrs Woodhill succeeded. Well 60 years on her views have widely succeeded.

The late Rev F Swainson writing of a lady of his acquaintance said “ Up to the time that her husband came into contact with Spiritism he was all that could be desired. When he took to spiritism he came in touch with a certain spiritist woman who claimed affinity with him. As a result of this he cruelly deserted his wife and left her to die of a broken heart. He went on to become a leading official of a spiritist circle in England.

The old immorality has become moral and the old morality has become immoral in the minds and lives of millions.

Based in California is a worldwide Adult Website of 28 million members in several languages with publicly displayed still photographs, and videos available by subscription, of all many of immoral sexual practices indulged by it's members, and that is one of several such sites available on the Internet. Similar filth is readily available on the the TV Channels 90-99 and for users of all kinds of mobile phones and tablet.

For those who want so to indulge it is quite easy to locate and a lower age limit of 18 is meaningless as any teenager willing to lie about their age can register a wrong year of birth and be in there Hey presto and lying is endemic amongst most people over the age of 7 including children from Christian homes.

A report published in June 2011 declares that 80% of men in the UK indulge in 2 hours of pornography every week. That is a country where 72% of the population in the census declared themselves believers in God
but less than 10% attend churches. Which God do they believe in?

A quarter of all Web searches are for sex. In 2009 there were 9000 billion web accesses for sex, Half of these were by men and 16% of the total were under 18. At the time there were only 6½ billion people on the planet, 1 billion of which cannot read or write and 2 billion of which are too poor to have computers.

The National Survey of Sexual Attitudes in 2009 indicated that 10% of men in the UK had had 3 sexual partners in the previous 3 months, and a very small number had had dozens producing an average amongst them of 83!. Under age sex and multiple partners are rife amongst teenagers. The length of marriages now averages 11 years. The average number of pre-marital sexual partners amongst Christians sexually active before marriage was 3.

The charge against the “Three Black I's of modern Spiritism”. is well evidenced.

Immorality knows no barriers of culture or age. Humans are either born sinners or pick it up very quickly. Sin is an international virus for which there is no human cure. Only God has provided the cure.

Section 22
WHAT SPIRITISM OFFERS
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In a few words we may describe what Spiritism offers
a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ
in place of the Bible,
in place of the Saviour,
in place of God as our Father,
in place of the prospect of God's dwelling place being our home.


According to the author of “OUTLINES”
“Man is made up of a soul, a spiritual [ or astral] body and a physical body.

“There is something more than nerves that we cannot see, because it is as fine in it's nature as the perfume of flowers. This fine something is called “nerve-aura'.

All above what is required for daily use is thrown off like perfume from flowers which may be made to do much good. As you will see when I speak of healing by laying on of hands.

Our spiritual bodies are formed of this fine nerve-aura which is spiritualised matter.

When our spiritual friends and guardians visit us they look at for our spiritual bodies and by their purity or otherwise, they can see at a glance what kind of lives we live.

People who indulge in evil habits, such as opium or tobacco smoking, laudanum, intoxicating drink, carry the appetite with them at death.
It is because some of the narcotic and alcohol from these things help to compose the spiritual body, that they crave or hunger for their kind.
So these spirit people seek those in the body who still indulge in these bad habits and get their craving satisfied through other people”[“Outlines” page 30-32]

And people who are too clever to believe the Bible with it's majesty and truth, proved to be God's word by so “many infallible proofs” such as the fulfilment of prophecy, and it's marvellous moral effects on mankind, are so foolish as to believe such bombastic nonsense put forward without one atom of proof. To be taken without question because we are told it is so, or at best because departed spirits [ personating demons ] tell us it is so; or that those endowed, as they say, by high mediumistic powers, take mysterious journeys in their astral bodies and manage to remember in rare cases what they have seen, I confess I am not credulous enough to become a Spiritist.

If the Bible had offered no better proof of it's verity [ truth ]it would not have been accepted by any sane person for one moment.

Spiritists are most incredulous where Christianity is concerned, but most credulous otherwise. “Blind guides who strain out the gnat, but drink down the camel” [Matthew 23 v 24 NT]

So we read on from OUTLINES page 33:-
“I have explained to you how the spirit-body is formed – that I is the spiritualised or refined particles of our physical body: so that you will understand me when I tell you that the spirit world is made up of refined or spiritualised particles given off by the earth. Every blade of grass, every tiny flower, every shrub and tree, insect and animal by their lives cause matter to become refined and spiritualised, which then ascend high above the clouds, and there spreads out in a broad belt, and surrounds the Earth, like the rings of Saturn surround that planet. There are a great number of rings or zones, one beyond the other, which may be called spirit worlds.

Then we read on that after death if the spiritual life is kind, gentle and good, the grosser elements of the spiritual body are eliminated, leaving the body more refined and spiritual, so that it can rise into a higher zone.

This zone in turn is composed of more refined and spiritualised elements eliminated from this higher zone, and the third zone is composed of still more refined and spiritualised elements from the second, and so on.


Then follows a description of the spiritist worlds which are conspicuous of it's utter lack of imagination and originality. Beautiful grass decked with flowers, lofty trees, rippling streams, silver and golden sands, crystal rocks, birds singing, real homes build of beautiful stones, vines climbing, sending forth white, pink, violet and amber coloured flowers, rose embowered avenues,alcoves, grottoes, fountains in full play, showing all the colours of the rainbow, is the description given.
This is all very similar to the descriptions of existence recalled by people who have near death experiences or who are resuscitated after a sudden death. Examples of their testimonies of which are sold on the open market for all to read.

Where is the proof for all this?

In the “Outlines” book - the bible of Spiritism. reference was made to a Mr Andrew Jackson Davis, An American called the Poughkeepsie Seer, described by the author of “Outlines”, as a well known “sensitive”who could remember his “spiritual wanderings or experience”.

He claims to have made several journeys to the Spirit world under the guidance of one of his guardian angels,
His experiences were described by the author of “Outline” as to “ fill people's hearts with joy, and cause mourning parents to dry their tears”

Yet the writer of these original chapters, the late A J Pollock of the Plymouth Brethren who is exposing Spiritism for what it is, wrote “ I for one have lived the larger half of my life without ever hearing the name of Mr Davis or his wonderful wanderings, [ or were they just mental? ] Nor should I have heard of them unless I had diligently enquired about Modern Spiritism.
I have lived in England, and travelled in America, and no spiritist has ever spoken to me of his light and joy, no spiritist book 0t tract have I ever been offered or seen being offered in the street or sold in a bookshop

I have seem no evangelist of the wonderful cult standing in the open air trying to share this wonderful news and endeavouring to enlighten the poor benighted Christians. Others may have but I have never I can only come to the conclusion that Modern Spiritism works largely in a secret crafty way.

We have now had ample proof from the Scriptures, that is the Bible, as to what Spiritism is.

Section 23
Spiritism is in reality Demonism
//////////////////////////////////////////////////

Demonism - that which psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, psychologists tell us no longer exist and never existed.
That rationalists do not believe exist. That atheists who are part of the problem rather than the solution do not believe exist.

Demonism - that most of the worldly experts reject as even possible.

Indeed in some way or other in this cult every form of evil has it's origin

Heathendom that ruled this world between from Noah and Jesus is Spiritism

That Spiritism Old and New. Ancient and Modern has spawned The New Theology, The New Age Movement, Christadelphianism, Scientology,
Christian Science, Seventh Day Adventism, Millennial Dawnism, Mormonism [ the Church of Latter Day Saints], Marxism, Theosophy, Nazism, Maoism, Darwinism and the theories of Evolution, the wild aggressive Islamist cults, and most of the 15,000 religions across this planet.

All bear features of their common parent. They may vary as to details and contradict each other, as for instance Milliennial Dawnism repudiates Modern Spiritism, for Satan must have many baits for many minds, but the essence of all evil teaching is Satanic, and therefore Spiritism in it's essence.



Section 24
SPIRITUAL GIFTS
oooooooooooooooo

Not to be confused with the Spiritual gifts of God the Holy Spirit given to Christians

The author of “OUTLINES” under this heading tells us that the spiritual body has the senses of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling; in addition he describes the means taken by their spirit friends, in reality personating demons, to convince people of the reality of the spirit world. He lists the following:-

.1.Clairvoyance: that is seeing spiritist beings and things.
.2.Clair -Audience:that is hearing spiritist voices and music.
.3. Trance-speaking, in which the mediums are quite unconscious of what is being said through them.
[ If they were conscious they might object to the utter nonsense often put into their mouths ]
.4. Speaking in unknown tongues: [ this is rapidly spreading in another connections and is a sign of the “last days” ] [ Remember this was written early in the 20th century ]

*********************************************************
Many people from pre-modern Pentecostalism Churches are disturbed by the revival of this gift in some churches, after centuries of absence, from 1900 and amongst the movement called Charismatic since the 1980's associated with the strange phenomena or of the Toronto Blessing, with recipients of the spirit writhing in ecstasy on the floor making hooting and laughing noises.

In that, that similar experience occurred at the Church where the ALPHA course began, which has spread over a decade, to thousands of churches world wide, some churches of older traditions are cautious about adopting these courses.

Even if speaking in tongues is legitimate in churches
and in private devotions, it is capable of being counterfeited by Satan unless it is followed by exercise of the Christian spiritual gift of Interpretation through the speaker of the tongue in their own normal language or by some other Christian in the congregation exercising it.

On the Day of Pentecost the early disciples having received the Holy Spirit of God praised God in unknown tongues, languages unknown to those speaking them, but outside in the street as the disciples came out doing so, Jews from many surrounding nations present in Jerusalem for the annual festival heard God's message in their own native languages.
This gift was exercised in the early Church, but St Paul warned that at any one service the number using such a gift should be limited and it's exercise properly controlled and pointed out that strangers coming in would regard these tongues as gibberish and not understanding would go away and not return.
Paul also taught that this “gift” would die of use as time went on, which was what happened.
*********************************************************
.5.The power to describe the identity of the spirit-world.
.6.The gift of inspiration;which enables people to give discourses on almost any subject without any pre-preparation. [ I recall a preacher in our Church who used to read my reports in the local newspaper of what was preached on Sunday when he had done so, as he preached without notes and had no recollection of what he had said. He taught in the local secondary school where many students regarded him as the biggest hypocrite as he was for ever shouting and swearing. I am not claiming he was demon possessed but there is a warning here to us ]
.7.The gift of spiritist writing, where the hand writes long messages without the mediums paying the least attention to what they are writing [ We can understand that claim when we see the meaningless nonsense ascribed to the supposed spirits of clever men]
.8.The gift of physical manifestations: that is the moving of tables, chairs, etc about the room when no one is near them.
.9.The carrying of instruments about the room being played by invisible fingers
.10.Bringing of flowers and fruit into the room when all the doors are locked. This is also a trick of magicians and conjurers by slight of hands
.11.Levitation: that is that the medium is able to rise and float in the air with no one touching him
.12.The writing between closed slates
.13.Fire taken into the naked hand without injury and placed on people's heads
.14.Muslin dresses; when spirit friends [ or should it read fiends?] can be seen with the naked eye.
.15.Spirit photography; when spirit people appear on a picture by the side of the sitter
.16.The gift of healing by the laying on of hands

Mr Home a very leading medium, some decades ago is said to have done very wonderful things. Yet the late Reader Harris KC narrated how he went with his father who was summoned to a Dr Cully's house in Malvern where Mr Home lay dying, in order to make his will. Reader Harris testified that the rapping of spirits, and the general turmoil among the furniture rendered the task impossible The demons were already claiming their victim with noisy exaltation and anticipation.

Is there anything uplifting and helpful in all this?
Anything truly spiritual or ennobling?
Is there anything to redeem the whole thing from sordidness? Anything to proclaim a celestial source? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
It carries it's own condemnation on it's face.

Then when we are told in “OUTLINES” that in the spirit world souls may do wrong as they do here. When they do they reap what they sow, and are punished, and thus they are gradually purified and blessed – they become their own saviours, though why there they should need to be saved there seems a mystery.

Section 25
SELF SALVATION
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There used to be in Roman Catholic lands a ritual of self flagellation sometimes also associated with pagan Hindu practices, with groups of half naked men parading in the streets whipping themselves with hand whips of leather with bits of metal, bone or stone embedded in them, as likened to the whip used by the Roman soldiers to rip apart the flesh of Jesus before he was crucified. They did this in the misplaced belief that in doing this to themselves they could “save themselves” gain benefit after death, be purified and made holy.

This idea also grew up in prep-schools and public boarding schools where the cane was used on males from 9 – 16 frequently to punish them for all their misdemeanours and the culture grew up amongst them that this was the way to forgiveness.
In modern British education the cane has been banned and replaced by a system of detentions, impositions, exclusions and ultimate expulsion.

However there has grown up a culture across the country of CP Clubs where men go and for a subscription and after signing a form that releases from risk of prosecution the trained lictors, they submit themselves to, they can be being spanked, caned, birched, whipped, strapped, or paddled, using what ever punishment tool they prefer, in the belief that by such self inflicted punishment they can cleanse themselves of the wrong things and guilt in their lives that they want to be free from. They also do this not once but on a regular basis.

These beatings can be inflicted across their buttocks as in the old days at school, with them wearing trousers, sports shorts, leather or onto bare skin and they can choose beforehand how many strokes to receive and these are often a lot more than the Six of the Best laid down by the 1948 Education Act for troublesome teenagers.

Some of these clubs are for Gay men only and others for Straight men or mixed, and some are for mixed gender groups. There is a lower legal age limit of 18 but surprisingly many males between 14 – 18 get into them by lying about their age.
The original lictors in these clubs being retired experienced headmasters and housemasters but as they grow too weak, younger men in their 20's and 30's are learning the “trade” to replace them.

This cult represents another form that spiritism has taken, convincing people that they can be forgiven of their sins by accepting punishment. Where as only God through Jesus Christ can forgive sins, and those who are the victims of the sin of others may forgive them for what they do to them, but all of us needs God's forgiveness, and that Jesus Christ paid the penalty and accepted the punishment for once for everyone for all time around AD 33.

Section 26
SPIRITISM WORKS IN SECRET
AND PREYS ON DOUBT
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

In “OUTLINES” while there is a stout refusal of the doctrine of total depravity, and the fall of mankind is denied* there is no attempt whatever to adequately explain the awful sorrow and suffering in this world, and the still more awful sorrow of death. It simply shirks a responsibility to face this fact

[ * Thus by man's intellectual faculties, moral powers, and spiritual nature, he is “God made manifest in the flesh” Again Scripture is quoted for the most striking expression of this truly blasphemous remark. ]

We are told that “God is too good to allow mankind's fall or the existence of what is malevolent”, like Satan and his demons; but the present awful state of things which God has allowed for His own wise and inscrutable purpose the author of “OUTLINES” shirked and must shirk.

He throws away the only lamp of truth The Word of God.

Can we wonder that he and they walk in darkness, and that his wisdom is folly indeed, fraught with awful consequences?

A Dr P B Randolph. Once a celebrated medium, during the time that he seceded from this awful system, said with terrible sarcasm, and biting truth, in an speech in New York speaking of Spiritist beliefs, that- “God. Nature, love, panthea, rarefied gas, sublimated oxygen, and ether by this lexicon are convertible terms and essences”.

Spiritism works in secret and infiltrates otherwise good things and good people. It deludes and misleads.

It preys on grief, ignorance, fear, misunderstanding. The main purpose of the séance is to make contact through a medium with someone who is dead

What happens to us when we die? Our soul leaves as a vapour and our bodies go limp and begin to decompose ultimately to a liquid and a gas and then to just a skeleton. If the body is cremated at very high temperatures even the bone becomes dust. In effect the body becomes energy and maybe reused

2 Corinthians 5 v 8
The Soul or Spirit of those who trust and thereby know Jesus, go to be where he is As quoted in Paul's Second letter to the Christians at Corinth, chapter 5 verse 8
“ We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord”

The Soul or Spirit of those who do not trust and thereby do not know Jesus, goes to Hades, in torment awaiting the resurrection of the body and the day of Judgement and the doom of the lake of eternal fire

Read Luke 16 v 19 - 23

19"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day.
20At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores
21and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22"The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried.
23In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.


And read Rev 20 v 11 - 15
11Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.
12And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.
13The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done.
14Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.
15If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

The fire is eternal and some commentators suggest such people will suffer punishment by flame for all eternity, but elsewhere Jesus spoke of the destruction, and fire consumes destroys and burns may be into energy. Those that cannot understand how the Love of God could torment anyone for ever, may prefer to believe in total destruction rather than everlasting punishment. Either interpretation is just as frighteningly final. It is a terrible prospect for every unsaved man and woman. Nor do The scriptures of the Bible offer any intermediate state between Earth and Heaven where we can get a second chance

Yet of Earth's population of 7 billion, 2.3 billion claim to be Christians destined for Heaven while the rest are destined to Hades, Judgement and Hell and so few seem worried by the prospect.

The rise of Modern Spiritism was foretold or prophesied in the Bible by the Apostle Paul in a letter to a younger Church pastor Timothy

“Now the Holy Spirit speaks expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils [ demons ]; speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God has created to be received with thanksgiving of them that believe and know the truth


Section 27
WATERING DOWN
BIBLE BASED DOCTRINES
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At the time when the various branches of Methodism came together to form one denomination a meeting was held in London to celebrate this fact at which an unusual letter was read. The Rev. W. B, Lark read this message

Mansion No 4
New Jerusalem
1709 – 1907

Congratulations on the union of free and progressive Methodism. We are in hearty sympathy with your best aspirations. Be sure to be true to “the inner light, the larger hope, the higher criticism, and universal redemption –and victory is assured”.
JOHN and CHARLES WESLEY
PS Oh! That the world might taste and see
The riches of his grace
The arms of love that bind them
Would all mankind embrace.
Further the Conference may know that we have learned a great deal since our translation to a higher life.

The honoured names of John and Charles Wesley were here invoked to give weight to the “inner light”, that is the doctrine of the immanence of God; “ the larger hope”,”universal redemption” and “ the higher criticism” which reduces the Bible below the level of an ordinary book.
The Higher Criticism tears the Bible to pieces as being full of mistakes and treats it's chief doctrines as being untrue.
It's doctrines – teaching – are not untrue but mistakes have crept in over the centuries during the copying by hand of manuscripts, early printing mistakes and faults in translation.
That such a letter could be read under such circumstances at such an important event, shows to what length things have gone wrong and at what a terrific pace we are traveling [ and it is much faster and more furious today in the 21st century with much of the Church so off course.]

In the light of the steady decline of Methodism, the closing of many of the village chapels begun by the Primitive Methodist Societies maybe we can see why.

Methodism, was built as were the General Baptists on the Arminian theology of universal salvation, that the Gospel must be preached to everyone that all may know of salvation. But Salvation is available only to those who repent and believe on Jesus Christ, not merely to those who believe.
There must be repentance of sin, a change of heart, for the benefits of salvation to have effect

The Quakers too having rejected the Trinity of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, have replaced this with the Inner Light.

The Higher Criticism, much of it coming out of 19th and 20th century Germany, a land riddled with spiritism before the world wars has pulled the Bible apart and discredited some of the principle teaching of Christ

Some decades ago this country was startled by a leading London Daily, printing a letter purporting to have come from the late great 19th century Parliamentarian and Prime Minister, W E Gladstone , giving his judgment on a political measure engaging the attention of the House of Commons at that time
The late W. T. Stead dared to put Gladstone's name to the letter to increase it's credibility and it caused widespread astonishment
The Daily Mirror in closing a correspondence on
“Is there a Spirit World” declared
“There can be no doubt in the minds of those who have followed our correspondence that a vast number of people believe they have found this rock [ solid rock certainty as to the future life ] in Spiritualism [ Spiritism] “A MUCH VASTER NUMBER THAN IS GENERALLY SUPPOSED” This is terribly significant,


Section 28
THE POWER OF CHRIST'S NAME
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While it is well that we should be aware, especially at this present time, of the awful power of Satan, of his crafty, insidious and ceaseless activity in the world , the believer has no need to be personally afraid, of only he keeps close to the Lord and cleaves to His word.
Read James 4 verse 7 in it's context
4You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
5Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?
6But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.
10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.

And then in 1 Peter 5 verses 8 and 9
8Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
9Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

Ephesians 6 verses 10 – 13 The Armour of God


10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power
11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.
12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
13 Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place,
15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Ephesians concludes with this concise analogy, perhaps inspired by a glimpse of a Roman soldier, outfitted in armour, patrolling the grounds of Paul's prison. Paul viewed the Christian life as a kind of warfare, and he wanted his readers to prepare for combat with a dangerous opponent. Bible scholars often note two details: 1) Only the "sword of the Spirit" is an offensive weapon; all the rest were used for defense. 2) No armour protects the back and rear; Paul made no provision for running away from a spiritual battle.
And now the Apostle John chips in

1 John 4 verse 4
You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world

How interesting and encouraging it is to reflect upon these passages There is a need for vigilance, for being strong in the Lord. For wearing the breastplate of righteousness, with truth drawn in about us, but with no need for alarm or dread.

We may walk serenely through this evil world. Conscious of the enemy, just as Elisha was calm, conscious that unseen by mortal eyes. He was protected by the mountain being surrounded by horses and chariots of fire,
Another illustration of this will readily occur to a student of the Bible's mind. With all the glittering rewards of divination within the reach of the covetous Balaam, if only he would curse God's people he was obliged to cry our
“There is no sorcery against Jacob,
no divination against Israel. It will now be said of Jacob
and of Israel, `See what God has done!' as recorded in Numbers 23 verse 23

A Spiritist in Bradford invited a Christian neighbour to a séance. The Christian refused many times but finally gave in to stop her repetitive invitations.

As she sat in the meeting the Medium who had not met her before declared that the Meeting could not proceed as there was a Christian present, and would she pleased leave. The Christian woman remained in her seat. A few minutes later the Medium repeated her request that they could not continue because there was a Christian present and would she leave. The Christian woman left and her neighbour told her later that the meeting then continued as normal with no interruption. The presence of Jesus Christ in a Christian's life hindered the Devil from his work. Such is the power of Christ's name. Even the presence of one Christian woman was sufficient to arrest the power of evil.

Let us here read Psalm 91 2-11 and note particularly verse 7
2: I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."
3 Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare
and from the deadly pestilence.
4He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
5You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
6nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.
7A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.
8You will only observe with your eyes
and see the punishment of the wicked.
9If you make the Most High your dwelling--
even the LORD, who is my refuge--
10then no harm will befall you,
no disaster will come near your tent.
11For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
12 He will lift you up in his hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone”

Satan knows Scripture. He quoted this promise in verse 12 to Jesus when tempting him to spiritual arrogance (see Matthew 4:6). Jesus recognized that Satan had twisted its meaning. The magnificent assurances in this psalm encourage us to rest in God, not test him

Section 29
THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY
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2 Thessalonians 2 v 7 declares “For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so until he is taken out of the way”

We may not be surprised at the way evil abounds
Scripture predicts it. The world is getting worse.
Eventually Antichrist - the man of sin – will be revealed and then shall be seen as the transformation of evil into a god, when man shall be worshiped as God.

But the more widespread the evil, and the darker the night, the nearer is the triumph of Christ, the nearer is the day of glory when He shall reign as King of kings and Lord of lords. His foes shall indeed be made his footstool.

All evil in this world is like one great tree, whose roots are struck deep in the bottomless pit, and whose poisonous sap springs from the abyss.

One branch of evil may strike over to the right, and another over to the left, and to the superficial observer they may seem to have no connection, but although they seem to travel in different directions, they spring from the same root, and are sustained from the same source, and when the tree is cut down they will fall together into the same place.

But a careful observer will find all phases of evil, traveling in different directions in detail, unite in their essence in their refusal of the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and of His atoning work as Man upon the Cross

At present it is not the bold arrogant denial of Christianity we have to beware of, but it's secret underhand denial. Craft and deceit characterize evil systems and evil teaching and John reminds us
in his letter 1 John 2 v 21-23
“I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie comes from the truth, then who is the Liar? It is who ever denies that Jesus is the Messiah. Such a person is the anti-Christ denying the Father and the Son
No one who denies the Son has the Father, whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father.”

A SCRIPTURAL TEST
ooooooooooooooooooo

Amidst all the abounding and increasing evil the uninstructed believer may be confused and bewildered. But the Bible furnishes a simple but thorough test of every system of teaching.

It will be seen that the Person of Christ is the test.

Corinthians 12 verses 1-3
v1 Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant. 2You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. 3Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus be cursed," and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.

One person observed, writing of this very passage.
” I have known the test applied to such spiritists events for the deliverance of one attracted by it which was completed when the demon openly denied that Jesus was Lord. It is well to have such a test.

Someone opposed to Spiritism, about a century ago, Dr F Maack who for that reason would not want to overstate the figures related that in 1910 in Berlin alone there were some 10,000 Spiritists
and within the Imperial Court of the Kaiser some 400 Mediums, and from 15 – 20 Societies.

In North America there were said to be some 16,000,000 followers of Spiritism and in 1894 worldwide there were known to be over 200 journals exclusively devoted to the propaganda and propagating of this awful system There were then 60,000,000 Modern Spiritists compared then with 500,000.000 Christians.

Today there are nearly 5 times as many Christians One wonders how many more Spiritists there are.

Certainly with the spread of the New Age Movement there must be many more. The widespread use in newspapers of astrology, available also online and easily accessible on Ipods, Tablets, and other mobile phone systems is evidence of how popular Spiritism is.

In addition to Modern Spiritists are all the Ancient Spiritists of the East in China, Japan, India, amongst countless of the tribes of Africa, with it's unspeakable darkness and intolerable superstition, the product of fear and ignorance. The victims of Moslem missionary enterprise, the cannibalism of the South Sea islands, the Voodoo movement of Haiti

[JEM]

Section 30
THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL
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The Bible warns us against consorting with the World, the Flesh and the Devil

THE WORLD are the standards of the world order in which we live and from which we have been set free, including the foul habit of smoking, of drunkenness, gambling, drug addiction, following fashion, fast cars, fast women, and making and wasting of large sums of money , of getting rich at the expense of the poor and vulnerable.

THE FLESH may include gluttony and over eating causing obesity and wasting much public money in the Health service to put right, and also all forms of sexual lust heterosexual or homosexual There is an Adult website based in California filled with videos, still pictures and written blogs on a whole range of sexual deviations, including anal and oral sex, bondage, sex with animal, beatings, and with a section for the outed gay community and the secret gay community and for bi-sexuals and transvestites, The site is divided into several different languages, with in all about 26 million members.
That is just one of several such sites. There are TV Channels devoted to deviant sex accessible by subscription.

THE DEVIL, covers all areas of Witchcraft, White or Black and a lot of magic conjuring illusion and deception, pursuit of the para-normal – ghost hunting. All forms of “spin” or lying, including a wide range of so called theoretical science which is merely speculation and guess work.

Like the age of the rock strata formations in hundreds of thousands and millions of years, arrived at by a group of geologists early in the 20th century simply by guesswork which became the measuring line for the age of all the fossils discovered within each strata.

All the science of the Big Bang beginning for the Universe and indeed the idea of Multi universes is based on theory and speculation now presented widely as proven fact.
The real truth would be mind blowing for the scientific community as for all of mankind.


Tested by Scripture, that is the Word of God from the Bible, Modern Spiritism is proved to be satanic in origin, evil in it's real teaching, destructive of common morality, poisonous to both soul and body, and fatal in it's issue in eternity. May God preserve writer and reader from it's wiles.

Section 31
READER, WHERE DO YOU STAND?
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And now, I ask you, dear reader.
Where do you stand in relation to Jesus the Christ ?
The question is all important.
Every soul has to wake up to the tremendous importance of it

What think you of Christ?, is the test,
To try both your state and your scheme,
You cannot be right in the rest,
Unless you think rightly of Him .


He is the Eternal Word – “God over all, blessed for ever”
uncreated – yet creating all things
self sustained and sustaining all things by the word of His power, never less than God, Mystery of mysteries.

John 1 verse 14
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

That is to say, this Divine and Glorious person stooped down and became a man in order that he might die on the cross of Calvary to perform a Saviour's part

We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John used language with special meaning for both Greek and Jewish readers. In Greek philosophy, "word" (logos) was a key term, often referring to the power of reason under girding all creation. For Jews, too, "word" had great significance, for God spoke his word to create the world and to transform his people. Yet John's meaning passed beyond the Greek and Jewish ideas. An eight-year-old girl expressed it well. When asked why Jesus was called the Word, she said, "Because Jesus is all God wanted to say to us."

The Angel of the Lord announced His name before His birth into the world “You shall call His name JESUS for He shall save His people from their sins”.

Section 32
WHAT DOES THE NAME JESUS MEAN?
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Jehovah – Saviour Jehovah is the name of the Covenant - Keeping God as revealed in the Old Testament
The one who keeps His promises
The one that Isaiah the Prophet told us of ISAIAH 43 verse 1, 10 – 11, 25
1 But now, this is what the LORD says--
he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
10"You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.
11 I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is no Saviour.

Verse 25 "I, even I, am he who blots out
your transgressions, for my own sake,
and remembers your sins no more.

The LORD spoke to Joseph who adopted Jesus as his human son in a dream “You will call him the name Jesus [ Joshua in Hebrew] for he will save his people from their sins” { Matthew 1 v 21 ].
Peter said “It is not God's will that any should be lost but that all should come to repentance”
[ 2nd letter of Peter 3 v 9 ]

Saviour
The name indicating the purpose for which He stooped to mankind; that He might by His death upon the cross perform the work of redemption. Redeeming us, buying us back for His Father, God, repossessing what belongs to God.
This work He has accomplished to God's satisfaction; enabling God to express His love, grace and mercy, RIGHTEOUSLY so that “He might be just and the Justifier of Him who believes in Jesus”
Read it as it stands in the passage in
Romans 3 verse 26 of verses 22 - 26

22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference,
23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
25God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,I through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished
26he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

In the account of the life and teaching of Jesus written down by Matthew as in chapter 22 verse 42

42"What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" "The son of David," they replied.

But God told us by Jesus, humanly the descendent of David in John 3 verse 18 of this passage verse 16 - 18

16.For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes on him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed on the name of God's one and only Son.

This is plain. There is no mistaking it's significance

Multitudes believe ABOUT Christ few believe ON Him.
Multitudes give an intellectual assent to the great facts concerning the Deity ,manhood, death, resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ; but few believe to the saving of the soul

Religion was never so abundant as it is now
worldwide there are said to be 35,000 kinds of churches – called denominations- having a diversity of traditions, rites, rituals, rules, traditions, customs, fashions, styles , - quite confusing - and over 15,000 other religions

All basically man-made. Man-made attempts to reach God. Or some kind of being or power, large than ourselves.

True Christianity is another and vital thing


Section 33
HELL IT'S HOT HERE
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Many are Christians by profession and their religion consists of formalism and outward observances and they are alas religiously going to Hell

Such are as much in the world as the infidel, irreligious and unbelieving.

Does it matter? Yes ! Lots of people claim that they are looking forward to Hell to have a hell of a party with all their friends that are going there.

But it is not down to us to be thinking of having a party,
Hell may be like solitary confinement, being isolated on our own, cut off from God and everyone else

Most Christians and religious Jews believe hell to be a place of eternal punishment and there comes conjured up in our minds the images from medieval paintings of fiery demons stoking up fires, roasting naked humans on spits, prodding them with 3 pronged toasting forks, branding naked skin with hot irons, whipping people, as that was the kind of punishments used in those bygone days but it does not sound much like a God who loves people.

Maybe we have misunderstood the meaning of eternal punishment Maybe we have not.

Detention is a common form of punishment today
Isolation, Exclusion, Expulsion all of which means being cut off, separated on our own,and that for eternity would be Hell

But the New Testament teaches of a time when Hell will be no more, along with Satan the Devil, false prophets, demons, suffering, death and all who rejected God's offer of forgiveness and grace. It will all be consigned to the Lake of Eternal Fire

Now we might think that eternal fire would destroy everything consigned into it, and the Bible does talk of destruction. But it does also talk of eternal punishment

It might seem a tidy way of doing things to destroy Hell but it is too dangerous for us to go down that route. Eternal punishment what ever it's form means what it says, punishment for ever and ever. God has the Sovereign right to commit to eternal punishment those who rebel against Him and reject Him and His mercy, forgiveness and grace, when He has done everything possible for us to be forgiven, rescued, and saved.

Having disposed of Hell, Death, Satan and all who reject Him God plans to create a new Heaven and a new Earth and the old things will be remembered no more.
Then there will be no more sin. No more suffering, no more dying, no more Hell. No more deception or deceivers, no more devil, and
THE WILL OF GOD WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN
and everyone left will love the Lord God with all their being and one another too, and enjoy eternal everlasting life.

It is not just an ideal or a dream, it is a target, a goal, a destination, a destiny, because God has planned it ,
It is a certainty

What ever Hell may be, we do not need to go there, and God does not want to send anyone there. Whatever it is like it is going to be bad for anyone who ends up there, so it is wiser to take steps to avoid the place.

Does it not make sense to come to God on His terms repenting our sins, not just sorry for being found out, but giving up consciously doing wrong and seeking with God's help to do what is right. Relying only upon Jesus for continuous forgiveness, and access and admission to Heaven

To belong to Christ. To be forgiven, saved, justified, reconciled to God, is quite another thing.

Some one has said of John 3 verse 18 “ Whoever believes on him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed on the name of God's one and only Son.”

There is a top and bottom to the verse but no middle.

Reader are you in the top “NOT CONDEMNED” or in the bottom “CONDEMNED ALREADY” ?

The TOP means Heaven.
The BOTTOM means Hell if you do not turn to the LORD.

Thank God you may pass from the bottom to the top by coming to the Lord Jesus Christ as a poor. Lost. Hell-deserving sinner, as we all have had to do, trusting Him as your own personal Saviour

Luke the physician companion of the missionary Paul wrote in his account of the early history of the Church entitled The Acts of the Apostles wrote in Acts 16 verse 31 "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved."

Paul, the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ wrote in his second letter to the Church at Corinth in chapter 6 verse 2

Behold NOW is the accepted time. The time of God's favour. Behold NOW is the Day of Salvation

Ivy climbs and clambers over and above ground and ground elder spreads it's root system under ground and both cause havoc hen left uncontrolled or eradicated.

One of the saddest, most depressing, most sinister effects of the first and second European based World Wars was the great revival not of true faith in God but in Spiritism and that has continued in the wake of wars since around the world along with unbelief and cynicism from blaming human wickedness upon God.

Hearts, minds, souls, sore, torn, bleeding, sighing; parents, wives, husbands, fathers, children yearning for their lost ones, have yielded in many cases to this terrible snare, believing that they are thus getting in touch with those they have been separated from.

Never were more terrible delusions, and more appalling results.

Today proliferate astrologers charts in papers, and on mobile phones, Tarot or Angel card readings at social gatherings and school fund raising events, spiritual healing fairs, New Age Spiritualist shops on High Street, or down back streets, back street Adult Only sex shops behind black glass windows, black magic covens, white magic circles, seances, Adult websites full of filthy images and videos. And for them all a ready market of deluded people.

We hope that any reader of these articles has been sufficiently warned to convince any, who receive the testimony of the evidence of the Bible, of the true character, and colossal human damage of this satanic system of deceit them


Section 34
THE CANCERS WITHIN
THE BODY OF THE CHURCH
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From the earliest days of the Church alternative beliefs developed and produced the heresies that
swept around the churches for years

One of the gatherers of heresies was the Roman Catholic Church from the 4th century and declaring their own doctrine sound and correct they went on to hunt down and eliminate anything that did not agree causing many libraries to be destroyed, many books by other Christians and all translations of the Bible except the Latin Bible to be burnt.

Thus they created a strangle hold upon the development of Christianity for 1000 or more years.

Even in the 1st Century Paul had to contend with alternative gospels being proclaimed by those who actively opposed Christian teaching.

One was from the Jews who rejected Jesus Christ as many did and by some of the Christians who were converts from Judaism who insisted that all Christians should be circumcised although increasingly the Christian we from non-Jewish backgrounds

Paul and Barnabas and other Christians appointed by the Church at Antioch went to meet Peter and John in Jerusalem in what has become known as the First Council of Jerusalem and can be read about in Acts 15 verses 1 -36

Out of that it was agreed that non-Jewish Christians need not keep all the over 600 rules of Judaism but just some regulations set out in a letter and found in Acts 15 v 29
“You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood [ that would be from drinking blood ], from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things”

There is The leaven of the Pharisees that refers to the false teaching of the Pharisees and may be applied to the false teaching of the clergy in various branches of the Church across the centuries by all who depart from the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles whom he appointed to go and teach others the truth.

Jesus told stories with a meaning called parables
One such story was about the tares or weeds in the field of a farmer who sowed his grain but his workers noted that weeds had been sown in the middle and they asked should they go in and pull them up and the farmers said “No less you tread down the good plants, we will wait until the harvest and then we can root them out and burn them so their seed cannot spread” Jesus applied this to those who sowed false teaching in the church, that at the Day of Judgment they would be sorted out and disposed of in hellfire.

Indeed Jesus told a story about what will happen on that day concerning those claiming to be Christian, that he will divide them into two “flocks', two groups, the sheep on one side of him and and the goats on the other side.
Those who have acted towards other people in need with kindness and help he will say “
“Well dome, in as much as you did this to these the least of my brethren you did it to me, come inherit all my Father has provided”
But to the other group he will say “Inasmuch as you did not act towards other people in need with kindness and help you did not do so to me, so be gone, you will not inherit what my Father has provided”.

Jesus also somewhere said that not all who will in that day call LORD, LORD, we did this and that for you, will be accepted as he will say to some of them I never knew you. Begone “

Jesus told a lot of stories about what his Kingdom was going to be like, The Kingdom as it is today in Heaven and as it will be in the future on the Earth, when God's will is carried out here as it is there.

In the early decades Gnosticism was a big enemy being taught by people who claimed to have hidden knowledge about God that the Christians did not have.
They arose out of ancient Egyptian sources and are still about today and are called Theosophists and Rosicrucians .

Later arising in Egypt in the fourth century, Arianism became a curse over all the churches for a time as they adhered to the teaching of a presbyter call Arius who questioned the divinity of Jesus Christ and so undermined His authority

His ideas persist today in Unitarianism and the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Many other strange teachings have developed down the years and many people have predicted the return of Jesus Christ with dates, who have been proved wrong having misguided many people and increased cynicism towards Christianity despite the fact that Jesus warned that no one knew the day of his return except the Father in Heaven.

Another hobby horse down the centuries has been naming the Anti-Christ, and Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin have been regarded as that Person who is yet to appear, as a man of peace who will become a tyrant before Christ comes and takes over the government of the whole planet from the New Jerusalem that is to descend from Heaven and usher in the Final Judgment of all mankind from who ever is written in the Lamb's Book of Life.

Those not written therein will not be citizens of the new Heaven and the new Earth that God is preparing.

That Book will be opened and examined by Jesus Christ where in are the names of all who have trusted Jesus Christ alone as their Saviour and have had their sins forgiven and blotted out of the records of Heaven
These truth are recorded in the last book of the Bible, the Apocalypse, entitled The Revelation.

The late A J Pollock also wrote booklets exposing the errors of Roman Catholicism, Jehovah's Witnesses, British Israelism, Unitarianism.

He also from the Scriptures exposed Modernism – the liberal theologies that split the mainstream churches of today back in the 19th century, causing many into sharp decline from from the 1870's onwards.
The theology that created the Downgrade split in the Baptist Union in the 19th century between the evangelical C H Spurgeon and his college in London, and the other earlier Baptist colleges in Leeds, Manchester, Oxford,and Bristol that embraced modernism, and that which has devastated Methodism in the past 30 years.
Others too from the Scriptures have condemned the Salvation Army that rejected baptism and the breaking of bread that other denominations called The Mass, the Eucharist, the Communion, which was instituted by Jesus Christ himself to be done in remembrance of him until he comes again.

Others from Scripture have condemned the modern Pentecostal Movement begun in America in the 1890's and from the 1900's in the UK and the Charismatic Movement from the 1980's. These 2 Movements have created hundreds of thousands of new churches around the world and added millions of Christians to the Christian Church.

Even the Brethren are open to attack. They in the southern states of America in the early 19th century invented Dispensationalism which has swept across thousands of evangelical churches since. It was largely the work of their leader John Darby a former Anglican who studied the Bible deeply and worked out the order of events that will occur when Jesus Christ returns to Earth rule. He even re-translated the Bible so it supported his views, as did the Jehovah's Witnesses to suit their views.

The Plymouth Brethren then split into the Open Brethren now called The Partnership Church, and the Closed or Exclusive Brethren. The latter group has since subdivided into several small fragmented groups.

Each split in the Church, each new doctrine, new teaching, different theology, causes loss of membership and further decline, but each new movement creates new Churches and adds millions to the Kingdom of God If we can but discern that they are inspired God the Holy Spirit the Comforter sent to be the Companion of all Christians after Jesus returned to Heaven around 33AD showing in the church a wide diversity, as in the general creation of the Universe all of which belongs to God the Creator of all life.


FURTHER READING
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There may be many more modern sources of information on this subject on the Internet or as books

The Following books have been written during the 20th century

“The Personalty of Man”, by G N M Tyrrell [ 1945 Pelican ]

“ZOAR” by W H Salter [1961 Sidgwick & Jackson ]
This is a careful summary of how much and how little has been proved by spiritism.

“Physical Research Today” by D J West [ 1962 Pelican]

“Science, Philosphy and ESP” by Charles McCreery [ 1967 Faber]

“The Roots of Coincidence” by Arthur Koestler [ 1972 Hutchinsons ]
a discussion in the light of modern physics.

“Mind, Man and the Spirits” by J Stafford Wright [ 1972 Paternoster]

“Christianity and the Occult” by J Stafford Wright [ 1971 Scripture Union]

“Essays in the Philosophy of Religion” by Prof. H H Price [ 1972 Oxford University Press]. As a philosopher he discusses the concept of survival and the relationship between ESP and religious experience.

“Some Modern Faiths” by Maurice C Burrell and J Stafford Wright
[ 1973 Inter Varsity Press paper back ]

This latter book in 112 pages gives a clear comprehensive introduction for Christians to the modern cults Jehovah's
Witness's / Mormonism / Christadelphianism, / Christian Science, Spiritualism which in this article we entitle as Spiritism/ Theosophy/ and Seventh Day Adventism.

All the above if out print may be found in or through public libraries,
© JEM 2013