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Amazing Facts

Joe Crews

Spiritualism

Haunted houses, ghosts and Ouija boards raise terrifying pictures for many people.

The spectacular growth of psychic research has added respectability to an age old issue.

I'll be back in a moment to talk about the possibility of communicating with the dead.

Hello this is Joe Cruz in the Amazing Facts broadcast, Facts Which Affect You.

Let me say in the beginning of our broadcast today that we are dealing with a very serious subject.

Spiritualism is becoming a matter of tremendous concern on the part of millions.

Psychic research has tried to disprove and debunk the manifestations of Spiritualism, but several committees of researchers have reported that there is superhuman power involved in some of the demonstrations they have observed.

We know, of course, that there are only 2 sources of supernatural power, God and Satan.

Today we are going to discover what the foundations of this phenomenon really are.

Our first text is Isaiah 8, 19 and 20 where we read this, And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards, that peep, and that mutter.

Should not a people seek unto their God, for the living to the dead?

To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, is because there is no light in them.

Now here God tells us that knowledge beyond human power should be gathered from His Word and not from familiar spirits.

But contrary to this instruction, millions today are turning to modern sorcery and spiritualism for the answers to problems.

Even some great church organizations are now ready to recommend this avenue as a way of truth.

Inroads are being made into vast religious systems, and some astounding sentiments are being expressed by Protestant church leaders.

The public has already been duly impressed by some of these Protestant positions.

Evidence of all this was seen during the war when 1 a maker's store in New York City sold 4 out of 5 books on the subject of Spiritualism.

1 Pittsburgh Concern sold over 1, 500 Ouija boards in 1 week's time.

Now friends, before I cite some of these strange statements, let me ask this.

What is the basis of the Spiritualist doctrine?

It's fundamentally rooted in the idea that the dead are not really dead at all, but living in some other world of higher wisdom and understanding.

It also teaches that communication is carried on between the living and the dead.

Now we will learn in our study today just how unbiblical and false this doctrine really is.

But first let's Look at a few statements.

Most of you are acquainted with the man whom I am going to quote right now.

At least his secretary is going to give us the word concerning his beliefs.

This popular Protestant writer has advice that is eagerly sought by hundreds of thousands of Christians.

In his question and answer columns and books, we find counsel given in a very widespread media.

Recently in answer to a letter on the subject of communication with the dead, this man's secretary wrote this.

He said, It is his personal belief and conviction that there are many occurrences of actual contact between people here on earth and loved ones who have passed through death to another in a more spiritual world.

No clearer answer could have been given, friends, than this.

Amazing as it may seem, this great Protestant Church leader along with others subscribes to the doctrine of spiritualism, or at least to the basis of it.

But now let's look at another equally astonishing statement that appeared in the Methodist Monthly Magazine together.

Now this was a few years ago, and it was an answer to a reader's question, shall we pray for the dead?

He said, why should we not pray for them, even as we believe they may pray for us.

Prayer for the dead unites the Church, visible and invisible, into a timeless fellowship, binding us all, as Tennyson says, to God Himself.

Now, friends, the very fact that a Protestant author would give status and endorsement to such a view is a startling revelation of the power of spiritualism.

I suppose it is in England that the strongest pitch has been made in favor of this rising tide.

Some time ago the Church of England appointed a committee to investigate the growing phenomena of spiritualism.

Appointed by the Archbishop, this committee was made up of the nation's most eminent churchmen, educators, and lawyers.

After a two-year study, a report was made which shook the city of London and the whole country, for that matter.

The major emphasis of the report is reflected in this paragraph that is lifted out of it.

Here I am now quoting, It is necessary to keep clearly in mind that none of the fundamental Christian obligations or values are in any way changed by our acceptance of the possibility of communication with discarnate spirits.

Where these essential principles are borne in mind, those who have the assurance they have been in touch with their departed friends may rightly accept the sense of enlargement and of unbroken fellowship which it brings." Now perhaps this provides sufficient testimony to alert us that spiritualism is shaping the thinking of Christian leaders to an alarming degree today.

But friends, is this doctrine according to the law and the testimony?

How does all of this fit in with the teaching of God's Word?

What does the Bible have to say about it?

Let's examine some of the sources of spiritualism for a moment.

The fact is that it started in the Garden of Eden and Satan was the first medium.

In Genesis 3, 1-4 we read the story of Eve's fall into sin.

God had said that death would follow their transgression, but Satan said to Eve, Ye shall not surely die.

When Adam and Eve did die, Satan shrewdly tried to cover his lie.

And ever since that day he has tried to make it appear that death is not really death, but it is actually life instead.

Because Satan used it to perpetuate his lie, God strictly forbade the practice of necromancy or familiar spirits.

Notice these statements of the book of Leviticus, "...

Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards to be defiled by them.

I am the Lord your God." Leviticus 19.31.

A man also, or a woman, that hath of a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death.

Now friends, why is God so opposed to this thing?

Why such a severe penalty for engaging in spiritualistic seances?

Because it is a lie and it is devil-inspired.

And God said, For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything.

Neither have they any more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.

Also their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished.

Neither have they any more apportioned forever in anything that is done unto the Son." Ecclesiastes 9, 5, 6.

Now, friends, if God says that the dead can't come back and communicate, then God is telling the truth and no dead person can return and talk to anybody on earth.

Again describing death, God said, His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish.

We have already established in previous broadcasts that death is a sleep until the resurrection day, an unconscious, dreamless sleep.

Now since the dead could not possibly come back to speak to their loved ones, how can we explain these mysterious appearances of those who have died?

Numerous instances could be cited of experiences where the exact form and voice was seen and heard.

Friends, there is only 1 possible source for such demonstrations.

Satan is still trying to sustain that original granddaddy lie that he told to Eve.

He is still trying to prove that there is no death.

He appears in whatever form he chooses, shrewdly imitating the characteristics of the dead.

Such lying wonders are well calculated to deceive and convince people that a lie is actually the truth.

Notice how this work of Satan is described in the Bible.

Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness, and them that perish, because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.

II Thessalonians 2, 9-11 here we are told that the truth alone will guard us from the signs and lying wonders of Satan's power.

In I Timothy 4, we read of some people in the last days who will give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.

And finally in Revelation 16, the prophet describes spirits of devils working miracles which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world.

How, friends, it tells us the devil can work miracles.

He can do things that we will never understand.

And now we begin to understand why people have been shaken up by the apparent appearance of dead friends.

After 6, 000 years of observing human behavior, Satan is able to cleverly counterfeit those forms and voices.

And at psychological moments, he takes advantage of heartbroken, bereaved relatives to perpetuate that fraud.

No wonder God despises this evil and sentences its leaders to death by stoning.

Well, somebody might say, didn't Saul consult a spiritualist and actually talk to Samuel who was dead?

Let's look briefly at this story in 1 Samuel 28 and see what really happened.

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