DEATH-BED repentances are not always real, and consequently are not always to be trusted, but it is seldom that the gospel does not receive a hearing at such a time. A man may despise God’s message in the days of health and prosperity, but when the world is slipping from under his feet, and he begins to feel that all alone he must face the dread realities of death and eternity, it is seldom that he does not wish to seek for help and comfort. Then the servant of the Lord is usually a welcome visitor, even though there may not be divinely-given faith in his message.
Not long since, a servant of the Lord went to visit a young man, a spiritualist, who was rapidly sinking.
The love of God and the work of Christ were laid faithfully before the young man, but he turned a deaf ear to all that was said. At length he roused himself, and with all the energy he could command gave expression to the enmity of his heart in the solemn words, “I will never bow to the name of Jesus.” In the day of his strength he had sought after Satan’s enchantments, and now in his dying hours he breathed out the spirit of his master. But God is not mocked, and He has written that “at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth,” and, “the scripture cannot be broken.”
Reader, be warned by this solemn story. There is nothing new in receiving communications from the unseen world; but these communications are not from departed spirits of men, as is supposed, but from demons. The wickedness of going to demons for wisdom has existed in all ages and in all lands, and the word of God prepares us to expect a great development of lying wonders in our times. Enmity to the Lord Jesus, and the yielding of the will to the control of another, are moral features of the evil in the present day, and are sufficiently plain indications of the real course of its character. Flee from spiritualism as you would from pestilence, for if you touch it, it will stick to you. “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners”; and remember, “there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved,” but the name of Jesus Christ. D. D. C.