C. F. Wimberly

DEVIL WORSHIP

“Then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not.”—Deuteronomy xxxii. 15-17.

“But I say the things which the Gentiles sacrificed, they sacrificed to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and the table of devils.”—1 Corinthians x. 20-21.

Satan’s consuming passion is thirst for power. He is the “prince of darkness,” but also the “god of this world,” and this long period of satanic rule is called night. God’s glorious Sabbath of rest was superseded by the black intervention of toil and suffering. Satan’s scheming fight has been for the rulership of this world. He succeeded in winning the entire antediluvian world, which to save the coming generations necessitated the Flood. He began adroitly with the only remaining family; swept the postdiluvian peoples into midnight heathenism. To-day, nearly one billion descendants of Noah worship not God—but demonian—demons, just what the Greeks and Romans worshipped in Apostolic times. No less than two hundred and fifty million are devil worshippers by name.

Satan began his fight of opposition by assuming the form or incarnating himself in the body of a snake. Therefore it is not an accident, growing out of mythological tradition, that serpent worship has been the chief religion of many peoples. The Egyptians worshipped Set, which personified all evil—enemy of all good—they called Typhon, a monstrous serpent-like animal. To this god human sacrifices were offered on great religious holidays. It is no accident that the millions who know not the true God nevertheless, some way, learned to worship the Devil, and generally in the form of a serpent. The Egyptians had a serpent-god in Typhon; the Canaanites worshipped a snake in the days of Abraham; the Babylonians worshipped Python, which is a specie of the most deadly reptile on earth, and another name for Typhon. On the monuments and tablets of many dead civilizations the engravings of serpents show their particular customs of devil worship. The American Indians were snake worshippers; in Ohio an altar more than a half mile in length remains in good preservation. This altar is one of the wonders, being a perfect outline of a gigantic snake. We readily see that tribal association and tradition have had nothing to do with the customs of our own aborigines; the same being who inspired the peoples of the Old Orient, millenniums ago, to worship the snake-devil inspired our red men in his primeval forest.

David speaks of demon worship: “Yea they sacrificed their sons and daughters unto Shadim.” Jereboam built places to worship evil spirits; the ordained priests to serve the altars of “Satyrs,” and children were offered. The Molech of the Canaanites was also devil worship; when the Israelites forgot God, they “caused their children to pass through the fire unto Molech,” an evil god. The damsel whom Paul delivered possessed the spirit of Python—the snake. The priestesses of the Delphic oracles prophesied by the spirit of Python; this was the dominant religion throughout Greece. The Aztec war god of the Montezumas, where two hundred and fifty thousand human skulls were found in the temple, was a bloody system of devil worship. The Yezidis of Persia, descendants of the early Python worshippers, worship the Devil to-day, and are known as such.

We are not confined to heathenism, ancient or modern, to find the same religion of “divinations.” The best authorities of Spiritualism believe that the supernatural, occult demonstrations, as produced in their sÉances, are from demon agencies. The whole system of mythology grew out of what is to-day the work of mediums. The Old Testament is filled with statements concerning “familiar spirits”; they heard voices, received messages, saw physical disturbances—just as may be witnessed at any spiritual sÉance. The most reliable of mediums do not deny that evil spirits (damned demons) come to them at times. One fact is noteworthy: when men and women become spiritists, they discard all the essentials of the Christian faith. They are modern types of demon possession. It is no unusual thing during a sÉance to hear a regular clash of voices: blasphemy, oaths, vulgar, obscene language, terrible threats, etc.

What connection do we find between Devil worship and modern Spiritualism? First, the moral condition among the spiritists is exactly as it was among the ancient priests and priestesses in the temples of Devil worship; they literally worshipped the Devil in their corrupt, degrading practices. Now, among the votaries of Spiritualism, every iniquity, crime, and indecency known among men and women are daily carried on. Such is the testimony of one of their travelling lecturers. One of their noted mediums when under control delivered this message: “Curse the marriage institution; cursed be the relation of husband and wife; cursed be all who sustain the legal marriage.” From what source could we expect such a vile deliverance?

Second, their mediums actually pray to Satan. One of their advocates at the opening of a debate with a Christian minister at San Jose, Cal., prayed in the following language: “O Devil, Prince of Demons in the Christian’s Hell; oh, thou Monarch of the bottomless pit; thou King of Scorpions, I beseech thee to hear my prayer. Thou seest the terrible straits in which I am placed, matched in debate with a big gun of Christianity. Remember, O Prince of Brimstone, that when thou stretchest forth thine arm the Christian God cannot stand before thee for a moment. Bless thy servant in his labours for thee; fill his mouth with wisdom; enable him to defend thee from the false charges of thy sulphurous Majesty, so that this audience may know and realize that thou art a prayer hearing and a prayer answering devil” (abbreviated). Similar prayers are frequently published in the Banner of Light, the organ of this cult; prayers formulated in the same language as prayers offered to the God of heaven.

It cannot be doubted that Pagan religion and modern Spiritualism are Devil worship, shifting under various forms and ceremonies in different ages and places. Rev. B. Clough, missionary in Ceylon, says: “I now state, and I wish it to be heard in every corner of the Christian world, that the devil is regularly, systematically, and ceremoniously worshipped by a large majority of the inhabitants of the Island of Ceylon.” We repeat: his consuming passion is to be worshipped.