The modern rise of “rights” is upon us. It is an old message, accompanied by a new question. The question is "Are Adventists responding to messages originating from seances?"
Shortly after Moses was led by God to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, Korah and the leaders of the people demanded their right to the priesthood. It sounded good, even logical to human reasoning -but it was not God’s will. Read Numbers 16 and Deuteronomy 11:6 and check how that worked out.
Hint: Korah and the leaders did not fare well.
Remember Miriam? She was given leprosy for speaking out against the Lord’s servant, Moses. Read Numbers 12 and Deuteronomy 24:9
In fact, the 'rights issue’ goes back to the beginning of the Great Controversy in heaven. Lucifer wanted his ‘rights’ recognized.
Isaiah 14:13, 14 state: “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.”
Lucifer want to be as God - and was able to convince a third of the angelic host to demand the right to follow him. You know the story - the subsequent history -and you know how it ends.
Yet, even before the ‘rights issue’ was the rise of self. It was the ’self’ that craved ‘rights’. It is certainly an old, old story but it still plays on, strong and forcefully.
In today’s world everybody now has rights. Even animals have rights. In the ‘marriage rights view’ the limits seem almost endless. You have the right to marry your pet, or an ocean, or a tree… In some places you can even marry a dead person. Where did all these 'rights’ come from? Certainly not from God.
What is God’s view on ‘rights’?
It is not complicated.
1. Love God with all your heart and soul and might. Deut 6:5, Matt 22:37
2. Love your neighbor as your ‘self’. Lev 19:18, Matt 22: 39 That puts ‘self’ in the correct perspective. It has love in the front and 'self’ in the back. Horse and cart are correctly lined. Switch the two positions and you have satan’s method.
3. Do unto others as you would have them do to you. Luke 6:31
‘Rights’ become a non-issue if 'self’ is controlled by pure love. However, because of sin and selfishness God has given us directives for rights as a means of protecting property, ourselves and others.
Some of those rights, given by God and found in Scripture, are revealed in His Ten Commandments as written in Exodus 20. Those rights God has established include: not to be robbed, murdered, cheated on in marriage, lied to, disrespected by children.
We have the right to learn about God as it is written in Deuteronomy 6:7.
These and other rights found in God’s inspired Word are based on the principles of divine love and justice as directed and determined by God.
God, as revealed in the Bible, rarely mentions what rights we should demand. Rather, He tells us what we are responsible for. The laws on justice also reflect God’s view of rights, but He tells us also to go beyond justice and into mercy.
However, when humans determine and demand 'rights’ apart from God’s Word things get very twisted.
Along that line of thought I want to mention a book I was recently introduced to
titled RADICAL SPIRITS by Ann Braude.
It was published in 1989. The subtitle on the cover, as seen below, is “SPIRITUALISM AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA”.
Below that is the statement:
“How séances and trance speaking empowered a generation of American women to claim their own voice.”
Miriam-Webster definition of SÉANCE: a spiritualist meeting to receive spirit communications; a meeting where people try to communicate with the spirits of dead people
Statement from the First Spiritual Temple (Mediumship) regarding Trance Communication:
When spirit links with a medium, the spirit communicator exerts various degrees of control, or overshadows the consciousness of the medium to a greater or lesser degree. This varies, depending upon the intent and conditions of communication, as well as the ability of the medium to lend himself or herself to be overshadowed or controlled.
Trance is considered the strongest degree of control.
This is a very pro-spiritualism book and promotes the communion with spirits in the women’s rights movement. (It can be purchased new or used on eBay and Amazon from .01 to $35+)
Ann Braude serves as the director of the Women's Studies in Religion Program and as Senior Lecturer on American Religious History at Harvard Divinity School. Radical Spirits is her first book. She used over 480 references to validate the authenticity of her topic!
Note the following reviews on the back cover.
“Braude has discovered a crucial link between the early feminists and the spiritualists who so captured the American imagination during the middle of the last [nineteenth] century.” - Los Angeles Times
“One hundred and fifty years ago, trance mediums…changed the social fabric of America radically and permanently… Ann Braude says that when Spiritualism tore across America in the 1850’s… it freed women to speak in public and helped end slavery.” - Boston Globe
“A facinating, well-researched…work.” - Library Journal
“Radical Spirits is a terrific book - well conceived, superbly researched, unusually well written. No other book tells us so much about women and religion in America as this one.” - Jon Butler, author of Awash in a Sea of Faith: The Christianization of the American People
Laura de Force ( 1838 - 1907), trance medium who became a well-known woman suffrage speaker.
From the conclusion chapter titled “The Same Hand that Guided Me Here Will Hold Me There” on pages 192-93 is the following quote:
“Women suffrage benefited more than any other movement from the self-confidence women gained in Spiritualism. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Spiritualism and suffrage engaged in a two-way exchange….many suffrage leaders found meaning in a religion that reinforced the self-ownership of women.”
The concluding sentence of the book states on page 202:
"Long after the cultural milieu that produced a religion of radical individualism vanished from the scene, Spiritualism continued, and continues today, to attract those unable to accept that death marks a final separation from cherished friends.”
Now let’s look at the modern ‘rights’ movement - specifically women’s rights. According to historical accounts the rise of the women’s right’s movement began in the mid 1800’s and has grown ever since.
It began, however, in communion with satanic forces. From the mind of satan.
Do the current trends of culture the SDA church is mimicking give the appearance that some of our NAD SDA leaders are repeating the same errors as the leaders of Israel did long ago, and as Lucifer did eons ago?
Yes, it does - and the continuing drive in the Seventh Day Adventist NAD and Union Conference leaderships to promote women’s ordination has reached alarming proportions. That is so, in spite of the July 8, 2015 General Conference world church vote on this issue - again.
In light of the current fulfillment of prophetic events, this subject has almost eclipsed our mission to proclaim the Third Angel’s Message.
The culture of the western world is caught up with the politically correct view of meeting all perceived human rights and beyond. This is not the path given us by God’s Word in the Bible or Spirit of Prophecy.
"Those who feel called out to join the movement in favor of woman’s rights and the so-called dress reform might as well sever all connection with the third angel’s message. The spirit which attends the one cannot be in harmony with the other. The Scriptures are plain upon the relations and rights of men and women. 1T 421
Could the continuing and growing influences of the ‘rights’ movement at this time in earth’s history be the ‘seed’ for the current women’s ordination drive now sweeping the Seventh Day Adventist and other Protestant churches?
We have some very important choices to make. A third of the heavenly host were deceived and demanded their rights, as did Korah and the leaders of Israel.
Pray to not let the guidance of satanic forces through spiritualism continue to guide our desire for ‘rights’.
“The sin of this age is disregard of God's express commands. The power of influence in a wrong direction is very great. Eve had all that her wants required. There was nothing lacking to make her happy, but intemperate appetite desired the fruit of the only tree that God had withheld. She had no need of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, but she permitted her appetite and curiosity to control her reason. She was perfectly happy in her Eden home by her husband's side; but, like restless modern Eves, she was flattered that there was a higher sphere than that which God had assigned her. But in attempting to climb higher than her original position, she fell far below it. This will most assuredly be the result with the Eves of the present generation if they neglect to cheerfully take up their daily life duties in accordance with God's plan.” 3T 483“
There is a work for women that is even more important and elevating than the duties of the king upon his throne. They may mold the minds of their children and shape their characters so that they may be useful in this world and that they may become sons and daughters of God.” 3T 483
Originated in Séance and Trance Speaking