- 143 - people lack a belief in God. Those who die without believing will find a fate in store for them in the Beyond such that they will be in no position to communicate with the living. The spirits of the lowest spheres remember nothing at all of any such agreements. Even if they did remember, they could not leave the place to which they are confined because of their transgressions. Whoever believes in God, however, will be able, without any such agreement and without any conscious effort, to communicate during his lifetime with the spirits of his dear departed, if they too were believers. Here, too, the words of Christ apply: ‘First seek the kingdom of God and His justice; these other things shall be given to you as well.’ But there was no seeking of the kingdom of God by those who associated with the low spirit world. It was not their nature to seek God; they considered their worldly well-being only, and for this reason they refused to communicate with the good spirit world. The answers that they received from the good spirit world have at all times been too harsh and bitter for the ears of people who were enslaved by their passions. They regarded the utterances of God as an oppressive burden, even going so far as to describe the reprimands, warnings and threats pronounced by the prophets at God’s command by the blasphemous phrase ‘the burden of the Lord’. ‘What is the burden of the Lord?’ was the usual question, whenever people wanted to know what the Lord had had proclaimed. It was because of this that God sent them the message: Jeremiah 23: 33-36: ‘When one of the people or a prophet or a priest asks you: “What is the burden of the Lord?” you shall say to them, “You are the burden of the Lord, and I will cast you off, says the Lord.” And as for the prophet, priest or whoever of the people who says “the burden of the Lord,” I will punish that person and his household. Thus, should you speak to one another and among yourselves: “What has the Lord answered?” or “What has the Lord spoken?” But the expression “the burden of the Lord” you shall use no more, lest your own word become your burden; for you would have distorted the words of the living God, the Lord of hosts, our God.’ Whoever, therefore, aspired to belonging to God’s people was not allowed to have relations with the spirit world that had forsaken Him. ‘He was not permitted to ‘inquire of the dead’, for to do so was to commit high treason against God and to desert the truth. For truth was not to be found among ‘the dead’. ‘The dead know nothing.’ What they utter is falsehood and deception, calculated only to drag the faithful down into the depths. Hence God thus admonishes His people: Isaiah 45: 11: ‘Ask me of the things that are to come, my children! Let the work of my hands be left unto me.’ Isaiah 48: 17: ‘It is I, the Lord, your God, who teaches you to do what will bring about your Salvation, who leads you on the right path.’ Isaiah 8: 19: ‘When they tell you to consult mediums of the dead and spirit experts that whisper and murmur, ask them: “Should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?”’ Ezekiel 20: 30-31: ‘What? You want to befoul yourselves in the manner of your fathers and woo their monsters, too? Yes, through the presentation of your offerings, by sacrificing your children, you befoul yourselves through all your idols down to this very day! And I should let you consult me? As sure as I am alive, I will not be consulted by you.’
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