But this declaration, while recorded in the Scriptures, is not the word of God. The Lord had declared to man that disobedience would bring death. But Satan, as the tempter in Eden, caused the woman to doubt the word of God: "The serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die." And the woman believed the tempter rather than God, and so sinned against the Creator.
Having tempted man to disobedience, so bringing death into the world, what more natural, in the course of deception, than to endeavor to persuade the human family that, after all, there is no death; that what appears so is only an introduction to fuller life and activity? "Ye shall not surely die."
PHARAOH'S SORCERERS COUNTERFEITING THE WORK OF GOD
"Now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments." Ex. 7:11.
As mankind departed from right and lost the knowledge of God, dead heroes were deified as gods, and much of the pagan worship consisted in sacrifices to the spirits of the dead, supposed to be living still and concerned with affairs in the land of the living. When Israel fell away from God and joined the Moabites in the worship of Baal-peor, the record says of the nature of the service:
"They joined themselves also unto Baal-peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead." "Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils." Ps. 106:28, 37.
Instead of dealing with the spirits of the dead, the idolatrous worshipers were really putting themselves in direct touch with the agencies of Satan, the fallen angels.
Divine Warnings
This explains the severity of the divine warnings against the ancient practice of necromancy, or mediumship. The Lord said:
"Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God." Lev. 19:31.