DO OUR DEAD FRIENDS VISIT US?
By B. F. Merritt
Not in this world. No more do they share in the cares and sorrows of this life. Now they rest. They have done the works for which, in the resurrection, they will be rewarded. So must we while life remains decide what our reward shall be. Man is left to gain or lose Heaven, as he may choose. No more do our dead friends instruct, warn, and pray for us. Only by what they have done may we be profited by them. Angels are made ministering spirits to men, but never have the enlightened people of God expected visits from the dead. Job, in speaking of the dealings of God with man, says, “Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away. His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low but he perceiveth it not of them.” Job xiv, 20, 21. Abraham, the father of the faithful, never saw the great multitude who looked at him as a common father; neither did those who were his heirs look to him as though they thought he recognized them, or knew their condition. Isaiah represents the church as addressing God, thus: “Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not; thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.” Isa. lxiii, 16. David, the great shepherd of Israel, could do no more for his flock after the hand of death was laid upon him. Peter, on the day of Pentecost, speaks of David, not in a way to convey the idea that he was conscious, but, on the contrary, in a way to teach us that he was unconscious. After quoting from his Psalms, he says, “Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is now both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day.” Acts ii, 29. Doubtless Peter uses this language to convince the people that David was not speaking of himself, but of Christ, when he said, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” It is a fact that the sepulcher of David was there at that time, and, doubtless, the people believed that he there silently slept. Peter plainly says, “David is not yet ascended into the Heavens.” Far better is it for us to believe, as the Bible says, that the dead “rest from their labors,” than to hold to erroneous opinions about spirits, which pave the way for greater and more dangerous errors.