“TILL THE HEAVENS BE NO MORE.”
By T. E. Bowen
If men would but believe God, take Him at His word, what speculation and false theories might be avoided, and what rest and peace and comfort might come to their souls. It is easy to believe the truth. Men can not be brought to believe a lie until they have forsaken the truth; for truth is quick and sure death to all falsehood. Perhaps there is no subject around which, in the eyes of men, there is such a shroud of mysticism as the condition of man in death. False teaching upon this subject has so educated people that they are ready to accept almost any revelation purporting to come from “the spirit land” as wonderful and sublime and true. But all this results from wandering away from the truth—that which God has said. God says that man lieth down in the grave, “and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.” Job 14:12. This one sentence from God puts an end forever to all this spirit manifestation from “departed friends.” The friends are silent in death. They can not rise, and shall not rise until the “heavens be no more,” or until the Author of life—Jesus Christ—shall call for them. When the appointed time comes, God shall call, and these sleeping ones shall answer, “Thou shalt call, and I will answer Thee.” If men and women who seem to take so much comfort in talking with some supposed friend could but realize that they were talking instead with one of the wicked fallen spirits, an imp from the habitation of darkness, it would seem that much of the comfort would be taken from the supposed communication. Thus it is evident that the recent supposed communication from Henry Ward Beacher concerning this “misplaced piece of money,” of no importance whatever in the salvation of the soul, is but another manifestation of that “mystery of iniquity” that is to be manifested just prior to the coming of the Lord, which goes forth into all the world to deceive kings and great men by means of the miracles it has power to do. Well deserved is the warning of one giving his masterly mind to the mysticisms of this vague, uncertain way, when he cautions: “There is danger,—real danger,—along these lines of investigation. I have seen psychic cobwebs—if cobwebs they be [and certainly this is a very apt illustration]—tangle the feet of even intellectual giants; and the shrewdest experts—to change the simile—need to sail these mystic seas with sharp eyes and level heads, for these seas are wholly uncharted, and in sailing over them at times the ship’s compasses exhibit inexplicable variations.” Ah! brother, why not avoid all these “inexplicable variations” of falsehood by following the sure, never-changing compass of the Word, the truth of God? Of man that Word says when he lieth down, he shall not rise again nor be waked out of his sleep “till the heavens be no more.” Why not believe it?