p. Seven | OTHER WORLDS

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 3, 1928

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 55, No. 14.

OTHER WORLDS

J. R. Wade of Kemmerer, Wyoming, wishes to know if there are other worlds besides our own; also about pork as an article of diet.

It was my privilege a few years back to attend a lecture given at one of our well-known American universities by an eminent and scientifically trained astronomer. In a question period at the close of his talk, he was asked the question whether he thought other worlds or other planets were inhabited besides our own. I shall never forget the forcefulness of his reply and his cogent reasoning.

In brief, he declared, it was perfectly ridiculous to believe that this small sphere of ours was alone inhabited, and other planets, many of them vastly larger than ours, were not. Unless humans were so conceited that they believed the whole universe ran for their special benefit, it was obvious that other spheres were inhabited by intelligent beings as well as our own. Their existence, as is true of our world’s existence, predicated purposeful inhabitancy. Coming from a scientist and not from a preacher, the answer made a deep impression upon all.

Without knowing it, perhaps, the lecturer was but corroborating what we read in Isaiah 45:18. What is here said about the earth, most certainly must apply to other heavenly bodies. See Revelation 12:12. From the answer which Satan gave to Jehovah in Job 1:7, “From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it,” the undoubted inference is to be drawn that if Satan, because of his present hold on this world, through the transgression of our first parents, represents this planet (see Ephesians 2:1, 2; John 12:31; 14:30), the “sons of God” (see Luke 3:38) represent other worlds, which of course shows that other worlds are inhabited.

The fact that the latter part of the book of Isaiah is eschatological, that is, deals with the closing days of Christianity or the latter part of the Christian dispensation, plainly shows that swine’s flesh is prohibited as an article of diet. (Isaiah 66:17.) In Leviticus 11:7, 8; Deuteronomy 14:8 God forbids the use of swine as food, because it is one of the most unclean of animals. Its very natural wallowing and feeding upon filth has ever made it unfit for food and figurative of everything vile in eating. As is well known, other nations besides the Jews have for these reasons placed pork under the ban as food.