HOW READEST THOU? by T. E. Bowen

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Apr 3, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 14.

"HOW READEST THOU?"

By T. E. Bowen

WHAT meaning can he who believes in the immortality of the soul get from such passages as these?

"O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before Thee; let my prayer come before Thee: incline Thine ear unto my cry: for my soul is full of trouble: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave. I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength: free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom Thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from Thy hand." Ps. 88: 1-5.

When a man dies, this scripture says, he is cut off from the hand of God. The Lord can do nothing for him. Neither can the dead glorify the Lord. They can not enter into His courts to praise Him. Their voices are silent, their lips are closed in the sleep of death. "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence." Ps. 115: 17. No voice can awaken them but that of the Son of God. Were it not for the resurrection, every purpose of God for man would likewise have perished when he died.

How could any one cause another to understand, or make him get the sense of these passages of scripture, and at the same time hold to that delusive idea of the immortality of the soul? It certainly is folly to attempt such a thing. Jesus Himself said that God was not the "God of the dead," but "of the living." He meant exactly what He said. He came to destroy him who has the power of death—that is, the devil. Death is an "enemy." As far as it pertains to His saints, Jesus will destroy even death itself; but the time appointed for doing it is when He shall come the second time "without sin unto salvation."

In Eden God said, "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The devil said, "Ye shall not surely die." Jesus said of him who told Eve "Ye shall not surely die:" "He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." John 8:44.

Let us seek the Lord while life is granted us, and He may be found, and take to the sure refuge found in the truth of God's word, and not that other refuge to be swept away. Ponder carefully the following words of the Lord: "Because ye have said [Note that God is quoting what men say in their hearts], We have made a covenant with death, and with hell [the grave] are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass thru, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves; therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste. Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place." Isa. 28: 15-17. Nothing but truth can stand the scrutiny of God, and serve as a refuge in that day when He shall try every man's work by Jesus Christ. Every refuge other than that will be swept away. No one will in that day regret having built upon the sure foundation—the truth as revealed in Jesus Christ.

T. E. BOWEN.