Why is fire called everlasting, if it ever ceases?
J. G. W.
The literal meaning of “everlasting” is age-lasting, indicating a longer or shorter time not known. The priesthood of Levi is said to be “everlasting” (Ex. 40:15); yet it ceased at the Cross. The fire of Sodom is said to be everlasting or eternal (Jude 7); yet when it had turned the cities into ashes (2 Peter 2:6), it went out, and the Dead Sea has ever since rolled its sluggish waters over the place of its burning. Furthermore, the fire is everlasting in its effects, not in its duration.
Why is it said that the wicked shall be punished with everlasting destruction, if they are resurrected after Christ’s second coming? See 2 Thess. 1:9.
The final punishment of the wicked will be at the end of the thousand years. The first death comes to all in consequence of an inherited sinful nature. The second death comes to each one to whom it does come, because he has identified himself with sin. The large view of Christ’s second coming takes in the great “day of the Lord,” covering more than a thousand years. The second death will be the everlasting destruction.
1557.—Life Insurance.
I know something about the ——— Company. It is not connected with any secret society, it only insures lives, for one or two or more thousands of dollars. In twenty years you can get your instalments (which run about fifty dollars a year) in one sum, whether you die or no. It is simply a big savings-bank. After you have been with them three years, and don’t care to be with them any longer, you can get your instalments returned. Now, what is wrong in a life insurance? Is it not all right for a person to take out a policy, and, if he dies, his family of wife and little ones have something to fall back on, without being compelled to rely upon the day’s wages of the mother? Is a life insurance, as I described above, not just like any other speculation?
M. T.
It seems to us that a savings-bank would be much better. You can put money in any bank, and draw it out the next month if you desire. And if you wished to leave it for three years, you could draw, not only your deposits, but interest beside. How is insurance any better than a bank? In twenty years you have paid $1,000. Of course, some of this has been on deposit only a short time, but the whole has been deposited on an average of ten years. One thousand dollars for ten years, annual interest at five per cent. without compounding, would amount to $1,500; but from your company you only get, at the end of twenty years, the principal. It is much better, we think, to invest in a small piece of land, or some kind of business in which wife and children will have an interest, than place before them the temptation of wishing for the death of a husband and father. To us God is a good insurance company for “He is thy life, and the length of thy days,” the only One who can insure life, and into whose care we can safely commit wife and children. Life Insurance is a “speculation,” but trusting God is a sure investment.
1558.—Preparation of Offerings.
How did the Jews prepare their offerings so blood was not eaten?
We have no other information than that given in the Scriptures. The animals were thoroughly bled.