With Our Inquirers by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · May 6, 1908

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 34, No. 19.

With Our Inquirers

By Editor

"If ye will inquire, inquire ye."

[All questions to this department will be answered which to the editors will seem to minister to the good of the readers and to the mission of the paper. The same question can not be answered repeatedly in the same volume. The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable. It is well always to enclose a stamp for reply.]

2489.—The Child Shall Die an Hundred Years Old.

In Isa. 65:17-25 is given a description of the new earth, and our homes there, but verse 20 says, "There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days; for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed." How do you harmonize it with the description given in Rev. 21:1-4 where it says there shall be no more death?

It is often difficult to understand the very brief predictions of the Old Testament, which include, sometimes in the same sentence, things very widely separated. Take, for instance, Isa. 61:2, "To proclaim the year of Jehovah's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God." The first part of that is quoted by our Lord Himself, in Luke 4:21, in which He declares, "To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears;" but you will notice that He closes His quotation with "the year of Jehovah's favor." "The day of vengeance of our God" is left to the last-day message to proclaim. Rev. 14:6-14.

So Isa. 65:17-25 covers a great period, and does it very briefly. Verse 17 speaks of the new heaven and new earth which shall be so wonderful, conditions that shall be so joyful that the former things shall not be remembered nor come upon the heart. God's people are therefore called upon to rejoice over it, and in the 19th verse the Lord declares that He Himself will rejoice in Jerusalem and joy in His people, "and there shall be heard in her no more the voice of weeping and the voice of crying." Verse 20 refers to past conditions, and declares that those conditions will not be in the new creation of God; "there shall be no more thence"—that is, from that time forward, in that new-earth state—"an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days; for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed." And this seems to be the thought; that that "little season," during which time the wicked live upon the earth after the second resurrection (See Revelation 20, the last clause of verse 3 and verse 7) will be about one hundred years. In that resurrection will be the children who died unrepentant after the age of responsibility. They will be allowed to live during that period, and will demonstrate during that time that God was just in placing them among the wicked. The sinner himself will—some sinners, at least—continue during that period, at the end of which time all the wicked shall die; and then death shall be no more forever, for in that new heaven and new earth there shall be no more death. The dying refers to the period of time just preceding the setting up of the new heaven and new earth.

2490.—Food of Satan.

Does Satan eat food now? If so, what keeps him alive during the one thousand years?

Spiritual beings may have food to eat of which we know nothing. In fact, humans generally do not recognize the breadth and scope of the things in which they themselves find sustenance. We talk simply of food which we masticate, and which passes thru the mouth and stomach as the food which we eat, but just as truly are sunshine, and air, and water, food. Spiritual beings may find their sustenance in the air or in substances of which we ourselves are not cognizant at all. There are some things in the Scriptures that would seem to indicate that they drew vitality from material beings here. As for instance, when the demons were cast out of the man from the tombs, they besought Christ that they might enter into the herd of swine. In the twelfth chapter of Matthew, forty-third verse, we read, "But the unclean spirit, when he is gone out of the man, passeth thru waterless places, seeking rest, and findeth it not." Then he comes back to the place whence he was cast out and enters it again and takes up his abode there. Spiritualist mediums tell us that whenever they are possessed by the spirits, their vitality is greatly affected. Evil angels may draw nourishment from the air and from other creatures in this sin-possessed earth.

2491.—Three Days and Three Nights.

Will you kindly explain why the Bible says that Christ was three days and three nights in the tomb when He was crucified Friday afternoon and arose Sunday morning? Two young friends of mine have just begun to find out that the Bible contradicts itself.

In the first place, it is nowhere stated in the entire Bible that Christ was to be in the tomb three days and three nights. Settle that forever. The expression evidently referred to is Matt. 12:40, "As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale [margin, "sea-monster"]; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."

Now what is meant by the heart of the earth? What right have we to say that it means the grave? The expression is used nowhere else; there is no other passage in the Scriptures which tells us just what it does mean. Why may it not mean something entirely different from what you suppose? Another thought; day and night is a Hebrew term expressing day. It may not mean a whole day and a whole night, but part of the day and part of the night, meaning the day just as we speak in a general way, "I have expended three days upon that task," "I have lost three days this week," and it may be one whole day and parts of two days. If you will look up in different parts of the word of God where day and night is mentioned in this way, you will find that the period of time does not necessarily include just exactly so many full-hour days.

At the time when Jesus predicted His passion, included in that the time of three days, He mentioned not simply being killed and after three days rising again, but also the betrayal and rejection; as for instance, Matt. 16:21, that Jesus "must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up." Of course we may say the three days means after He was killed, it may also mean after He was betrayed. See Luke 24:20, in which is the account of the two disciples on their way to Emmaus; who spoke of Jesus and His work, and said, "And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him up to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. . . . Yea and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things came to pass." They said that at the close of the first day of the week; that was the third day since the time that He was delivered up to be crucified. In this connection, read also John 12:27, 31, "Father, save Me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour." "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out." Connect with that Luke 22:53, the words of Jesus to those who arrested Him, "This is your hour, and the power of darkness." From the time that Jesus was delivered into the hands of the agents of the prince of this world began the three days. That was Thursday night, the beginning of the sixth day of the week, including the night and the day of the sixth, the night and the day of the seventh, and the dark part of the first day of the week as the day began to dawn. Looking upon it in this common-sense way, there is no contradiction.

2492.—Selling Religious Publications on the Sabbath.

Would it not be right to take subscriptions for the SIGNS OF THE TIMES or any other good paper or good book such as teach the Bible and our duty to God on the Sabbath day? Did not Jesus say on the Sabbath, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work"?

He did, and it is proper for us to do proper work for God on that day. The Lord did not design the Sabbath to be a day of idleness. Jesus declares, "It is lawful to do well on the Sabbath day;" but if we are selling papers or religious publications on that day in order in any wise to benefit ourselves, it certainly is not right; we are doing our own work. Then again, the example itself would be bad. It would be pretty hard to distinguish many times between selling for our own benefit and the commission that we might get, and for the sake of the souls to whom we sold. If we had the burden of souls in mind, why not give the papers away on that day? It would be very difficult, indeed, for one looking upon it from the outside to see that we were not doing it for ourselves, however laudable it might be; in other words, making a gain out of godliness. To such things would apply that text, "Abstain from all appearance of evil." Do not in any wise violate conscience.

2493.—The Lord Repented. Gen. 6:6.

If the Lord foresaw that Adam and Eve would sin and that the people of this world would become so wicked, why did He say that He repented that He had made man?

The Lord accommodated Himself in His great infinitude to our limited understanding. He speaks to us in our human language, limited by our human feelings and vision. Looking at it from the human standpoint, it would seem that when the earth became so wicked at the time of the Deluge, it would have been better if man had never been created, and from that viewpoint, if there had been nothing further, the Lord repented that He had made man. He sorrowed as He looked upon the use that man made of his opportunities; it grieved Him at heart that man had so perverted the good which might have been his. The text expresses the infinite sorrow of the Deity in the language of man. And yet, despite all that Satan has done, God will bring glorious triumph, and His plan concerning the earth and its dwellers shall not be frustrated.

2494.—"Time and Times, and the Dividing of Time."

Have not the saints and times and laws been given into the hands of the little horn for a longer period than "time and times, and the dividing of time"? It seems they are still in his hands.

The prophecy relates to the time when the little horn would have power to enforce his laws and decrees. Its customs might continue a long time after that power was lost, but when the time of the decree passed and the authority was taken away from the little-horn power, he could no longer enforce his decrees against God's people, and from 1798, when the time, and times, and the half time ended, the light from God's word began to go forth into the world as never before.

2495.—Strong Drink.

The strong drink of Deut. 14:26 would probably not be called intoxicating drink nowadays. They had no distilled liquors in ancient times; yet God's people were at liberty to drink the fermented drinks if they so desired. They always have been. God in His wisdom has given His people the choice of doing wrong if they wish to follow that choice. But if the children of God came together to rejoice in Jehovah, as in Deuteronomy 14, with the heart to do God's will, they certainly would not become drunken.

2496.—Gen. 11:7.

"Let us go down." The "us" probably refers to the Lord and His angels, speaking after the manner of men, in contradistinction to the speech of the builders of the Tower of Babel.