Earlier text: LIVING FOR CHRISTLOVE IN GOD'S LAW.
By Geo. E. Crawford
THERE is a belief prevalent among the mass of the people of the world to-day that God demands of us more than we can fulfil; thus saying, in other words, that God is unjust in His demands. This sentiment is nothing new, for it originated with Satan in heaven. His strongest argument in the temptation of Eve was that God was unjust in withholding the forbidden fruit, when He knew it was to be desired to make one wise. Satan said, “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Eve allowed herself to believe that theory, to her own sorrow, just as many are doing to-day. She did not realize that there was no wisdom in the knowledge of evil; for all wisdom lies with God, and God does not know evil. “Unto the pure all things are pure.” Titus 1:15. Even an innocent child knows no evil until it has been taught what evil is. Satan’s strongest hold is in mixing evil with good. If it was unmixed evil, man would always discern it, and it would be to him like taking a dose of poison knowingly. But a man may take a very little poison with his food and not notice it, and the amount may be increased gradually until he can take a full dose without its killing him immediately. Nevertheless, it has its effect. So it has been with that first knowledge of evil. Gradually there has come upon the world a flood of misery and woe that is appalling, and to all candid thinkers it is apparent that it is on the increase. The Word of God plainly teaches us that iniquity shall increase more and more until the Lord cuts short His work in righteousness. It is evident, then, that God knew best when He commanded Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If we study the subject carefully, we can see God’s love and mercy in all His commands. When a mother tells her child to stay away from the water, it is because she loves it, and does not want it to be drowned. But after awhile she looks for the child, and finds it struggling in the current, and she cries out, “My child will surely drown.” And it will drown unless it receives help; but is it because5the mother said it would? Is it not a natural consequence of the child’s disobedience? God said, “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.” Was it simply because God said they would die that they did die? or was it a natural consequence of their disobedience? “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4. “The wages of sin is death.” Rom. 6:23. “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” James 1:15. Says one, “Why should there be a law? If there was no law, we would not transgress.” True, there would be no transgression if there was no law; but answer this question candidly, What would be the result of removing from men every restraint which the law holds them under? The relations existing among men give rise to principles of government that all are in duty bound to acknowledge. There are principles of government growing out of existing relations between the Creator and the created, and among the created beings themselves, that must remain as long as there are created beings. A code of laws will necessarily show the character of the law-maker. “God is love” (1 John 4:8); therefore the law must be love. God is holy (1 Peter 1:16); therefore the law must be holy (Rom. 7:12). At first the law was implanted in the heart, and that was the only way in which it was given until the time of Moses. Rom. 5:13, 14 shows conclusively that there was a law before the time of Moses, and a candid study of the Scriptures will show that the same principles of government were recognized as are embodied in the Ten Commandments. God created man upright, and in His own image, and gave him principles of government which, if obeyed, would give him eternal life. Christ said to the young man, “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.” To know God is “life eternal.” John 17:3. We become acquainted with God through His Word and His created works; and Christ said, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” It has ever been God’s purpose that this earth should be inhabited by intelligent beings, who would render Him willing obedience; and the reason such a condition does not exist now is that man, acting out his God-given right of choosing between good and evil (life and death), chose death in preference to life, or the keeping of God’s commandments. God might have destroyed Satan and sin at the first outset; but Satan had accused God of injustice; so in His love and justice, God allowed Satan’s plans to develop, so that every created being of intelligence might become fully persuaded in his own mind, whose rule is the more just, that of God or that of Satan. Satan has been carrying on his nefarious work here in the earth for nearly six thousand years, and the results are plainly visible to all. But at the same time, God has been carrying on His work of love and mercy in delivering men from the rule of Satan; and He is preparing a people who will render Him willing obedience, and dwell in the earth made new when sin has forever been removed. These two forces will continue to work until every one will have taken his stand on the side of life (the keeping of the commandments of God), or the side of sin and death (the transgression of God’s law); so that there will be no excuse; and “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” May it be the blessed privilege of each reader to be among those who are found keeping God’s commandments. “THE FAITH OF JESUS.”
By W. S. Sadler
“Now FAITH is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Heb. 11:1. Then let us settle it now and for all time, that faith is the only ground we will ever have for hope, and let us ask for nothing more. We should not put our sinful sight in place of sinless faith (the faith of Jesus) as an evidence of the thing we hope for. To just the extent we take for evidence things that are unreliable, the thing we hope for becomes insecure. “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” By faith, the Lord says, we know these things, and in trying to find them out in any other way, we are sure to make a blunder. If you try to search these things out by sight and reason, you will turn out like many of the scientists of the day, semi-infidels. They try to learn by sight what God says we can only learn by faith. What we need is a faith that will believe, a faith that is faithful; a faith that will believe God even in the face of the testimony of our senses to the contrary Look at any of the natural phenomena with sight, and you become skeptical; but look at them with the eye of faith, and you become transformed. The thing that is looked upon by the eye of sight can only have a deteriorating influence upon the eye that beholds it. Take the sights of sin in the great and wicked cities of to-day, which we can not avoid seeing, and unless we can look on these poor, unfortunate men and women who are selling everything, from their clothes to their virtue,—unless we can look upon them with the eye of faith, we are likely to be demoralized by every view. In other words, unless by faith we can see in sinning men or women even yet the semblance of the divine, the physical eye will reveal things that will be to our moral deterioration. The only way in which we can save ourselves from such an event, is to view such scenes with the eye of faith, with the eye of Jesus Christ. “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.” The sacrifice that is not offered by faith is a sacrifice that God can not receive, for “without faith it is impossible to please Him.” The only thing that we can offer to God that is absolutely sinless and has no taint of selfishness, is the faith of Jesus. Offer to Him whatever you will, but offer it in the faith of Jesus. The faith of Jesus is the one thing the enemy of your soul can not take away from you; he would not know what to do with it if he had it, he once sought to overthrow it and utterly failed. When you are shorn of everything else that would encourage and cheer you, remember there always remains that one comfort,—the faith of Jesus. When you can not see victory, but in its place only seeming defeat hovering over you; when you seem to be entering into the very jaws of destruction, just calmly hold on to your faith in God as the evidence of the thing you hope for, but do not see. Do you hope for eternal life? Do you hope for a perfect character? Then what is the only evidence that we have in this world? Faith is the evidence of things not seen, but hoped for. Then keep on reckoning. The reckoning of death to sin, and of life to God, is simply the exercise of faith in Jesus. “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom. 6:11. “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death.” The man who is learning the lesson of living by faith will pass through experiences which may seem bitter to his fellow-workers, but to him they have a divine flavor just in proportion as he has learned the lesson of walking by faith. To the man who will walk by the “faith of Jesus,” every temptation of the adversary of our souls becomes a furnace of trial in which he will become better and stronger instead of weaker. All temptations come from Satan, but all trials come from God. It is in Satan’s power to take God’s trials and pervert them into temptations, but God also can turn the temptations of Satan into trials in which the dross of our characters will be burned out. Satan is wise enough to know that he can work to better advantage to accomplish his purpose when we are passing through trial. The best time for the enemy to pervert our character and accomplish his purpose is to get hold of us when we are in the furnace of affliction. So the very time we are taken out of the divine furnace of trial is the very time when the enemy can most easily mould us in the wrong direction. The soul who will walk by faith will be able to turn every season of temptation into one of victory, and every time the enemy attacks him it will be to him a moral gymnasium for the development of spiritual resistance. We know what physical resistance against physical disease is. There is a certain level which it is normal and natural for us to maintain. As soon as we fall below this level, we become more or less liable to the inroads of disease. The spiritual parallel of this represents the plane of faith. Faith is that moral stimulus to our spiritual powers that enables us to rise above the insinuations and temptations of the enemy. So we see that even Satan’s temptations, to him who loves God supremely, to the soul who walks by faith, can not help working together for good. “IF IT WERE NOT SO, I WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU.”
By T. E. Bowen
JESUS had about finished His earthly mission. A few more hours of suffering were before Him, then He would ascend to His Father. The news of His going away had been broken to His few followers, and they were sorrowful. He had told them that whither He went they could not follow now; but that if faithful, they afterward would come where He was. Jesus saw their sad countenances, and sought to comfort them. “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you,” were a few of His words to them. While this language was calculated to comfort them by pointing them to the time of reunion in the kingdom of God (a hope which is still the source of comfort to the Christian), there is an expression thrown in which has a deep significance upon the Sabbath question. He says, “If it were not so, I would have told you.” That is, if there were not mansions, real and lasting, in His Father’s house, He would have told them so. But He did not tell them differently. They had always looked forward by faith to the city of God as their future eternal home. Their fathers died with their eyes of faith upon this golden city. Of them it is written, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them6afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” Heb. 11:13. Jesus knew this was their belief, and that it was essential for them to have a correct faith as to the future home promised by God. Yet, in view of all this, He says if this had not all been so, He would have told them the exact truth. Therefore it is correctly concluded that His silence upon this point was positive proof that what they believed on this especial point of doctrine was absolutely correct. Some argue that because Jesus said so little about the Sabbath, therefore it was His design to have it changed from the seventh to the first day of the week. But instead of this proving anything in favor of a change, it proves the contrary. Surely, if upon so vital a point of His Father’s law as the day of the Sabbath, had His nation and people been observing the wrong one, He would have told them so. But He did not tell them. His very silence proves conclusively that the Sabbath they observed was the correct day, and was not changed by Him. Had the first day been designed by Him for a day of rest, He certainly would have told them so. It is always safe to follow the Lord. If He was silent upon the change of the rest-day, well will it be for His followers not to venture to change it. Dear reader, had Christ desired you to keep the first day in honor of His resurrection, He would have told you so. But, altho He provided for keeping the Sabbath forty years after His death, at the destruction of Jerusalem, not one sentence did He utter about keeping the first day of the week in honor of His resurrection upon that day. He said if there was not a place for the righteous in heaven, “I would have told you;” and we can safely conclude from this that if the seventh day of the week,—the day upon which God rested at creation; the day proclaimed at Sinai as the rest-day of Jehovah; the day Jesus observed as the Sabbath during His earthly life,—had not been the true Sabbath,—if all this had not been so, He would have told us. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD.
By G.
The Scriptures represent God as a being of form, parts, and attributes. He is not an imaginary being; His very name is I AM. “God created man in His own image,” and an image is a material likeness, a visible representation. The Son, the “firstborn of every creature,” is the “express image of His person.” Being a person, God must have place; so the Scriptures tell us that He has a habitation. “The Lord looketh from heaven; He beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of His habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth.” Ps. 33:13, 14. “Hear Thou in heaven Thy dwelling place; and when Thou hearest, forgive.” 1 Kings 8:30. “Unto Thee lift I up my eyes, O Thou that dwellest in the heavens.” Ps. 123:1. God puts contrast between the place where He dwells and the earth: “Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few.” Eccl. 5:2. After this manner our Lord taught His disciples to pray: “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” Matt. 6:9, 10. God was in the earthly tabernacle, but it was by representation. No house of man's building could contain Him in person. Stephen said: “Solomon built Him an house. Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” Acts 7:47, 48. When the Jews rejected Stephen's testimony, “he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God.” Jesus had gone from earth to heaven, as He Himself had said, “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.” John 16:28. See also ch. 14:2, 3. Another evidence of God's personality is that He is a King over personal intelligences. “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever.” 1 Tim. 1:17. Being a real King, He has a definite throne. “The Lord's throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids try, the children of men.” Ps. 11:4; Isa. 66:1. Christ, our high priest, is “set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.” Heb. 8:1, 2. Not only has God a kingdom and a definite throne, but He is to give Christ a kingdom. See Dan. 7:13, 14. Christ is called God, because He has inherited the name of His Father, as every other son does; but His personality is not therefore to be confounded with that of the Father, who says to Him, “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever; the scepter of Thy kingdom is a right scepter. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness; therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.” Ps. 45:6, 7. So Christ can make the promise, “To him that overcometh will I grant to7sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne.” Rev. 3:21. Then He will have delivered up the kingdom in which He is associated with the Father, to assume the throne of David. “He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David; and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end.” Luke 1:32, 33. This is also in fulfilment of a promise made to David himself concerning his Seed. See Acts 2:29-31. Hardly any one who claims to believe that the Word of God has any literal significance at all will dispute that the New Jerusalem will be a material city. It will be one that mortal men, under the leadership of Satan and His angels, will endeavor to capture. Rev. 20:5-9. The city will come down from God out of heaven. “I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.” Rev. 21:3. The city is made of material things, and is fully described in this and the following chapters. God's throne is wherever God is in person. It was once on Mount Sinai for a short time, and the law went from it in the form of the Ten Commandments. So when God shall dwell in the New Jerusalem, His throne will be there. There will be two thrones in the city, the throne of God and the throne of the Lamb. The earth will be the most highly honored part of the universe, because of its being the site of the great final victory over Satan and sin. There will be the Father's throne, the seat of government of the entire universe; and there will be the throne of the Son, who will reign over all the earth. Sometimes we are told that these Bible truths are “gross materialism.” But all Scripture truth deals with the material universe, especially with this material earth, and the salvation of its material inhabitants. This earth is to be purified with material fire, as it was once destroyed by material water; then it will become a new material earth, “wherein dwelleth righteousness.” 2 Peter 3:13. Righteousness can not dwell where there are no real intellectual beings. So when the saints come up in the resurrection, they will have bodies—spiritual bodies, as was Adam's before he sinned; and these bodies will be made immortal because of their having overcome sin through faith in Jesus Christ. See 1 Cor. 15:35-57. But is not God a spirit?—Yes, God has a spiritual body; and mortal men with their spiritual eyes opened have seen hosts of spiritual bodies. We “see through a glass darkly” with our sin-bedimmed natural eyes. Again we are asked, Is not God in everything? Does He not dwell in us, and work in us “to will and to do of His good pleasure”? Certainly He does, but how? “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” 1 Cor. 3:16. But the Spirit of God is not God Himself. “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God?” God works by His Spirit, and through His ministers (or angels). We read that in the very beginning “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Gen. 1:2. Again the Lord says, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man.” Ch. 6:3. When Christ went from earth, He sent His Spirit to comfort us and guide us in the way of truth. It was expedient for Him to go away in order that this Comforter and Guide could come to remain permanently. John 14:16, 17, 26; 16:13-16. By this agency Christ is with us alway, altho absent in person for a time. “When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me.” Ch. 15:26. Paul's prayer was that the brethren might be strengthened with might by the Spirit of the Father in the inner man, that Christ might dwell in their hearts by faith. See Eph. 3:14-17. Moreover all true Christians are “builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” Ch. 2:20-22. God is manifest in His works. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork;” but He is in the things He makes and propels just in the sense that a man is in the mechanism of His hand. His wisdom, His skill, His power, and His purpose are in the things He makes and sustains. They bear the marks of His workmanship. To put God Himself into the creatures of His hand is to ignore all His agencies. Such a view but paves the way for worshiping the creature rather than the Creator. He is a “God of hosts,” and saith to one servant, Do this, and he doeth it; and to another, Do that, and he doeth it. The happiness of His creatures depends upon their being laborers together with Him in every field of divine industry, under the direction of His all-seeing eye. “He maketh His angels winds, and His ministers a flame of fire.” Heb. 1:7. “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” Verse 14. GOD'S EVERLASTING LAW OF LIFE.
The law of God is not a set of arbitrary precepts which the Most High has given to define man's duty to God and man's fellow-creatures. True, the law does thus define duty, and it also invariably appeals to the sinner as arbitrary demands which he can not perform. In fact, they can come to the carnal mind in no other way; “because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Rom. 8:7. To one who holds this attitude toward God, all God's enactments are arbitrary and cruel, unless outwardly they are in harmony with what the man believes. For instance, a man's education, prejudices, environments, pride, and the fashions of the popular religion may make him tolerant of nine of God's precepts. He may even seek to defend, and may advocate them as good laws. But the other precept of the ten is unpopular, unfashionable, without immediate “established” “precedent” in its observance, and the man rejects it as unworthy of his regard. The outward observance of nine commandments is not obedience. The true test of faith and loyalty is the rejected one,—the precept which has naught but God's naked Word behind it; and if a man believe and love God, he will do what God requires, irrespective of education, prejudice, environment, pride, or fashion. Nay, more: As men turn from God, the true servant will be all the more loyal. As fashion turns from God, he will turn toward God. No intervening traditions or precedents will keep the instructed Christian from obedience to what God requires, to what Jesus Christ exemplified in His life. To him of the carnal mind God's law is arbitrary. He is not subject to the law. He can not be. He could not do it if he would. It is true, in a sense, that God asks what the man can not perform. That is, the man can not do it in his own power. He has not the mind to serve God. He must have the mind of Christ. If he will open his heart, and let God's thought in as expressed in His law, he will find the law an “enabling act,” bringing power to do its requirement, transforming his mind into the mind of Christ. The law will then be seen as it is, not cruel and arbitrary demands, but the expression of God's character of love, the law of the outflow of His life. God's life flows out from the great fountain in harmony with His law. That law is the way of the life's full flowing to the children of men. The commandment was ordained to life. Rom. 7:10. “In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.” Prov. 12:28. Seeing it in this light, the light of God (and who would not?), what a blessed thing it is to know God's law. To the sinner only is it a law of condemnation and death. When the carnal mind of man placed itself across the current of God's life, it perverted the law of righteousness in man to sin, and the law of life to death. But he who yields the carnal mind, and looks by faith to Christ Jesus, finds that glorious law in a new light—“the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” Rom. 8:2. Formerly, the power of the perverted law brought forth sin and death; but now “the righteousness of the law” is “fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Verse 4. There are thousands who are keeping nine of the commands of God's law, thinking they are fully obedient. God accepts their service, because the heart is right. But they do not nor can they know the fulness of His life as they will when they see every one of His holy precepts, and let God's life flow into their heart, mind, and soul in harmony with His whole law, full-channel deep. So it flowed into and through Christ Jesus. “I delight to do Thy will, O, My God,” said He through the psalmist, “yea, Thy law is within My heart.” Ps. 40:7, 8. “As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself.” John 5:26. And every one who receives Christ Jesus intelligently, truly, fully, receives in Him all God's law, and the blessed fulness of God's life. When our brethren of various names in the great Christian world see this, there will be no turning from the Sabbath of the Lord. It will be gladly embraced as blessed enlargement for the inflow of God's life in Christ Jesus, and that rest of life in righteousness found only in Him. There are many who are observing outwardly all the ten commandments. They recognize their obligation, but the duty seems heavy and hard at times, and sweet peace is wanting. They do not yet see the sweetness and blessing of that law in Christ Jesus, as a glorious, blessed channel, the only channel of sin-healing, health-giving life from God. If they would only let Jesus in with the fulness of the law and life of God, they would know the peace that passeth understanding, and themselves be channels of light and life to others. Only in life is there true blessing; and therefore “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord;” “Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in His commandments.” It is becoming very common to hear religious teachers boldly proclaiming that they do not hold themselves subject to the law of God. Even some whose church creed affirms the everlasting perpetuity of the Ten Commandments—and nearly all church creeds do—take refuge in the no-law position when loyalty to God’s law in Sabbath-keeping is preached by the Gospel. It is but a fulfilment of the Lord’s words concerning the last days. “Because iniquity [literally, lawlessness] shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” Matt. 24:12. This claim of not being subject to God’s law is a true but sad confession. “The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Rom. 8:7. Only the one who will let God save him from sin can be subject. The Lord Jesus died that He might destroy the carnal, fleshly mind, and our salvation is in letting Him do so.—Oriental Watchman. The Value of a Life
By William E. Barton
THE par value of every life is the value of the service which that life renders to its own age. But that is not its whole value. Some lives are below par a week after the funeral; others being dead still speak, and the whisper of their initial utterance swells to an anthem that echoes down the centuries.—William E. Barton. ARE THE DEAD CONSCIOUS?
By S.
In The Outlook of January 25 a correspondent, referring to an article which had previously appeared in that journal upon the condition of man after death, makes the following statement with question attached: “Certainly the Scriptures teach the conscious existence of the departed; but would you imply that there is to be no simultaneous resurrection of the dead at some future period? (1 Thess. 4:16; Rev. 20:13; 2 Tim. 2:18.)” Now if the Scriptures do teach the conscious existence of the “departed,” they should not teach what they do teach in the foregoing texts to which the questioner referred. The Bible, being the Word of God, should be consistent with itself. It can not teach two things which are opposed the one to the other. The conscious state of the dead is a doctrine which is diametrically opposed to the future resurrection of the body and a future meting out of reward and punishment. The Bible does—not—can not—teach them both. It does teach one. Which one? Are the dead conscious? Is death the immediate portal to heaven? The inspired record of the first Christian martyr’s death states that “he fell asleep,” (Acts 7:60), not that he entered into the joys of a saints’ reward in heaven. The record concerning David is this: “David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption.” Acts 13:36. But the difference between his condition after death and the condition of Christ after His death is plainly stated in the following verse (37): “But He [Christ], whom God raised again, saw no corruption.” That is, David died, and his mental and physical activities ceased, his flesh decayed, and he will remain in that condition until the morning of the “first resurrection.” Christ died, His mental and physical activities ceased for a short space; but He was called forth from among the dead without decay. Being sinless in His own person, death could not hold Him, decay could not prey upon Him. There is the difference between the death of mortal man and His death who died that man might receive immortality. David “fell on sleep,” and remains to this day holden of death, as the above text shows. Christ died, but rose again, and is now sitting at the right hand of God in heaven. Heb. 12:2. Now, is David’s experience and condition the experience and condition of the rest of the human race? or does God permit him alone to be held in the grasp of death, while all the rest of God’s accepted children go on to heaven without him and before him? Speaking of the change which must take place at the resurrection of the righteous dead, the Word declares: “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” I Cor. 15:53. Then the dead have been corruptible; they have seen corruption; in short, they have been dead. They could not have been in heaven, for corruption can not enter there. They have been corruptible up to that time, for the Word declares (verse 52), “The dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” They have not been conscious in the place to which they have gone; for “the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything.” “There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” Eccl. 9:5, 10. Then is it true that “the Scriptures teach the conscious existence of the departed”?—This part of the Scripture does not. The Lord told Moses (Deut. 31:16), “Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers.” Does that scripture teach the conscious existence of the dead? Men are not conscious in sleep; and the sleep of death is the soundest sleep that man can know. It is true that Moses has not been held in death until the present time. God, for a particular purpose, broke the bands of death for him. See Jude 9, and Mark 9:4. But he slept, was unconscious in death, until the Lord saw fit, by a special resurrection, to release him. Again and again the Lord speaks of death as a sleep, but never as a gate of transition from life to a higher life. The idea of the conscious existence of the “departed” came in through the age-long deception that man has inherent immortality. The one involves the other, and both are contrary to the Word; both militate against the purpose of Christ’s life and death upon the earth. Christ declares, “I am come that they might have life;” that is, the eternal life which man had forfeited by sin. Immortality can not perish; but God “gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. If man were immortal, Christ’s sacrifice was unnecessary; for man would have had “everlasting life.” Because he did not have it, because he was mortal, and everlasting death would have been his portion on account of sin, Christ was given, a sacrifice for the race, that man need not perish; that man might have what he does not now have, immortality, everlasting life. Man would never have seen immortality but for the work of Christ in his behalf. That was brought to light through the Gospel. 2 Tim. 1:10. Death was the punishment pronounced upon man for sin; but Christ, through His sacrifice, “abolished death;” not that man should not die, but that death should not triumph over him. None could ever be raised from the death into which mankind goes down, were it not for the power of the righteousness of Christ. 1 Cor. 15:22. It is perfectly plain from these scriptures that the Bible does not teach the “conscious existence of the departed.” It does teach that death is a sleep; that man in death knows nothing—is dead; that immortality is the gift of God bestowed at the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:51–55); that the reward of the righteous Christ brings with Him when He comes the second time (Rev. 22:12). The teachings of the Bible are consistent from cover to cover; but the idea of human immortality and consciousness in death finds no support within that sacred Word. S. THERE is little wonder that the common people are poor, and that for every one who climbs from mediocrity into the ranks of recognized wealth, a score fall into poverty. There is little wonder that socialism is making its way through the rank and file of the world’s population, and that anarchy is putting on a bolder front every year. The crowned heads and the aristocracy of wealth fear the increase of these elements, and well they may. That the cause of poverty on the one hand lies largely in extravagance on the other hand, may be discerned in such exhibits as the following from the London Tit-Bits:— In Windsor Castle kitchen, King Edward VII. has copper and silver utensils worth something like £9,000, while on fittings alone George II. expended the sum of £10,000 in order to satisfy his cook. But the cream of kitchens is owned by the Czar of Russia, who, soon after his accession to the throne, spent £80,000 in remodeling and refurbishing his kitchen at the winter palace, St. Petersburg. All the cooking utensils are of solid silver, while the spice boxes are of solid gold. His chief cook draws a salary of £8,000 per annum, and he has six subordinates in receipt of salaries ranging between £1,000 and £1,500—to say nothing of hundreds of supernumeraries. Altogether the czar’s kitchen expenses amount to £120,000 yearly. The Shah of Persia’s kitchen is the most valuable in the world, if not the most expensive. The shah could, if he wished, realize more than a million pounds sterling on the sale of the contents of his kitchen. His food is cooked in gold-lined pots, and he eats his dinner off solid gold plates, incrusted with precious stones of priceless value. His jeweled knives and forks are said to be worth thousands of pounds, while his marvelous ‘state’ soup tureen is worth half a dozen large fortunes. These almost fabulous expenditures are indeed astonishing when we reflect that they represent only the kitchen paraphernalia of one great establishment for each of the two first-mentioned rulers, who maintain various places of abode, and then reflect that everything else connected with their support and entertainment is in like proportion. When we take into consideration the enormous cost of officialdom and aristocracy, together with the added expense of alcoholism, it seems hardly possible that there could be anything else than poverty and want among the masses.