Are They the Spirits of Our Departed Friends? Or Are They a Distinct and Higher Order of Beings than Man?
THE false idea that the spirits of the dead become angels has led many persons to believe that our departed friends return and minister to the living; for the Lord says, in Heb. 1:14, that the angels are "all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation." But we should not confound angels with our departed friends, for the latter will never become angels.
Before the world was created, angels existed; for the Lord, in Job 38:7, speaking of the creation of the world, refers to the angels when He says, "The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." And the Bible states that before man died, the Lord placed in Eden "cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." Gen. 3:24.
The Scriptures teach that the angels are a different order of beings from man. The inspired apostle Paul said, in Heb. 2:7, that man was made "a little lower than the angels." The idea prevails, in many minds, that because they are spiritual beings, they are therefore not real beings; but such a conception of the angels is contrary to the plain teachings of the Word, which declares that they possess real bodies. Thus unquestionably the angels are real beings, not human, of course, but spiritual.
The Bible abounds with references to such heavenly messengers. In Gen. 18:6-8 is the record showing how Abraham prepared for them real food, and they ate it. This is undoubtedly the instance to which the apostle Paul referred in Heb. 13:2, when he said, "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." The prophet Daniel, in describing the glory of the angel Gabriel, says, in Dan. 10:5, 6: "I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: his body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude."
The glory of the angels was signally manifested when the Roman soldiers who were guarding the sepulcher of Christ fell as dead men at their presence.
Their power also is clearly presented in the Bible. In 2 Kings 19:35, it is stated that one angel destroyed, in one night, 185,000 Assyrians. Other remarkable instances of their power are clearly outlined by the Lord. It was an angel that protected Daniel when he was cast into the lions' den.
Their Chief Employment
THE chief employment of these heavenly beings, who, we have found, are not the spirits of the dead, is to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation. How few persons there are who appreciate the fact that it was the protecting and fostering care of good angels that saved them from some serious calamity with which they were about to be taken! But this is a fact which is repeatedly and plainly taught throughout the sacred narrative.
In Ps. 34:7 we read, "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them." These unseen beings are encamping about those who are striving to do right, and are commissioned to deliver them when danger threatens. Great safety is felt by men when they are protected by an encampment of armed soldiers. How much safer should they feel if they realize that they are protected by these glorious and mighty beings! The Scriptures do not give assurance of angel ministry except to those who are heirs of salvation, or, in other words, to those who are conforming their lives to God's sacred and divine will.
Have Children Guardian Angels?
THE New Testament plainly teaches that every child of God has a guardian angel, who is sent from the shining courts of glory to guard and sustain him. Proof for this statement will be found in Matt. 18:10, which says: "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven." Thus we see that every humble child of God has a guardian angel, who is in constant communication with heaven.
In these times, when danger threatens us on the right hand and on the left, by disaster of every kind, by war in all its horrifying conditions, the true Christian can find comfort and consolation in the precious assurance of Psalm 91, that the Lord will give His angels charge over us.
Christ’s Self-Sacrificing Love
By T. E. Bowen
THE devil professes great interest in men. But where is the record of one self-denying act of his for us? What has he suffered that we might be benefited thereby? Consummate selfishness his!
On the other hand, think of the life of the Son of God, full of self-denial and loving ministry, and how that life of love was forever sealed to us by the cross. That cross is the mightiest argument that can be produced against the powers of darkness, proving for all time the love of the Christ who tasted death upon it "for every man," thus enabling every man, if he will, to live eternally with Him in glory. Consummate self-sacrificing love is this.
T. E. BOWEN.
Does Might Make Right?
By B. M. Grandy
A Discussion of the Principles Involved in the Mighty Struggle Between Capital and Labor
"A conflict ages old, it grows in scope and intensity."
By
B. M. Grandy
THE Declaration of American Independence states a great truth, "All men are created equal,"—a truth which is but the reiteration of a statement from the Source of all truth, who declares in His word, "God . . . hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." Acts 17: 24-26. Yet, like many other great truths, it is not universally recognized. Solomon might well have said with regard to man's attitude toward this truth also, "This only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." As in the case of Israel of old, these inventions bring a plague upon the head of the inventors. Ps. 106: 7-11.
Owing to the perverseness of the human heart, we find generally the experiences of mankind in strange contradiction of the right and proper. Brothers to-day are engaged in terrible battle and carnage, nations plunged into an abyss of slaughter. Deep-seated envy and hatred are uncovered in the hearts of kindred.
Passionate Fury Seizes the Scepter
NEUTRALITY, standing apart, looks upon the terrible slaughter, and is filled with horror and astonishment. Should we say "standing apart"? — Nay; rather, Neutrality plunges feverishly to the task of enriching herself at the cost of the lifeblood of war-mad nations, and herself hastily dons the armor, better to withstand the conflict that she feels, if she does not acknowledge, will soon demand her attention.
To-day we loudly decry the uselessness of war; to-morrow the man that fails to lend his support to the war program, and refuses to stain his hands with the blood of his fellow man, is a mollycoddle and a coward. Delicate women scorn him; children scoff at him; mankind despises him. To-day reason — or is it only circumstances? — holds in check the powers of darkness; to-morrow passionate fury seizes the scepter, and the powers of hell desolate the land.
Bitterness Grips the Heart
Two boys start in life, each ambitious to accumulate the wealth of this world. One, by his superior genius or more fortunate ventures, succeeds. His path through life leads amid opulence and splendor. True, his business ethics are often somewhat on a tangent to the straight line of right; but he is counted a success, for he has gained the coveted wealth. His associations and sympathies are for those of his own class, he himself being the first object of his concern.
The other man fails—miserably fails. Fate, destiny, seemingly the hand of man and God, is against him. The results of his toil and striving come to naught. His path through life leads through the haunts of poverty, vice, and crime. His hand is raised against the class that his early ambitions led him to aspire to reach. Bitterness fills his heart as he finds his condition and views of life regarded with disdain by his more successful boyhood companion.
From whatever angle we view the experiences of mankind and conditions in the world, we are forced to conclude that some things are radically wrong. True, this has ever been the case; but there has never been a time, in the history of the world, when so acute a condition was evident, and the spirit of intensity was so marked in every sphere of man's activity. The progress as well as the retrogression that it took centuries to accomplish in the past, is now crowded into decades, years, or even months.
Various and varied are the remedies advanced to cure the malady that affects mankind. Deceptive, delusive affliction, it baffles the knowledge of the wisest who would diagnose the symptoms and remedy the condition.
Only a Cog in the Wheel
HEROIC measures are proposed. Some advocate the entire reorganization of the governments of the earth; every incentive to gain and individual profit to be curbed or destroyed by the holding of all wealth in common and the removing of all competition; human individual selfishness to be exercised only in behalf of the betterment of all combined; every unit of society to occupy his place as a cog or a wheel in the great machine of human economy, and occupy the place for which nature and preparation best fit him. It is hoped, by political or revolutionary means, to bring all mankind to a common level, thereby eliminating class, and class struggle.
Such are a few of the remedies suggested, some of which have had a trial. Still conditions are not noticeably improved. In fact, the careful student of affairs, as well as of God's word, is forced to admit that conditions grow rapidly worse. In times of crisis, the most carefully laid schemes of man come to naught.
Among the social problems of the day, there is no other that concerns so large a portion of the population of the world as does the struggle between the forces of capital and labor. A conflict ages old, it grows in scope and intensity in these days, as never in the history of the past.
The Growing Army of the Discontented
THE unprecedented growth of wealth in the world, and its accumulation in the hands of the few, cannot but result in an ever increasing army of discontented poor. Poverty, at its best, breeds discontent in the human heart. Prodigious wealth flaunting its banner, in wanton extravagance, before the eyes of poorly paid labor, cannot but cause social unrest.
The doctrine that "might makes right," and "to the victor belong the spoils," results in a spirit of indifference in the hearts of the rich, and a spirit of smoldering resentment in the hearts of the poor. The tendency is for the capitalist, flushed with the power of wealth, to grow more exacting and arrogant, and the laborer to become more resentful.
Quick to discern the apparent advantages gained for capital by organization, labor adopts like measures, and federations and trade-unions spring up in every branch of industry. The field of individual responsibility narrows. The independent small tradesman must retire from the field; and the peace-loving artisan who chooses not to affiliate with the union, is either coerced, crushed, or compelled to carry on his work at a disadvantage.
Something as to the extent of this mighty struggle, to what lengths it is to go, and how and when it will end, are questions fraught with intense interest. They will be considered in a second article by Mr. Grandy, which will appear next week.
The Sabbath as a Love Token
By E. H. M.
THE Sabbath is a love token from God to man. Love is the fulfilling of the Sabbath precept. 1 John 5:3. A fond father one day asked his child, "How much do you love me?" The child looked into his face with a sweet, trusting smile, and replied, "Papa, I love you enough to mind you." The question which comes to every soul who investigates the Sabbath question is, Do I love God enough to obey Him by keeping the day He has appointed? It is an insult to our Creator to disregard the love token He has intrusted to our care. E. H. M.
Marvelous Experiences in India
By George F. Enoch
By George F. Enoch
In one of the native states of India, situated in the Kathiawar peninsula, there was a young Indian woman from Bengal, who was the private tutor in the family of the reigning prince. Some of our good gospel literature fell into her hands; and she later came down to Poona, where we were living, and was more fully instructed in the truths of the message, and was baptized.
When she had come as a stranger into this native state some years before, the prime minister of the state and his wife had been as father and mother to her; and now she was anxious that they also should have the light. He was a Hindu gentleman, wealthy and influential. He had been promoted to a high place in the British government in Bombay, and was living, at the time, in the city. This sister made him a present of the book "Desire of Ages." Some months afterward, a letter was sent me from him, showing that this book had had a wonderful influence over his life. In fact, he was almost persuaded to become a Christian.
I went to call on him, and he assured me that no other book had ever brought to him such help as had that book. "I read it for a half hour each night, just before I retire; and it calms my mind, and I have excellent rest," was his testimony. He was also a subscriber for our periodical, the Oriental Watchman; and in that, he saw an advertisement of "Patriarchs and Prophets" and "Great Controversy," two other books written by the author of "Desire of Ages." He immediately ordered them, in the best binding that we could procure for him, and has been reading them.
He has since offered us a splendid property in Bombay, for one year, free of rent, if we would open treatment rooms in that city. Each year, he gladly takes the Harvest Ingathering SIGNS, and contributes to our work, and seems to be drawing nearer and nearer to the truth.
One of our colporteurs met an educated Brahman in Bangalore, South India, who was high in government service. He was pleased to know that this colporteur represented the people who publish the book "Ministry of Healing." He brought a copy of it out with great respect, and said: "This is the best book I have ever read. It represents the true religion. When I find the same kind of people outside that book that I find inside the book, I am going to join them."
For many years, our literature has been circulated in India. To-day the people are buying more than ever before; and it is very interesting to note that our religious books, such as "Heralds of the Morning," are purchased by non-Christians in large numbers. A letter just received says that sixty per cent of the books on religious subjects now sold in Bombay are bought by non-Christians.
About four years ago, the writer began a series of tent meetings in Lanovla, a little railroad town in the mountains of western India. The English-speaking community was small, and opposition of the fiercest and most unscrupulous sort was immediately aroused. Falsehoods concerning us were freely circulated; and as the people were prejudiced against Americans to start with, and we were entire strangers, the community would have turned against us, had it not been that our religious magazines and some of our good books had been sold and read in the community for years. In every case where the people did not forsake us, they had been readers of our publications; and as a result, a company was brought into Christian truth.
One young man from that effort has since gone to England, to take the ministerial course; and this summer, he is with a tent company in Scotland. He plans to return to India as a missionary as soon as his school work is completed. It was the power of the literature that dispelled the prejudice, and saved the day at that time.
We might multiply evidences. Over all India are found thousands of men and women who have been reading our books and papers for years. Unconsciously their minds are molded according to the principles of truth. When the time comes that the battle is to be fought in their neighborhood, they will recognize the voice of the Master, and will take their stand with the people of God. Let us not be weary in well-doing, but continue to scatter the publications "like the leaves of autumn"; for we know not "whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good."
Freedom From Sin Through Self-Crucifixion
"THE path to freedom from sin is through the crucifixion of self, and conflict with the powers of darkness. . . . The expulsion of sin must be the act of the soul itself, in calling into exercise its noblest powers. . . . Day by day, there must be a hand-to-hand fight with the powers of darkness, or victory will never be ours."
Gethsemane
By Ruth Lees Olson
BY RUTH LEES OLSON
GETHSEMANE — I hear it ringing through the ages past and gone.
Ever it brings the cry of One forsaken and alone,
One who, from glorious entrance to the holy city fair,
Sought the garden's brooding shadows, to wrestle with despair.
After the joyous shouting and plaudits of glad acclaim,
With waving of palms and olives, and praises for His name,
After the flower-strewn pathway, and hosannas loud and clear,
After triumphant greeting, with tribute from lips held dear,
Come the darkening shadows, the night's sad vigils alone,
Under the weeping olives, forsaken by all His own,
With none to comfort and cheer Him, no one to wipe His brow
Of the bloody sweat of His anguish. Alone He endures it now.
Forth from Gethsemane's shadows, whence all forsook Him and fled,
O'er the murmuring waters of Kidron, His weary feet are led,
Onward to Calvary's mountain, bearing His cross of shame,
With none to shout "Hosanna," no voice to praise His name.
Upward toward heaven they raise Him, this Jesus who freely gave.
Taunting, they cry: "Let Him come down! Where is His power to save?"
But the bruised reed is broken, the loving heart is still,
And gently they lay His mangled form in the tomb near Calvary's hill.
The crimson fingers of morning draw back the curtain of night;
And the sun, peeping over the top of the world, beholds a wondrous sight.
For the seals of the tomb are broken, the stone has been rolled away,
And only the open sepulcher greets the dawning of the day.
Robed in celestial glory, with face all radiant with light,
The Son of man and Son of God passed from their wondering sight.
Finished the great atonement, the price of a soul has been won,
And the angel's song floats back to earth as heaven receives its own.
But each one who follows the Master must tread the selfsame way
From the victory heights of a soul's new birth to the garden lone and gray,
From the bloody sweat of Gethsemane to a Calvary crucified.
Then — the slumber time of that "little while" in the rest of eventide.
But the morning will dawn in splendor, and each heart respond to His love
When He calls His own from death's prison house to their home in the mansions above.
Abdicated His Dominion in Favor of Satan
By C. P. Bollman
One of the States of the Universe — The Lost Dominion to Be Wrested from the Usurper
By C. P. BOLLMAN
WHEN God created this earth, and placed man on it, He did so in pursuance of His divine purpose to fill it with free moral agents, loyal to their Creator. "For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God Himself that formed the earth and made it; He hath established it, He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else." Isa. 45: 18.
The divine plan necessarily involved human probation; and so, when God had created the world, and fitted it for human habitation, He created man also, and gave him dominion over the earth. The inspired record is: "And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." See Gen. 1: 26-28.
This dominion, of course, was to be exercised subject to the will of God. The earth was, so to speak, to be simply one of the states of the universe. But by sin, Adam lost his dominion, and this not in the sense that it reverted to God, from whom he received it, but in the sense that by his own act, man exchanged the service of God for the service of Satan, and both he and his dominion passed over to the archenemy, by whom he had been overthrown. "For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage," says the inspired Word (2 Peter 2: 19); and again, "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey?" (Rom. 6: 16.) Adam had abdicated his dominion in favor of Satan, whom our Lord Himself three times called "the prince of this world." See John 12: 31; 14: 30; 16: 11.
Dominion in Fact, but Not by Right
WHEN man sinned, and thus became the servant of Satan, it was as though the British East India Company, having received from the British government, in 1668, dominion over the presidency of Bombay, had, by yielding obedience to some foreign prince, transferred that dominion to him. The allegiance of the company, and its authority over Bombay, would have vested in that prince as sovereign in fact, though not sovereign by right.
The traitorous act of the East India Company could not have given the foreign prince any title to the presidency of Bombay, but it would have given him the dominion, until such time as it should be wrested from him; and if, in this supposed case, the British government had determined not to use force immediately, but only moral suasion for the time being, and not to resume the government of the colony until such time as a sufficient number of the inhabitants to people the colony returned to their allegiance to the British crown of their own free will, we would have a case somewhat analogous to the rebellion of man, and the giving of his dominion into the hands of Satan, a prince in rebellion against God.
That the earth will finally be wrested from Satan was foretold in the curse pronounced by the Lord upon the serpent: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Gen. 3: 15. This seed was Christ; for He is mentioned repeatedly in the promise to Abraham (Gen. 12: 7; 13: 15, etc.), and in Gal. 3: 16 we are told positively that that seed is Christ. Says the apostle: "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ."
The promise made to Abraham was a promise of this earth. So far as the record in Genesis goes, it might be understood to apply only to the land of Canaan; but in Rom. 4: 13 we have the explicit divine testimony that "the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith."
This inspired commentary upon the Mosaic record is too plain to be mistaken. Coupled with the text already quoted from Galatians, it means that the world was promised to Abraham through Christ. "And if ye be Christ's," says the apostle, "then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Gal. 3: 29. Hence the destruction of Satan's power, and the establishment of the everlasting kingdom of God in the earth, is a matter of vital interest to every one who, by faith in Christ, is a child of God.
But Satan's usurped dominion will not be wrested from him until, by moral suasion, a sufficient number of the sons and daughters of Adam to people the world have been persuaded to return to allegiance to their Creator. God will have a willing service. It is the "willing and obedient" who "shall eat the good of the land." God is now visiting the nations, "to take out of them a people for His name." Acts 15: 14. When this work shall have been accomplished, then, and not until then, will Christ receive at His Father's hands the kingdom, and come crowned "King of kings, and Lord of lords."
Two Distinct Thrones
THE expression just quoted from Rev. 19: 16 is supposed, by many, to describe Christ at the present time; but that this is a mistake is evident from a number of scriptures. In Rev. 3: 21 we have this testimony: "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne." Here are brought to view two thrones; namely, the throne of the Father, and the throne of the Son. The Father's throne, the one upon which Christ now sits, is called, in Heb. 4: 16, "the throne of grace"; for it is the throne from which mercy is dispensed. Says the apostle, "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."
Christ now sits on His Father's throne as a priest after the order of Melchizedek; in other words, as a priest-king. Says the apostle: "Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens."
But when Christ takes His own throne, then shall be fulfilled these words: "When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory: and before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the8King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." "Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Matt. 25: 31-34, 41.
The Reckoning Follows His Return
HUMAN probation continues only so long as Christ sits as a priest upon His Father's throne. When He leaves that throne, the decree goes forth, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still." And immediately follow the words, "And, behold, I come quickly." Our Lord likened Himself to a nobleman going "into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return." Luke 19: 12. And immediately following the return comes the reckoning with the servants — that is, the final Judgment.
It is true that Christ is now a King, and that He reigns over the kingdom of grace, perfecting, through the ministry of His word, subjects for His glorious kingdom; but it is not true that He has yet taken possession of the territory of that glorious and eternal kingdom, or that He now reigns "King of kings, and Lord of lords." He now sits a Priest upon His Father's throne, winning, by His mercy and matchless charms, willing subjects for His future glorious kingdom, which is erelong to be established in this earth, now sin-cursed, but which, renewed and purged of all trace of sin by the fires of God's justice, is to "rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God." May God hasten the day!
Building on Divine Truth
By T. E. Bowen
THE man who digs down through the rubbish of human traditions until he strikes the rock of divine truth, whereupon he builds the structure of his Christian character, is the man whose house "falls not" when the storm of God's wrath bursts in upon the world. T. E. Bowen.
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