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Biographies of Creation Scientists

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BIOGRAPHIES OF CREATION SCIENTISTS

Vance Ferrell

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Evolutionists tell the public that creation scientists are not smart enough to do

worthwhile research or make useful contributions to science. Yet the foundations of

modern science were primarily laid by the research discoveries of brilliant creation

scientists. These pages are filled with a few of the many biographies of creation

scientists.

In reading these and other histories of scientific research, a common pattern

emerges: An Individual with unusual Intelligence and determination spends years

studying nature, and finds a few of its extremely technical secrets.

How could the random confusion of “natural selection” or damaging, lethal effects

of mutations produce such sophisticated laws, high-level functions, and complicated

organs? Only a Person with far higher Intelligence and craftsmanship could have

produced what we find in nature.

AGASSIZ-(Ag’uh-see) Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (May 28, 1807 - December

12, 1873). Swiss-American naturalist and glaciologist.

Agassiz was the son of a pastor, and a descendant of a French Huguenot family

that fled France during religious persecutions under Louis XIV.

After obtaining a Ph.D. at Munich, he completed a medical degree in 1830.

Arriving in Paris in 1832, he worked with Cuvier and then became professor of natural

history at Neuchatel in Switzerland.

While there he completed a massive study on fossil fish, which was published in

5 volumes between 1833 and 1844. Europe’s leading scientist, Humbolt, paid to have it

published. He later received the Wollaston Prize for this achievement. Then Agassiz

began studying glaciers, and became the father of glaciology. Immense boulders had

been carried into the valleys of Switzerland, and Agassiz decided that glaciers were

responsible. If true, this meant that glaciers at some earlier time were much larger than

today, and that they moved.

In the summer of 1836 and 1837 he explored glaciers and found evidence of that

movement. The sides and ends of glaciers contained piles of rock. In addition, rocks had

been scoured by glacial movement. He also found similar grooved rocks where no one

remembered ever having seen glaciers. Then, two years later in 1839, Agassiz found a

cabin that had moved nearly a mile since being erected in 1827. Next, he drove heavy

stakes into the ground in a straight line across a glacier. Two years later, in 1841, he

found that the stakes had formed a U shape. This meant that the center of the glacier

was moving faster than the edges.

“Charles Lyell, who led out in encouraging “Charles Darwin to write his book

Origin of the Species, was not happy with Agassiz’ discoveries, for they disproved his

concept of uniformitarianism, which theorized that no unusual changes had ever

occurred in past time.

Acclaimed as one of Europe’s leading scientists, Agassiz spent the last 27 years

of his life in the United States, most of it at Harvard University as a professor. He spent

his spare time studying glaciation and ancient lakes in North America.

When Charles Darwin published his book, Agassiz resolutely refused to accept it.

In fact, he became the most prominent biologist in America to oppose it, just as Sir

Richard Owen in England was the leading biologist in Europe to resist Darwin’s theory of

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evolution by natural selection. Evolutionists today declare that creationists never make

good scientists. But men such as Louis Agassiz prove them wrong.

BABBAGE-Charles Babbage (December 26, 1792 - October 18, 1871). English

mathematician.

Charles Babbage was an earnest Christian who, as a youth, taught himself

mathematics. Then he applied for and received permission to study at Cambridge

University. While there, he founded the Analytic Society and gathered together young

mathematicians who wanted to research more deeply into mathematics than had been

done since the time of Newton.

Before long, Babbage became so prominent that he was elected to the Royal

Society in 1816. Vigorously, he sought to encourage British scientists to do more

advance work in mathematics. Practical as well as mathematical, Babbage devised new

methods of mass production in post offices and public work places, using methods

strikingly similar to those Henry Ford would later employ in America.

Babbage developed the first reliable actuarial (lifespan) tables, now in use by

governments and insurance companies around the world. In 1847 he invented the first

ophthalmoscope, for examining the retina of the eye.

A major achievement was his development of a calculating machine. Very much

aware of the mathematical errors in astronomical data and logarithm tables, he devised

a machine which could automatically calculate numbers. Obtaining the backing of the

British government, he worked on the, machine for several years, and then hit on

something totally new: a computer.

This entirely new concept, which forms the basis of the latter 20th century

computer revolution, was keyed to punched cards directing the calculating machine in its

operations, and enabling the calculator to do many functions beyond that of

mathematical operations. He thought out many of the basic principles which guide

modern computers. However, he only had machines with which to do it, not our present

electronic gadgetry.

BIOGRAPHIES OF CREATION SCIENTISTS - 2

BOYLE-Robert Boyle (January 25, 1627 - December 31, 1691). English physicist

and chemist.

Born into a wealthy home, Boyle early showed great brilliance. At the age of eight

he was enrolled at Eton College, and then traveled through Europe with a private tutor.

While in Geneva, during a terrible thunderstorm he determined to dedicate his life to

God. For the remainder of his life he was an earnest Christian.

In 1654, supported by a liberal inheritance, he made his home at Oxford, began

research with other scientists, and helped found the Royal Society. Boyle was ahead of

his age in that he not only had a brilliant mind, but he also believed in experimentation

and not just theory.

In 1657 he devised an air pump, and the vacuum produced by it was for a time

called a Boylean vacuum. He was one of the first to make use of evacuated, hermetically

sealed thermometers. Galileo had earlier said that in a vacuum all objects fall at the

same velocity. Using an evacuated cylinder, Boyle was the first to verify Galileo’s

principle. He also demonstrated that sound could not be heard across a vacuum, while

an electrical attraction could still be maintained.

Then he began research on gases. He was the first chemist to collect a gas. He

discovered the inverse relationship of air pressure (called Boyle’s law). He concluded

from this that, since air was compressible, it must be composed of discrete particles

separated by a void. Compression merely squeezed the particles closer together.

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Boyle was the first scientist to carefully and thoroughly write down the process

and results of each experiment, so it could be repeated by others. This was a major step

forward in science.

By the publication of a book, which explained that basic elements could not be

changed into one another, but could be combined into compounds, Boyle changed

alchemy into the science of chemistry. He appealed to scientists to determine elements

experimentally, not theoretically. He is today considered to be the father of modern

chemistry.

Boyle was the first to distinguish between acids, bases, and neutral substances,

and he pioneered the use of acid-base indicators. He was the first to discover that water

expanded as (and just before) it froze.

Before Boyle’s time, discoveries were often kept secret, but Boyle insisted that

they be made public as soon as possible to aid scientific research.

Robert Boyle was deeply religious, and later in life learned Hebrew and Aramaic

to aid him in his Biblical studies. He wrote essays on religion and financed missionary

work in the Orient. In his will, he founded the Boyle Lectures to defend Christianity

against atheism.

BRAUN- Warnher Magnus Maxlmill/an von Braun (March 23, 1912 - June 16,

1977). German-American rocket engineer.

Von Braun was educated in Zurich, and completed his doctorate at the University

of Berlin in 1934. Fascinated with rocketry, he began research into them. One went a

mile high. The German government took over the project, and a rocket research center

was built in Peenemunde on the Baltic, and by 1940 Von Braun was in charge of it. But

Hitler did not like his views and he was briefly imprisoned in 1944, till Hitler was

persuaded that the rocket program could not continue without Von Braun’s brilliance.

When the war ended, Von Braun and many of his colleagues fled westward to

surrender to the Americans. Now he was free to express openly his Christian beliefs.

The United States government, recognizing that he was the leading rocket scientist in

the world, appointed him to head up the Huntsville Research Center that placed

America’s first satellite (Explorer I) into orbit on January 31, 1958. In 1962, his team

began construction of the Saturn 5 rocket that eventually carried men to the moon.

BREWSTER-Sir David Brewster (December 11, 1781 - February 10, 1868).

Scottish physicist.

Son of a schoolteacher, Brewster was educated for the ministry but, although a

fervent Christian, went into scientific research instead.

In 1815 he found that a beam of light could be split into a reflected portion and a

refracted portion, at right angles to each other, and that both would then be completely

polarized. Still known as Brewster’s law, it earned him the Rumford medal in 1819.

In 1816, Brewster invented the kaleidoscope. Later still, he produced the

stereoscope, which produces three-dimensional pictures. He helped found the British

Association for the Advancement of Science in 1831, and was knighted in 1832.

BIOGRAPHIES OF CREATION SCIENTISTS - 3

EULER-(Ol’ler) Leonhard Euler (April 15, 1707 - September 18, 1783). Swiss

mathematician.

Euler was deeply religious from his youth, and considered entering the ministry

as his father had done, but his mathematical brilliance led him into science instead.

Euler has been considered the most prolific mathematician of all time. He wrote

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extensively on every branch of the subject and was always careful to explain what he

had done, and every false path he had entered in the course of his investigations. In

1766, he became blind, but this hardly slowed his work. In addition to all he had

previously learned, he could remember several pages of newly-researched formulas.

During his lifetime he published 800 scientific papers, many quite lengthy. At his death,

he left behind so many additional papers that it took 35 years for mathematicians to

process and print them.

He applied mathematics to astronomy, replaced the geometric proof methods

used by GaliIeo and Newton with algebraic proofs, did advance research into lunar

motions, was the first to announce that light was a wave form and that color depended

on wavelength. We could fill all three of these books, plus many more with all the

discoveries of this earnest creation scientist.

FARADAY-Michael Faraday (September 22, 1791 - August 25, 1867). English

physicist and chemist.

Faraday was an earnest creation scientist, as well as one of the greatest

scientists of all time. Without his research and discoveries, the 20th century would be far

different.

He came from a poor family, and was apprenticed to a book binder. But his keen

mind soon took him into scientific research.

This brilliant, self-taught scientist first devised methods for liquefying gases such

as carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen bromide, and chlorine under pressure. He

was the first to produce lab temperatures below O°F. In 1825 he discovered benzene,

improved Davy’s initial studies on electrolysis, and developed what are now called

Faraday’s laws of electrolysis which established the connection between chemistry and

electricity, putting electrochemistry on a solid basis.

In 1821, Faraday showed that a current of electrified wire around a magnet could

convert electrical and magnetic forces into continual mechanical movement. This

provided the basis of modern electric motors. Later research that he did, produced open

and closed circuits, electric induction, and the first transformer. Faraday was the first to

discover magnetic lines of force and the magnetic field.

Interestingly enough, Faraday was the greatest scientist in history who knew no

mathematics- He was entirely self-taught. Maxwell, another creation scientist, was later

to devise the mathematics of electromagnetism-and in doing so arrived at the same

conclusions that Faraday had. In 1831 Faraday produced the first electric generator. It is

considered to be the greatest single electrical discovery in history. Later expansion of

this discovery made it possible to produce large amounts of inexpensive electricity,

whether it be coal-fired, hydroelectric, or nuclear-generated. Because of it we now have

electrified cities, offices, factories, and homes.

FLEMING-Sir John Ambrose Fleming (November 29, 1849 - April 18, 1945).

English electrical engineer.

Fleming was the brilliant son of a Congregational minister. After completing

university work at Cambridge, he worked with Edison Electric for a time, and then with

Marconi. After this, he set out on his own to advance the research of both scientists.

He found that the Edison effect (the passage of electricity from a hot filament to a

cold plate within an evacuated bulb) to be caused by electrons boiling off the hot

filament. This helped clarify certain important facts about alternating current. In 1904 he

developed the rectifier. (De Forest, in America, added a grid to it, and this made

electronic instruments practical.)

Fleming was knighted in 1929, and lived to be nearly 100.

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GESNER-(Guess’ner) Konrad von Gesner (March 26, 1516 - December 13,

1565). Swiss naturalist and natural historian.

Gesner was the son of a furrier killed in the religious wars, and the protégé of the

Protestant reformer, Ulrich Zwingli. In 1541, Gesner obtained a medical degree at the

University of Basel and became a physician.

In his time, he was known as a master of erudition, for he spent his time

researching and collecting a wide variety of natural materials: plants, animals, rocks,

fossils, etc. He wrote extensively, and discovered over 500 species hitherto unknown.

BIOGRAPHIES OF CREATION SCIENTISTS - 4

GUTENBERG-(Goo’ten-berg) Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1398 - c 1468). German

Inventor. Gutenberg ranks as one of the most influential men of all history. His invention

of the basics of the printing press laid the basis for all modern research, transmission of

knowledge, invention, and modern life.

Gutenberg is often called the inventor of printing. What he actually did was to

develop the first method of utilizing moveable type and the printing press in such a way

that a large variety of written material could be printed with speed and accuracy.

For thousands of years men had used seals and signet rings, which work on the

same principle of block printing. Block printing could print a book, but required a

completely new set of carved blocks for each new book. Gutenberg made movable typeeach

letter of the alphabet was a separate block. But he also did far more. Modern

printing required movable type, along with some procedure for setting it and fixing it in

position. The printing press itself was needed. Special inks were required. And, last,

paper was needed.

Gutenberg already had the paper available to him, and some work had earlier

been done on the other aspects. But he made brilliant improvements on each of the first

three-and succeeded where others before him had failed.

Gutenberg developed a metal alloy suitable for type. He made a mold for casting

blocks of type precisely and accurately. He made an oil-based printing ink. He made a

press suitable for printing. But Gutenberg did far more: he combined them all into a

complete manufacturing process. Mass-production of books, pamphlets, and tracts was

needed, and Gutenberg supplied it.

When Gutenberg lived, China and Europe were about equally advanced. But

within 50 years after Gutenberg introduced high-speed printing to the West, Europe shot

ahead. Gutenberg’s invention was not the only reason for this, but it was a major one.

HENRY- Joseph Henry (December 17,1797 - May 13, 1878). American physicist.

Like Faraday, Henry came from a poor family, had little schooling, and had to go

to work while young. Also, like Faraday, he became interested in electrical experiments.

Trying to wrap additional wires about a magnet to induce a greater magnetic field, he

found he could not do so because the wires touched and short-circuited. So he began

producing home-made insulated wires. He was now able to make powerful

electromagnets. In 1831 he developed one that could lift 750 pounds (Sturgeon had

earlier lifted 9 pounds). At Yale, later that year, using an ordinary battery he lifted more

than 2,000 pounds of iron. In 1832, he was accepted as a professor at Princeton.

By 1831, he was sending signals over a mile by small, insulated wires. One

problem was that, according to Ohm’s law, the longer the wire, the greater its resistance

and the smaller the current flowing through it. So Henry invented the electrical relay in

1835. This enabled the signal to be sent much greater distances than otherwise

possible.

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In effect, Henry had invented the telegraph. But he did not patent any of his

devices, and it was Morse, another creation scientist, who worked out the details to put

the first telegraph to practical use (in 1844). Henry freely helped Morse develop it.

In England, Wheatstone, after a long conference with Henry, produced a second

telegraph. In 1830, he discovered the principle of induction (an electric current in a coil

can induce a current not only in another coil, but in itself). In 1831, he published a paper

describing an electric motor. An electric motor is the opposite of an electric generator: In

a generator, mechanical force turns a wheel and produces electricity; in a motor, electricity

turns a wheel and produces mechanical energy. One creation scientist (Faraday)

had invented the generator to produce the electricity; another one (Henry) described the

motor to use that electricity. The two inventions together have changed all modern

civilization.

By means of an ingenious experiment in 1846, Henry demonstrated that

sunspots were cooler than the rest of the sun.

In 1846, he was elected first secretary of the newly-formed Smithsonian

Institution, and quickly made it a clearing house for scientific information. He also helped

found the National Academy of Sciences, and was one of its first presidents.

Later still, he set up a system of obtaining weather reports from all over the

nation. When the U.S. Weather Bureau began, it used his system. At the funeral of this

creation scientist, high government officials were in attendance, including President

Hayes.

BIOGRAPHIES OF CREATION SCIENTISTS - 5

HERSCHEL-Sir William Herschel (November 15, 1738 - August 25, 1822).

German-English astronomer.

In 1757, at the beginning of the Seven Years’ War, Herschel’s parents managed

to send him to England, where he remained the rest of his life. He began his career by

becoming a well-known organist and music teacher. Then he taught himself Latin and

Italian. The theory of musical sounds led him to a study of optics, and a desire to see the

heavens through a telescope. Not able to afford a telescope, he learned how to grind

lenses, and then he made his own.

He refused to be satisfied with his first lens, until he had made 200 of them! Then

he was ready to produce them perfectly. In 1772, he brought his sister Caroline over

from Germany, and she proved an earnest fellow worker in lens grinding and telescope

making. Eventually, the pair were producing the finest telescopes available anywhere.

By 1774 they were producing the best refracting and reflecting telescopes in the world.

But that was not good enough. Herschel decided to systematically scan the

heavens through his marvellous telescopes. Soon he began turning out the first of

hundreds of scientific papers and articles on his findings on the mountains of the moon,

variable stars, the possibility that sunspot activity could affect agriculture on earth, and

more besides.

In 1781, Herschel discovered a new planet which he named Uranus. He was to

become the most important and successful astronomer of his time, yet he was entirely

self-taught in that occupation. He was the first to discover binary stars, and found 800 of

them. He was the first to systematically report on the periods of variable stars, and the

first to discover that our solar system was moving in a certain direction (toward the

constellation Hercules). He catalogued 2500 cloudy objects, which he called galactic

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clusters. In 1787 he discovered two of Uranus’ moons, and, after constructing a 48-inch

reflector, on the first night of viewing found two new moons of Saturn. He was the first to

time the rotation of Saturn and ascertain that its rings rotated also.

In 1800, he tested various portions of the sun’s spectrum for heat, and found that

the hottest was just off the red end; he had discovered infrared radiation. In 1816, this

creation scientist was knighted.

JOULE-(Jowl or Jool) James Prescott Joule (December 24, 1818 - October 11,

1889). English physicist.

Born into wealth, Joule was frail in health and weakened by a spinal injury in

childhood. His father encouraged him to rest and spend his time in study and research,

which he so much enjoyed. Supplied with a home laboratory, he was largely selfeducated.

Above all, Joule loved to measure things. Soon he was publishing papers on

heat production by electric motors, the formula for the development of heat by an electric

current. Although he later had to manage his father’s business, Joule still found time to

continue his research. He spent ten years measuring the heat of every process he could

think of. In it all, he carefully calculated the amount of work that had entered the system,

and the amount of heat that came out. Consistently, a certain amount of work always

produced a certain amount of heat, and the formula was called the mechanical

equivalent of heat.

For years, Joule’s discoveries and reports were snubbed by the scientific

community because of his lack of formal education. Fortunately, his work eventually

came to the attention of William Thomson (later known as Lord Kelvin), who helped him

become accepted. The later formulation of the First Law of Thermodynamics (on the

conservation of energy) was partly based on Joule’s determination of the mechanical

equivalent of heat. Consistently thereafter, through the work of such men as Einstein

and Pauli, the First Law has been re-established more and more firmly.

Joule collaborated with Thomson in 1852 in analyzing the temperature of gas

when it expands, and discovered that freely-expanding gas always falls in temperature.

Knowledge of this formula, the Joule-Thomson effect, enabled later researchers to

obtain extremely low temperatures.

Although living at a time when Darwin’s theories were gaining in popularity,

Joule, Kelvin, and many other scientists remained conscientious creation scientists. In

1850 Joule was elected to the Royal Society; in 1866 he received its Copely medal; in

1872 and 1887 he was made president of the British Association for the Advancement of

Science; and in 1878, he received a lifetime pension from Queen Victoria.

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HARVEY-William Harvey (April 1,1578-June 3, 1657). English physician.

Harvey studied medicine at two of the leading European medical schools:

Cambridge and Padua. Harvey was in Italy during the time that Galileo went through his

heliocentric crisis with the authorities.

Returning to England in 1602, he became a well-known physician (Francis Bacon

was one of his patients), and was eventually appointed court physician to James I and

Charles I.

Yet, in spite of this success, Harvey was more interested in medical research

than regular practice. In the first 14 years of his medical practice (1602-1616), he had,

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on the side, dissected over eighty species of animals. A special interest of his was the

heart and blood vessels. Other researchers had tried to figure out the purpose of the

heart and blood vessels, but it was Harvey that solved the problem. His great asset was

persistence and research, instead of speculation and glances at anatomy.

After years of careful examination, Harvey correctly decided that the heart was a

muscle; actually a blood pump. He was astounded at the high degree of planning and

intelligence that must have gone into making it in the beginning.

Through actual dissection, he found that the valves which separated the two

upper chambers (auricles) of the heart from the two lower chambers (the ventricles)

were one-way valves. Blood could go from auricle to ventricle, but not back again.

Then he carefully examined the veins and found that the valves in them, which

Fabricius had earlier discovered, were also one-way! This meant that blood in the veins

could only travel toward the heart, not away from it. (In later years, Harvey told young

Boyle, another creation scientist that it was the valves in the veins which convinced him

he was on the right track in his research.)

HOOKE-Robert (July 18, 1635- March 3, 1703). English physicist.

Even in childhood Hooke was recognized as brilliant. Scarred by smallpox, he

attended Oxford. In his early 20s, he teamed up with fellow creation scientist, Robert

Boyle, in developing the air pump. In 1663 he became a member of the Royal Society,

and later became an influential officer. He was an ingenious and capable experimenter

in almost every field of science. He did theoretical research into the wave theory of light,

gravitational theory, steam engines, and the atomic composition of matter. He was the

second to discover a double star. He studied the action of springs and formulated what

is today known as Hooke’s law. His analysis of the expansion and contraction of spiral

springs made possible wristwatches and ship’s chronometers with “hairsprings;” no

longer were bulky clocks and their pendulums required.

Hooke did outstanding work in the field of microscopy and insects. His data and

illustrations were unrivaled in his time. During his discovery of the porous structure of

cork, he gave the microscopic holes a new name: cells, which has became a basic word

in biology.

It needs to be understood that in Harvey’s day, scientists assumed that the blood

just sloshed back and forth through the arteries and veins. But Harvey calculated that in

one hour the human heart pumped a quantity of blood that was equal to three times the

total weight of a man! Since blood could not possibly be formed that rapidly, it had to be

the same blood which was being pumped out of the heart through the arteries and then

flowing back in through the veins. Blood did not slosh, it circulated.

Harvey also tied off an artery and noted that only the side toward the heart

bulged. When he tied off a vein, the side away from the heart bulged.

As early as 1616, he began lecturing on these principles, but it was his 72-page

book, Exercitatio De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis (On the Motions of the Hearth and Blood)

published in 1628, which settled the matter. Among professionals, this book was to

became famous.

But not at first. Harvey received ridicule, patients stopped coming, and learned

physicians wrote articles and books against him. Men of science denounced him as a

quack. Interestingly enough, their scientific evidence consisted of the theories of Galen,

a Greek physician who lived 1400 years earlier! This reminds us of the current

controversy over evolutionary theories, which are also based on assumptions and not

facts.

By the time Harvey was old, his discoveries were accepted nearly everywhere.

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Interestingly enough, there was one loophole in his position: nothing was known

about how the blood got from the arteries to the veins. The arteries became smaller and

smaller until they could no longer be seen, and then extremely tiny veins appeared out of

nowhere. Four years after Harvey’s death, Malpighi, another creation scientist, applied

the microscope to the wing of a bat-and discovered capillaries-the extremely tiny tubes

that connect the arteries with the veins. We now know that those capillaries are so small

that the blood cells pass single file through them. Harvey was also one of the first

researchers to study the development of the chick within the egg. Harvey was elected

president of the College of Physicians in 1654, but declined because of his age.

BIOGRAPHIES OF CREATION SCIENTISTS - 7

KELVIN-Lord Kelvin (William Thomson; June 26, 1824 - December 17, 1907).

Scottish mathematician and physicist.

The son of an eminent mathematician, Kelvin was an infant prodigy who, by the

age of eight, was carefully listening to his father’s mathematics lectures. At eleven he

entered the University of Glasgow, and finished second in his class in mathematics.

After that he studied in Cambridge and then in Paris.

Kelvin collaborated with Joule, another creationist, in discovering the

Joule-Thomson effect. After researching further into the temperature drop of gas, Kelvin

announced in 1848 that the lowest possible temperature that could be achieved was

-273°C. It was later discovered that this temperature (absolute zero, or 0°K) applied to all

matter, not merely to certain gases. Scientists working with low temperatures regularly

use the Kelvin scale, which uses the same graduation marks as the centigrade scale.

The motion (kinetic energy; a term introduced by Kelvin), of molecules becomes virtually

zero at absolute zero.

The First Law of Thermodynamics specified that energy is never actually lost.

Kelvin helped in formulating that law. In 1951 Kelvin deduced from Carnot’s work that all

energy, even though not lost, gradually becomes unusable. This is the Second Law of

Thermodynamics. Everything in the universe is gradually running down, or, to say it

another way, is gaining entropy.

Kelvin invented improvements in cables and galvanometers, in order to make

possible the laying of the Atlantic cable. He introduced Bell’s telephone into England,

and in 1866 was knighted. He improved the mariner’s compass, devised new types of

sounding gauges, tide predictors, and many other things. He was buried in Westminster

Abbey next to Newton.

KEPLER- Johann Kepler (December 27, 1571 - November 15, 1630). German

astronomer.

As a child Kepler had smallpox which damaged his body and weakened his eyes.

Attending the University of Tubingen to study for the ministry, his brilliance in

mathematics was soon recognized. By 1594 he was teaching science at the University

of Graz in Austria.

In 1598, he went to Prague and began working with the aged Tycho Brahe. On

Tycho’s death, all his research papers passed to young Kepler. This represented a

lifetime of careful measurements of the apparent motions of the planet Mars.

Repeatedly, Kepler tried to figure out how this data could be properly interpreted by

mathematics and geometry. He found that the planet moved in an ellipse, or somewhat

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flattened circle, about the sun. He then applied this concept to data for other planets and

their moons.

Kepler also described improvements in telescope manufacture, including double

convex lenses, and a compound microscope. In addition, he showed that a parabolic

mirror focused parallel rays of light, thus laying the basis for optics and Newton’s work.

Using the newly-developed logarithms, he completed revised tables of

planetary motions, and produced a star map. He also calculated the transits of the

inner planets in front of the sun. After his death, his calculations were shown to be

correct.

LISTER-Baron Joseph Lister (April 5, 1827 -February 10, 1912). English

surgeon.

The son of the inventor of the achromatic microscope, Lister studied medicine

and became a surgeon. He was thankful he could use the newly-developed technique of

anesthesia during operations and amputations. But he was concerned that so many

patients died afterward from infections.

Learning of the research work of another creation scientist, Pasteur, he decided

to try to kill any germs present at the time of the incision. For this purpose he used

carbolic acid (phenol) in 1867, and deaths by infection stopped.

He had thus founded the science of antiseptic surgery, and later research by

other scientists improved on the means of doing it.

He was the first physician to sit in the House of Lords, and in 1885 succeeded

Kelvin as president of the Royal Society.

MARCELLO MALPIGHI (Mahl-pee’gee) Marcello Malplghl (March 10, 1628 -

November 30, 1694). Italian physiologist.

Malpighi is known as the father of microscopy because of his pioneer research

with the newly-invented microscope. A physician by training, he lectured at various

Italian universities and carried on basic microscope research.

In 1660 he showed that, in the frog, the blood flowed through a complex network

of vessels over the lungs. This discovery explained how, through breathing, the blood

could carry oxygen throughout the body.

Malpighi’s observations of a bat’s wing membranes revealed the finest blood

vessels, which were eventually named capillaries. These connected the smallest arteries

with the smallest veins. This discovery explained the missing link in Harvey’s theory of

the circulation of the blood.

He studied chick embryos and the respiratory vessels in insects, and found the

stomata-small openings-on the underside of leaves.

BIOGRAPHIES OF CREATION SCIENTISTS - 8

MAURY-MATTHEW FONTAINE- Maury (January 14, 1806 - February 1, 1873).

American oceanographer.

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In 1830, at the age of 18, Maury entered the U.S. Navy, and we never would

have heard more about him if he had not been lamed in a stagecoach accident in 1839.

He was retired from active duty and given an office job as superintendent of the Navy

Depot of Charts and Instruments.

Frankly, nothing was expected of him, but Maury surprised everyone and did a

prodigious amount of work. He studied ocean winds and currents, and distributed

specially-prepared logbooks to captains of ships so he could collect further data. He

studied the Gulf Stream, and called it “a river in the ocean.” His research received

international recognition because ocean voyages were shortened as captains were now

able to work with the currents instead of fighting them.

In 1850 he developed a set of ocean depth charts of the Atlantic to aid in the

laying of the transatlantic cable. Recognizing that international cooperation was needed

to properly study the ocean, he convened an international conference, which was held in

Brussels in 1853.

The work of Maury laid the foundation of the United States Naval Observatory,

and he is considered the father of oceanography. To the consternation of many

scientists, however, he refused to accept evolutionary teachings.

In later years, he invented an electric torpedo and taught physics at the Virginia

Military Institute. He is honored today by Maury Hall at the Naval Academy at Annapolis.

In 1930 he was elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans.

MAXWELL-James Clerk Maxwell (November 13, 1831 • November 5, 1879).

Scottish mathematician and physicist.

Early recognized as having unusual mathematical ability, he contributed a paper

on oval curves to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. It was so well done that they refused

to believe that a 15-year old had produced it.

In 1857, Maxwell showed that the rings of Saturn consisted of particles, instead

of being solid or liquid.

Analyzing movement of gas particles in 1860, he co-developed the

Maxwell-Boltzmann kinetic theory of gases in relation to temperature. This showed that

temperature and heat were velocity of molecules and nothing else.

Maxwell conceived a theory of color perception which was to form the basis for

the later development of color photography.

Between 1864 and 1873, he placed into mathematical form the lines of force

found in a magnetic field. His work verified that electricity and magnetism always exist

together, so his work is usually referred to as the electromagnetic theory.

Maxwell showed that the speed of electromagnetic radiations was constant, that

it was equivalent to the speed of light, and that that speed was 300,000 kilometers per

second [186,000 miles per second]. (It has since been refined to 299,792.5 kps [186,282

mps].) Because the speed of light was identical to other radiations, he decided that light

itself was produced by an oscillating electric charge. Later researchers found that to be

correct. Maxwell also predicted that many other radiations would be found-far beyond

the infrared and ultraviolet, which were yet unknown that has proven true also.

MERCATOR-(Mer-kay’ter) Gerardus Mercator (March 5, 1512 - December 2,

1594). Flemish geographer.

The great voyages of discovery had begun by the time Mercator graduated from

the University of Louvain in 1532. Good maps were necessary, and so the young man

founded a geographical institute at Louvain University two years later.

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He began the preparation of a lengthy series of maps, using instruments that he

himself designed, plus a lot of mathematical calculations. Religious persecution nearly

cost him his life, so he fled to Protestant Germany in 1552 and there continued his work

as cartographer to the Duke of Cleves.

In 1568, he made his great improvement in mapmaking. Drawing flat maps of

spherical surfaces is difficult, but Marcator devised a way to partially do it. He made a

cylindrical projection, today known as a Mercator projection. This is the shape of the

world most often seen on a world map.

To understand it, take a globe of the world and place a light at the center of it.

Then place a cylinder of paper around it which only touches the sphere at the equator.

The light shining through the globe traces an image onto the rolled-up paper. THAT is

the Mercator projection. All the meridians of longitude (north-south lines) are equidistant

and parallel, and the parallels of latitude run horizontal and parallel. The result is a round

world portrayed on a flat map. As one goes farther north or south the east-west

distances become wider than they really are, and the latitudinal (east-west) lines

gradually lengthen the closer they are to the poles. The result is that such places as

Antarctica, Canada, Greenland, and the northern Soviet Union are portrayed much

larger than they actually are.

But there was a decided advantage for navigators, in that, following a constant

compass direction, a route appeared straight on a Mercator projection, but curved on

any other.

BIOGRAPHIES OF CREATION SCIENTISTS - 9

NEWTON- Sir Isaac Newton (December 25, 1642. March 20, 1727). English

scientist and mathematician.

In childhood, this frail child occupied himself constructing devices such as

sundials, kites, and water clocks. In school he seemed somewhat slow. Then he was

taken out of school to help on the farm, but his uncle, a college teacher thought he might

have ability and urged the family to send him to Cambridge. While there he was an

average student, who worked on little projects in his room.

Sent home to escape the plague, which had arrived in London, he had already in

his spare time worked out the very important binomial theorem in mathematics,-a

formula of great importance which no one before his time had ever thought of. On his

grandmother’s farm he one day watched an apple fall from a tree, and began to think

through gravity. (Newton was strictly honest, and he himself said the apple story was

true.)

This young man decided that “the rate of fall was proportional to the strength of

the gravitational force and that this force lessened according to the square of the

distance from the center of the earth.” That was his famous Inverse square law. Yet

Newton questioned whether he could be right, so he set that idea aside for 15 years,

until he had developed an entirely new mathematical system for reanalyzing such

problems.

At this same time, the 23-year-old Newton conducted experiments on the farm,

which were scientific breakthroughs in the field of optics. Among other things, he

discovered that white light contained all the colors, and the prism merely separated

them. When his experiments became known, Newton became famous. Returning to

Cambridge, he remained there for 30 years. At the age of 27, he became a professor of

mathematics at the school. He was only required to give about eight lectures a year; the

rest of the time he could spend in research. Elected to the Royal Society in 1672, he

went on to invent calculus.

Then he developed the particle theory of light, and turned his attention to

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telescopes. Refractors were getting about as large as they could without producing

aberrations, so he invented the reflecting telescope, which used mirrors instead of

lenses.

In 1684, Christopher Wren, the well-known architect, offered a reward to anyone

who could solve the problem of the laws governing the motion of heavenly bodies.

Halley (the one who predicted the return of the comet bearing his name) asked Newton if

he could solve it. He replied, yes, he already had-20 years before, while back on his

grandmother’s farm after that apple fell!

Halley then asked him how did the planets move, and Newton replied, “In

ellipses.” “How do you know?” “Why, I calculated it” was the reply. Urged by Halley to

work out the calculations again, and this time write them down, Newton wrote a book.

Eighteen months later Principia Mathematlca was published. It is generally considered

the greatest scientific work ever written. Later in life, Newton wrote a large book of commentary

on the Bible, which he had a deep respect for. He said that the Bible contained

solid, worthwhile principles which helped people, and which had greatly helped him think

more clearly and live a better life.

In 1696, a Swiss mathematician challenged Europe’s scholars to solve two

problems. The day after Newton saw it, he anonymously mailed him the correct

answers. Upon reading them, the challenger said, “I recognized the claw of the lion.” In

1716, when Newton was 75, Leibniz stated an extremely difficult mathematical problem -

specifically to stump Newton. Newton solved it in an afternoon.

In 1696, this highly-honored creation scientist was appointed master of the British

mint-and reorganized that branch of the government. In 1703, he was elected president

of the Royal Society. In 1704 he wrote Optlcks, to summarize his research in that field.

In 1705 he was knighted by the queen. At his death he was buried in Westminster

Abbey. The atheist, Voltaire, who was visiting London at the time, said, “England honors

a mathematician as other nations honor a king.”

Two famous statements by Newton are worth repeating: “If I have seen further

than other men, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants.”

“I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been

only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a

smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all

undiscovered before me.”

BIOGRAPHIES OF CREATION SCIENTISTS - 10

MORSE-Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 - April 2, 1872). American

artist and Inventor.

He started out as a successful artist who made little money. But then, in the

1830s, he started carrying out electrical experiments. Morse decided to build an

electrical telegraph, but quickly realized he lacked the electrical knowledge to do so. By

accident he met the creation scientist, Joseph Henry, who patiently over a period of time

answered every question he put to him.

Morse then decided to obtain financial backing for his project, and had the

bulldog determination needed to carry it through to completion. After patenting the

device in 1840, he lobbied Congress into appropriating $30,000 to construct a 40-mile

telegraph from Baltimore to Washington. Completed in 1844, it worked. The first

message, sent by Morse in a dot-and-dash code he had devised, was “What hath God

wrought?”

NAPIER-(Nay’pee-ur) John Napier (1550 -April 4, 1617). Scottish mathematician.

Napier, who grew up amid religious warfare in Scotland, was an earnest

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Christian. In 1594 he devised the exponential method of expressing numbers (22 5 4; 23

5 8; etc.), and spent 20 years working out complicated formulas for obtaining exponential

expressions for various numbers, including trigonometric functions needed so much in

astronomical calculations.

He called these new numbers logarithms, or “proportionate numbers.” In 1614,

he published his tables of logarithms, which were not improved on for over a century.

Scientists everywhere eagerly grasped them. Now it was possible to do complex

multiplication and division, simply by adding or subtracting numbers.

Napier became famous for his logarithms, so much so that few today remember

that it was Napier who also invented the decimal point-and thus gave us decimal

fractions.

PASCAL-(Pas-kal’) Blaise Pascal (June 19, 1623-August 19,1662). French

mathematician and physicist.

Pascal was a sickly child that nearly died in infancy. But he was later seen to be

a mental prodigy. By the age of 9, he was reinventing Euclid’s first 32 theorems; at 16,

he published a book on conic sections that was more complete than that of anyone

before his time. When he was 19, he had invented a calculating machine operated by

cogged wheels which could add and subtract. Pre-electronic cash registers in the 20th

century were based on it.

Shortly after that, he laid the basis of the modern theory of probability. Turning to

physics, Pascal studied fluids and came up with Pascal’s principle, which is the basis of

the hydraulic press, which Pascal then described in theory.

Turning to the atmosphere, Pascal correctly theorized the relation of atmospheric

weight to altitude, and predicted that a barometer could identify altitude by sensing

atmospheric weight. This was shortly afterward proven.

In 1654, Pascal decided to devote the remainder of his life to religious studies,

and, after a lifetime of being chronically ill, he died at the age of 39.

PICARD-(Pee-kahr’) Jean Picard (July 21,1620 - July 12, 1682). French

astronomer.

Picard was a creation scientist who first became an astronomer, and later in life

became a priest. In 1655 he became professor of astronomy at the College de France

and was one of the charter members of the French Academy of Sciences. He helped

found the Paris Observatory, and searched through Europe for capable men to work in

it.

Picard was the first astronomer to use the telescope-not merely for observationbut

for the accurate measurement of small angles. He also obtained the best clock

mechanisms available to record time and time intervals in astronomic observations.

Picard was the first person since the Greeks to measure the earth with any

accuracy. Using a star instead of the sun, Picard arrived at almost the exact

measurement.

PRIESTLY-Joseph Priestly (March 13, 1733 -February 6, 1804). English chemist.

Priestly was frail, but early revealed a brilliance of mind. In his youth he studied a

variety of languages, ancient and modern, but never studied science formally. Yet it was

in that field that he did his outstanding work.

In 1766 he met Benjamin Franklin who was in London in a vain effort to solve the

taxation problem and avert the Revolutionary War. As a result, Priestly decided to enter

a career in science.

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Priestley researched into electricity and was the first to discover that carbon is an

electrical conductor. He then wrote an important history of electrical research in 1769,

followed by another on the history of optics. He predicted that electricity would eventually

become important in chemical research.

Fermenting a grain produces a certain gas. Priestly noted that this gas snuffed

out flames, was heavier than air, and part of it dissolved in water. Priestly had found

carbon dioxide. Priestly studied more gases and found nitrous oxide, ammonia, sulfur

dioxide, and hydrogen chloride. He also isolated oxygen.

Later he investigated and named rubber from a South American tree recently

brought to Europe.

BIOGRAPHIES OF CREATION SCIENTISTS - 11

PASTEUR-(Pas-teur’) Louis Pasteur (December 27, 1822 - September 28,

1895). French chemist.

Pasteur was an average student in school, although showing talent in

mathematics. He was interested in art and wanted to become a professor of fine arts.

But then he attended a series of chemistry lectures by Jean Dumas, and was determined

to succeed as a chemist. Immediately his grades in science classes improved.

Upon graduation, this creation scientist began a lifetime of top-flight research

work. He received the Rumford medal from the Royal Society for his first research work

(separating tartaric acid crystals into both clockwise and counterclockwise planes under

polarized light). Ten years later he showed that living creatures only have left-handed

amino acids. The implications of both discoveries were important, because of what they

revealed about the shape of molecules.

These and similar chemical discoveries gave him a succession of professorial

appointments and made him a member of the Legion of Honor. But his research

discoveries in biology and medicine were to far overshadow in importance what he had

accomplished in chemistry.

In 1856, a Lille industrialist asked the young chemist to solve the problem of why

certain liquids (such as wine, beer, and milk) fermented, and what could be done to

prevent it. Under the microscope, Pasteur found that such liquids normally contained

different types of yeast cells, that fermentation did not require oxygen, and that it was

lactic acid yeast which was causing the souring. The solution he offered was to gently

heat the liquid to 120°F. He said that this would kill any yeast in the solution, and, if

immediately stoppered, the liquid would not sour. That process is today called

pasteurization.

Then Pasteur chose to step into a full-blown controversy over the origin of life.

The aged Biot warned him to stay out of it, but Pasteur ignored the warning. Because

this point is a subject of concern in this present three-volume set of books (especially

chapter 9), we will view it here in some detail:

A century earlier, Lazzaro Spallanzani had run experiments showing that when a

vessel is heated, no life afterward forms within it. But in Pasteur’s day, the spontaneous

generation advocates-especially Ernst Haeckel-maintained that Spallanzini had, by his

experiments, destroyed vital principles in the air-and this prevented lifeless chemicals

from changing into living creatures.

Pasteur was a fervent creation scientist, and he was determined to enter this

controversy. He was certain that there was no evidence that life sprung spontaneously

from chemicals. So he devised an experiment in which the air in the vessel was not

heated.

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Pasteur showed that dust in the air included spores of living organisms and that

by introducing dust into nutrient broths he could cause the broth to swarm with

organisms. The next step, then, was to show that if the dust was kept out, no organisms

could form in the broth. In 1860, the year after Darwin’s book was published, Pasteur

boiled meat extract and left it exposed to air, but only by way of a long, narrow neck bent

down, then up. Although unheated air could circulate throughout the tube, the dust

particles would settle in the entry-way bottom curve. As a result, the meat extract did not

spoil; no decay took place; no organisms developed. Haeckel could not say that “vital

principles” in the air had been destroyed by heating the air.

Pasteur announced the results at a meeting of the Sorbonne on April 9, 1864. A

committee of scientists, under the direction of Dumas, studied the experiments and

found them conclusive. There was no doubt that Pasteur was right and that the theory of

“spontaneous generation” had been disproved.

This experiment, incidentally, greatly helped scientists develop better techniques

for sterilizing nutrient cultures, and thus aided the science of bacteriology.

By this time, Pasteur was considered the greatest chemist in all of France. In

1862, a disease in southern France threatened to wipe out the silkworm industry.

Traveling south, Pasteur examined the silkworms with his microscope, and found a tiny

parasite was infesting both the worms and the mulberry leaves that were fed to them.

Pasteur ordered all infested plants and worms immediately destroyed. This was done

and the silkworm industry in France was saved.

Pasteur’s attention was now fully turned toward communicable disease, and he

developed the germ theory of disease, which said that germs could cause disease and

they could be passed from one person to another.

During the Franco-Prussian War, he urged physicians to boil their military

hospital instruments and steam their bandages in order to prevent death by infection. To

whatever extent this was done, outstanding success followed. So in 1873, Louis

Pasteur, who had no medical degree, was made a member of the French Academy of

Medicine. .

Next he studied anthrax, a fatal domestic animal disease. He determined that

infected animals must be killed and buried deep, and any animal surviving it would

thereafter be immune. Pasteur then developed a vaccine to inoculate the herds. Similar

methods were established against chicken cholera and rabies (hydrophobia). As a result

of his work, the Pasteur Institute was established in 1888.

BIOGRAPHIES OF CREATION SCIENTISTS - 12

RAMSAY-(Ram’zee) Sir William Ramsay (October 2, 1852 . July 23, 1916).

Scottish chemist.

Ramsay was the son of a civil engineer, and had a strong body, and good

mechanical and thinking ability. After studying chemistry, he took positions at various

British colleges and universities.

Researchers had found that a mystery was connected with nitrogen, and

Ramsay suspected that another gas was mixed with it. In 1894 he experimented and

found spectroscope lines of what clearly was’ a new gas. He named it argon.

The next year he found helium. It had earlier been named when found in spectra

of sunlight. In 1898 he found the rare gases neon, krypton, and xenon. In 1903 he

helped another researcher who found the last of these Inert gases, radon. Knighted in

1092, he received the Nobel Prize in 1904.

RAYLEIGH-Lord Rayleigh (John WIlliam Strutt; November 12, 1842 - June 30,

1919). English physicist. Born into wealth, he showed remarkable mathematical ability at

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Cambridge. Elected to the Royal Society in 1879, he succeeded Maxwell, another

creation scientist, as director of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge the same year.

Research into wave motion became his specialty. He worked out an equation of the

variation between light-scattering and wavelength of electromagnetic waves. This

confirmed that it was light-scattering in the atmosphere which caused the sky to appear

blue. He next developed equations for black-body, long-wave radiation wavelength

distribution.

Rayleigh studied sound waves, water waves, and earthquake waves. His work,

along with that of Rowland in America, established accurate determinations of absolute

units in electricity and magnetism.

Turning next to chemistry, he found that the atomic weights of oxygen and

hydrogen was not 16:1, but 15.882:1. This led him to the discovery that nitrogen

sometimes had the wrong weight. Ramsay, another creation scientist, checked into that

and found that a new gas, argon (which constitutes about 1 percent of the atmosphere),

had been included in the weight of atmospheric nitrogen.

Rayleigh received the Nobel Prize in 1904, and the next year was elected

president of the Royal Society. In 1908, he became the chancellor of Cambridge

University.

REDI-(Ray’dee) Francesco Redl (February 18, 1626. March 1. 1697). Italian

physician.

Redi received a medical degree at the University of Pisa in 1647. In the year

1668, he performed a very important scientific experiment.

For thousands of years, people thought that small creatures, such as worms,

frogs, and flies, automatically came to life when manure, mud, pond water and similar

non-living substances changed into these living organisms!

This theory was called spontaneous generation. Common folk and deep thinkers

(including Aristotle) believed in spontaneous generation. One of the best examples, in

their thinking, of this was decaying meat, which produced maggots which hatched into

flies.

At about the time that Redi was born, the English physician, William Harvey,

wrote a book establishing the circulation of the blood. In it, Harvey noted that it was

entirely possible that spontaneous generation might not be true, and that small eggs laid

by living creatures had merely hatched. Redi decided to test this idea of Harvey’s.

In 1668, he put a variety of meats into eight flasks, then sealed four of them, and

left the other four open to the air. Flies could enter the four that were open, and those

were the only ones that bred maggots. Next, desiring air to circulate through all eight

flasks, he performed the experiment again; but this time with gauze over the openings of

four of them. Once again, only the four open flasks bred maggots.

Redi concluded that maggots came from fly eggs, and not from spontaneous

generation. Incidentally, this was the first scientific experiment on record when controls

were used.

The spontaneous generation theory did not die because of Redi’s experiment, for

soon Leeuwenhoek discovered microbes, and because they seemed to appear out of

nothing, it was thought that they originated by spontaneous generation. The theory of

spontaneous generation was believed by many scientists until the middle of the 19th

century, at which time another creation scientist, Louis Pasteur, performed a special

experiment which totally collapsed the possibility that the theory could be true.

Yet, ironically, that did not eliminate belief in the theory of spontaneous

generation. For Charles Darwin’s 1859 theory, which came to be known as evolution,

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required spontaneous generation. Evolution in all its forms (Darwinism, neoDarwinism,

Saltation theory, etc.) absolutely requires spontaneous-generation. Yet scientific research

has repeatedly disproved the possibility that spontaneous generation can occur.

Redi in 1668 was the first scientist to disprove it, Spallanzani in 1768 was the second,

and Pasteur in 1860 was the third. But evolutionary theory survives because its

advocates consistently ignore the mountain of scientific evidence opposed to it.

BIOGRAPHIES OF CREATION SCIENTISTS - 13

RIEMANN-(Ree’mahn) Georg Friedrich RIemann (September 17, 1826 - July 20,

1866). German mathematician.

The son of a Lutheran pastor, Riemann planned to become a minister, but was

so talented in mathematics that he majored in that field at the University of Gottingen

and graduated in 1851.

Although he died of tuberculosis at the young age of 39, he still accomplished

much in mathematical research. His best-known contribution to science was a non-

Euclidean geometry, published in 1854, that was different than any devised earlier. (His

was keyed to geometry on a curved surface.) A half-century later, Einstein based his

work on Riemann’s non-Euclidian geometry.

SPALLANZANI- (Spahl-/ahn-tsah’nee) Lazzaro Spallanzanl (Janaury 12, 1729 -

February 11, 1799). Italian biologist.

Spallanzani graduated from the University of Bologna in 1754, and then became

a priest to help support himself. He taught at several Italian universities, collected natural

history specimens in Turkey in 1785, and visited Naples in 1788 while Vesuvius was

erupting.

His primary contribution to science was an experiment done in 1768. Earlier, in

1668, Redi had established that creatures visible to the eye did not originate by

spontaneous generation from non-living materials. But many scientists still believed that

microscopic creatures came to life by spontaneous generation.

What Spalianzani did was simple enough: He boiled solutions for 45 minutes and

then sealed the flasks. No microorganisms appeared In the solutions regardless of how

long they stood. Spallanzani found that some of these organisms survived brief boiling,

but that none escaped lengthy boiling.

Spallanzani concluded that microorganisms appeared In such solutions only

because they were already there; either in the solution, in the air around it, or on the

inside of the flask. Clearly, no spontaneous generation occurred, no matter how long the

matter remained inside the flasks. In later years, Spallanzllni carried out two other

pioneering experiments. In 1779, he showed that sperm cells had to make actual contact

with egg cells in order for fertilization to occur.

In the 1790s, he tried to figure out how bats flew in the dark. He covered their

eyes and found they navigated and avoided obstacles just fine. But when he covered

their ears, they became helpless. Spallanzani was astounded. How could bats see with

their ears? If he had taped shut their mouths, he might have come closer to the answer.

Bats emit cries with their mouths which they hear with their ears. It was not until the 20th

century that scientists discovered those ultrasonic sound vibrations and the principle of

radar which bats use.

SWAMMERDAM- (Svahm’-er-dahm) Jan Swammerdam (February 12, 1637 -

February 17, 1680). Dutch naturalist.

Swammerdam studied medicine at Leiden University, but afterward spent his

time studying things under the microscope. He collected 3,000 species of insects, placed

them under the microscope and drew excellent pictures of their anatomy. The drawings

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were as good as anything produced later, and he is considered the father of modern

entomology-the study of insects.

He was the first to show that muscles change shape but not volume. He also

found the reproductive organ of insects, which aided in disproving the spontaneous

generation theory.

In 1658 he announced a special discovery: he had found the red blood corpuscle

(which we now know to be that unit of the blood which carries oxygen to the cells, and

carries off carbon dioxide, lactic acid, and other wastes).

STENO-(Stay’noh) Nicolaus Steno (January 11, 1638 - December 5, 1686).

Danish anatomist and geologist.

Steno was raised a Lutheran and later converted to Catholicism. Obtaining his

medical degree from Leiden in 1664, he eventually became court physician to the Grand

Duke Ferdinand II of Tuscany.

Steno carried out many research projects in animal and human anatomy. He

found the parotid gland duct (the salivary gland near the front of the back of the jaw),

and the fibril nature of muscles. He discovered the pineal gland in animals. Steno was

one of the first to decide that fossils were the remains of ancient animals which had died

and been petrified.

He also set forth the first law of crystallography.

STOKES-Sir George Gabriel Stokes (August 13, 1819 - February 1, 1903).

British mathematician and physicist.

Stokes, a pastor’s son, graduated from Cambridge in 1841 with highest honors in

mathematics. Within a few years, he became a Cambridge mathematics professor;

secretary, and then president of the Royal Society.

He developed Stokes’ law, which explains cloud motion, wave subsidence,

resistance of water to ship movements, and a variety of other things.

Stokes introduced the word, fluorescence, and did research into it, along with

sound and light. He was the first to show that ultraviolet light passed through quartz, but

not through ordinary glass.

In 1896 he suggested that the newly-discovered X-rays were electromagnetic

radiations, akin to light rays. He received the Rumford medal of the Royal Society in

1852 and its Copely medal in 1893.

BIOGRAPHIES OF CREATION SCIENTISTS - 14

DURER-(Dyoo’-rer) Albrecht Durer (May 21, 1471 - April 6, 1528). German art

geometrician.

Durer was not only a highly-talented artist, but also a skilled craftsman. An

earnest Christian, he lived at the time of the 16th century reformation, and was a

personal friend of Martin Luther. One of the greatest artists of history, he was also the

inventor of the art of etching. He worked in oils, engraving, woodcuts, as well as etching.

Like Leonardo da Vinci, Durer’s interest in art drove him into scientific research.

In 1525 he published a book on geometrical constructions, using the straightedge and

compass. His discoveries made possible more exact three-dimensional pictures on twodimensional

surfaces. It is considered the first surviving text on applied mathematics.

Not only did he explain how to do it, he also provided careful mathematical proofs for his

formulas, which included complex curves. He also devised and published mathematical

formulas for body proportions.

VIRCHOw-(flhr’-khoh) Rudolph Carl Virchow (October 13, 1821 - September 5,

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1902). German pathologist.

Obtaining his medical degree at the University of Berlin in 1843, he became a

well-known surgeon, and later university professor. In 1845, he was the first to describe

leukemia, and went on to specialize in cellular pathology (the study of how cells become

diseased).

In 1860, Virchow stated what became a famous axiom: “All cells arise from cells.”

This statement, accepted by all scientists today, actually has more meaning than most

scientists recognize.

Yes, all living cells today only come from other living cells. But so it has always

been! This fact renders the self-origin of life (spontaneous generation) totally impossible.

Life must come from life. It can never come from non-life.

Virchow refused to accept Pasteur’s germ theory of disease. Virchow considered

disease to arise from problems within the body, not from germ invasion from without. In

actuality, both concepts are at times correct.

In later years, Virchow went into politics and rapidly rose to high positions in the

German government. A thorough despiser of Darwin’s theory, he voted in the Reichstag

(the German national congress) for a law that banned the teaching of Darwin’s theory in

the public schools.

WATT -James Watt (January 19, 1736 - August 19, 1819). Scottish engineer.

A frail child with chronic migraines, Watt was taught at home by his mother. As a

young man, he went to London and completed an apprentice as a tool and instrument

maker, then joined the faculty of the University of Glasgow.

Conversations with a chemist, Joseph Black, about latent heat turned his mind

toward the possibility of designing an efficient steam engine. Those in operation

(Newcomen steam engines) were produced too little power for the amount of fuel they

required.

After repairing a Newcomen in 1764, he set himself to the task of improving on it.

He added a second chamber to hold the heated steam, so the first chamber would not

have to be reheated each time. Within five years (1769), he had made a far more

efficient steam engine, that did its work much more quickly.

In addition, he introduced steam from both sides. In this way the piston could be

driven by air pressure in both directions. In 1774 he began manufacturing and selling

them. In 1781 he devised mechanical attachments that converted back-and-forth piston

movement into rotary movement of a wheel. .

Watts’ steam engine rapidly replaced the Newcomen, and by 1800 five hundred

of his engines were working in England. His invention quickened modern history, for it

began the industrial revolution, lessened home piece-meal work and farm work, and

increased cities and slums.

Watt also invented a centrifugal governor that kept the energy output of the

steam engine steady, and never too large or too small.

In 1783 he tested a strong horse to see how much it could lift and the distance it

could lift it in one second. He defined this amount as 550 foot-pounds per second, or, as

he called it, “one horsepower. ” When the metric system was later devised, the standard

was called “one watt, ” with one horsepower equaling 746 watts.

In 1800 Watt retired and received an honorary doctorate from Glasgow

University, and election to the Royal Society.

WOODWARD-Robert Burns Woodward (April 10, 1917 - July 8, 1979). American

21

chemist.

Even as a boy, Woodward tinkered with chemistry. Entering the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology at 16, he displayed such extraordinary ability in chemistry-and

such poor aptitude in some other fields-that, instead of flunking him, the faculty assigned

him to a special program. Four years later at the age of 20 Woodward had, not a B.A.,

but a Ph.D.

He immediately accepted a position on the staff of Harvard. In 1944 Woodward,

with Doering, succeeded in synthesizing quinine. This was a total synthesis from

chemicals, and not from any animal or plant product. By 1951 he was synthesizing such

steroids as cholesterol and cortisone. In 1954 he synthesized strychnine and lysergic

acid. In 1956 he synthesized reserpine, and in 1960 chlorophyll. Many more syntheses

were to follow. Woodward received a National Medal of Science Award in 1964 and the

Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1965.

Jan

13

The Other Side of Death

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The Other Side Of Death

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THE OTHER SIDE OF DEATH

The whole question of human immortality considered from the standpoint of the teachings of the

Scriptures.

BY

Carlyle B. Haynes

Author of “Our Lord’s Return,” “The Christian Sabbath,” and “Spiritualism versus Christianity.”

1944

PUBLISHED BY SOUTHERN PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION

Nashville, Tennessee

USA

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CONTENTS

1. ABSOLUTE AND CONDITIONAL LIFE

2. IMMORTALITY

3. THE CREATION OF MAN

4. DEATH

5. THE WAGES OF SIN

6. THE PUNISHMENT OF THE WICKED

7. SPIRITUALISM

8. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST

9. THE MILLENNIUM AND HELL

10. THE REWARD OF THE RIGHTEOUS

1. ABSOLUTE AND CONDITIONAL LIFE

SOME WHOLE scope of human vision is bounded by death. Death brings to a close all human

plans, hopes, and joys. Human reasoning cannot pierce its blackness or bring its secrets to light. Its

impenetrable darkness is not lightened by any of the innumerable philosophies of men. It is an enigma, a

mystery, a black and for, bidding cloud, which will reveal its secrets to no one.

Amid the maze of theories upon this great question there are three views accepted by Christians

which stand out above all others. The first of these three views is probably held by a larger class of those

who profess the religion of Christ than the other two. It is this: that all men possess immortality regardless

as to whether they are good or bad, possess it inherently, by nature, and therefore when death comes their

souls will be perpetuated in endless existence, the souls of the good in a condition of joy and bliss, the souls

of the bad m a condition of misery and torment.

The second view is similar to the first in its premise that all men possess immortality. But it differs

in this, that it teaches that the bad win, at some time more or less distant and in some way not fully

understood, be restored to the divine favor and then will share with the good a perpetual existence in a

condition of joy and bliss.

The third view is held by those who deny the premise of the first two classes, the natural

immortality of the soul. Denying that immortality is the natural inheritance of all men from Adam, they

hold that it is a free gift from God, but only to those who accept it through faith in Jesus Christ, and

therefore only those who receive Jesus Christ will ever possess immortality. Further, those who dg not get

it from this source do not have it at all and never will have it, and therefore, not possessing immortality,

will ultimately perish forever. This view teaches that the good alone will live forever, and it may be called

the doctrine of conditional immortality.

It is obvious at the very outset of this discussion that unless there is an ultimate, authoritative

standard to which all appeals must he taken and by which all theories must be tested it would be useless

even to begin the discussion. This question cannot be settled by an appeal to the belief of any man, to the

teaching of any denomination. or the decrees of any church council. It cannot be settled by our own

unaided reason. It must he settled by an authority which will be an end of all controversy.

There Is a Divine Revelation

Is there a revelation from God to supply our need? God understands this matter. He can solve the

problem and remove the obscurity. But will he do it? How big this question is with importance! The worldwide

anxiety of six thousand years is compressed within it. Will the Divine Oracle, which cannot err, and

which will not lie, respond to the eager query of the truth-seeker who waits with such yearning at the portal

of the eternal temple? Our all hangs upon the response.

The God of truth has spoken. By inspiration of the mighty God his servants have been given

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knowledge and understanding. The veil of the future has been tom aside and its secrets revealed by men

who have spoken as “they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”

Shall we “turn away from him that speaks from heaven,” and go to the uncertain and dubious

oracles of earth for the wisdom for which we are seeking? Not so! Let us subordinate human speculation

and all the theories of men to his authoritative teaching in which he has spoken so clearly and emphatically

concerning this subject.

To the Bible we turn. We will call no man master or teacher. We will pass by the oracles of

paganism. And turning from the foolish babbles of a philosophy falsely so called, we take our place at the

feet of the eternal Teacher to receive from him the words of everlasting life. All our differences he Shall

decide. All our difficulties he must settle. All our problems he must solve. Determined to strictly abide by

the unalterable decisions of his Word, we shall care, fully and reverently examine its teachings.

The sole occurrence of the term “Immortal” in the Bible is in 1 Timothy 1:17, which reads: “Now

unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be horror and glory forever and ever.” Here

the eternal King, “the only wise God,” is said to be immortal. He is the only being who, in the Bible, is ever

said to be immortal, for the Scriptures do not use this word again.

The words “soul” and “spirit” occur in the Bible approximately nine hundred and fifteen times,

and never once is the term “immortal” connected with either of them. The writers of the Bible had nine

hundred and fifteen opportunities to inform us that the soul is immortal, but never did so. Surely this is a

very significant fact that must not be overlooked.

The teaching of the verse just quoted will he accepted by all. No one will question the immortality

of God. All admit this. He is “eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God.” These are the attributes of

God. The word “immortal” is used with reference to no other being. Man is never called immortal in the

Bible. The soul of man is never called immortal. The spirit of man is never said to be immortal. Indeed, the

exact opposite is constantly affirmed throughout the Scriptures.

Instead of the Bible being “full of the teaching of the immortality of the soul,” as the adherents of

that doctrine confidently assert, God has thought it of more importance to set forth to men his own

immortality. Wherever in the universe life is manifested, of whatever kind, he is the fountain of it. “In him

we live, and move, and have our being.” Acts 17:28. Absolute and essential existence, and therefore

absolute and essential immortality, is the attribute of God, and of God alone.

It is this, indeed, that he claims as his name, “I AM” - the self existing One, “the first and the last,”

“the beginning and the ending,” “which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” He is

uncreated, self-existent, eternal, immortal. His existence had no beginning. Neither will it have any ending.

He is absolute life, absolute being, absolute existence, absolute immortality. And there is no other.

Man Is Transitory

It is just on this point of his eternity and self-existence that God contrasts himself with man whose

life is but “a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.” “I even I, am He, and there is no

god with me: I kill, and I make alive. Neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. For I lift up my

hand to heaven, And say, I live forever.” Deuteronomy 32: 39, 40. He is Jehovah, “the Ever living, the

Eternal God. “The Everlasting Father,” or “Father of Eternity,” whose years “have no end.” “Who lived

forever and ever.” “The Lord Shall endure forever.”

Is weak and puny man also able to say, I, too, live forever? The immortality and eternity of God is

affirmed in every part of the Bible. The immortality of man is not mentioned or even hinted at. Now, is the

immortality of man so much more obvious than that of God that there is no need of mentioning it, while

God’s immortality must be constantly affirmed? Or is not this constant assertion of the immortality of God

and the absence of all similar assertion of the immortality of man in the Bible rather for the specific

purpose of showing a contrast between God and man in respect to immortality? God is infinite. Man is

finite. God is immortal. Man is mortal. God is eternal. Man is transitory. God has immortality in himself.

Man has none in himself, and his only hope of living forever is dependent therefore, or conditional, upon

union with God through Christ our Savior, who has promised eternal life to all who believe on him as their

Redeemer.

One of the chief objects of the Bible, indeed, seems to be to reveal to men that their life is brief,

vapory, shadowy, transitory. It does this in the very plainest terms. Not only does the Bible not call man

immortal, or ever-living, or eternal, but it emphatically declares him to he the opposite. He is said to be

“mortal” in Job 4:17; Romans 6: 12; Romans 8:11; 1 Corinthians 15:53,54; and 2 Corinthians 4:11. In

James 4:14, his life is said to be “even a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.” His

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life is said to be a “wind” in Job 7:7, and Psalm 78: 39 says that “they were but flesh; a wind that passes

away, and comes not again.” In Psalm 90:5,6, men are said to be “asleep: in the morning they are like grass

which grows up. In the morning it flourishes, and grows up; in the evening it is cut down, and withers.”

“He comes forth like a flower, and is cut down. He flees also as a shadow, and continues not.” Job 14:2.

“All flesh is grass, and all the goodness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withers, the flower

fades: surely the people is grass.” Isaiah 40:6,7.

Immortality Not a Birthright

Thus while the human soul is spoken of hundreds of times in the Bible it is never once said to be

immortal or deathless in its nature, but is always spoken of as short-lived and perishable. In what has been

said there is no thought of teaching that man can never secure immortality. What is meant is that

immortality is not a birthright. Is not his by nature, is not in himself, and that if he does ever receive it, it

will be as a gift from him who has it and who can impart it, yea, who will impart it to those who accept it

from him,

There is no question that God can confer immortality upon any person by prolonging his life. But,

if having begun to live, we shall continue to live, it will not be because of any inherent principle of life

within ourselves irrespective of our condition and independent of the will of God. It will be solely because

God is pleased to continue our existence. If he does not confer immortality upon us we shall never have it.

Indeed, if at any time he should now withdraw his sustaining power or cut us off from his favor, our

existence would inevitably come to an end. Continued life is dependent, therefore, on his continued favor.

And continued favor he has made to depend upon conditions which he has laid down himself.

Life Is Conditional

This principle can be seen in nature as well as in revelation. It rested entirely with God, of course,

whether he should make man mortal or immortal. He could, without doubt, have given all his creatures

assurance of living forever irrespective of conditions or circumstances, whether they should preserve their

first estate or fall from it, whether they should rise to heaven or sink to hell, whether they should continue

holy and consequently be blessed, or fall into sin and therefore be wretched, whether they should obey him

or disobey him. No one can affirm, however, that he did give any such assurance. Divine revelation, reason,

and nature teach the contrary. Everything in nature comes to certain ruin unless it preserves its normal

condition or is restored to it. In the very nature of things, purity and blessedness are necessary to a

continued existence. Life is conditional. Conditions and circumstances which tend to death must be avoided

if life is to continue. Like the disease of leprosy, to which it is compared in the Bible, there is something in

the nature of sin which will inevitably, unless eradicated, bring to utter ruin the soul into which it has

entered. “Sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.”

From what has been said it seems clear that there is but one unconditional, independent existence

in the universe. Self-existence is the peculiar attribute of God. The source of all life is in him. It follows,

therefore, that the life of every creature, no matter how high or low, depends solely on God’s power and

will, or, in other words is conditional life.

That God alone is immortal, and that man in his natural, fallen condition is mortal can be seen by

considering some of the innumerable passages of the Bible which declare that the life of man is a

perishable, transitory thing. In Job such expressions as the following frequently occur: “How oft is the

candle of the wicked put out.” “They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carries

away.” “They shall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them.” “The wicked is reserved to

the day of destruction.” “By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they

consumed.” “All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust.”

“The Wicked Shall Perish”

The Psalms are full of similar expressions: “The wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord

shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away. “As wax melts

before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God. For, lo, they that are far from thee shall

perish.” “They shall be destroyed forever.” “His breath goes forth, he returns to his earth; in that very day

his thoughts perish.” “Man being in honor abides not; he is like the beasts that perish.” “He shall go to the

generation of his fathers; they shall never see light. Man that is in honor, and understands not, is like the

beasts that perish.”

We find the same teaching in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. And in the writings of the prophets we

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find such expressions as: “The soul that sins, it shall die”; “the destruction of the transgressors and of the

sinners shall he together, and they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed.” “they shall be as nothing; and

they that strive with thee shall perish.” Finally we come to the words of Malachi at the very close of the

Old Testament: “Behold, the day comes, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do

wickedly, shall be stubble. And the day that comes shall burn them up, said the Lord of hosts, that it shall

leave them neither root nor branch.”

And in the New Testament we find the same teaching that the life which man has is transitory and

perishable: “Suppose you that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered

such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish.” Luke 13:2,3. “For God

so loved the world, that he gave hie; only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish,

but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. “Thy money perish with thee.” Acts 8:20. “For as many as have

sinned without law shall also perish without law.” Romans 2:12. “If Christ be not raised . . . then they also

which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.” (That is, if Christ had not been raised, the death of all would

have been final.) 1 Corinthians 15:17,18. “By nature the children Of wrath.” Ephesians 2:3. “Whose end is

destruction.” Philippians 3:19. “Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction.” 2 Thessalonians 1:9.

“But these, as natural brute beasts, made to he taken and destroyed and shall utterly perish.” 2 Peter 2: 12.

If these expressions are not sufficient to prove the uniform teaching of the Bible that God alone is

immortal and that man is mortal, then words cannot be put together in the English language which will

prove it. If those who read these expressions do not have their minds disabused of the theory of the natural

immortality of all men, then it is impossible to disabuse their minds of it, for it is impossible to frame

words which will be more clear or more powerful to teach the opposite of that theory than the ones which

have been selected by God himself.

2. IMMORTALITY

IN THIS chapter we shall study every passage of the Scriptures which contains the term

“immortality,” in the expectation that by so doing we shall come to a full knowledge of the teaching of the

Bible on this subject.

In the Scriptures immortality is never affirmed of mankind. That is, it is never stated in the Bible

that man possesses in himself, inherently, the attribute of immortality. On the contrary, the uniform

teaching of the Bible is that man is mortal. It is not denied, however, that he is capable of immortality. The

Bible clearly teaches that under certain conditions the gift of immortality may be conferred upon men.

The first text which contains this term is 1 Timothy 6: 13,16: “I give thee charge in the sight of

God, who quickens all things, and before Christ Jesus. That thou keep this commandment without spot, not

rebuked, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: which in his times he shall show, who is the blessed

and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords. Who only bath immortality, dwelling in the light

which no man can approach unto; whom no man bath seen nor can see.”

If the plain testimony of this verse is accepted, the whole question as to whether mankind

possesses immortality is at once settled, for here is the plain, bold statement of fact that God “only bath

immortality.” There is no vagueness about this, no indefiniteness, nor is there anything left to the

imagination of those who may believe the opposite. There is really nothing to be perverted. The sense is so

clear as to make a twisting of its meaning impossible. In fact, no other words in the English language could

be put together in any different way to make the thought any clearer than these words make it that God

alone in all the universe has immortality.

The verse quoted above not only establishes who has immortality, but also who does not have it. If

God “only has immortality,” it follows that we do not have it, for if we did this statement would not be true.

If the theory of the natural immortality of all men is true, then the statement that God “only bath

immortality” could never truthfully be made. Being made, and made by God himself, it is settled forever

that the theory of inherent human immortality is not true.

The fact being established that the attribute of immortality is the possession of God alone, the

question at once arises, Is it then impossible for men ever to secure this precious gift? God has given to

men many great and precious promises. Has he said anything upon which we can base a hope of having

immortality conferred upon us at any time? Surely this is a question of vital importance.

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The Relation of Mankind to Immortality

The relation which men should sustain to this attribute of immortality is set forth very clearly in

Romans 2:5-7: “But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasures up unto thyself wrath against the day

of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment Of God. Who will render to every man according to his

deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal

life.” That is, God will render eternal life to those who are seeking for immortality.

In this passage the relation of mankind to immortality is set forth plainly as being that of seekers

for it. Men do not seek for that which they already have. The very fact that men are seeking for immortality

is conclusive evidence that they do not possess it.

But this verse shows something more. It reveals clearly that only those who seek for immortality

by patient continuance in well-doing will secure this attribute. Only a certain class will have it conferred

upon them. And this class is composed of those who continue in well doing. Those who “are contentious,

and do not obey the truth” (verse 8), whatever else they may receive, cannot expect to receive immortality,

which is given to those alone who patiently continue in “well doing.” This verse certainly teaches that

immortality is conditional. Conditioned upon the attainment of a certain character, a certain experience, an

experience in “well-doing.” Those who do not have this character or experience have no promise of ever

receiving immortality.

If we are seekers for immortality where shall we find it? From what source shall we secure it? To

whom shall we go for it? An answer to these questions will be found in 2 Timothy 1: 10: “But is now made

manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who bath abolished death, and bath brought life and

immortality to light through the gospel.”

Death passed upon all men through Adam, but through Christ it has been abolished. If Christ had

never come to this world to die for sinners they would have died in their own sins. All had sinned, and the

wages of sin is death. They were all under condemnation, all under the sentence of death. The human race

would have perished had it not been for the voluntary sacrifice of Christ. But “God so loved the world, that

he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

The sentence of death, the wages of sin, was abolished by Christ, and those who believe in him will not

have this sentence executed upon them.

And belief in Christ not only abolishes the penalty for sin, but also secures to the believer the

inestimable boon of immortality. This has been brought to light through the gospel. Immortality, therefore,

is in the gospel. It is possible for men to secure it, but only “through the gospel.” It follows that those who

do not accept the gospel do not have, and can never have, immortality.

It will be seen from the explanation of this verse that we have no dispute with those who believe it

is possible for men to have immortality. The possibility of it has never been denied. Just as confidently as

those who accept the theory we are opposing, the inherent immortality of all men, so do we hope for

immortality; and more earnestly than they, if possible, do we advocate the doctrine of immortality. It is the

basis of our hope upon which we differ. They claim it as an inheritance from Adam; we, as a gift through

Jesus Christ.

When Immortality Will Be Conferred

So far in this study we have found the term -immortality” used three times. It is used the fourth

and fifth times in the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, in the fifty-first to the fifty-fourth verses. In these

verses we are told when this attribute of immortality will be conferred upon those who secure it “through

the gospel.” These verses are as follows: “Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we

shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. For the trumpet shall sound,

and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on

incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on

incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality. Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is

written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”

These verses clearly teach that the time of putting on immortality will not be at death, but at the

resurrection, at “the last trump.” And it is “this mortal which at that time shall put on immortality.”

Therefore, even if we accept the gospel of Jesus Christ, where immortality is “brought to light,” we will not

actually have it bestowed upon us until the time when the “dead shall be raised incorruptible.” Until that

time we shall be “mortal.” But at that time “we shall be changed” from -mortal- to “immortality,” and from

“corruptible” to “incorruption.”

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And with this passage we have completed our task. The term “immortality” is used in no other

place in the Bible. It occurs but five times, and we have carefully studied each verse in which it is used.

While the words “soul” and “spirit” occur hundreds of times in the Scriptures, the word immortality is

never coupled with either of them. We have found, then, in the only verses where the attribute of

immortality is mentioned, that the Scriptures never affirm the natural immortality of all men, never affirm

that the soul has immortality, that the spirit has immortality, never teach that it is the birthright of all men.

On the contrary, we have found the Scripture teaching clearly: First, that God alone possesses

immortality; second, that men are, or should be, seekers for it; third, that, if seeking for it. They can find it

in the gospel; and fourth, that if they secure it -through the gospel,” it will not then be conferred upon them

until “the last trump.” or at the time of the resurrection. Surely there is no reason for any one to be in

ignorance or doubt concerning this subject when the Bible so clearly sets forth the truth.

3. THE CREATION OF MAN

WHETHER the consciousness of man will continue after death depends entirely upon what effect

death may have upon those things which produce consciousness. If death destroys those things which result

in consciousness, then consciousness itself is destroyed by death. If death has no effect upon them and they

continue their activities regardless of death, then consciousness continues in death.

What produces consciousness? Is it the result of the organization of man’s physical structure,

which death dissolves, or is it the result of the working of forces outside of himself, upon which death has

no effect?

Spirit Return to God

A passage of the Bible which is used perhaps more than any other to prove that the soul is

immortal and that the dead are conscious is that found in Ecclesiastes 12:7. It reads: “Then shall the dust

return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.” It is assumed that this spirit

which returns to God is conscious, and that, therefore, consciousness in death is proved by this verse. But

this is assumption and nothing more.

And this verse proves more than that the spirits of the righteous dead go at once to heaven, which

doctrine it is commonly used to prove. It proves that the spirits of all go to heaven regardless of their

condition, and thus can be made the basis of the teaching of universal salvation. The whole chapter in

which it occurs is speaking, not of the righteous, but of all mankind, without any reference at all to their

personal relation to God.

The chapter opens with that familiar exhortation to “remember now thy Creator in the days of thy

youth,” and goes on to give reasons why this should be done, by graphically describing the infirmities of

old age and the ultimate dissolution of the body at death. All are admonished to remember their Creator in

youth before “the evil days come” and “the years draw nigh, when thou shall say, I have no pleasure in

them”; before the days come when the keepers of the house shall tremble (before the hands and arms are

palsied with age). And the strong men shall bow themselves (when the knees bend with the weight of

years); “and the grinders cease because they are few (the teeth decay and fall out); and those that look out

of the windows be darkened (the eyesight fails). And all the daughters of music shall be brought low (the

vocal chords are impaired). When they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way,

and the almond tree shall flourish” (the hair becomes white as the almond tree in full bloom); “and the

grasshopper shall be a burden” (every little thing is magnified into great importance). And desire shall fail:

because man goes to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.” It is then, at the dissolution

produced by death, that it is said, “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return

to God who gave it.” This is speaking of all men, not of the good alone. The spirits of all will go to God at

death.

How God Created Man

This verse points us very clearly back to the time when man was made. From the language

employed in it, it is plain that man at death returns to the same condition that he was in before he was made

alive, or before he was created. At death the dust shall return to the earth “as it was.” And then the spirit

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shall return to God “who gave it.” We are referred back to the time of creation in order that we may know

what the condition of man in death is.

Returning to the time of creation we find this clear, simple, and brief account of the creation of

man in Genesis 2: 7: “And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his

nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living soul.” Here we find the method used by the Creator to

bring man into existence.

First he formed the man, and the material he used was “the dust of the ground.” Then he breathed

into that lifeless form “the breath of life.” As a result, the “man became a living soul.” It is not a

complicated matter, but a very simple procedure.

An analysis of this verse will reveal a number of very significant things. “The Lord God formed

man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living

soul.”

The materials chosen by God of which to make man were not superior in any way to the materials

of which he had previously made other earthly creatures and things. These also were made “of the dust of

the ground.”

It appears from this passage also that the first man was fully created and completed, as far as his

physical form was concerned, before he began to live. “God formed man of the dust of the ground.”

After he was completely formed there lacked nothing of making him a living man or “living soul”

but “the breath of life.” When this was breathed into him by his Maker, the “man became a living soul.”

This “breath of life” is that which man breathes in common with all other animals. This breath is

represented as having been given to the beasts as well as to man, and therefore the beasts are also said to be

“living souls”, Genesis 1: 30, margin; Revelation 16: 3; Genesis 7: 22. In Dr. Lange’s Commentary, under

1 Corinthians 15:45, these remarks are made: “The expression ‘living soul,’ as used in Genesis is often

taken to indicate an order of being superior to the brute, and is the text of many an argument to prove the

immortality of the soul. The incorrectness of this assumption will be readily seen by referring to Genesis

1:20,21,24, and elsewhere, in which passages the words translated ‘living soul’ are applied also to the

entire lower creation. They are used indifferently of man and beast to express animal life in general. And it

is in this very light the apostle uses them, as the course of his argument shows. Adam is spoken of as a

living soul, not to prove his immortality, but rather his mortality.”

It should also be noticed that there is no record in this verse that God thrust a living soul into this

lifeless body. Nor is it said that he created a living soul within the body as something apart from it. It is said

only that as a result of the breathing into his nostrils the breath of life, the man, the whole man, became a

living soul. The sense in which this term “soul” has come to be used, as a spiritual essence which can live

apart from the body, is not known or taught in the Scriptures.

Witnessing the Creation

Now let us, in imagination, take our stand back in the Garden of Eden and witness the creation of

this first man. God speaks, and of the “dust of the ground- a form is made and lies before us. It is the form

of a man. It is perfect in its symmetry and complete in all its parts. All its organs are there. But it is lifeless.

Its brain is ready to think, but it is not acting. Its heart is ready to beat, but it is not beating. Its blood is

ready to flow, but it is not flowing. There is no intelligence, no thought, no knowledge, no wisdom, no

memory. No consciousness. And this is so because there is no life. In a short time this lifeless body is to

become “a living soul.” Now it is a dead soul.

No one will contend that there was any consciousness in this body as it lay there without life. It is

not believed by any one that consciousness was produced from “the dust of the ground.”

And now into the nostrils of the lifeless form the Creator breathes the vital “breath of life.”

Immediately the man is a living soul. The brain leaps into instant action. Its heart begins to beat. The blood

flows through the veins. It now has intelligence, power of thought, knowledge, consciousness. And it has

all this because it now has life.

Consciousness has been produced. But how did it come? We have already concluded that it did

not reside in the body, “the dust of the ground.” Was it present, then, in the “breath of life”? No, for then it

would have been present before the breath of life ever came into the body, and that would teach the preexistence

of the soul as well as its immortality. Surely no one will maintain that consciousness exists in the

breath which we breathe, for then our consciousness would be in our “nostrils” into which God breathed

the “breath of life.”

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Death Results in Unconsciousness

If the consciousness was not in the “dust of the ground,” the body, nor in the “breath of life,”

where, then, did the consciousness come from? It is at once obvious to all that the consciousness was

produced as a result of the union of the -breath of life- with “the dust of the ground,” or body. There was no

consciousness either in the body or in the breath before these two were united; but when the “breath of lifewas

breathed into the body, that union created a consciousness.

Therefore let it be forever settled that consciousness depends solely and altogether upon the union

of the breath with the body. When that union does not exist, whatever may remain, it is certain that

consciousness does not remain.

Now let us reverse this process. The man approaches the time as described in the last chapter of

Ecclesiastes, when this breath of life is to be withdrawn, and the elements of his body are to be dissolved

into dust. His last breath leaves his body; his heart ceases to beat; his brain ceases to act; his blood ceases to

flow; his power of thought is gone; there is no intelligence, no knowledge; and what has become of his

consciousness? It, too, is gone. All the processes of sensitive, conscious life are at an end. And the

organism itself immediately begins to fall into ruin, and the body to dissolve into the dust from which it

came. “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was.”

As the consciousness depends on the breath’s being united with the body, it follows that when this

union is broken up and the breath is separated from the body, the consciousness is destroyed, and there is

no consciousness in death.

The “spirit” which returns to God, therefore, is but the breath which God “gave.” The constituent

elements of the man are broken up, the dust returning from whence it came, and the breath also returning to

him “who gave it.”

But there is no consciousness in this “spirit,” or “breath of life,” which returns to God. The

consciousness was destroyed when the breath separated from the body. This verse, therefore, does not teach

that there is consciousness in death.

Scriptural Teaching

And this is not merely a personal theory. This is just what the Scriptures say. “Thou sends forth

thy spirit [Hebrew ruach breath], they are created.” Psalm 104: 30. “Thou takes away their breath [the same

word, ruach], they die, and return to their dust.” Verse 29.

And again: “His breath [ruach] goes forth, he returns to his earth; in that very day his thoughts

perish.” His consciousness is gone. Psalm 146:4.

And again: “For that which befalls the sons of men befalls beasts; even one thing befalls them: as

the one dies, so dies the other; yea, they have all one breath [ruach]; so that in this respect man has no

preeminence above a beast.” Ecclesiastes 3: 19.

That breath and spirit are the same will also be seen by reading Job 27:3: “All the while my breath

is in me, and the spirit of God [margin, the breath which God gave him) is in my nostrils.” And Job 33:4:

“The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.” Read also the first

fourteen verses of the thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel.

How clear it is that our dependence is in God alone for life. We have no life of our own; we cannot

exist unless God gives-us life.

4. DEATH

DEATH is not a modification of life. Death is not a continuation of life in changed conditions.

Death is not a release into a fuller life. Death is not life in misery. Death is not life in happiness. Death is

not life at all, in any condition whether good or bad. To die is not to live. To die is to stop living. Death is a

complete cessation of life.

Death does not mean to go to heaven. Death does not mean to go to hell. Death does not mean to

go to purgatory. Death does not mean to go anywhere. Death means an end of life. When a person dies he

does not live somewhere else, in heaven, hell, or purgatory. He does not live at all, in any condition

whatsoever. He is dead. And when a person is dead he is not alive.

In death there is no life. The soul does not live. The spirit does not live. There is no intelligence,

no consciousness, no memory. All that composed the man is gone. Nothing that is here said is to be

interpreted as meaning that there will be no future life. There will be a future life. But this future life is not

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a continuation of the life that now is. It is entirely a new life, another life. And it begins, not at the time of

death, but at the time of the resurrection from death.

Origin of Immortality Doctrine

In previous chapters we have seen that God alone is immortal, and man utterly mortal and finite.

Notwithstanding all the Scripture adduced in support of this position, however, some persist in placing a

figurative, mystical sense on the plain terms of the Bible which deal with this subject, and thus change the

meaning of these terms until they teach exactly the opposite of what they say. In this way death has come to

mean life.

Thus while the doctrine of the natural immortality of the. soul originated with him who was a liar

“from the beginning,” when Satan told our first parents, “You shall not surely die,” in the very face of the

most positive declarations of Jehovah to the contrary, it is still being maintained by the scholarship of the

church and the literature and philosophy of the world, which are giving another meaning to the words of the

Bible.

Blinded by this first satanic delusion, theologians still gravely assure us that the human soul is

immortal and therefore can never die; that it is indestructible and therefore can never he destroyed; that its

destiny is to live forever and therefore it will always exist. And hence, of course, they assure us that all

those passages of the Bible which seem to teach that it will die, that it will be destroyed, that it will not live

forever, cannot possibly mean any such thing.

And through their labored circumlocution and wordy reiteration of this perverted meaning of such

scriptural passages, the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul has come to be accepted as a

fundamental doctrine of the Christian system. But we submit that when a doctrine is in flat contradiction to

the Word of God, when it brings God’s law into contempt, when it calls his wisdom, goodness, justice, and

truth into question, when it brings reproach upon his character, when it belittles and misconstrues the work

of Christ, and hinders the work and progress of the gospel of Christ, the fact that the great “father of lies”

can be shown to be behind it is hardly sufficient authority for its truth.

No, the time is fully here when this stupendous delusion, “You shall not surely die,” should be

confronted with the straight testimony of the “Oracles of God,” and driven from the Christian church. It is

also high time that the believers in the Word should cease trifling with its plainest utterances and should

manifest a willingness to acknowledge Him “who only hath immortality,” as the only source of immortality

to dying humanity.

Where Are the Dead?

So, taking our stand again on the immutable rock of God’s Word. We turn away from all the

wisdom of men and inquire of him whose “word is truth” concerning the condition of man in death. “Man

dies, and wastes away: yea, man gives up the ghost, and where is he?” Job 14:10. This is the question of the

ages. The answer to which is fully given in the Bible.

It has already been shown that consciousness depends on the union of the breath of life with the

body, and therefore when these two are separated at death, unconsciousness must result. From this it

follows that in death man is unconscious. Indeed we have the explicit testimony of the Scriptures to this

fact in the statement found in Psalm 146:3,4: “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom

there is no help. His breath goes forth, he returns to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” There is

no intelligence, no consciousness in death. The ability to think has then come to an end.

Notwithstanding the fact that we have been told that when we die we will spend our time in

praising the Lord, the Scripture says: “In death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give

thee thanks?” Psalm 6:5. And, “The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.”

The Dead Are Unconscious

That death is an absolute cessation of conscious existence is taught by the wise man in

Ecclesiastes 9:5,6: “The living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they

any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is

now perished; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.”

Analyze this verse carefully. Note its brief but clear statements. “The living know” something

“that they shall die.” There is intelligence and knowledge with those who are alive; and this is just the

opposite of death. “But the dead know not anything.” There is no intelligence or knowledge in death. And

“the memory of them is forgotten.” In death they do not recall the scenes of life. As the spiritualist medium

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seeks to teach.

And their love has ceased. While in life the love of a mother may have centered in an only child,

yet when she dies her love “is now perished”; nor does she, or her spirit, return to hover over the object of

her affections, for in death there is no love. Nor does hatred continue in death. Hatred also perishes there, as

does envy. And with anything that is transpiring in all the earth the dead have nothing at all to do. “Neither

have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.” They are unconscious of all

that is taking place.

How impossible it would be for any of God’s people ever to be deluded by the lying claims of

Spiritualism if these plain statements of truth were believed! How impossible for any to be deceived by so

called spirits of the dead if the great truth of man’s unconsciousness in death, so plainly stated in this

passage, were confidently accepted! Nothing is known by the dead of the passing of the years or of the

condition and circumstances of loved ones. “His [the dead man’s] sons come to honor, and he knows it not;

and they are brought low, but he perceives it not of them.” Job 14: 21.

Death a Sleep

In the Bible death is given a name which stands for unconsciousness. It is called a “sleep.” Thus in

Psalm 13:3: “Consider and hear me, 0 Lord my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death.”

Death is a period of unconsciousness, a sleep, from which all will be awakened at the resurrection.

Christ agrees with David that death is a sleep. In John 11:11-14, we have this record: “These

things said he: and after that he said unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleeps; but I go, that I may awake him

out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spoke of his death:

but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is

dead.”

Paul agrees with both David and Christ that death is a sleep. In 1 Corinthians 15:6, he says: “After

that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present,

but some are fallen asleep.” And in 1 Thessalonians 4: 13, he says: “But I would not have you to be

ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no

hope.”

Daniel agrees with David, Christ, and Paul that death is a sleep. In Daniel 12:2, he speaks of the

dead as follows: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life,

and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” At death, then, one lies down to sleep; at the resurrection he

is awakened. Between death and the resurrection there is an unconscious sleep.

Luke agrees with these other inspired writers that death is a sleep. In recording the death of

Stephen, in Acts 7: 60 he says, “And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to

their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.”

David, the man after God’s own heart, instead of being at the present time in heaven, as the theory

of the immortality of the soul would teach, is in his grave sleeping. This is clearly stated by Paul in a

sermon at Antioch in Pisidia as recorded by Luke in Acts 13: 36: “For David, after he had served his own

generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers [in the gravel, and saw

corruption.”

David Not in Heaven

Peter declares explicitly that David has not gone to heaven. In his sermon on the day of Pentecost,

in Acts 2: 34, he says, “For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he said himself, The Lord said unto

my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand.” In the twenty ninth verse he also tells us plainly where David now is:-

“Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and

his sepulcher is with us unto this day.”

The process of dying is not death. The loss of purity is not death. The loss of joy is not death. The

loss of heaven is not death. That is, it is none of these things which is meant in the Scriptures when death is

spoken of. Nothing but the loss of life constitutes death. This will be seen in a passage contained in the

book of Job, the seventh chapter and twenty-first verse: “And why does thou not pardon my transgression,

and take away mine iniquity? For now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shall seek me in the morning, but I

shall not be.” Surely no more forceful expression could possibly be used to show an utter cessation of

existence than this. In death “I shall not be.”

In the fourteenth chapter of job this question of death is discussed, and the conclusions there set

forth are worthy of our study. In the seventh verse Job declares that -there is hope of a tree, if it be cut

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down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof

wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and

bring forth boughs like a plant. And now man is contrasted with the tree: “But man dies, and wastes away:

yea, man gives up the ghost, and where is he?” And Job answers his own question by saying, “As the

waters fail from the sea, and the flood decays and dries up; so man lies down and rises not: till the heavens

be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.”

From this it is plain that until the day of the resurrection, the day when the heavens shall depart as

a scroll (Revelation 6:14), those who are dead will continue in unconscious sleep. Job then exclaims, “0

that thou would hide me in the grave, that thou would keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou

would appoint me a set time, and remember me!” Notice the expressions: “Hide me in the grave keep me

secret.” They are descriptive of death.

Having answered this question job now propounds another: “If a man die, shall he live again?”

And again he replies: “All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shall call,

and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of your hands.”

The Coming Change

Attention is directed to the expression, “All the days of my appointed time will I wait.” In what

place he would wait we are told in Job 17:13: “If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the

darkness.”

This change for which Job waits in the grave is that spoken of in 1 Corinthians 15:51.54: “Behold,

I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of

an eye, at the last trump. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we

shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So

when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then

shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” The change for which

job still waits is that from “corruptible” to “incorruption.” While he waits for this change “the grave” is his

house. This change will not he accomplished at death, as many are teaching, but “at the last trump,” when

“the dead shall be raised incorruptible.”

This same blessed awakening from the tomb is spoken of in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17: “But I

would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not, even

as others which have no hope. And then Paul shows that they are not in heaven, but in their graves awaiting

the resurrection. “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain

unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent (Precede, Revised Version] them which are asleep. For the

Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump

of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up

together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

This was the time to which Paul was looking for his reward, not to death. He declares in 2

Timothy 4:8: “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous

judge, shall give me,” not at death, but “at that day (the day of judgment). And not to me only, but unto all

them also that love his appearing.

Death is an enemy of the human race, not a friend. “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is

death.” Let us fix our eyes and center our hopes on that great hope of the church, the resurrection from the

dead, as the fulfillment of all our joys, and the entrance into that “life everlasting” which the gospel of

Christ holds out to every repentant sinner.

5. THE WAGES OF SIN

ACCEPTING as an established truth the devil’s first falsehood that all men are immortal, and

reasoning from this as a premise that the souls of all who have died are now conscious either in a condition

of bliss or torment, for they cannot die, many have concluded that it may be possible to establish some

system of communication between the souls of those who have died and the living among whom they once

lived. Then coming into contact with the phenomena of Spiritualism, the professed communication of the

spirits of the dead with the living, they have been swept away from their moorings into this terrible last-day

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delusion of the father of lies. Spiritualism is one of the fruits of the doctrine of the natural immortality of

the soul.

The belief of our Catholic friends in purgatory rests upon the same foundation, the conscious state

of the dead. If the falsehood of Satan were not believed in the place of the truth of the Bible, no one could

ever accept the teaching of purgatory, and no me therefore could ever he deceived into paying money in

order that the souls of their loved ones might he prayed out of purgatory.

The errors of Universalism and Restorationism may also be charged to this false doctrine of the

immortality of the soul, for they have come into existence because of a reaction against the terrible belief in

eternal torment, which is a necessary result of believing in natural immortality.

Fosters Infidelity

And this doctrine has greatly hindered the progress of the gospel by fostering infidelity and

skepticism, for such a doctrine as eternal misery and torment drives men away from the gospel instead of

winning them to it.

For it follows as a necessary corollary to the doctrine of natural immortality that sin, having once

gained a foothold in this earth, can never be expelled or exterminated, and those who refuse to accept the

gospel of Christ but continue in sin, being immortal, must ever continue in sin and misery and torment, God

himself being unable to blot them out because of their immortality.

Thus has been born the baneful error of everlasting torment, the teaching that the fires of the last

day, which are intended to purge this earth of sin and sinners forever, will rather perpetuate sin and sinners

forever. For having once been started to feed upon immortal souls and finding them indestructible, these

fires must rage on forever, not to devour and consume, but only to torment the miserable victims upon

whom they are ceaselessly preying. Therefore, this theory teaches us that so long as the righteous live in

heaven the wicked will be tormented in hell, and that throughout all the future ages holiness and sin,

happiness and misery, praises and curses, and life and death will run parallel with each other.

An Appalling Belief

Accepting this view many believe that heaven will resound with the songs of the ransomed while

in hell are echoing the curses and groans of the damned through all future ages. That the time can never

come when the love of God, the wisdom and almighty power of God will have so successfully triumphed

over the works of the devil as to have destroyed them utterly, nor over death and hell as to have destroyed

them; that the justice of God will never have so satisfied itself by the suffering of the lost as to permit them

to expire. That the foundations of his government can never be so secure, and the loyalty of his children so

assured that this awful exhibition of his wrath, rolling up like the smoke of a furnace forever, can be

permitted to stop.

But when intelligent, thinking men stop to consider all that is involved in the fact of suffering that

is absolutely endless, what it must mean for creatures just like themselves to writhe and toss in billows of

flame without dying forever and ever or without the least possible hope of relief, and that countless

millions have already sunk into this place of torment and are being followed by great multitudes every day,

and when they take in the thought that this means not only the vast host of sinners whom they have not

known, but their own children and loved ones and friends who go out of life without giving any indication

of having accepted the gospel, they are so appalled at the necessary conclusions which their creed and their

logic force upon them that their faith cannot endure the terrific strain put upon it, but gives way to infidelity

or at best to Universalism or Restorationism.

Believing that it will be interesting and helpful to the reader to see to what lengths those who teach

the natural immortality of the soul have gone on this point of the punishment of the wicked, before we

consider what the Bible teaches concerning it. We shall quote at some length from the writings of

prominent theologians.

In the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, the following passage occurs: “The bodies of men after

death return to dust and see corruption; but their souls (which neither die, nor sleep), having an immortal

subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them. The souls of the righteous, then, being made

perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and

glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. And the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where

they remain in torment and utter darkness reserved to the judgment of the great day.”

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From Two Theologians

In the second volume of “Sermons” by Jonathan Edwards, he says: “Those wicked men who died

many years ago, their souls went to hell, and there they are still. Those who went to hell in former ages of

the world have been in hell ever since, all the while suffering torment. They have nothing else to spend

their time in there, but to suffer torment; they are kept in being for no other purpose.”

Spurgeon, the great Baptist evangelist in his sermon on “The Resurrection of the Dead,” says:

“When thou dies, thy soul will be tormented alone. That will be a hell for it; but at the day of judgment thy

body will join thy soul and then thou wilt have twin hells, thy soul Sweating drops of blood, and thy body

suffered with agony. In fire exactly like that which we have on earth, thy body will lie, asbestos, like,

forever unconsumed, all thy veins roads for the feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a string on which the

devil shall forever play his diabolical tune of hell’s unutterable lament.”

Master of language as he was, Spurgeon could not surpass the following, taken from a sermon on-

“The judgment,” by Revelation Ebenezer Erskine: “Think now, 0 sinner, what shall be thy reward when

thou shall meet thy judge? How shall the adulterer satisfy lust when he lies on a bed of flames? The

swearer shall have enough of wounds and blood when the devil shall torture his body and rack his soul in

hell. The drunkard shall have plenty of his cups when scalding lead shall be poured down his throat, and his

breath draw flames of fire instead of air. Oh! What a bed is this! No feathers, but fire; no friends, but furies;

no case, but fetters; no daylight, but darkness; no clocks to pass the time away, but endless eternity; fire

eternal always burning, and never dying. Oh! Who can endure everlasting flame? It shall not be quenched

night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up forever and ever. The wicked shall be crowded together like

bricks in a fiery furnace. What woes and lamentations shall be uttered when devils and reprobates and all

the damned crew shall be driven into bell never to return! Down they go, howling, shrieking, and gnashing

their teeth. What wailing, weeping, roaring, yelling, filling both heaven, earth, and hell!”

Terrible Teaching

Nor have we yet reached the limits of absurdity. In the following quotation the God of love is

turned into a monster who is said to take delight in the woes of the lost. Is it any wonder men should be

driven into infidelity when such as this is called Christianity? It is taken from a sermon by Revelation

William Davidson:

“It is an unspeakably terrible thing for any one to be lost. Even to those who suffer least, it is not

only the loss of all, and a horrible lake of ever-burning fire; but there are horrible objects filling every

sense, and horrible engines and instruments of torture. Nor is this all. Unfulfilled appetites, hungry as death,

insatiable as the grave, are so many springs of excruciating and ever-increasing agonies, so many hot and

stifling winds, tossing the swooning soul on waves of flame. And there will be terrible companions; and

every one utterly selfish, malignant, fierce, and devilish. There will be terrible sights and sounds. Fathers

and sons, pastors and people, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, with swollen veins and bloodshot

eyes, straining towards each others’ throats and hearts. Upon such an assembly, God, who is of purer eyes

than to behold iniquity, cannot look but with utter detestation. His face shall be red in his anger, his eyes

shall not pity, nor his soul spare for their crying. The day of vengeance is in his heart. It is what his heart is

set upon. He will delight in it. He will tread that rebel crew in his anger, and trample them in his fury, and

will stain his raiment with their blood. The cup of the wine of his fierce wrath shall contain no mixture of

mercy. All this, and more and worse do the Scriptures declare; and that preacher who hesitates to proclaim

it has forsworn his soul, and is a traitor to his trust. And all this shall be forever. It shall never, never end.

The wicked go away into everlasting torment. If after enduring it all for twice ten thousand times ten

thousand years, they might have a deliverance, or, at least, some abatement, it were less terrible. But this

may never, never be. There is a great gulf fixed, and they cannot pass from thence. Or if after suffering all

this as many years as there are sand grains in the globe, they might then be delivered, there would be some

hope. Or, if you multiply this sum, too infinite to be expressed in figures, and too limitless to be

comprehended by angels, by the number of atoms that compose the universe, and there might be

deliverance when they had passed those abysmal gulfs of duration, then there would be some hope. But no!

When all is suffered, and all is past, still all beyond is eternity.”

Another Quotation

Surely, you exclaim, the limits of blasphemy are reached. But not yet. just one more quotation to

show to what lengths men who follow false teachings to their logical ends will go. And this is the worst of

all. Here it is declared that it is the burning of the wicked throughout eternity which will constitute the

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entertainment of the righteous, and that it is the fires of hell which constitute the light of heaven, and if hell

is brought to an end heaven would be in darkness. I take it from pages 457 and 458 of the “Works of

Samuel Hopkins, DD. It reads as follows:

“The smoke of their torment shall ascend up in the sight of the blessed forever and serve as a most

clear glass always before their eyes to give them a constant, bright, and most affecting view. This display of

the divine character and glory will be in favor of the redeemed, and most entertaining, and give the highest

pleasure to those who love God, and raise their happiness to ineffable heights. Should this eternal

punishment and this fire be extinguished, it would in a great measure obscure the light of heaven and put an

end to a great part of the happiness and glory of the blessed.”

I know that it will be a relief to those who read this chapter to turn away from these wild ravings

of men who are lost in the mazes of their own speculation, to the blessed truth which is contained in God’s

Word. To this we shall go, and sitting at the feet of the One who spoke as never man spoke, we shall learn

the truth on this subject.

6. THE PUNISHMENT OF THE WICKED

T0 MANY people religion is merely a fire-escape. They have been scared into accepting it by

hearing descriptions of a place which burns eternally, and into which they are told they will be cast at death

if they do not get religion and join the church. As we have already seen, a terrible lake of fire is painted, in

which the lost will suffer the most excruciating tortures, which will be eternal in their duration, where imps

of the devil will torment them in every way known to the ingenuity of devils.

Now there is no such place except in worn out systems of theology. The place itself does not exist.

Let it be understood at the very beginning that by this statement it is not meant to convey the idea that there

will be no punishment for sin, or that all men will be saved. Nothing of this kind is meant, nor does the

Bible teach either doctrine. What is meant is that the per. fervid descriptions of the place of torment, quoted

in the preceding chapter, have no place in fact or in the teachings of the Bible.

Retribution Is Still Future

There is no place of torment now, nor will there be until the end of the world. Men do not go to

bell when they die. This has been conclusively shown. Dead men who have been wicked during their lives

are not in hell now, but in their graves, at rest. Perfectly unconscious.

If the doctrine which teaches that at death a wicked man will go to a place of torment were true,

there would be no need of a resurrection from the dead in order that men might receive their reward or their

punishment. Why need they be raised from the dead to receive a punishment which they are already

receiving in death?

If this doctrine of punishment in hell at death were true, there would be no need of a future

judgment, which the Bible teaches will take place at the Second Coming of Christ. If men were already

receiving all the torment of hell, what need would there be of judging them? Shall they be brought forth

from hell to see if a mistake has been made in their cases, and whether they, after all, should have been sent

to heaven instead of hell?

The great biblical doctrines of the resurrection and the future judgment must be given up if this

anti scriptural doctrine of rewards and punishment at death is retained. They cannot both he believed at the

same time.

For nineteen centuries the story of Jesus and his love and his sufferings for men has been told with

tears. Multitudes have heard it and wept. Hardened hearts have been broken by it and souls have grown

sick of sin because of its love and pathos. Now, can it be possible that the same God whose love was so

great for men that he sent his only begotten Son into the world to save them, has, during these same

nineteen hundred years, compelled innumerable hosts of immortal souls to remain in the most awful

torment which could be suggested by his wisdom or inflicted by his power?

Judgment Not at Death

No, the Bible does not teach that there is a place of torment in which the wicked are suffering

now. The Bible does teach a future state of rewards and punishments beyond this world, and on the other

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side of death. This punishment takes place, not while men are dead, but after they are raised from the dead.

And it will not be eternal, but will continue only long enough to inflict upon men that just punishment

which is their due according to the deeds committed in this life.

Solomon saw clearly the need of a future judgment when he said: “I saw under the sun the place of

judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.” If justice

cannot be obtained in this world, if it becomes vitiated by the ungodliness of men, then there must surely be

a great and supreme court of final appeal. And this Solomon declares: “I said in mine heart, God shall judge

the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.” Ecclesiastes

3: 17. Beyond all doubt, therefore, the Scriptures teach a future judgment.

And this judgment is not at death nor in death. Nor does it immediately follow after death. This

will be evident from the fact that God holds men responsible, not only for the commission of their own

deeds, but also for the consequences resulting from their deeds.

Thus Jeremiah declares that God’s “eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men: to give

every one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” Jeremiah 32: 19. And, “I the

Lord search the heart, 1 try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the

fruit of his doings.” Jeremiah 17: 10.

Now, it is obvious that while the ways of a man may be manifest at his death the “fruit of his

doings- will not be manifest until the very end of time. Thus the streams of poison which had their sources

in infidel pens may continue to flow through all time, while the Christian fortitude of the martyrs, and the

faithful, self-sacrificing zeal and earnestness of true Christians may be a fountain of perpetual blessing to

the world until the close of human probation. Therefore the final reward or punishment must be delayed

until the ultimate results of every good and evil action can be surveyed at a glance and the fruit of a man’s

doings rightly estimated. It is beyond the domain of death that the Scriptures fix the judgment. “It is

appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” Hebrews 9: 27.

The Time of the judgment

Job fixes the future judgment after death, not in death. Seeing that such a judgment was required

by the inequalities of life, he said: “One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet. His breasts

are full of milk, and his bones are moistened with marrow. And another dies in the bitterness of his soul,

and never eats with pleasure. They shall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them.

Behold, I know your thoughts, and the devices which you wrongfully imagine against me. For you say,

Where is the house of the prince? And where are the dwelling places of the wicked? Have you not asked

them that go by the way? And do you not know their tokens, that the wicked is reserved to the day of

destruction? They shall be brought forth to the day of wrath. “ Job 21:23-30.

And this same truth that the wicked are not now being punished in hell, but are being reserved in

their graves to the day of judgment, is taught by Peter: “For if God spared not the angels that sinned but

cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment. And

spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the

flood upon the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned

them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly. The Lord

knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be

punished.” 2 Peter 2:1-9.

Peter’s argument is clear. God, in times past, has wrought great deliverance and great judgments.

Therefore he is a judge of man. And these past acts of God are but types of future deliverance and

punishments. God will deliver the “godly,” and will “reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to he

punished.” The “day of judgment” is not at death; men are only reserved in the prison-house of death “to be

brought forth to the day of wrath.” The judgment is after death.

Judgment at the Coming of Christ

One of the most ancient prophecies recorded in the Bible fixes the day of judgment at the coming

of Christ: “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord comes

with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among

them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which

ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” Jude 14.15.

“These,” of whom Jude spoke have long since been dead. But judgment was not to be executed

upon them while they were dead but at the time when “the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints.”

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Then, at the coming of Christ, the Lord will “execute judgment upon all.”

Hence the day of judgment will be when the Lord shall reign in glory upon Mount Zion and in the

New Jerusalem. This will be at the time when the new earth is about to be established as the eternal home

of the redeemed of the Lord.

In the second chapter of Daniel a dream was given to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, of a

great image with head of gold, breast and arms of silver, waist and thighs of brass, legs of iron, and feet and

toes part of iron and part of clay. A great stone was thrown by an unseen hand, and struck the image upon

its feet, and then all of the materials of the image, the clay, the iron, the brass, the silver, and the gold, were

ground to powder, and blown away by the winds, while the stone became a great mountain and filled the

whole earth.

According to the interpretation given to this dream by Daniel, the head of gold represented

Babylon; the breast and arms of silver, Medo-Persia; the waist and thighs of brass, Greece; the legs of iron,

Rome; and the feet and toes of iron and clay, the modern nations of Europe today. The stone represents the

kingdom of God which is to destroy the existing nations and which will take their place in the earth, filling

the entire earth and remaining forever.

This destruction has not yet taken place. The stone has not yet struck. But the preceding kingdoms,

Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome, have long since passed away. Those who composed the subjects

of these kingdoms are dead. This prophecy, however, in. forms us that when the stone strikes, when the

kingdom of God comes, then the iron, clay, brass, silver, and gold are to be broken to pieces together, and

be carried away so that no place will be found for them. But those represented by the gold, silver, brass,

iron, and clay are dead, and therefore must be raised from the dead to receive the punishment predicted in

this prophecy, for all are to be destroyed together, and sent into eternal destruction, as a punishment for

their sins in a day long ago.

Jesus Makes It Plain

Jesus clearly fixed the time of future judgment when he said: “For what is a man profited, if he

shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For

the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man

according to his works.” Matthew 16: 26, 27.

Every man, then, is to be rewarded “when the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father.”

All are comprehended in that expression “every man,” both righteous and wicked, living and dead. There

can be no doubt from this passage that the future state of rewards and punishments will begin at the second

appearing of the Lord. Jesus said again: “He that rejects me, and receives not my words, hath one that

judges him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.” John 12: 48.

Every person, wicked or good, those who receive the Word of God, and those who reject it, will be

called to meet God. But the judgment which is pronounced on the rejecters of the word is not in this life,

nor in death, but will be “in the last day.”

A passage which proves conclusively that there is no punishment for the wicked while they are

dead will be found in Luke 13: 25.30: “When once the Master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the

door, and you begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he

shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence you are. Then shall you begin to say, We have eaten

and drunk in thy presence, and thou has taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not

whence you are; depart from me, all you workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth,

when you shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you

yourselves thrust out. And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from

the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and

there are first which shall be last.”

Here are persons who have been dead for ages, in whose streets Jesus taught, who ate and drank in

his presence, and they are lost, but they have known nothing about it, and do not discover it until the day of

judgment. So far from having been punished at death, or during death, they do not even know their doom

when they enter into the judgment. How, then, could they have been in hell for nineteen hundred years and

then when judged never know they were lost? This passage of Scripture would be utterly impossible if the

dead were being punished now.

Let us be admonished by this passage. It will not be long before “the master of the house is risen

up, and hath shut to the door.” At that time not only those who heard Jesus preach, but we also who have

had the privilege of reading and hearing his word, will find our destinies decided. Every soul must appear

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before that judgment seat. There is no escape from it.

Are You Ready?

Are you ready for that day? Has Christ covered your sins with his own life? Are you safe? Can

you face the judge with confidence? Have you been obedient to the commandments of God? Have you

repented of all your sins? Oh, have you believed to the saving of your soul? There is time now, but there

will be no time then. While mercy still lingers, while the door is still open, and the master of the house has

not yet risen up to shut it-make your peace with God now, that it may be well with you in that day.

The instrument which will be used by God to punish the wicked will be fire. This fire is employed

not for the purpose of torture, but for the purpose of destruction. The fire will completely destroy the

wicked from the earth, and they will never recover from this destruction. This fire will not perpetuate their

lives, but will bring them to an end.

That the Lord will destroy the wicked by fire will be seen by reading Matthew 13:40-42: “As

therefore the tares, are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of

man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them

which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

Another verse bearing on the same point will be found in Matthew 25:41: “Then shall he say also

unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his

angels.”

From these verses it is plain that the punishment for sin will be by fire, and that this fire will take

place, not at death, but “in the end of this world.” It is plain also that members of the human race were

never intended to be cast into this fire, for it was prepared for the devil and his angels. Therefore those of

this earth who are cast into this fire will suffer this fate only because they choose to ally themselves with

the devil.

Punished on This Earth

This punishment and this fire will be on this earth. God has no special place of punishment which

he will keep in perpetual operation to torture the wicked. They will be punished where they have sinned, on

the earth. Two verses from the Scriptures will be sufficient to show this: “And they [the wicked] went up

on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came

down from God out of heaven and devoured them.” Revelation 20:9. “Behold the righteous shall be

recompensed in the earth: much more the wicked and the sinner.” Proverbs 11: 31.

The time at which this final destruction of the wicked will take place is at the end of the thousand

years of the millennium. The millennium will begin with the Second Coming of Christ, at which time all

the righteous, both living and resurrected, will he caught up to meet Christ in the air, and will be taken to

heaven with him, there to live and reign with Christ during the thousand years. 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17;

Revelation 20: 4. At the Second Coming of Christ also all the wicked who are alive at that time will be put

to death by the brightness of the glory of Christ (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9), and will remain unburied on the

face of the earth (Jeremiah 25:31-33). At the end of the thousand years of the millennium all the wicked

dead will be raised to life again (Revelation 20:5), and it is at that time that they will endeavor to capture

the holy city, the New Jerusalem, and fire will come down from heaven and devour them. Revelation 20:5-

9.

The effect of this fire upon the wicked will be seen from Malachi 4:1: “For behold, the day comes.

that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that

comes shall burn them up, said the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.” When a

thing is burned up there is nothing left of it but ashes, and so of the wicked it is said: “And you shall tread

down the wicked. For they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, said the

Lord of hosts.” Malachi 4: 3.

Sin Not to Be Perpetuated

Thus it is plain that the wicked are not perpetuated in this fire in which they meet their fate, but

entirely consumed. And this does not have reference to the body alone, as is insisted by some who earnestly

cling to their favorite doctrine of eternal torment. In Ezekiel 18:4, 20, we read: “The soul that sins, it shall

die.”

It is for this reason, that there is a complete destruction of the sinner, that the Bible uses such

terms as “eternal,” “everlasting,” and “forever and ever,” in connection with the fate of the wicked. The

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thing which these expressions are designed to show is that the overthrow of the wicked is a complete

overthrow, that there will never be any hope of a recovery from their fate, for it is eternal. Their torment is

not eternal, their grief and anguish are not eternal; but their destruction is eternal.

Bearing out this thought of a complete destruction of the wicked we read in 2 Thessalonians 1:9:

“Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of

his power.” Again in Matthew 25:46 we read: “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment.”

Notice the force of these expressions which have been used so long to teach the doctrine of eternal

torment. The “destruction” of the wicked will be “everlasting”; the -punishment- of the wicked will be

“everlasting”; there will never be any recovery from it. Neither verse declares what the advocates of eternal

torment desire. There is nothing in either verse concerning eternal torment. It is not the torment which is

said to be “everlasting,” it is the “destruction” and the “punishment.” Nor does it say “everlasting

punishing,” but “everlasting punishment.” There is no dispute at all concerning the length of the

punishment of the wicked. The only question is as to what the punishment consists of. If the punishment for

sin is torment, then there is no question but that the torment will be eternal. If, however, the punishment for

sin is death, then the death is “everlasting.” And no one will dispute the fact that the Bible teaches that “the

wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), and not eternal life in misery.

Everlasting Fire

It will be urged by some, however, that the Bible not only speaks of “everlasting destruction,” and

“everlasting punishment,” but also of “everlasting fire.” Matthew 25:41. And it will be asked why, if the

torment is not continued, there should be need of everlasting fire. Let the reader turn to the seventh verse of

Jude, and there notice that Sodom and Gomorrah suffered “the vengeance of eternal fire.” Inasmuch as

Sodom and Gomorrah are not now burning, not with, standing the fact that they were destroyed by eternal

fire, it is evident that eternal fire is not necessarily fire which perpetuates that which it burns, and never

ceases to burn. From 2 Peter 2:6 it is evident that eternal fire completely consumes that which it attacks.

The language is: “And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an

overthrow. Making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly.” And that it takes but a

very short time for eternal fire to bring that which it attacks to ashes will be plain from Lamentations 4: 6,

where it is said that Sodom was “overthrown as in a moment.”

From these verses it will he seen that the effect of everlasting or eternal fire is not to perpetuate the

existence of that upon which it feeds, but to consume it, to bring it to ashes, and it may accomplish this “as

in a moment.”

Unquenchable Fire

Again it will be urged that Mark in speaking of the fire which will punish the wicked says of it

that it “never shall be quenched.” Mark 9:43-45. But a fire that never shall be quenched is not a fire that

never shall go out, but a fire that cannot be put out. Jerusalem was burned with a fire that could not be

quenched (Jeremiah 17:19-27; 2 Chronicles 36:19-21), but it is not burning yet. By this unquenchable fire it

was brought to destruction and ashes, just as the fires of the last day will bring the wicked to destruction

and ashes. The fire which is to destroy the wicked must of necessity be unquenchable, for if it were not, the

wicked would put it out.

7. SPIRITUALISM

ANY discussion of the condition and state of the dead would K be incomplete without an

explanation of the false claims of Spiritualism which pretends to open a way of communication between

the living and the spirits of the dead. We have already seen that this claim must be false, inasmuch as the

dead are unconscious. This, however, leaves us to explain and account for the phenomena of this false

system.

Every candid person must admit that a considerable portion of these phenomena is fraud, pure and

simple, nothing but deception and imposture, contrived by craft and cunning and imposed on the credulity

of the simple-minded for purposes of personal profit. But there are phenomena in this system which cannot

be accounted for on these grounds. There is a supernatural power connected with it, but this supernatural

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power is of Satan, and not of God.

The Rise of Witchcraft

Those who recall the art of the magicians of Egypt who were buried with Pharoah’s host in the

Red Sea. The incantations of Balaam which brought about his own destruction. The spirit-mediums of

Nineveh and Babylon who perished with the nations they had deluded; the experience of Saul, the king of

Israel, who went from a spirit-medium’s seance to a suicide’s grave. The hist6ry of numerous rulers from

Croesus to Napoleon III to whom ruin and discomfiture were brought by consulting with spirits. The

multitudes who wander now in heathen lands as hopeless and helpless demoniacs, as some did in ancient

Palestine. The wreck of mind and morals which meddling with Spiritualism now brings to many; the frantic

agony of those whom Spiritualism has brought to a suicide’s fate will surely want more evidence than such

a record affords that Spiritualism is from God. Its deadly pitfalls, terrible chasms, and awful abysses into

which so many have plunged who have dabbled in it, ought to cause every prudent and wise person to

avoid it as he would the bubonic plague.

Some smile with incredulity when they hear the legendary tales of ghosts, goblins, and black cats,

and of old women riding broomsticks through the air, and many who do the smiling then go to see a spirit.

medium floating in ether, or being borne around on a table suspended in space. They take but little stock in

the tales of persons binding themselves to serve the devil at a witch-dance in some dark forest, and then

such incredulous ones attend a seance in a darkened room where the medium could never have gained the

high position of medium ship without first absolutely yielding her body, soul, mind, spirit, and will to the

control of unseen and unknown spirits. But there is no essential difference between the two.

The first spiritualist medium was the serpent in the Garden of Eden. This creature was—more

subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.” Satan selected this -subtle- beast as a

medium through which to manifest the first spiritualistic phenomena. Through the serpent he spoke to Eve,

the first woman. And he spoke to her in order to deceive her. It is worthy of more than passing attention

that it was by believing a spiritualist medium that this world has been overwhelmed with such a flood of

sin, disease, sorrow, grief, misery, trouble, war, and death. And it is worth noticing, also, that if Satan then

could take possession of the body of an animal or reptile and so control that animal as to make it appear to

be different from what it was, and then through his possession of that animal deceive and delude an

innocent and unfallen human being, we certainly are justified in believing that he can and does exert his

power today in a similar way to deceive and delude human beings. For his power and craft and malice

during these six thousand years since this first spiritualistic manifestation have not been diminished, but

rather increased. Today he still deceives and deludes the world through mediums.

Origin of Modern Spiritualism

Modern Spiritualism had its beginning in Hydesville, NY, in the year 1848. The first intelligible

communication of Spiritualism in modern times came in response to a direct appeal to Satan himself. In the

year mentioned, a farmer by the name of John D. Fox lived in Hydesville, near Rochester, NY. He was the

father of six children, two of whom were living at home. These were the youngest children of the family

and their names were Margaret, who was fifteen years of age, and Kate, aged twelve. They had but recently

moved and they found the house they occupied disturbed by noises, especially at night.

They attributed these noises at first to mice and rats, and then to a loose board, but they soon

discovered the noises to be distinct and intelligent rapping. After retiring on the night of March 31, 1848,

the parents and children sleeping in the same room, these rapping commenced with greater violence than

usual. Mr. Fox arose and tried the window sashes, and finding them all secure was about to return to his

rest when Kate, observing that when he shook the sashes the rapping seemed to reply, turned in the

direction from which the sound seemed to come, and snapped her fingers, at the same time exclaiming,

“Here, Old Split foot, do as I do.”

The rapping instantly replied, frightening the girls so that they had no further desire at the time to

continue the conversation with “Old Split foot.” But the mother continued to cultivate his acquaintance, and

from him received a message professing to come from the spirit of Charles B. Rosna, which told her that he

had been murdered in that very house some years ago. An exact location in the cellar of the house was

given as the place where his body had been buried, and on digging there a considerable portion of a human

skeleton was found, and it was later ascertained that a man answering to the description given had visited

the house and had not been seen since.

Margaret Fox soon developed remarkable occult powers in her continued intercourse with the

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spirits. Many questions were asked the spirits and the answers in the main were found to be correct. Thus

lost articles were found. Neighbors came in to investigate, other questions were asked and answered, and

many became convinced that the Fox girls were actually in communication with the spirits of the dead.

From this time the movement spread like a prairie fire.

A Vast Confederacy of Evil

In our study of this movement we must ever bear in mind that there are upon earth a vast multitude

of invisible beings clothed with supernatural power, called “demons” by the Scriptures of truth, wholly evil

in character, and who, with the most intense hatred toward God and man, are constantly engaged in the

most bitter warfare against the welfare of human beings and the glory of God. This vast confederacy of evil

is presided over by a chief who once dwelt in the courts of heaven, but whose present supreme aim is to

ensnare the human race to its eternal destruction and who aims at pressing every event and circumstance of

human life into his fiendish service.

When Satan fell from heaven a great number of his angels were cast out of heaven with him.

Revelation 12:7-9; 2 Peter 2:4. The Bible teaches that each child of God has an attending angel from the

courts of heaven. Matthew 18:10; Acts 12:12-16. Without doubt each person has also an evil angel

attending him constantly. This evil angel, who is under the direction of Satan, knows all that we have ever

done, all that we have ever said, all the secrets which we have thought were known only to ourselves, and

all the things which we have carefully kept from the light of day. It is this evil angel who has been in

constant attendance on our loved one in this life, who appears and impersonates that loved one at a

spiritualist seance. That evil spirit can tell all that the loved one himself could tell if he were really there. It

can reveal secrets which were known only to the one who is dead and the inquirer at the seance, and this

revelation appears of Such a supernatural character that the inquirer, not being fortified by the truth of the

Bible concerning the state of the dead, is convinced that he is in actual communication with the spirit of his

dead loved one. He is led on to believe “doctrines of devils” (1 Timothy 4:1), for once convinced that it is

one who loves him who speaks to him, he is then ready to believe any message he may receive. Thus he is

drawn away from God into this terrible delusion. The spirit’s which appear at spiritualist seances are not

the spirits of the dead but are spirits of devils. This movement is the latter-day working of the one who was

cast out of heaven, and all of the people of God should guard them, selves against it with the utmost care.

An Intelligence Wholly Evil

We admit that there are mysterious and supernatural manifestations, and freely concede that there

are evidences of physical power and mental intelligence in Spiritualism which cannot be explained by

ordinary scientific principles. But the power thus exercised is an evil power, and the intelligence that is thus

manifested is also an evil intelligence.

Let us sit for a moment at a spiritualist seance. The medium inquires, “Are the spirits present?

“Rap, rap, rap,” comes the reply. “Will they communicate? Rap, rap, rap.” Is this the spirit of this

gentleman’s grandmother?” Map, rap, rap.” Will the spirit use the alphabet? Rap, rap, rap.”

Thus a communication is received, by slow and painful methods, from a grandmother, who, after

progressing in the spiritual sphere, which is said to be one of great progress and enlightenment, for three

decades, cannot talk as well as she could thirty years ago.

And how am I to be sure that this is the spirit of my grandmother? Any other spirit could make

three raps just as loud or just as low. Any other spirit could profess to he my grandmother. This spirit may

be, for all I can know to the contrary, the spirit of my aunt, my brother, my bitterest enemy, a Borneo

savage, a demon, the devil himself, or any of his angels. I am completely at the mercy of some intelligence

which does not dare to show its face, and which gives me no references, but expects me to believe it

implicitly.

But there are other tests offered. Handwriting, the very familiar handwriting of the departed, is

submitted to us. But this proves nothing. Our prisons are full now of men who were too handy with their

pens, and too free in the use of other men’s handwriting. If the dead are conscious, as Spiritualism teaches,

what assurance can we have that the spirits of forgers, knaves, and criminals of all descriptions are not still

plying their nefarious trades?

But, it is insisted, the spirits tell things which no one present can know. We are not sure about it.

There may be those present we do not see, the spirit not of your grandmother, or wife, or child, but spirits

which have known the history of your family for generations, and who may be familiar with every event of

your life. Such a spirit knows your secret acts, it has heard your most secret whispers, and it is not

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surprising that it can astonish you by revealing things which you believed were known to no one else.

Scientists Are Baffled

The claim is made that the spirits talk piously, and give good instruction, and tell the truth. But

suppose they do-sometimes. This proves nothing. ‘Bad messages, of course, come from bad spirits, but

good messages do not necessarily come from good spirits. While a good man will not lie, yet a bad man

and a liar will sometimes tell the truth. A bad spirit will tell the truth and falsehood, giving each kind of fish

the bait it likes best, but will ultimately lie to all and deceive and dupe everybody who deals with it.

And granting, for the moment, that these spirits are what they claim to be, the spirits of the dead, even then

it should be remembered that there are plenty of living men whom we would not want to meet with masks

on their faces and in the dark. There are living men who will lie, and cheat, and steal, and deceive, and

swindle, and forge, and delude, and who most certainly will bear close watching. What assurance have we,

if the dead are conscious, that such men when they are dead will be any better than they were when living?

But, we are assured, even scientists have been baffled in their investigation of these phenomena,

and freely admit they must have a supernatural origin. So do we admit it. And it is not surprising that

science is baffled. Science may be able to explain anything which is based upon natural laws or physical

forces, but it never can satisfactorily explain acts which are the results of the whims or inclinations of

intelligent beings, in possession of self-determining wills, especially when science enters such an

investigation disbelieving in the existence of the very forces and agencies which produce the phenomena.

Scientists can perform an experiment in chemistry or physics again and again, and under similar

conditions will get unvarying results. But when a scientist comes to deal with the caprices of a living, selfdetermining,

self-acting thing, he can no more predict its next whim than can the most unscientific mortal.

The operation of a machine may be accurately forecast, but the wisest of men will have difficulty

predicting the antics of a monkey. An astronomer would have no difficulty in locating on his celestial map

the farthest planets and stars, but all his mathematical and astronomical wisdom and learning would not

help in locating his boy’s cap the next morning.

Masquerading as Christian

Those things which are dependent on human action and human will cannot be accurately

calculated by man. And let the existence of millions of unseen intelligences which often interfere in human

affairs be once granted, and it will be obvious at once why, denying the very existence of such agencies,

science is baffled by the phenomena of Spiritualism, for it is just as impossible for scientists to find a

solution of the mysterious work of unseen and devilish spirits as it would certainly be for the greatest

mathematician to forecast a kitten’s antics or a lunatic’s hallucinations.

Today Spiritualism masquerades under the guise of Christianity. It hides its real character under a

pretension of great holiness. It is building churches and taking on the appearance of a Christian de.

nomination. And under this deceptive appearance it is sweeping millions to ruin and despair. But at the

beginning of its modern history it made no such pretensions, and frankly acknowledged its connection with

the devil, to whom it offered its prayers and devotion. Its official organ of that time contains a number of

petitions to his Satanic majesty, three of which are here given:

“0 Lucifer, thou son of the morning who fell from thy high estate, and whom mortals are prone to

call the embodiment of evil, we lift our voices to thee. We know thou cannot not harm us unless by the will

of the Almighty of whom thou art a part and portion, and in whose economy thou played a part, and we

cannot presume to sit in judgment over Deity. From the depths of your infamy stream forth divine truths.

Why should we turn from thee? Does not the same inspiration rule us all? Is one in God’s sight better than

another? We know thou art yet to come up in his expanded creation, purified by the influence of God’s

love, for his love is not perfected while one of his children writhes in misery. So, 0 Lucifer do we come up

and stand before the throne of the Ancient of Days, hand in hand with thee. As thou has been the star of the

morning thou wilt again become an angel of light. 0 Satan, we will subdue thee with our love and thou wilt

yet kneel humbly with us at the throne of God.” Banner of Light, December 21, 1861, page 8.

“0 thou prince of darkness and king of light, God and devil, greater and lesser good, perfect and

imperfect being! We ask and demand of thee that we may know thee, for to know thee is to know more of

ourselves. And if to do this it be necessary to wander in hell, yea and amen, we wander there with the

spirits of darkness. The church and the world tell us that the devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking

whom he may devour, but we know thee only as God’s vicegerent, to stand at his left hand, the regenerator

of mankind, the means of bringing up all things, intellectually and morally to perfection.” - Banner of

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Light, March 1, 1862.

Prayer to the Devil

On opening a debate with a Christian minister on the subject of Spiritualism, Prof. W. Chaney, a

medium, at San Jose, California, January 29, 1874, offered this prayer: “0 devil, prince of demons in the

Christian hell! 0 thou monarch of the bottomless pit, thou king of scorpions having stings in their tails, to

whom it is given to hurt the earth for five months, I beseech thee to hear my prayer. Bless thy servant in his

labors before thee. Fill his mouth with words of wisdom. Enable him to defend thee from the false charges

about to be made against thy sulphurous majesty, and triumph by truth and logic over his opponent, so that

this audience may realize that thou art a prayer hearing and prayer-answering devil.” - Signs of the Times,

May 10, 1877.

And that the anticipations of Spiritualists have now been met, and Satan has actually been

converted, is the message which is now brought from the world of spirits, as recorded in what purports to

be a message received from a departed Lutheran minister developed into a psychic,- as the spirit described

itself, printed in the Washing ton DC. Post of November 1, 1914. The message is as follows:

“The new revelation and great truth I am graciously permitted to tell is the fact that Satan (Helios)

has been truly converted. Pray for him, all you earnest ministers and children of God; for Helios has a

terrible battle on his hands, as I am informed this morning. While many of the spirits of the abyss or lowest

hell on the sun, with him, have turned and accepted Jehovah, there are many left who are fiercely

obstructing the higher progress of Helios and other hell spirits who have left them. You know that people

on earth who turn from wickedness to righteousness have the hardest time to defend them, selves against

their former bad companions. Not only does everybody doubt that their conversion is sincere, but all the old

cronies, out of revenge, do whatever mischief they can against their former friend.

Now, imagine Satan being converted, as he really is, and you know that it is an awful struggle for

him. Satan was a high angel from a very ancient world, possibly one of the Elohim or sons (emanations) of

God, who fell through pride. For many thousands of years he has been the jailer of the lowest hell sphere

on the sun, and that is why he gives his name as ‘Helios,’ which is Greek, and means ‘sun.’ His scriptural

names are Hebrew, Abaddon; and Greek, Apollyon.

“The recent conversion of Helios was the greatest victory of Jesus, and the turning point of the

history of the earth.”

Spiritualism Is Spreading

From the small beginning already described, Spiritualism has grown by leaps and bounds until

today it numbers its converts by the hundreds of thousands. It has developed through different stages, such

as slate-writing, table-tipping, the playing of musical instruments by unseen agencies, and other remarkable

manifestations, but through all its history the chief characteristic of this delusion has been, and is now, the

claim of communicating with the spirits of the dead.

This claim of communication with the dead is not a new thing. Spiritualism itself, as has been

shown, is not a new thing. It is an old thing which has been given a new name. In ancient times it was not

called Spiritualism, but witchcraft, sorcery, wizardry, necromancy, and consulting with familiar spirits.

Under those names it is spoken of in the Bible and strongly condemned.

Inasmuch as this system is sweeping many people from their moorings out into a great sea of

deception, it is well that we study what God has to say about it. It is a most powerful deception, and we

cannot combat its power successfully in our own strength. God has given much instruction concerning it in

his Word, and this instruction will be of the utmost value to us in meeting the lying claims of Spiritualism

and overcoming them.

God said to his ancient people: “Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after

wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 19: 3 1.

The possession of familiar, or controlling, spirits is the very claim upon which the so-called

communication with the spirits of the dead is made by spiritualist mediums. In the verse quoted above God

forbids his people to have anything to do with those who make such claims, and further admonishes them

that any such connection will be defiling to his people.

God Prohibited Spiritualism

“And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers.”

Malachi 3:5. Sorcery was a pretended familiarity with the spirits of the dead, that is, it was the ancient

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name of modern Spiritualism. “Therefore hearken not you to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to

your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, for they prophesy a lie unto you.” Jeremiah

27:9, 10.

Spiritualism pretends to be able to foretell the future accurately. This is mere pretension, for it

does not know the future. Mediums, reasoning from cause to effect, may surmise something of what may

come to pass, and so may we all, but they have no supernatural knowledge at all of the future. If

Spiritualists knew what would hap. pen tomorrow and the next day they would undoubtedly be the most

successful manipulators of the Wall Street stock market, for they would be able to tell whether stocks were

going up or down and thus be far in advance of their competitors. They do not know the future, but “they

prophesy a lie unto you.” “A man also or a woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely

be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.” Leviticus 20: 27.

This was the ancient penalty for attempting to communicate with the spirits of the dead, and there

are those who never cease to deride the Bible for such a law. But when men talk, it is well to know what

they are talking about. And when they take a little trouble to find out, they might discover that the occult

and devilish practices of ancient Spiritualism not only tended, as they do now, to disease, insanity,

immorality and death, but that those who practiced these occult arts were too often guilty of the most

horrible, abominable, and revolting’ crimes and barbarities, which in themselves were sufficient cause to

prohibit the practices which gave rise to them. It is well, at any rate, to learn the estimation in which the

Lord holds Spiritualism. “There shall not be found among you any one that makes his son or his daughter

to pass through the fire, or that uses divination or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consultant

with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the

Lord.” Deuteronomy 18: 10.12.

Surely at the present time consulting with familiar spirits cannot be pleasing to God when

anciently it was an abomination to him.

In the New Testament, Spiritualism is also found in doubtful company under its old name of

witchcraft. “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness,

lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, sedition, heresies, envying,

murders, drunkenness, reveling, and such like. Of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in

time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Galatians 5: 19.21.

Try the Spirits

All such movements which claim to be of God we are told to test: “Beloved, believe not every

spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets have gone out into the world

“ 1 John 4: 1.

And how, and by what, we are to try the spirits is also made plain: “And when they shall say unto

you. Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter; should not a

people seek unto their God? For the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not

according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isaiah 8: 19, 20.

Rather than the living seeking to the dead for help, they should seek to their God. When

Spiritualism urges us to seek to the dead through a medium controlled by a familiar spirit then we need to

seek God. And we are to test the claims of Spiritualism by “the law” and by “the testimony,” that is, by the

Word of God. If they speak not according to the Bible it is because there is no light in them.

Examined by this test Spiritualism fails at every point. The doc. trine upon which the whole

system is based is in contradiction to the plainest statements of the Bible. Spiritualism teaches that the dead

are conscious; the Bible declares them to he unconscious.

Spiritualism is not all trickery. There is a supernatural power behind it, but that power is not the

power of God, but of Satan. The spirits which appear in the dim light of a Spiritualistic seance, are not the

spirits of our departed friends at all. “They are the spirits of devils, working miracles,” declares the inspired

Word of God. Revelation 16:14.

As many will be brought into contact with these spirits who impersonate the dead they will find

themselves confronted by a power which they will be utterly unable to withstand or resist. Appeals will be

made to their sympathies, and before their eyes miracles will be wrought which will convince them that this

fearful delusion is the great power of God. They will be led to disbelieve the Word of God which opposes

the claims of Spiritualism and will thus be led on until God departs from them, as he did from King Saul,

and they are completely entangled in the snares of the devil. Thus thousands and hundreds of thousands

will lose their souls in this final effort of Satan to deceive the whole world and take it captive. Our only

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protection against this powerful delusion is to be acquainted with the inspired teaching of the Bible

concerning the dead.

King Saul’s Experience

The experience of King Saul with the witch of Endor is sometimes cited as proof of the possibility

of communicating with the dead. But this experience is merely an account of the deception of Saul. by a

demon impersonating the dead Samuel. If we accept this account as a genuine manifestation of the spirit of

Samuel we must he prepared to believe that all the prophets, and apostles, and saints are at all times liable

to be called from their resting places at the bidding of spirit mediums. We must believe, too, that the whole

host of the dead, instead of being, as has been taught, in heaven, in hell, or in purgatory, are merely kept

“on tap” in preparation for a call from any witch, wizard, necromancer, sorcerer, or company of free lovers

who may choose to have a seance in order to parade these patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and relatives

before any one who may be willing to pay a quarter at a wholesale seance, or a dollar at a retail one. The

Christian is not ready to accept any such preposterous idea.

8. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST

GOD’S people are to be released from the prison-house of death at the time of the Second Coming

of Christ. It is this great event, the coming of Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords, which is the

consummation of the hopes of the saints of the Lord in all ages. From the time of Adam to the present the

servants of God have looked with longing eyes for the coming of Christ to make all things new, to destroy

death, and to restore to the redeemed everything that has been lost by sin. From the very earliest times it

has been the purpose of God to destroy sin when it has run its course, and he has revealed this purpose in

numerous promises to his people.

The reign of sin is nearly finished. The message heralding the return of Jesus to this earth is even

now going into all the earth. The present generation is destined to see the closing up of all things. This is

made clear in the prophecy uttered by Christ on the Mount of Olives and recorded in the twenty-fourth

chapter of Matthew.

The Great Tribulation

The prophecy of this chapter is given in reply to the question of the disciples, “When shall these

things be, and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Matthew 24:3. Christ

answered this question by predicting the destruction of Jerusalem and then by outlining the history of the

world from that time to the end. He declared that after the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place in AD

70, there would be a period of “great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this

time, no, nor ever shall be.” Verse 21. This was fulfilled in the period of papal persecution, which,

according to the prophecy of Daniel 7: 25, was to continue for a time, times, and half a time, or 1260 years.

This period began in 538 and closed in 1798, at the time when the pope was taken prisoner by Berthier and

exiled into France.

“And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s

sake those days shall be shortened.” Verse 22. The persecution to come upon the church was to be so

severe that unless there should he some shortening of it none of the people of God would survive it. The

time of the persecution reached down to 1798. But before 1798 came, the effects of the Protestant

Reformation began to he felt, and persecution had practically ceased by 1775. Here is a period of about

twenty-three years, between 1775 and 1798, by which the persecution of Christians had been shortened.

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not

give her light.” Verse 29. This very definitely locates this sign, not after the days of persecution themselves,

but after the persecution “of those days.” The days ended in 1798; the tribulation ended about 1775. Mark,

in recording the same prophecy of the Master, puts this prediction in this language: “But in those days

[before 17981], after that tribulation [after 1775], the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her

light.” Mark 13:24.

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The Dark Day and the Falling of the Stars

Thus the occurrence of this sign, a remarkable darkening of the sun, a dark day, is limited to a

period of about twenty-three years, between 1775 and 1798. And in that very period that prediction was

remarkably fulfilled. It was on May 19, 1780 that this remarkable dark day occurred. About ten o’clock in

the morning of that day a darkness began to shut out the light of the sun. The chickens began to go to roost

as if it were night, and the cows came in from the pastures. It was necessary to light the candles in the

homes of the people in order to read common print. All felt that this was a sign of the approaching of the

end of the world. It came at the very time predicted and was the fulfillment of Matthew 24: 29.

“And the stars shall fall from heaven.” Verse 29. This sign was fulfilled in the wonderful meteoric

shower of the morning of Nov. 13, 1833. On that day the most wonderful falling of stars that the world has

ever seen took place, and fulfilled this verse.

“And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the

earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from

the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” Verse 30, 31. 1n this line of prophecy the very next

thing to happen after the falling of the stars in 1833 is the actual appearance of Jesus in the clouds of

heaven. “When you shall see all these things, know that he [margin] is near, even at the doors.” Verse 33.

When we see these signs, the great tribulation, the dark day, and the falling of the stars, we may

rest assured that Christ is very near at hand, just as near as a person is who is knocking at our door. Then to

make it still more definite, Christ said: “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these

things be fulfilled.” Verse 34.

This locates the coming of Christ in a certain generation. And that certain generation is definitely

located as the one which “shall see all these things,” the tribulation, the dark day, and the falling of the

stars, not see them literally, but see them as signs of the coming of Christ. Undoubtedly some who saw the

falling of the stars in 1833 will be among those who are alive when the Lord shall come. But the teaching

of this verse is that when the people of the earth bear a great message of the coming of the Lord, which will

set before them these signs as signs of his coming, the generation which hears that message will be the

generation which will be living when the Lord comes. just as it was the generation which heard the

message of John and of Christ and his disciples, and which rejected that message, upon which the

destruction of Jerusalem came as a punishment for that rejection, so in these last days it will be the

generation which hears the message of the coming of Christ with all its allied truths, and rejects that

message, upon which the destruction of the last days will come. That message is now being preached in all

the world. This present generation is the one which is hearing the message of the coming of Christ. The

present generation is the one which is destined to see the coming of Christ.

A Counterfeit Coming of Christ

Satan has attempted to pervert even the truth of the Second Coming of the Lord. He has led some

to believe that Christ will not come literally, and to believe that the prophecies of the Bible concerning his

coming are sufficiently fulfilled at the death of each person. Others he has deceived by leading them to

believe that Christ’s Second Coming will be secret, that he will take one here and one there. Others he has

led to believe that Christ has already come.

There is no doubt that before the Second Coming of Christ Satan will attempt to counterfeit his

coming by a pretended coming in which he will himself assume the character and likeness of Christ. This

seems to be clearly taught in the following verse: “And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord

shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming. Even him,

whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders.” 2 Thessalonians

2:8, 9.

We may expect, therefore, that the coming of Christ will be counterfeited before it happens. Satan

will pretend to be Christ. Undoubtedly he will take on the appearance of Christ, for we are told that he has

power to transform himself into an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11: 14). He will speak in the same gentle,

compassionate tone that Jesus did when he was among men. He will perform miracles, heal the sick, speak

with tongues, and do the same wonders and the same work that would be expected of Christ. And many

will be led away by the deception and give Satan their allegiance. This will undoubtedly be the last great

deception of Satan before the coming of Christ.

And the way for this deception is being prepared by the teaching which is being disseminated

today that Christ has really come to this earth, this coming having taken place in 1874, and that he will

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appear before long to all the earth. It is taught that while he came the second time in 1874, yet that coming

was a secret one, known only to a few, but that in a very little while he will appear to the whole world, and

set up a temporal kingdom, and reign one thousand years during the millennium, and at that time all who

have not accepted Christ in this life, will then have another trial and another opportunity to accept him.

This deceptive teaching, which is finding wide acceptance, is preparing the world for Satan’s last great

attempt to defeat the work of God.

Manner of Christ’s Coming

It is not at all necessary for the people of God to be deceived in this matter of the coming of

Christ. The Bible clearly teaches the manner of his coming, and makes it plain that it has not yet taken

place, and that when it does take place it will be a literal coming in the clouds of heaven in the sight of the

entire earth.

That Christ’s coming will be literal is evident from the following passage: “While they looked

steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said.

You men of Galilee, why stand you gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you

into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven.” Acts 1: 10, 11.

Yes, it will be “this same Jesus” who will come again, and he will come “in like manner” as he

went into heaven. When he went away, “a cloud received him out of their sight.” Acts 1: 9. Therefore when

he comes again he will come with clouds. “Behold, he comes with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and

they also which pierced him and all kingdoms of the earth shall wail because of him.” Revelation 1:7.

His coming will not be a secret coming. “Every eye shall see him.” ”For as the lightning comes

out of the east and shines even unto the west: so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Matthew

24:27.

And there will be no probation after the coming of Christ. Even a little while before he comes the

probation of all is forever closed, and this decree goes forth: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and

he which is filthy, let him be filthy still. And he that is righteous let him be righteous still: and he that is

holy, let him be holy still.” Revelation 22:11. And then: -Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with

me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” Revelation 22: 12.

Resurrection of Righteous and Wicked

The coming of Christ brings the reign of sin to an end, and delivers the people of God from the

great tyrant who has held them in bondage through the ages. At the coming of Christ all the people of God

from the beginning of the world to this time are raised from the dead to be taken with Christ to those

mansions which he has gone to prepare. “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout,

with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we

which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air:

and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16,17. “But the rest of the dead [the wicked]

lived not again until the thousand years were finished.” Revelation 20:5.

There are to be two resurrections, a resurrection of the righteous, which will take place at the

Second Coming of Christ, and a resurrection of the wicked, which will take place one thousand years later,

or at the end of the millennium. The millennium opens with a resurrection and closes with a resurrection.

During the millennium the wicked are all dead.

It is plain from these verses that at the Second Coming of Christ all of the righteous dead will be

raised, all of the righteous living translated, and together the righteous of all ages will be taken by the Lord

to those mansions he is now preparing, and there in the courts of heaven they will live and reign with Christ

a thousand years. Revelation 20:4.

At the same time that the righteous dead are raised and the righteous living are translated from the

earth, the wicked who are alive will be destroyed, and the wicked who are dead remain dead until the

second resurrection at the close of the thousand years.

“Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to

you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall he revealed from heaven with his mighty

angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and

from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints.” 2 Thessalonians 1: 6-10.

Thus the earth is entirely emptied of its inhabitants, all the wicked being dead on the earth and all

the righteous having been taken to heaven with Christ.

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Are You Safe?

In one of these classes, reader, you will stand at the coming of Christ. And the time of that coming

is very near at hand. We may doubt it, dispute it, deny it now; but at that time we shall be compelled to

meet it. Can you meet it with composure? Do you tremble when you think of it? Are you ready for that

day? Are you in Christ? Are you safe? Have you obeyed God? Have you heard the great final message of

the gospel? If so, have you obeyed it? It has been sent to you for the very purpose of preparing you for the

day of God. Have you brought your life into harmony with it, and thus permitted the Lord to prepare your

heart to meet him in peace? If not, let me plead with you to seek the Lord while he may be found. Before

the door of mercy is shut, and while probation still lingers, believe the message he has sent to you and give

him your heart.

It may be, however, that you are a Christian. If so, God speed you on your heavenly journey.

Christ’s love for you is very great; and your zeal for his work and glory should be proportionate thereto.

The Master is about to come with rewards. What reward will he bring you? Be diligent. Remember the

work of God. Strive to save those about you from the wrath which is to come. Give them the message of his

coming. Be zealous in giving the message, for in it is salvation. The time is too short for half-hearted work.

God is calling for laborers now. Oh, give yourself to him for the finishing of his work in the earth.

“And now, little children, abide in him; that when he shall appear, we may have confidence and

not he ashamed before him at his coming.” “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in

the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.” 1 John 2: 28; 4: 17.

9. THE MILLENNIUM AND HELL

THE Second Coming of Christ, Satan is to be bound a thousand years so that he will be unable to

deceive the nations. After the thousand years he will be loosed from his bondage and again enter upon the

work of deception for a little season. The only passage in the Bible which makes reference to the thousand

year period is as follows: “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless

pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and

Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal

upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled. And after

that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given

unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of

God, and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their

foreheads, or in their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the

dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.” Revelation 20:

1.5.

Every theory of the millennium which is now being taught must be made to harmonize with this

passage of Scripture, for, as has been said, this is the only passage which speaks of the thousand year

period. The word “millennium” comes from two Latin words, “mille,” meaning a thousand, and “annus,”

meaning year,-a thousand years. There is no other meaning to the word. It does not mean what its perverted

use has come to convey to the minds of many people-a thousand year period of great peace, prosperity, and

salvation upon this earth. This has been the generally accepted meaning of the term, but there is no such

meaning in the term itself. It means merely a thousand years, without specifying anything at all as to the

character of that period.

This thousand year period, the millennium, begins with the Second Coming of Christ. During the

thousand years Satan will be bound in some place called “the bottomless pit.” This is for the purpose of

restraining him from deceiving the nations, and to partially punish him.

From the fact that Satan is bound it has been concluded that the millennium will be a very happy,

glorious time of peace among the nations, that all the nations will be converted to the gospel, and as a result

disband their armies, dismantle their navies, and learn war no more. This theory had been taught so long

that it has come to be widely accepted, but it has absolutely no foundation at all in the Scriptures.

There is nothing in the Bible which would lead any one to sup, pose that before the end of this

world the nations will all be converted o the gospel and cease to fight each other. The Bible teaches just the

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contrary.

The verse upon which much of the teaching is based that the’ world is to be converted to Christ

before his Second Coming is Matthew 24:14: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the

world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come.” But this verse does not teach at all that

the world will be converted. It teaches merely that the gospel will be sent to all the world, not for the

conversion of the nations, but “for a witness” unto all nations.

In the parable of the wheat and the tares, recorded in Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, it is made very

plain that both the righteous and the wicked are to “grow together- until the “harvest,” which is explained

to be “the end of the world.” At the end of the world, instead of the wicked all being converted, they are to

be cast into a furnace of fire where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.

World Growing Worse and Worse

We are plainly told in the Bible that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving

and being deceived.” 2 Timothy 3: 13.

Jesus himself, in speaking of the days immediately preceding his Second Coming, declared that

“as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank,

they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood

came and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did cat, they drank, they

bought they sold, they planted, they built; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and

brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is

revealed.” Luke 17:21-30.

Hence all that it is necessary to do in order to discover the character of the days just before the

coming of Christ is to refer to the history of the days just before the flood and the destruction of Sodom and

Gomorrah. Concerning the conditions prevailing on the earth in the days of the flood, we read: “And God

saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his

heart was only evil continually.” Genesis 6: 5.

Perilous Times

We have a picture of the last days of the history of this earth, painted by divine inspiration. It is as

follows: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their

own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without

natural affection, truce, breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despising of those that are good,

traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Having a form of godliness, but

denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” 2 Timothy 3:1-5.

Surely this does not appear to be teaching the conversion of the world. Here is the list of nineteen

terrible sins which are especially to characterize the “last days.” And the astonishing thing about this

passage is that the people who indulge in these sins will not be unbelievers only, but church members. This

is evident from the expression that they have a “form of godliness.” And if the professed church of Christ

in the days of his Second Coming can be so described by divine inspiration, then what must the world at

large be?

Nor are we left in ignorance by the Lord even of the rise of the movement which is teaching the

world’s conversion and a millennium of peace upon earth. “Of the times and the seasons, brethren, you

have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that, the day of the Lord so comes as a

thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction comes upon them, as

travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3. It appears, then, that

this very movement which is proclaiming the world’s conversion is a sign in itself of the rapidly,

approaching destruction of all things.

But, it will be asked, does the Bible not teach somewhere that the world at some time in the future

will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, and all nations serve him? Yes, the Bible does teach just this.

But the mistake has been made in not seeing that this is taught with reference to the earth in its regenerated

condition, when all things are made new, and not regarding the earth as it is now.

“The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” Isaiah 11: 9.

“And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another and from one Sabbath to another,

shall all flesh come to worship before me, said the Lord.” Isaiah 66: 23.

These passages clearly foretell a time when all the earth will be acquainted with Jehovah, and will

worship him. But they have reference solely to the new earth, not to the earth in its present condition. And

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this condition of universal worship is to be brought about, not at all by the conversion of the nations of the

earth, but rather by their destruction. Thus Peter informs us: “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in

the night. In the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with

fervent beat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” “Nevertheless we, according

to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness.” 2 Peter 3:10,13.

Order of Events

Let us study briefly the order of the events at the beginning and the close of the millennium. It is

to begin, as we have seen, with the Second Coming of Christ. At the coming of Christ all of the righteous

dead will be raised from their graves to be taken to heaven with the righteous living, who are to be

translated. “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel,

and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall

be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the

Lord.” 1 Thessalonians 4: 16, 17.

The Bible teaches clearly that there are to be two resurrections. a resurrection of the righteous, and

a resurrection of the wicked. “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the

graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection Of life;

and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” John 5:28-29.

The first resurrection is to take place at the coming of Christ, and will include only the righteous.

This will be plain from a study of the verse which reads: “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first

resurrection: on such the second death hath no power.” Revelation 20: 6.

Thus it is plain that at the Second Coming of Christ all of the righteous, both the dead, who have

been raised, and the living, who have been translated, will be caught up together and will meet the Lord in

the air, and then will be taken with the Lord to those mansions in his Father’s house which he is now

preparing for his people. They will be taken to heaven, and there they will live and reign with Christ for a

thousand years. John 14: 1.3; Revelation 20: 4.

The Earth Depopulated

As the wicked dead are not raised at the time of the coming of Christ, this removal of the righteous

from the earth will leave only the living wicked here. And these wicked who are alive at the coming of

Christ are put to death by the brightness of his presence. This is clearly taught by 2 Thessalonians 1: 7.9.

Thus it will be seen that with the righteous all in heaven, and the wicked all dead upon the earth,

the earth will be utterly emptied of its inhabitants. A description of the condition of the wicked in that day

will be found in the book of Jeremiah: “And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the

earth even unto the other end of the earth. They shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they

shall be dung upon the ground.” Jeremiah 25:33. “Behold, the Lord makes the earth empty, and makes it

waste and turns it upside down, and scatters abroad the inhabitants thereof.” “The land shall be utterly

emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word.” Isaiah 24:1,3. “I beheld the earth, and, lo,

it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they

trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the

heavens were fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were

broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger. For thus hath the Lord said, The whole

land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.” Jeremiah 4: 23.27.

Thus it is plain that the condition of the earth during the millennium will be a waste, desolate

wilderness. All of the works of man will be ruined and destroyed. Darkness will cover the earth. It is the

earth in this condition which is called the “bottomless pit,” into which Satan is cast and bound. The term

bottomless pit is used in Revelation 9:1,2, and there applied to the Arabian desert, from which issued the

hordes of Saracens and Turks which are described in that chapter. The term means any place of darkness,

desolation, and death. And when the earth during the millennium returns to its original condition of chaos,

“without form and void,” it becomes the “bottomless pit” of Satan’s captivity.

Here, in this desolate earth, with its cities broken down, and its whole expanse become a great

wilderness without any of the human race left, Satan will be compelled to stay for one thousand years. He

is bound with a great chain. This chain is not a literal chain, but a chain of circumstances. He is unable to

do anything. He is out of work. He cannot deceive the righteous, for they are in heaven, out of his reach. He

cannot deceive the wicked, for they are dead. By the very circumstances of his position he is bound, and he

must of necessity remain bound until some change is brought about either in the condition of the righteous

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or the wicked.

A Just Punishment

While this is not Satan’s final punishment, it is a just preliminary to it. It is sin which causes the

wreck of the world. This is the work of Satan. This is the result of the rebellion he started in heaven and

continued upon this earth. And now, during the millennium, he is made to understand what it all means.

The great chain which will bind Satan will be broken by the resurrection of the wicked.

“But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.” Revelation 20:5.

Now, if the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished, then when the

thousand years are finished the rest of the dead will live again. The resurrection of the wicked takes place at

the close of the millennium. This releases the devil and provides him some one to work with again and to

deceive. It was the emptiness of the earth of all human inhabitants which constituted his binding, and now

the resurrection of the wicked effects his release.

And no sooner are the wicked raised from the dead than Satan begins to plan for his last great

attempt to overthrow the government of God. When the wicked are raised he has a greater host at his

command than ever before in the entire history of his rebellion. All of the wicked who have ever lived upon

the earth are now under his control and ready to do his bidding. And all the angels who were cast out of

heaven are still with him, and are now in such desperation as to be ready for anything.

It is at the close of the thousand years of the millennium that the Holy City, the New Jerusalem,

comes down from God out of heaven and rests upon the earth. At this time the wicked are still upon the

earth, being marshaled into companies and battalions by the great arch-rebel and his assistants. That

beautiful and glorious city, which is to be the capital of the new earth, settles down upon the place pre.

pared for it in the sight of the wicked. And in the city are to dwell the redeemed of the Lord who have been

living and reigning with him during the millennium.

“And 1 John saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven;

prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And 1 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.” Revelation 21: 2, 3.

Satan is released from his captivity by the resurrection of the wicked. Around him are gathered the

vast hosts of his own evil angels, and now this great company is joined by the innumerable throng of the

wicked. As Satan sees himself joined by this great host, and beholds before him the New Jerusalem

containing the righteous and the holy angels with their loved Commander, the Son of God, he determines

that he will not yet yield his struggle. He inspires his host with the hope that after all they may be able to

overthrow the government of God and take the city.

The Attack Against the Holy City

Led by this delusive hope, the great host of the lost are marshaled by Satan to take the Holy City.

“And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out

to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together

to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and

compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city; and fire came down from God out of heaven,

and devoured them.” Revelation 20: 7,9.

As the great host of the wicked surround the Holy City the fire of God falls from heaven, and the

vast multitude of evil men and fallen angels are overwhelmed. This fire does not perpetuate the wicked, but

devours them. This is the second death from which there will never be any recovery. None of the wicked

will ever be raised from the death which they experience at this time. There will be no eternally burning

hell into which they will be cast and in which they will suffer forever. Notice what the Scriptures say of

their fate.

They shall “die” (Ezekiel 18:4), they shall suffer “death” (Romans 6: 23), they shall suffer the

“second death” (Revelation 20:14, 15). They shall be “destroyed” (Psalm 145: 20), they shall suffer

“destruction” Job 21: 30), they shall “perish” (Psalm 37: 20), they shall be “burned up” (Matthew 3:12;

Malachi 4: 1). They shall “not be” (Psalm 37: 10), they shall come to an “end” (Psalm 37: 38), they shall be

“consumed” (Psalm 37: 20), they shall be “devoured” (Psalm 21:9), they shall be “slain” (Psalm 62:3), they

shall be “cut off” (Psalm 37:9). “They shall be as though they had not been” (Obadiah 16), they shall be -

silent in darkness” (1 Samuel 2: 9), they shall be “no more” (Psalm 104: 35). They shall be “blotted out”

(Psalm 69: 28), they shall suffer “perdition” (2 Peter 3: 7). They shall be “ground to powder” (Matthew

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21:44), they shall be “hewn down” (Matthew 3:10), they shall see “corruption” (Galatians 6: 8), they shall

be “torn in pieces” (Psalm 50: 22). They shall be “rooted up” (Proverbs 2: 22), they shall be as -nothing-

(Jeremiah 10: 24), and they shall be as “naught” (Isaiah 41: 12).

The Destiny of Satan

These expressions, with the other studies on this subject in this book, are surely sufficient to

establish the fact that the Bible does not teach the God-dishonoring doctrine of eternal torment. This

doctrine was invented by Satan himself in the garden of Eden when he told Eve that if she disobeyed God

she should “not surely die,” although God had plainly told her that she should “surely die.” The doctrine of

eternal torment for the wicked has no place in the Bible and will have no place in reality when the wicked

are punished. The fire that falls upon them from heaven at the close of the millennium will consume them

altogether. Each will be punished -according to his deeds” (Romans 2:6), some burning longer than others

as they have lived more wickedly, but ultimately the fire which punishes them will bring them all to utter

death and destruction.

The fire will have the same effect upon Satan and his angels that it has upon the wicked. They will

also be brought to nothing, and be as though they had not been. This will take longer in Satan’s case than in

any other, as he has been the one through whom all the rest have been caused to sin. But even in his case

the fire of God will eventually devour him, and he will be no more. This is very plain from the words which

God spoke to Satan: “I will destroy thee, 0 covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. I will cast

thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they May behold thee. I will bring forth a fire from. the

midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that

behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shall be a terror,

and never shall thou be any more.” Ezekiel 28: 16-19.

The destiny of Satan is also referred to in the book of Malachi: “For behold, the day comes, that

shall burn as an oven. And all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that

comes shall burn them up, said the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.” Malachi

4:1. Thus the end of the great conflict of the ages between Christ and Satan will result in the utter

annihilation of Satan and his angels and all who ally themselves with him. The fires of the last day will

consume them and leave them neither root nor branch. Satan is the root and the wicked are the branches.

Nothing is to be left either of sin or sinners. The universe is to be cleansed from every stain of sin.

10. THE REWARD OF THE RIGHTEOUS

THE people of God will not spend eternity in heaven. There is no promise in the Bible that those

who are saved will he given heaven as their eternal reward. But there are numerous promises of a glorious

inheritance for the saints of the Lord on the other side of death. What that inheritance is and where it is the

Scriptures make very plain.

We are informed by David that “the heaven, even the heavens are the Lord’s: but the earth hath he

given to the children of men.” Psalm 115:16. And in Isaiah 45:18 we read that God formed the earth “not in

vain, he formed it to be inhabited.” It is inconceivable that God created the earth to be inhabited under its

present conditions or by its present inhabitants. His purpose involved its being inhabited by a race of pure,

holy, and righteous beings. He planned for just such a race when he placed our first parents here in the

garden of Eden. That race was to fill the earth, live forever, ever remain as pure and holy as when their

parents came from the hands of God, and constitute the kingdom of God on earth. This plan has been

delayed a while by the entrance of sin, but God will yet have his way.

Earth to Be Redeemed

This earth was given to the human race at the time of its creation, and although it has been

captured by Satan, this lost inheritance will yet be brought back to the children of God by the great plan of

redemption, which includes the lost dominion as well as the lost race. Mankind lost the possession of the

earth by sin, but it will he restored to the people of God through the gospel of Christ. And everything else

which the race lost by sin will be restored by Christ.

The first specific promise of the future inheritance recorded in the Bible is that given to Abraham,

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and recorded in Genesis 13:14-17. “Lift up now your eyes, and look from the place where thou art

northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou sees, to thee will I give

it, and to thy seed forever.” This promise was repeated to Isaac, the son of Abraham, in Genesis 26:1-4, and

to Jacob, the son of Isaac, in Genesis 28:12-15.

All that is included in this promise in the way of territory is not apparent on the surface of it, and a

divine explanation is therefore required concerning it. This inspired explanation is given by Paul in Romans

4: 13 where he declares that this promise made to Abraham included the entire earth: “For the promise, that

he should be heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the

righteousness of faith.”

But this promise has never yet been fulfilled. Paul, in speaking of the men to whom the promises

were made, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their descendants, declares in Hebrews 11:13, that “these all

died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them,

and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.”

The Resurrection a Part of the Promise

Inasmuch, therefore, as God promised the earth to these ancient worthies, and they died without

having had the promise fulfilled to them, and as God’s promises do not fail, it is evident that there must be

involved in that promise the resurrection from the dead. In order for God to fulfil the promise made to

Abraham, the father of the faithful must be brought again from the grave and live upon this earth once

more. The resurrection from the dead is therefore involved in the fulfillment of God’s great promise.

To this thought agree the words found in Ezekiel 37:12-14: “Thus said the Lord God; Behold, 0

my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the

land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, 0 my people, and

brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my spirit in you, and you shall live, and I shall place you

in your own land: then shall you know that I the Lord have spoken it. and performed it, said the Lord.”

God will bring his people into their own land, the land of promise, the land of Israel. This he will

do by bringing them up from their graves. At that time it will be seen by all that not only has he spoken it,

but he has also performed it.

It will probably be inquired, What have Christians to do with these ancient promises to the fathers

of the Israelites? Much every way. All Christians should be intensely interested in the promise to Abraham,

for Paul, in Galatians 3: 7, informs us that “they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.”

And in the twenty ninth verse of the same chapter, he says, “If you be Christ’s, then are you Abraham’s

seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

The only promise, then, that we as Christians have of a future inheritance, is this ancient promise

made to Abraham. We become heirs of that promise by becoming Christ’s for we then become Abra. ham’s

seed, to whom the promise was made. The promise of God, then, to all Christians is not that they shall

inherit or spend eternity in heaven, but that through Christ they become joint heirs with him and with

Abraham in the earth. They will spend eternity in the earth in its regenerated condition.

And to this agree the promises found in Isaiah 65:17. “For, behold, I create new heavens and a

new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” In 2 Peter 3:13: “Nevertheless

we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness”. In

Revelation 21: 1: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth.” in Matthew 5:5: “Blessed are the meek; for

they shall inherit the earth.” and in Psalm 37:11: “But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight

themselves in the abundance of peace.

At that time also will be fulfilled the promise of Micah 4: 8: “And thou, 0 tower of the flock, the

stronghold of the daughter of Zion [the church], unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion [the earth

as it came from the hand of God]. The kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.”

The Earth Regenerated

The fire which consumes the wicked will also purify the earth. From the fearful ordeal of fire

through which the earth will pass when the wicked and all sin are burned out of it, it will emerge fully

cleansed from every stain of sin. The Holy City will then become the capital of the regenerated earth, and

the whole earth will become again like the Garden of Eden. As “the wilderness and the solitary place- shall

“blossom as the rose,” and “the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and

Sharon,” the earth be, comes what it was first intended to be, the eternal home of the people of God. Thus

“the first dominion” is to be restored to the church.

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After the destruction of the wicked and the cleansing of the earth, the righteous will go forth from

the Holy City, and “they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and cat the

fruit of them.” Isaiah 65: 21. The whole earth will be populated with the redeemed of the Lord. Sin has

passed forever. There will he none to make afraid. All will be peace and contentment, and unspeakable

happiness will fill every heart.

Every month and every Sabbath day the people of the new earth will gather at Jerusalem to engage

in worship of the King of kings. Isaiah 66: 22, 23. Here in the city of God the redeemed will partake of the

fruit of the tree of life. Here also they will wander through the groves which border “the river of water of

life,” which proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. Revelation 22:1, 2.

Never Again Any Sin

“And there shall be no more curse.” Revelation 22:3. Sin has been destroyed and will never return.

Every one of the created intelligences on the other worlds, all of the angels, and every soul which has been

redeemed at such an infinite cost have fully decided that God is righteous altogether. They have had

enough of sin. Thank God for the promise of the Word that when the Lord destroys sin “he will make an

utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time.” Nahum 1: 9.

In that glorious land “my people shall dwell in a peaceful habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in

quiet resting places.” Isaiah 32: 18. “Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction

within thy borders; but thou shall call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise.” Isaiah 60: 18. “Instead of

the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree.” Isaiah 55: 13.

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor

crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Revelation 21: 4. “And

the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.” Isaiah

33: 24.

And the New Jerusalem shall be “a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in

the hand of thy God.” Isaiah 62: 3. “Her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone,

clear as crystal.” Revelation 21:11. “The nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and

the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it.” Revelation 21: 24. “And there shall be no

night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them light: and they

shall reign forever and ever.” Revelation 22:5.

And in the new earth “shall I know even as also I am known.”1 Corinthians 13: 12. Friends and

loved ones, long separated by death, will there be reunited, and they will know each other there just as they

have known each other here. Their love and their sympathy for each other will be increased and will

continue throughout the ages of eternity, never again to be broken by death. All the faculties of the human

mind will be developed there, and our capacity for knowledge will be constantly increased. There will be

no enterprise into which we can enter there that will be too great to be carried forward to completion. There

will be no aspiration which cannot be reached. There will be no ambition which cannot be realized. There

will be no end to the acquirement of knowledge. It will be possible then to travel from planet to planet, and

from system to system, in the study of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge of the universe of God. Our

companions will be the angels of God and the unfallen intelligences of the other worlds.

There Will Be No End

And to all this there will he no end. As the ages of eternity unfold there will never be any fear that

the years to come will bring an end to the happiness of the redeemed. When millions of ages have rolled

by, still all beyond stretches eternity.

Oh, my brother-man, I want a place in that glorious new earth. Do you not want to be there? It will

soon be here. It will not be long before sin and sinners will be no more. The day of the Lord hastens

greatly. Do not be deceived by the wiles of Satan. He will take you captive if he can. The message of the

coming of Christ is even now in the earth, and is being proclaimed far and wide. There is salvation in that

message for you, and a preparation to meet the Lord in peace. Come, then, to Christ, who rescues the

perishing, who saves the lost. Seek for his mercy. Cast away the sins which offend him, forsake the

thoughts which insult him, and take him for your Redeemer and Friend. For you he has given his life that

you may have a part in this glorified new earth. Oh, delay no longer. The time is short. The Lord is at hand.

May he say to you who read these words, “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared

for you from the foundation of the world.”

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