"BLIND LEADERS OF THE BLIND."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 1 November 1913, Page 3

"BLIND LEADERS OF THE BLIND."

"DECEIVING AND BEING DECEIVED." (Inserted by Arrangement.) London, August 10th.—Pastor Bussoil addressed the London Tabernacle twice to-day. We report one of liis discourses, from the text, "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch" (Matt. xv. 14), The Pastor opened his discourse by saying, How blind we have all been — .stupidly blind—in respect to our Father's words! We have believed human traditions, which we ought to have believed, until the church as a whole has become thoroughly puzzled in respect to everything rehgkras. I am not judging any particular person or sect. The matter is so general as not to-require specification. All have sinned, all are out of the way of Truth, lost in the fog of human superstition and error, guid-ed thither, as St. Paul foretold, liy '.'doctrines of demons." There '; no time for faultfinding. The tli; .• of the hour is to get back into harmony with God, and to obtain the true light upon His word. The Pastor then demonstrated that, as the Master had predicted, the » wo*' .1 1 • ; !••• '•«> -drank with the false doctrines which. Satan had gradually introduced during the Dark Ages. "The inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication." Some were crazy drunk; some were stupidly drunk. Like drunken people, we confused good* and bad. In one breath wo painted this God of Love as deliberately, with foreknowledge, arranging, before creating humanity, that thousands of millions shoinid be born in sin (mis)-shapen in iniquity ; and that, after a few short yeprs full of trouble, the vast majority of them should be turned over to fireproof demons, to be tortured throughout eternity. ' When a soberer thought suggested that the fire would destroy them after a few hours, then a drunken thought, inspired byihe Adversary, came —that God delighted in the torture of His creatures, and would inject Jife into those thousands of millions so as to prevent them from ceasing to be, ceasing to suffer—to perpetuate a great chamber of horrors, such as no human mind could imagine. SATAN'S GREAT SUCCESS. The Pastor then reminded his audience that the Master had styled Satan the father'of lies. Satan's first great lie misled our first parents and murdered them, by leading Mother Eve to disbelieve God's word, "In the day thoiu eatest thereof, thou' shalt surely die." Satan contradicted the Almighty, saying, "Ye shall not surely die" —cannot die, yer are immortal, your life is perpetual. Satan'has since impressed this falsehood upon the whole world, a,nd has largely .succeeded in deceiving all. When in fulfilment of God's word people die, Satan has brought in the deceptive theory that they really have become more alive than ever. With the theory that nobody can die came the other theory—that when they seem to die, they merely go elsewhere to live. Thus, contrary to Scripture, the whole world has come to believe that at the moment of death the saintly go to heaven, and all the remainder, more alive than ever, go either to Hell or Purgatory. The plain, com-mon-sense statement of the Bible is ignored, that all —good and bad, old and young—go to Sheol, Hades, the tomb. Thus the Bible teaching that Jesus' redemptive work assures all an awakening from the dead is made null and void by Satan's declaration that nobody is dead. The Pastor then showed conclusive-' ly that the hope of immortality held forth in the Bible is only a hope, not a possession. He declared that man was not created unqualifiedly immortal, but that the life given him was tentative, conditional upon his obedience to his Creator's commands. That the "life was tentative, conditional, is indicated by the threat that disobedience would bring death —cessation of life. Thus, when the sin •had been committed, God declared, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." The whole world knew that it was dying; but not until Abraham's time did God suggest that there wotild be a reversal of the curse of death. Then God declared for the first time that He purposed to bless all mankind. This implied the rolling away of the curse.\ "In ,thee' and v ih thy seed shall all. the families of >' the, earth be blessed." St. Paul explains that this seed is the Christ—Jesus the Head, and the Church the Body. LIFE ONLY IN CHBJST.

The speaker then pointed out St. Pawl's argument that the positive assurance of everlasting life was given through Jesus, more than 4000 years after man's fall. Christ "brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel."' This promise of immortality, dea titles sness, death-proof existence, is much grander than we have far possessed only by Jehovah God and . His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing in the Scriptures indicates that even the angels possess deathproof bodies. On the cpntrary, Satan, one of the highest angels, is to be destroyed—a proof that angels do not possess immortality. The Pastor also demonstrated that only the' elect Church will attain this quality peculiar to the father and the son. ' The promise of "glory, honour, and immortality" will be attained in the First Resurrection by those found jvorthy. "On such the Second Death hath no power." ; The Gospel of Jesus also brmgs to light a hope of everlasting life for the non-elect world —to all who, under the light of knowledge during the Millenial Age, come into harmony with the Messianic Kingdom. For these God has the same everlasting life that He has given the angels. The everlasting life of the future is usually styled immortality; for it will be # deathless free from the imperfections of the dying condition. But the immortality of the Bible, which is for the Church alone, is separate and distinct-, >and is described as "the Divine nature."

Then tho Pastor showed that according to Scripture God's proposition is life or death—a most rejisoruible, •most logical one. When God's plan is com plot©, iioho will have lite who will not havo perfection. All will have tho fullest opportunity for recovery from sin and death conditions, through tlio Redeemer and the Messianio kingdom. All who will not render obedience to the Divine arrangement will bo everlastingly destroyed. The power of God will be :nost wonderfully manifested ui tin resurrection of the dead. The Church's resurrection from human to the Divine nature will be a «tu])endous sian of power. The fact that the mental powers —memory and character—will be carried over is beyond our comprehension.. With the world, their human bodies, restored by Divine power, will be the exact counterpart of the present bodies, having the same memory, mind, will. Thus eaeli Avill know himself and others with whom lie was acquainted in tho present life. How stupendous! How beyond our comprehension is the Divine greatness!