Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1901-02-21
TAZEWELL VA, THURSDAY FEBRUARY 81, 1901

when be said OF a certain class, "whose
end is destruction" Phil, 3, 10, is the
man correct who says they are immortal
and cannot be destroyed Was the
Psalmist David mistaken when he said
"The Lord preserveth all them that love
Him; but all the wicked will he destroy"
If sinners are indestructible, why does
God cay He will destroy them? And II
destruction is no punishment why does
Paul say they "shall be punished with
everlasting destruction ?" The penalty
for refusing to hear Christ was destruction,
but If they who refuse are understandable,
how can the penalty be inflicted ?
If the Apostle Paul knew what he was
talking about, when he admonished us to
seek for immortality, are men right when
they teach us that it is the absolute and
unconditional blrthright Of all men.
Psalm, 81, 10 says "Yet little while
and the wicked shall not be; yea, thou
shalt diligently consider his place and it
shall not be-" Now if there comes time
when there shall be no wicked, nor any
place for them, We ask Where are they ?
Nowhere, to be sure. The Psalmist again
declares: "The enemies of the Lord shall
be as the fat Of lambs; they shall consume
into smoke, shall they consume away"
Psa., 81, 20. And again "The trans
gressors shall be destroyed together: the
end of the wicked shall be cut off. :"
The Prophet Isaiah informs us, in Isaiah,
29, 20, that: "The terrible one is brought
to naught, and the scorner is consumed,
and all that watch for iniquity are cut of"
The Prophet Malachi corroborates the
statements of David and Isaiah, when he
informs lis in the fourth chapter and first
verse of his book, that the day is coming
when "all the proud, yea, and all that do
wckedly, shall be stubble, and the day
that cometh shall burn them up, saith the
Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them
neither root nor branch" And in the
third verse he says: "And ye shall tread
down the wicked, for they shall be ashes
under the soles of your feet in the day
that shall do this, saith the Lord Of
hosts"
Those who teach the eternal torment of
the wicked get Themselves in a very
awkward position by admitting the
destruction of the body and denying
the destruction of the soul, for
the language of Christ in Mat, 10, 2S,
makes one as destructible as the other.
He says: Fear Him which is able to
destroy both soul and body in hell"
Were it not for the erroneous doctrine OF
the souls immortality, men would net be
forced to believe or teach the absurd
theory of eternal torment, by which they
contradict the inspired writers, and make
"the word of God of none effect" through
tradition. Why did the Apostle James,
teach us that soul could be saved from
death, if the soul can not die? Some
men claim that they are not among those
who deny the Immortality of the soul and
thus degrade man to the level ofthe brute.
This is an unexpected acknowledgment.
The Psalmist David said Like sheep
they are laid in the grave" Man "is like
the beasts that perish" Solomon says
"Man hath no preeminence above beast,
all are of the dust, and all return to dust
again"
The Apostle Peter, in his second book,
2, II, in speaking Of the wicked says 1;
"These as natural brute beasts made to be
taken and destroyed, speak evil of the
things that they understand not, and shall
utterly perish in their own corruption"
We are sometimes referred to Mat, %, 46;
"And these shall go away into everlasting
punishment; but the righteous into life
eternal" as proof Of the eternal torment
theory; but this by no means sustalns any
such doctrine, from the fact that it says
nothing about the nature Of punishment.
It only gives the duration, but does not
.ay what the punishment ia. If this was
the only passage in the Bible that speaks
of the punishment of the wicked, no one
could tell whether God intended to hurn,
imprison, drown or poison them. Paul says
they shall be punished with destruction.
We should not make such mistake as to
believe that eternal punishment means
eternal Furnishing, that the process OF in
Z Fiction is to be eternally going on. IL
this lie sound reasoning, then we must ad-
Z NIT that eternal judgment means eternally
Judging, and eternal salvation means
: eternally saving. When we find the Apostle
; discoursng on "eternal redemption" do
, we believe that the process will be eternal
1 ly going on, or do we belive that it Will De
3 eternal in its effects?
The penalty for transgressing Gods law
/; is definitely announced in the Bible. II
4 is death, not torment, nor torture; no'
a imprisonment, not eternal paln-ou
0 death.
We read in Jude, l, Z, that "Sodon
and Gomorrha and the cities about them
a Continued to Sth column, lst page.)