The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1909-05-14

enIer INTO Jne triai OF Ills present time
the rit-begotten ones-will have an
opportunity Of entering into the Judg.
ment or trial of the world for the prize
Of Restitution and human perfection
on the earthly plane. This blessing,
this privilege. will begin with the liv-
| ing nations at the time of the begin
ming Of the establishment Of the Lords
Kingdom. but 1t will not end with
them. The Scriptures declare. "All ma
tons which thou hast made shall come
and worship before thee" And again.
I'm thy Seed all the families Of the
earth shall be blessed"
| Some Of those nations and families
have persisted from the earth, but the
| Divine provision of redemption and
! Restitution is meant for all eventually.
| The Scriptures assure us Of an awak-
ening of all the sleeping millions Of
earth's population. 1.-The hour is COM
| ing in the which all that are I'm their
graves shall hear the voice of the Son
Of Man and come forth" The Apostle
| tells us that they will come forth.
Every man in his own order" or
class; thus intimating that from the
! Divine standpoint there are numerous
classes Of the dead. Thus the Scrip
| lures assure US that the first class, the
blessed and holy Ones the sanity. will
alone share in the First Resurrection,
and that these shall be- priests unto
,. God and reign with Christ a thousand
years Revelation Xxx, 3, A. The re-
mainder of mankind will come from
the tomb classified-not all at once.
| They will not come forth to he
damned or condemned. They were
condemned already" as children Of
Adam because Of his SIM 1t is on that
account that they were "born in sin
and shapen in iniquity." 1t was from
| that sin and its sentence or condemna-
ton that Christ died to set them free.
They will come forth free from that
condemnation In a judicial sense. but,
nevertheless, with the weaknesses Of
the fall still upon them, and they will
be required to cooperate with the
Lord In their own uplifting during
that thousand years. Note that the
great King of Glory, with all power in
| heaven and earth. could not, If he
chose lift them at once from their
| degradation and all that was lost, be-
/ cause the gradual uplifting and their
own cooperation in the Divine pro-
gram, so arranged, will be the most
| helpful way-because the learning Of
righteousness by the process Of climb
ing up out of conditions Of Imperfect
ton will impress upon them its princi-
Piles the more thoroughly.
| Third-A third class, and they are
not few, discern at once that true
and righteous are the Lords ways
and arrangements-that those now on
trial have more advantage every way
in that to them was granted SO high
an honor and blessing and so great
stimulus to righteousness. They rec
ognize also that the Lords arrange
ments for the world, the living and the
dead, will be glorious to ALL to angels
and to men, when all shall have been
brought fully to an appreciation Of the
facts.
knowledge Of the Lord.
To some 1t may appear strange that
it is the knowledge Of the Lord that is
to I'LL the whole earth ocean deep-not
the knowledge of mankind. not the
knowledge Of sin, not human philoso-
phy-none Of these are to fill the earth
and to bring blessings to the world Of
mankind, but ''the knowledge of the
Lord" Well did our dear Redeemer
say, "This is life eternal. that they
true God, and Jesus Christ whom
thou hast sent" Life eternal is not to
be gained by a knowledge Of astrono-
my or geology or mathematics or
chemistry. ETC., but by the knowledge
Of God. How Is this? What Is there
so wonderful. so magnetic in the
knowledge of God that it should be
said that men might gain eternal life
| thereby? We answer that God him
self is the very. personification of those
glorious elements Of character which
| he demands we shall emulate, copy,
| pattern after. Thus our Lord Jesus
said, "Be We like unto your Father
WHICH Is III nouVeu. NOl tudt we can
ever be exactly like him in these re-
| spects. while we have our present i'm
perfect bodies, but his is the pattern
after which we must copy as best we
can now and Of him be the exact copy
| by and by.
The thought is that as we copy our
| Heavenly Fathers character each ad-
ditional step of progress means clear
er knowledge of the Father, and only
those who attain to the very perfec-
| ton of love In their hearts will be able
rightly, truly to know the Father or
the Son. Hence to know him in the
| full, proper sense Of the word would
! imply that we had attained his like
ness In our hearts, and this would i'm
| ply preparation for life eternal on the
Divine terms. From this standpoint
our text implies that all mankind will
ultimately be in that condition Of the
knowledge Of God which will imply
the perfection of their hearts, imply
their acceptance to eternal life, imply
that all unwilling to come to this glo-
| rious condition under the Divine OPP
portunities will have been destroyed
| from amongst the people in the Second
Death (Acts iii. 23). How wonderful
4 Is fba ant