Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1910-08-30
Sermon by
CHARLES T.
RUSSELL.
Pastor Brooklyn
Tabernacle.

O
These words from the lips Of our
Master, the Great Teacher, have been
| grievously misunderstood The teach
ing of our Protestant childhood was to
the effect that only the sanity elect
| would go to heaven. and that others
would not only lose heaven, but gain
an eternal life in torment. Thus our
! text. was understood to portray what
| practically the whole world of mankind
| would be compelled to endure. This
hell was pictured to our childhood
minds from outside the Bible as heated
| to white heat. If we expressed Won
| der or surprise that any human creature
| could endure such conditions so long
| the answer was that God would exer-
| else his omnipotent power to make US
| fire-proof and pain-sensitive. Some theo-
| logians of the Thomas a Kempis school
| OF thought went so far as to picture
| the poor creatures in their sufferings
| and to show that the heat would form
| kind Of an asbestos covering which
would shield them from a measure of
| its intensity. But those deluded theo-
logians proceeded to explain that these
| outer coverings would crack and shell
off every little while, leaving the poor
| victim freshly tender that his suffering
| might be the more intense.
OF course, these theologians of the
past had their difficulty in dealing with
| the worms. They could imagine devils
| who would oversee the torture as being
made immune to pain by the chief tor
| turer, the Almighty God. But just how
to imagine the worm getting along in
so great a heat and how they would in
| any wise increase the torture of the
| poor sufferers was to many perplex-
| ity. But patient thoughtfulness along
| these cruel and devilish lines enabled
some to formulate the theory that the
| worms would be fiery ones, living in
| fire, delighting in fire-worms that
would bore through the incrustations
and add still further to the horrible
| sufferings of the world of mankind.
|
Did the Great Teacher intend that
| such conclusions should be drawn from
| his language? And did he stop short
| of the description from reasons of SYM
| pathy or modesty or shame? Is this
| the general teaching of Gods Word
| or has a great and terrible mistake
| been made? And have we mistaken
a figure of speech and treated it as
literal? We erred. We misunder-
| stood. The Great Teacher who rebuk-
| ed his disciples, James and John, when
| they desired to call fire from heaven
upon the City of Samaria, because the
people thereof refused to sell them
food for the Master-the sympathetic
One who said to them, 'Ye know not
what manner of spirit ye are of; the
| Son of man came not to destroy mems
| lives, but to save them'-could that
| Son of man in any wise intend to tell
US that our great Heavenly Father had
less of the spirit of love and righteous
ness than the two impetuous disciples ?
| Did he mean to intimate that while the
disciples impetuously might have been
willing to destroy the earthly life Of
the Samaritans, the Heavenly Father,
| Of still more demoniacal disposition,
would treat practically all mankind ten
| million times worse than that and use
| Divine Power to all eternity to perpet-
| uate the sufferings of his earthly crea-
| lures which his own Word declares
were born in sin, shapen in iniquity
in sin did their mothers conceive them?
earthly creatures. too, whose environ
ment was unfavorable and whose Ad-
versary, the devil, God neither destroy
| ed nor bound?
Such an interpretation,my dear hear
ers, is not supposable. We must look
| for some explanation of the Masters
words more consistent with his own
| character and with the Heavenly Fa-
| theirs character, and more consistent
with our conception of what Just,
Loving, Wise and Powerful Creator
would do. 1t does not answer the pur-
| pose to say, as so many do, "Bosh, do
not discuss such a matter. Nobody
now believes such thingsw This one
| Scripture repudiated would shake our
confidence in the whole Bible. But
rightly explained and understood 1t
would settle and increase our faith in
the Scriptures as a Divine message
| This, then, must be our object-not
merely to cast from us the devilish in
depreciation of the dark ages, but to as
| certain the true interpretation-to get
| the true lesson from the words of the
| Great Teacher. Thousands are drift
| ing off into more or less open infdelity
simply because of the irrational inter
probation given to this text and two or
three others. And these errors have
become so fastened in our minds from
childhood days that they have become
| part and parcel of our very lives. so
| that many of us would have been In
| clined at one time to dispute the very
existence of a God as much as to dis
| pute such slanderous misrepresenta-
tons of his glorious character.
Entering Into Life.
Let us so back to Jesus day and in
mind place ourselves with those who
hsard him utter the words of our text
and context The Teacher had just
said, IF thy hand offend thee. cut it
off-it is better for thee to enter into
life MANNED, than. having two hands,
to go into hell, into the fire that never
shall be Quenched. where their worm
| diC.h not and their fire is not quench-
M 4 KIIMEK