The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1910-09-30
PULPIT.
PREACHING
TO
IMPRISONED
SPIRITS
by which also he went and
preached unto the spirits in prison"
Il Peter iii, l9).

upon the earth and cause the great
flood in Noah's day. Hence at the APP
propriate time God gave instructions
to Noah 10 prepare an ark for the say
ing of himself and his house. NOAH
and his family were the only members
of Adams race in all the earth who
were not more or less contaminated by
those angels. How wide must have
been that influence when we read as
an exceptional matter, Now Noah
{and his family was perfect in his
generation" = the disobedient angels
had nothing whatever to do with gen
Grating them.
Fallen Angels Changed.
While the angels preferred to live as
men in human bodies. they would not
be overwhelmed like humanity in the
food. but merely dissolve. by Donate
REALIZATION. their human bodies and be,
as originally. spirit beings. Satan was
the first sinner against the Divine gov
eminent. in his endeavor to set up a
separate empire and to have humanity
for his subjects. Although God had
full power to destroy Satan and the
other disobedient angels, he has not
exercised that power. Instead he mere
ly isolated them from himself and the
| holy angels and imprisoned them. in
] the sense that he no longer permitted
them to materialize. either as a SER
pent or as humanity for the tempting
and injury Of our race. In this sense
they are MISUNDERSTANDING Of lib
erty.
Now let us hear ST. Peters words re-
specting these angels who sinned. He
says Gil Peter ii. d. God spared not
the angels that sinned, but cast them
down to hell. and delivered them into
chains of darkness. to be reserved unto
rendered hell" in our Common Yer
sion. is found nowhere else in the BIZ
BILE. 1t refers to our earth's atmos-
phere and to the fact that those fallen
angels. called demons or devils, are
1.-THE power of the air." And Satan,
who was originally an angel of much
higher rank and nature, is their
Prince. THE Prince of the power of
the air." the Prince Of demons. They
are least down" in the sense of being
treated iguominiously. They are lin
chains of darkness" not in chains of
iron. They can still go and come and
be sources of temptation TO humanity
who are in a sinful attitude of mind
They are restrained in chains Of dark
ness in the sense that whatever they
do must be done, in the dark-until
their Judgment time at the Great Day
at the beginning Of Messiah's thou
sand-year day of the reign Of right
e0uSneSs.
Turn to st. Jude's Epistle. There
we read verse g.. THE angels which
kept not their first estate, but left
their own habitation. he hath reserved
in age lasting chains. under darkness.
unto the Judgment Of the Great Day"
Their first estate i'm which they were
created was the spirit or angelic con-
dition. They left tneir own proper con-
dition of living and nature. in viola
ton of the Divine will. that they might
live on lower plane-live in sin; for
the angels are sexless. though always
referred to as masculine. And our
Lord declares that those begOtten of
the holy Spirit. who during this age
shall attain to the resurrection of the
dead. the First Resurrection" will be
like unto the angels" in several re-
spects-one of these being that they
will neither marry nor be given in
marriage. but be without sexual dis
tinction.
In harmony with this note how
spiritualists hold their seances. either
in absolute darkness or in a very faint
light. They claim now that the spir-
its are getting more and more power
Of naturalization and that soon they
will be able to materialize in broad
day light and go about amongst hui
mainly as members of the race. We
do not question the power of God to
restrain these fallen angels, these de-
mons--his power to restrain them from
Undertaking. and thus doing great
harm in the world Nevertheless. we
wonder If they will not be permitted
by God to find some greater powers
Of naturalization. contrary to the Di-
vine decree. that their course in this
matter may more particularly mani
fest to what extent some Of them
have changed and reformed and de-
sire to be obedient. for instance, while
others are still as opposed to God and
righteousness as ever. There is room
for this understanding in the state
ment Of the Apostle that the chains Of
darkness were to control them until
the Great Day-not necessarily into
that day-perbaps at it's very begin
ming they may be permitted to gain
certain liberties and do q certain
amount of injury to humanity. to all
who are not attentive to the Word of
God. and who. therefore. will not
know who these spirits are-that they
are the fallen angels. the demons of
the Bible
"Wicksd Spirits" Lying Spirits"
These are the terms nsed in tbe
Scriptures In describing the fallen an-
gels, who from earliest days have at
tempted to deceive huinanity-repre-
senting themselves as human beings
who have died and who desire to COM
municatc with their friends. And they
attempt to do so through spirit me-
diums. This is their practice from of
old. Their endeavor is to break down
the human will and to more and more
control it. The height of their ambi-
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