River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1910-04-21
lasting, or death everlasting.

lasting, or death everlasting.
According TO our Lords words
present knowledge, great or small,
brings its proportion of response
bility. The greater the favor of
God enjoyed now, the greater will
be our responsibility then. Evi-
IDENTIFY this means surprises for the
world. Not only the Sodomites,
but many of the heather who have
thus far enjoyed little or nothing of
Gods grace, will be in a more
favorable condition as respects the
prospects of the future than some
who are now richly favored but are
neglecting their privileges. Our
Lord intimates that the judgment
or trial of the Millennium will be
tolerable for the people of Caper-
naum and more tolerable for the
people of Sodom. How much more
reasonable this is than the unscrip-
tural nonsense that was once taught
US by our we'll meaning, deluded
forefathers, who made the various
sectarian creeds that are now caus
ing trouble, and who then burned
each other at the stake because of
differences of opinion respecting,
these creeds and claimed that in SO
doing they were copying God, who
was torturing the people of Tyre
and Sidon and Capernaum and the
Sodomites and hundreds of millions
of others, heather and civilized!
How seriously we have all misun-
derstood and misrepresented the
Gospel message! Let US turnIto the
prophecy referred to by our Lord
and note this. In Ezekiel's proph-
ecy, 16:49-61, the Lord rehearsed in
advance the greater wickedness of
Israel than of her neighboring sis
ter peoples, Samaria and Sodom,
and tells that nevertheless he will
restore all three of them, bringing
them again from the tomb and es-
tablishing his Covenant with them
through Messiah in the Millenial
Age. Let us remember, too, that
our Lord made this promise of res
titution (Acts 3:I9-21) through the
very Sodomites who were destroyed
by fire which came down from
heaven. (Luke 1929, 30.) They
were temporarily destroyed by fire
as an example or illustration of the
absolute humiliation, destruction,
which ultimately will come upon all
wilful sinners, the Second Death.
But before any will be thus cut off
from all hope he must be brought
to clear knowledge of the Truth
and have a full trial in the great
and glorious day of judgment, which
ST. Paul tells US God has provided
and in which the saints of this age,
the Bride of Christ, with her Lord,
will share in the work of judging.
The Father hath delivered all of
his great work into the hands of the
Lord Jesus, and only by knowing
him can we know the Father in the
proper sense, in the intimate sense,
because the Son, as the Great
Teacher, reveals the Father to all
who are pupils in his School.-V.27 81.
Our study closes with our Lords
invitation to those who now have
the hearing ear and seeing eye of
obedient faith. To these, life's ex-
periences, sins burdens, and gener-
al unrest are preparations for the
Divine message, Come unto me,
all. We that labor and are heavy-la-
den and l will give you rest"
Those invited must expect to be
servants and to wear the yoke" of
obedience to the Divine will-the
yoke of Christ, the service of Christ.
To be successful they must learn of
him, walk in his steps. They must
be meek and lowly in heart. Such,
and such only, will find his yoke an
easy one and his burden a light one
much lighter than the burden of
their souls now and be prepared to
enter into the heavenly rest as
"joint-heirs" with Christ in his
heavenly Kingdom, which is shortly
to bless and Judge the world.