The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1911-07-25

* Hebrews, ON "Zi-
lGA2lQk k922fAA1 onism in Prophe-
cy." Another was
specially to Bible Students, and 1t we
report. His text was, Where their
worm dieth not and the fire is not
quenched" mark TX. Az The speaker
said:-
There are other and much more beau
tiful topics than the one have chosen
for this occasion. Nevertheless. Hand
some Is that handsome does" This
text has stood In the way OF Gods
people for centuries, and still continues
in the way Of many Of them To such
it proves the Almighty Creator to be a
most unkind one, most un-Fatheriy
one, view the matter as we will. Some
say, lovelessly and illogcaily, that God
provided from before the foundation
Of the world a great gebeHnS Of fire.
torture, suffering, and that all man
kind were doomed on account OF father
Adams transgression, but that through
Jesus death arrangement was made
by which the small number who walk
In His footsteps In the narrow way"
may escape this awful eternity.
Others say, not so; God is love, and
these unquenchable fires and immortal
worms are matters of necessity which
His love cannot overcome, because, by
some slip of unwisdom in the begin
ming, or by some lack Of power since,
the Almighty is unable to do better
than to save the mere handful and to
allow the great mass of mankind to
suffer endless torture in the fire that
never shall be quenched, and where
the worm will never die.
Tho Great Teacher Misunderstood.
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 man.
kind would, be compelled to endure.
This hell was pictured to our child
hood minds from outside the Bible as
heated to white heat If we ex-
pressed wonder or surprise that any
creature could endure such conditions
so long the answer was that God
would exercise his omnipotent power
to make us fire-proof and pain-sensitive.
Some theologians Of the Thomas
Kempis school of thought went 30 far
as to picture the poor creatures In
their sufferings and to show that the
heat would form a kind Of an asbestos
covering which would shield them
from a measure of its intensity. But
those deluded theologians proceeded
to explain that these outer coverings
would crack and shell of every little
while, leaving the poor victim freshly
tender that bis 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 hy the
chief torturer. the Almighty God. But
just how to imagine the worms get
ting along in so great heat and how
they would In any wise increase the
torture of the poor sufferers was to
many perplexity. But patient
thoughtfulness along these cruel and
devilish lines enabled some to formu-
late 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 fur
Their to the horrible sufferings of the
world of mankind
Was This What Jesus Meant7
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 sympathy or modesty or shame? Is
this the general teaching Of Gods
Word or has great and terrible mis-
take been NADER And have we mistak
en- a figure of speech and treated it as
literal? We erred. We misunderstood
The Great Teacher who rebuked His
disciples, James and John, when they
desired to call fire from heaven upon
the City Of Samaria. because the peo-
pie thereof refused to sell them food
for the Master-the sympathetic One
who said to them, Eye 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 Righteousness
than the two impetuous disciples?
Did He mean to intimate that while
the disciples might impetuously have
been willing to destroy the earthly life
of the Samaritans, the Heavenly Fa-
Their, of still more demoniacaI dispo-
sition, would treat practically all man.
kind ten million times worse than that
and use Divine Power to all eternity
to perpetuate the sufferings of His
earthly creatures, which His own Word
declares were born In sin, shapen in
iniquity, In sin did their mothers con-
ceive them = earthly creatures, too,
whose environment was unfavorable
and whose Adversary, the Devil. God
neither destroyed nor bound7
"ce'hinnom"-"cehenna"-tieII.
As we have heretofore seen, the only
Hebrew word translated hell, from
Genesis to Malachi. is sbeoI, which Is
indiscriminately translated grace, pit
and he'll in our Common Version of
the English Bible-the greater number
Of times graUe-its proper translation.
Its Greek equivalent In the New Tesla
ment, we have seen, is h0des. which
likewise Is Unfortunately translated
Craze and he'll. but should always be
rendered grace. We repeat again that
no scholar in the world viii claim that
there is the slightest thought Of life
or suffering or joy connected with these
words.
The Scriptures distinctly declare that
there is neither wisdom, nor device,
nor knowledge in sheOP'-to which all,
both good and bad, go at death, and
where they remain until the resurrec-
ton. In the New Testament the word
fdrtarsts occurs once only and is mis-
translated hell, whereas 1t should be
rendered our earths atmosphere. 1t has
no reference to humanity in any way.
but to the fallen angels. The Apostle
says that as a punishment "God cast
them down to tartarsss' and they are
reserved in chains of darkness until
the judgment of the great Day"
But today we will examine the fourth
and last word translated hell in our
common English Bible. This word In
the Greek is oehennd. 1t occurs but
twelve times, as follows: Matthew v,
%, 20, 80; (, Is; xviii, 8: xiii Is, SO;
Mark tx, 4S, As. At: Luke xii, 5; James
Ill, 8. One of the occurrences is In con-
nection with our text today. The ques-
ton is, To what does this word 0eheana
-