The Fargo forum and daily republican., 1913-08-09

Matthew 1914.
llPASTcR RUSSElL)l The Pastor open
ed his discourse
with the words: How blind we have
all been-stupidly blind-in respect to
our Heavenly Fathers words! We
have believed human traditions, which
we ought not to have believed, and left
unbelieved the Bible teachings, which
we ought to have believed, until the
Church as a whole has become thor
oughly puzzled in respect to every
thing religious. / am not judging any
particular person or sect The matter Is
so general as not to need specification.
All have sinned. all are out of the
way of Truth. lost in the fog Of super
stition and error, guided thither, as
st. Paul foretold, by doctrines Of de-
mons" q Timothy 4:1.) There is no
time for faultfnding. The duty of the
hour is to get right-to get back into
harmony with God, and to obtain the
true light on His Word that will re-
store Christian faith. love, devotion.
Blaming nobody except the Arch-De-
ceiver, Satan, we find, as the Master
predicted, that the whole world has
been made drunk by the false doc
trines which Satan gradually introduc-
ed during the Dark Ages--"The inhab
itants Of the earth have been made
drunk with the wine Of her fornica
ton" Revelation 1929 Some were
crazy drunk. to the extent Of persecut-
ing others; some were stupidly drunk.
Like drunken people, we mixed up
and confused the good and the bad.
In one breath we told Of the love Of
God--His mercy, gentleness, patience
and how all of His children must be-
| come copies Of His Divine character.
| Then In another breath we painted this
God of Love as sitting down. before
creating humanity, and deliberately.
with fore-knowledge, arranging that
thousands of millions should be born
in sin, misshapen in iniquity; and that
after a few short years, full of trou-
BILE, all of them with only rare excep-
tions, should be turned over to fire.
proof demons, to be tortured through
all eternity.
When a soberer thought would sug-
gest that the fire would destroy them.
that the torture could not last more
than few hours. then drunken
thought inspired by the Devil came
that God delighted in the torture Of
His creatures, and that all those thou
sands OF millions would have life in
jected into them by the Almighty Him
self, the great Fountain of Life, so as
to prevent them from ever ceasing to
| be. ceasing to suffer-so as to perpetu-
ate a great chamber Of horrors such
as no human mind could imagine.
Dante pictured the Inferno most hor-
ribly, that eternal torture chamber,
over whose gates were the words,
''Who enters here abandons hope"
Satan's Great Success.
| The Master styled Satan the father
of lies. His first great lie misled our
first parents and murdered them, by
leading Mother Eve to disbelieve Gods
| Word. "In the day that thou eatest
thereof, thou shalt surely die" (Gen.
esis 2:17.) Satan contradicted the AL
mighty. saying. "Ye shall not surely
die"-cannot die, We are immortal, your
life is a perpetual one.
Satan has since impressed this false.
hood upon the whole world, and has
largely succeeded in deceiving all
When in fulfilment Of Gods Word
people die, Satan has brought in the
deceptive theory that they really have
become more alive than ever. With
the theory that nobody can die came
! the other theory-that when they seem
to die they merely go somewhere else
| to live
| Thus, contrary to the Scriptures, the
| whole world has come to believe that
| ut the moment Of death the sanity gC
to Heaven and all the remainder. more
/ alive than ever. go either to He'll OF
Purgatory. The plain, common-sense
statement of the Bible that aIl--botf
/ good and bad, old and young-go tG
4 Sheoi, Hades, to the tomb, is ignored
The Bible teaching. that the redemp
tive work of Jesus assured all a res
direction from the dead, Ia made nul
and void by satan's declaration thai
nobody is dead. 5ss ....
Immortality In Christ. I'll
/ The Bible does indeed hold out foi
the Church the hope Of Immortality
but it is only a hope, not already !
/ possession Man was not created un
1 uuaIifiedly immortal. The life giyeY
him was only O tentative one lie he
would use 1t in harmony with his Gre.
/ ator's commands, he might enjoy II
forever, as indicated In the words
s'Be fruitful and multiply and flIl the
earth with your posterity, and sub
I. due the earth as We have need Of 1t
! AS your posterity increases. extend che
bounds of Eden, until 1t will include
4 the whole earth.
But that the life was q tentative one
a conditional one, is indicated by ths
threat that disobedience would brina
death the cessation Of life. Thus
when the sin had been committed. Goo
a DECLARED seAcclrsed III the ground fol