THE REMNANT OF ISRAEL 5
the denominations next resort to the argument of succession, some
claiming they started in the days of John the Baptist, others with
Peter being the first Bishop or Pope, others on the day of Pentecost,
and so on. Some of these specifications of faith number as high as
twenty-eight points. The next step, after these founders get the
machine to work, is to organize into a federation all the believers
in the articles of faith. When the federation is completed, the next
step 1s to question all who offer themselves for admittance as to
their faith in the different specifications. If answered satisfactorily
they are admitted and baptized into that faith. These are the creeds
of denominationalism. To illustrate the differences in these creeds,
we will take but one point of doctrine, that of baptism. One of these
denominations says baptize by immersion three times, face forward.
Another says once by immersion backward. Another says by im-
mersion once for the remission of sins, Another once unto the re-
mission of sin. Another who believes immersion will not accept into
their church one who has been immersed till re-immersed because not
immersed by a minister of tae true succession authority. Another
says we are to be baptized by immersion for the dead, that is, those
who have died. Another says there is no water baptism but the bap-
tism of the Bible is the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Another says
there is now no baptism of the Holy Ghost since the Apostles. And
still another says there are now no ordinances to be observed at all
and quotes scripture which says, touch not, taste not, handle not,
which were all to perish with the using. These differences tend to all
cases to rear up a fence around each flock to keep them separate from
all others. Hence the next step is to build schools for the education
of ministers who are loyal to the creed and who will labor to add to
the number. These creeds of man’s production have each been de-
veloped in process of time, schools have been made and the denomi-
nation has grown or lost according to the energy of those connected
vith it. If they prospered, God was given the glory for His special
supposed providence over that branch, showing that He favored that
move ahove all others. If the move failed, all others, said the Lord,
was not with the move. Such is the brief record of Denominational
creeds. One point should not be overlooked, and that is that de-
nominational creeds when once established become the old land marks
of that sect which the sect never meddles, or from which it never
changes. That creed is like tie fellow’s balky mule. His owner said
Le was established. So with the creed, nothing can be added to,
neither can any thing be taken from it. The followers are taught
that God's divine providence led the founders in the establishing of
the creed, and to meddle with it would be fighting against God.
Each denomination will also teacin their membership that if it
was not for the centralization of power and effort the work could not
be extended to other fields. So all funds are centralized, missionaries
are sent out, and the world is expected to he evacelized for Christ.
The whole thing is of man’s devising, and controlled by him. This
plan has been followed from generation to generation, but it still re-
mains a fact that no denomination, or all combined, has done any-
thing to evangelize the world for Christ. Where the creed power has
been most centralized and the greatest number of followers, there sin
doth much more abound, as all know. Take the so-called Christian
nations as an example. The Bible says these denominations are Baby-
lon and we do not hesitate to say they are not the legitimate churches
of Jesus Christ. God’s church and His creed are as different as day is
from night. We do not believe in such creeds and have no desire to
in any way establish them.
THE NATURE OF MAN.
It seems so strange that there should be such an erroneous belief
among professed Christians as to the condition of man after his death.
One has only to attend a funeral or two, and listen to the sermons
preached upon such occasions to hear the contradictory and unbiblical
statements of the ministers who officiate at such functions. These
statements must emanate either thru ignorance or a wilfull perversion
of the truth.
When God created man He made him after his own image and in
His own likeness, and he was made a little lower than the angels,
He was given dominion over the whole creation. God built a home
for him and placed him therein, and told him that he could freely
eat of every tree in the garden but one; and of that particular tree he
said: “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” I
helieve God meant just what He said. Some claim that when Adam
ate of the forbidden fruit that he died a spiritual death only. Not
so. Adam died a physical death, as the result of his disobedience,
and altho he lived to he over goo years of age yet he died, and his
death was caused solely by his disobedience and from no other cause.
If Adam committed any sins after he was driven from the Garden
of Eden—the sins which he committed had nothing whatever to do
with his death. Those sins he would have to answer for in the judg-
ment. Hence men do not die now as the result of the sins they
commit, but die as the result of Adam’s disobedience. “Wherefore, as
by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so
death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”—Reom. 3:12.
When men die, therefore, as the result of their inheritance from
Adam, what becomes of them? If we are to believe some, they are
more alive after they are dead than they were before they died. But
what saith the scriptures upon this point?
“For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not
anything, neither have they any more a reward, for the memory of
them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred. and their envy,
is now perished; neither have they any more a portion forever in any-
thing that is done under the sun.”"—Ecle. 9 :4-5.
“His breath goeth forth, he returned to his earth;
day his thought perish.”—Psalms 146-4.
Could language he more plain, more “explicit than the words
quoted above? His thought perish, when the mind is gone. perished,
all consciousness has ceased, and there is absolutely nothing left of
man but the clay of which his hody is composed.
The absurdity of the position held by the popular denominations
today is that when a man dies they send him either to heaven or hell,
accordingly as he has lived here on earth, and there they bring him up
in the resurrection. If he has gone to heaven, he must leave there and
re-enter the grave in order to he resurrected—for they all believe in and
preached of a resurrection—and thus they contradict themselves, How
much better and simpler, and harmonious. is the hible statement of
their condition, which is that they are all in their graves, awaiting
the call to come forth. T Thess. 4:13-18
I recently attended the funeral services of the wife of one of
my neighbors. The minister who preached the funeral sermon did
splendidly until he reached the point where the deceased had en-
tered heaven, and was now with the angels, but her spirit was
present, and was grieved that those present were mourning so mich
over her departure. He assured the husband and friends that she
would be resurrected, and would never more see pain or sickness, or
any such thing, and he went on in that strain, making one contra-
diction after another, and the people present believed it all. How
much better it would have heen had he told them the truth, and have
given them the scriptures hearing upon the condition of man after
death., ,
Death is compared to sleep, and there must, then, he some
analogy between a state of sleep and a state of death. and this
analogy must pertain to that which renders sleep a peculiar condition.
Our condition in sleep differs from our condition when awake simply
in this, that when we are soundly asleep we are entirely unconscious,
In this respect, then, death is like sleep; that is, the dead are uncon-
scious. This figure is frequently used to represent the condition of
the dead.—Dan. 12:2, Matt. 27:52, Acts 7:60.
Paul tells us in the fourth chapter of First Thessalonians of
those who are asleep in Jesus, and then he explains what he means
in verse 16, by calling them “dead in Christ.” The advocates of the
conscious state cannot dispose of these expressions by saying that
they apply to the hody merely: for they do not hold that the con-
sciousness which we have in life (which is the same that we lose
in death) pertains to the body merely. Job tells us plainly that
“Man dieth and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and
where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood de-
cayeth and drieth up: so man lieth down. and riseth not: till the
heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raized out of
their sleep.” Such declarations as these are decisive concerning the
condition of man in death.
Paul tells us that as in Adam we die, so in Christ shall we be
made alive, and after stating that if there is no resurrection, we
perish, he answers us that Christ is risen, and that there is a
resurrection for all. Then he takes up the resurrection of those
who sleep in Chfist and tells us when that resurrection shall be.
The eminent Bishop Law sums up this point in ‘the following
words: “I proceed to consider what account the scriptures give of
that state to which death reduces us. And this we find represented
by sleep; by a negation of all life, thought, or action; by rest, rest-
ing-place, or home, silence, oblivion, darkness, destruction, or cor-
ruption,”
This representation is abundantly sustained by the scriptures
referred to, and by many others; and by all these the great fact is
indelibly incribed that our existence is not perpetual by means of an
immortal soul, but that, without a resurrection from the dead, there
is no future life. Can we do otherwise than accept this conclu-
sion? C. M. HAYHURST.
CLOSE OF PROBATION.
As T study and see the condition of the world in our day: the
increase of sin and wickedness of all kinds, showing the soon com-
ing of Christ, I feel that the most important thing for us to do now
is to teach and show people the beauty and saving power of the gospel,
so that they will hunger and tirst after righteousness before God's
spirit ceases to strive with the world.
When God gave His only begotten son for the redemption of
sinful man He made a covenant with all the people that :“Whoso-
ever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Rev. 22:17
According to Bible prophecy, I believe we have only a very few
years left before this covenant will be broken. When that covenant
ie broken everybody will have decided for himself everlasting life
or everlasting death.
“For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land,” saith the
Lord, “but, lo, T will deliver the men every one into his neighbor's
hand, and into the hand of his king; and they shall smite the land,
and out of their hand I will not deliver them.
“And T took unto me two staves; the one I called beauty, and the
other T called Bands; and I fed the flock.
“Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and my soul loathed
them, and their soul also abhorred me.
“And T took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that T
might hreak my covenant which 1 had made with all the people.
“And it was broken in that day; and so the poor of the flock
in that very