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March 18th, 1917
Received by James Padgett
Washington D.C.
I am here, Elias
I come tonight to write a short message on the subject of "The
truth of the Bible as to the things that are contained in the Old
Testament." And by this I do not mean that I will discuss this portion
of the Bible in all the views and declarations that are contained
therein, but only as to that portion which has to do with the times
in which I was supposed to live.
In the first place my entrance on the scene of Jewish life and
history was very abrupt, and little was written about my antecedent
life, and in fact, nothing except that I was a Tishbite who lived
in that portion of Palestine where the acts and doings of the prophets
and men of the Hebrew race are very seldom referred to, and little
is known of these people.
When I came into notice, as portrayed, I was not very widely known,
and to the writers of the Scriptures it appeared as if I had come
out of the unknown, where God had taken special pains to instruct
and communicate to me the truths of His laws, and also the acts
of disobedience of those Jews among whom I appeared. But a very
great deal of the accounts of my appearing and things that I declared
and did are imaginary and the result of the workings of the minds
of those who produced the stories of the lives of the Jews at those
times, and in the way told in the Bible.
I was a real existing person and of the prophet class and warned
the kings and rulers of the wrath of God that was impending upon
them, and of the evils of their manner of living, and was listened
to by these kings, who sometimes heeded my warnings and sometimes
did not; and some of the consequences were suffered by them in a
way similar to that described in the Bible.
But I never claimed to have direct communication with God, or to
deliver any messages that He had directed me to deliver by His own
word of mouth, or that I had ever seen God, or knew who or what
He was.
I was a man who lived a rather secluded life, and was versed in
the teachings and beliefs of the Israelites, as they were known
at the time, and was also given to much meditation and prayer and
possessed much of the religious instinct, and, in fact, to such
a degree, that I really believed that the thoughts and perceptions
of truth that came to me, were actually the messages from the unseen
world; and possessing the knowledge of the moral truths, as declared
in the Decalogue and as taught by the priests of the temple, I could
readily discern and understand the acts and doings of the kings
and of the people, as well, to be a violation of these moral truths.
And so when I learned of these violations, I appeared to these rulers
and people and denounced their acts and doings and threatened them
with the wrath of God, unless they ceased their acts of disobedience
and returned to the worship of the one true God that the Hebrew
race distinctly declared and worshiped. Sometimes I was received
as the true prophet of God and sometimes I was not and, as a consequence,
my messages, at times, were received and believed in, and at other
times they were not.
The foundation stone of my belief and office was that there was
only one God, and He was the God of the Hebrews, and all other Gods
that were believed in, and worshiped by a part of the Jews and by
the Gentiles, were false gods, and should not have obeisance made
to them or worshiped. And, hence, when I appeared to Ahab and denounced
the gods of Belial, I was performing, as I believed, the duties
that my God had imposed upon me, and which were so necessary to
cause the turning away of the people from their false beliefs and
worship to an acknowledgment of the one true God.
Well, there are many things related in these writings that never
occurred and the one that is often referred to and accepted as proof
of the superior power of my God over the god, Ba-al, that is the
consuming by fire of the offerings at the altar by the power of
God, after the priests had called upon their false god to answer
their prayers and he neglected to respond, never occurred, but it
is the result of the endeavor of some Jewish writer to demonstrate
to his people, the wonderful power and activity and closeness of
that God to His prophets. Such an incident never took place, and
there are many other occurrences related to the powers that I possessed
as the prophet of God, that never had any existence.
While I considered and believed myself to be a prophet of God,
yet I never had any of the supernatural powers, nor were any such
ever displayed by me, as recorded in the supposed history of my
life as a mortal.
There is one other instance to which I desire to refer and that
is my supposed ascension into heaven in a chariot of fire in the
presence of Elisha. This is merely a tale, as I may say, well told,
but it never had any existence in fact; and I did not ascend in
my physical body, or did any other mortal that I have heard of,
not even the Master, for it would be against the laws of God that
such a thing should take place, and He never violates His laws for
the purpose of demonstrating to mortals His power, or the greatness
of any of His followers or for any other purpose.
No, I died as other mortals died, and was buried as was necessary
for me to be buried, having with one at the time of my death, friends
and relatives; and since that time my physical body has never been
resurrected and never will be.
I ascended into the spirit world in my spirit body, as has every
other mortal at the time of the death of his physical body since
the world of human existence began, and in the future, the spirits
of men will so continue to ascend and their physical bodies go to
the elements out of which they were composed.
It may be supposed, that because I was versed in the teachings
of the religious laws of the Hebrews and the precepts of the decalogue
and believed myself to be a prophet and especially delegated by
God to denounce the sins and evils of the kings and people that
had forsaken the beliefs and practices of their fathers, that I
went into the heaven of perfection and into the supreme happiness
that the obedient child when in perfect harmony with the laws of
God, would enter. Well, if I had been such child, I might have done
so, but not being such, I went merely into the spirit world and
found my place just where the condition of my soul in its harmony
with God's laws and His truths, fitted me for and determined that
I should be placed.
The condition of soul determines the destiny of the spirit. No
mere belief in self-righteousness, or the conviction that I - the
individual - have been specially favored by God to do His work,
or that I am closer to God and deserving of His special mercy and
favor, or that a special dispensation is exercised in my behalf,
can ever place me in different surroundings or conditions or degrees
of happiness, from what the actual harmony of the qualities of my
soul with the laws of God and the workings thereof, entitle me.
The law of fitness works invariably and under all circumstances,
and the conditions and qualities of the soul in the spirit world
can never be hidden nor counterfeited. Then is seen face to face,
and the law in its application and effect never makes a mistake
so that the soul not having the fitness cannot enter into the Kingdom
of Heaven by crying, Lord, Lord, did I not prophecy in Thy name,
etc.
Many of these stories of the Old Testament may be profitably used
to draw a moral or adorn a tale, but when the question arises, as
what shall determine the destiny of the human soul, then the truth
never changes, and only the truth will decide the question. Only
a pure, perfect soul can find its home in a pure perfect heaven,
and only a Divine soul can find its home in a Divine Heaven; which
latter, is the home of the soul that possesses the Divine Essence
of the Father to that fullness that the created qualities of the
soul have disappeared and been replaced by the Divine Substance.
So that, we may be prophets and preachers, wise in the intellectual
knowledge of religious truths, and saints on earth, and apostles
and disciples, and yet, not having the purification of the soul
or the Divine Essence, we cannot enter the home which the one or
the other of these possessions, will fit us for.
Let the prophets of Old, and the sacrifices and the blood and the
vicarious atonement rest in the memory of forgetfulness, and seek
and obtain the inflowing of the Divine Love of the Father, and then
the home of the soul will truly and certainly be the Heavens Celestial
where only things Divine can exist.
Well, I have written enough for tonight, and hope that you will
find my message both interesting and helpful. It is true, and you
can believe that it is and in its truth rests the certainty of what
the destiny of your own soul may be.
I will come again very soon. So good night.
Your brother in Christ,Elias (Elijah)
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