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October 29th, 1916.
Received by James Padgett
Washington D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
You were right in your surmise that I was with you tonight, and
as you imagined, I was standing close to you at the time the preacher
(Dr. Gordon) was delivering his discourse, and you felt the influence
of my love and sympathy, and also received the thoughts that I was
superimposing on your brain. The preacher's sermon was an advance
upon the beliefs of the orthodox in many particulars, but in the
most important particular and in the one that will affect mortals
most vitally in their progress in the spirit life, he was wrong,
very wrong. I refer to his declaration that he saw or knew of no
statement in the Bible that would justify him in asserting that
there would be an opportunity for the spirits of mortals to receive
pardon or to progress from the condition of hell to that of light
and heaven in the spirit world, when they had not started on that
journey in the mortal life. This, as I have told you, is a damnable
doctrine, and one that has done more harm all down the centuries
from the time of my living on earth, than most any other teaching
of the church that claims to be representative of me and my teachings.
Many poor souls have come into the spirit world with this belief
firmly fixed in their minds and conscience, and the difficulties
have been great and the years long before they could awaken from
this belief and realize that the Love of the Father is waiting for
them in spirit life just as in the earth life, and that probation
is never closed for men or spirits, and never will be until the
time of the withdrawal of the great opportunity for men to become
inhabitants of the Celestial Heavens, and even then, the opportunity
to purify their natural love will not cease, and never will, until
all who have the opportunity shall become perfect men in their natural
loves.
Had he searched the Scriptures, in which he so
implicitly believes, he would have found an authorization for him
to declare that even in the spirit world, the spirits of the unsaved
sinners on earth, who died without having become reconciled to God,
had the gospel of salvation preached to them.(i.e.
in the hells - 1 Peter 3:19-20) And furthermore when he declared
that the Bible says that I said "that he that
sinneth against the son of
man it shall be forgiven him, but he that sinneth against the
Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor
in the world to come," had the preacher placed the natural and
only implied construction on this declaration, he would have found
that the sinner who neglected the opportunity on earth, would yet
have another chance for salvation in the world to come, as the spirit
world is referred to. So that, even according to his own source
of belief and foundation of his knowledge of these things of the
future, he would be justified and even required, as an honest preacher
of the Scriptures, to declare that probation did not end with the
physical death of the mortal. It is so sad that the creeds and fixed
opinions of these preachers, formed from the teachings of the old
fathers, as they are called, should be men of soul development,
such as this preacher has, and teach the damnable doctrine that
I speak of which he declared.
There is a hell, or rather hells, just as there is a heaven or
heavens, and all men when they become spirits, will be compelled
to occupy one or the other of these places; not because God had
decreed that any particular spirit because of his earth belief or
condition shall occupy that place, but because the condition of
his soul development, or want of development, fits and fixes him
for that place and no other. God has made His laws of harmony and
these laws are never changed, and when any particular soul gets
into a condition of agreement with these laws, then that soul becomes
at one with the Father and an inhabitant of His heavens; and so
long as that soul remains out of such condition it is in hell, which
is the condition of being out of agreement with the harmony of God's
laws. This is hell and there is no other comprehensive definition
of it: every thing or place that is not heaven is hell. Of course
there are many gradations of hell, and the inhabitants of these
gradations are made by the condition of their soul development,
which is determined by the quantity and quality of the defilement
and sin that exists in these souls. The soul is developed as the
love becomes purified and sin eradicated, and just as this process
progresses the soul becomes developed.
God has decreed that His universe, both of men and things, shall
be harmonious, and only the creature, man, has become out of that
harmony; and as the universe shall continue, the only destiny for
man is, that he shall return to that harmony from which he fell
by reason of his own misdirected will. Had God decreed, as the preacher
by necessary implication, declared, that the sinner who dies in
his sins shall forever remain in his sins and in a state of antagonism
to such harmony, then God, Himself, would necessarily become the
cause and power of defeating His own laws of harmony, which no sane
mortal whether he believes in the Scriptures or not, would or could
believe.
God's Laws are fixed and unchangeable and always in harmony with
one another and with His Will, and knowing this, every thinking
man will know and should know that whenever a proposition or opinion
is put forth by preacher or layman or philosopher or scientist that
shows that in order for a certain condition or truth to exist, God's
Laws will have to work in conflict with or in opposition to one
another, then that proposition or opinion is false and has no foundation
in fact. And so to accept this declaration of the preacher that
there is no probation after death, or as he said, chance to progress
out of the hell which the mortal carries with him to the spirit
world, men will have to believe that the Loving Father, for the
satisfying His wrath and meeting the demands of His supposed justice,
will set his laws in conflict with one another and destroy the harmony
of his universe.
The preacher spoke, as he said, as a scientist, and not as a religious
teacher, and yet the deduction that he made when he declared the
eternal existence of the hells, violated one of the fundamental
laws of science and that is, that two conflicting laws in the workings
of God's universe cannot both be accepted as true, and that the
one of these two that is in harmony with all the other known laws
must be accepted as true. Then I say, that founded on the Scriptures
or founded on science, the preacher had no basis for making the
untrue and deplorable statement, that physical death ends man's
possibility of progressing from a condition or state of existence
in hell into that of purity and freedom from sin and into harmony
with God's perfect laws and the requirements of His will.
The preacher spoke from his intellect and mental beliefs of long
years standing and the memory echoes of what he had heard said by
other preachers and teachers who left upon his conscious beliefs
their false doctrines. But deep down in his soul, where the Love
of the Father is burning and the soul sense is growing, he does
not believe this doctrine, for he realizes that this Love of the
Father is so much greater and purer and holier than any other love
that exists in heaven or on earth; and the Father from Whom It comes
must be holier and more merciful and forgiving and thoughtful of
His children than of any mortal father of his children. And then
as a mortal father having in his soul the Divine Love, he knows
that his child could not commit any sin or offense that could possibly
become unpardonable, or that he would not permit, and gladly, the
child to repent of at any time. And so he would see, that if he
refused to the Father, from Whom this Divine Love comes, a love
and sympathy that would cause that Father to be as forgiving to
His children as is he, the earthly parent, then the Greatest Attribute
of that Father, God, Who is All Love, would not be equal to the
love of his creature. The derivative would be greater and grander
and purer and more Divine than the Fountainhead from which it is
derived.
No, the preacher in his soul does not believe this unnatural teaching,
and at times, he travails in his soul at the conflict that takes
place between the mental bondage of his intellectual beliefs and
the freedom of his soul sense, the creature of the Divine Love that
is in him, and the only part of Divinity that he possesses. And
thus is demonstrated the great, real paradox of the existence in
the same mortal at the same time, of an intellectual belief and
a soul knowledge as far apart as the antipodes. And also is demonstrated
the truth, a great truth, that the mind of man and the soul of man
are not one and the same, but are as distinct as the creature of
a special creation, the mind, and the creation of that which is
the only part of man made in the image of his Maker, the soul, must
necessarily be.
But some day the soul knowledge will overcome the mental belief,
and then the preacher will know that harmony and inharmony cannot
exist for all time - that sin and error must disappear and purity
and righteousness must exist alone, and that every man and spirit
must become at one with the Father, either as an inhabitant of the
Celestial Heavens or as the perfect man that first appeared at the
call of God, and by him pronounced "very good."
I have written enough for tonight and must stop, but before doing
so, I want to say that I have been with you today and saw that you
were very happy in your thoughts and in your soul experience. Other
spirits were also with you, throwing around you their love and influence.
Persevere in your efforts to obtain this Divine Love, and pray to
the Father and it will come to you in increased abundance, and with
it a wonderful happiness. I will come soon and write you another
message. So with my love and blessings, I will say good night and
God bless you.
Your brother and friend, Jesus
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