Signs of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 31.
IF YE WILL INQUIRE, INQUIRE YEPage 2
Earlier text: IF YE WILL INQUIRE, INQUIRE YEBelief of Immortal Soulism
By Winford C. Hankins
Its Awful Effects upon China
(Abstract of sermon by Evangelist Winford C. Hankins, of Amoy, China, at annual camp-meeting of Western Oregon Conference Seventh-day Adventists, East Fifteenth and Davis streets, Portland, Oregon, June 2, 1912) Some people wonder why China is so far behind the other nations of the earth. It is because they have believed that first satanic falsehood that the soul of man is immortal. Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Then if a man is in bondage, it is because he does not know the truth. China to-day is in bondage to the devil because for centuries she has believed that lie. It is a most cruel bondage, I can assure you. Many people in this country told me before I went to China, and many still say, that it makes absolutely no difference, so far as a man's salvation is concerned, what he believes in regard to the state of the dead. They queried what difference it could make whether a man believed a man's soul, when he died, went straight to heaven, or to hell, or slept in the grave. That very doctrine, that when a man is dead he is still alive, is the doctrine to which China can trace the most of her trouble. This belief stands out like an immense mountain blocking the progress of Christianity. If the Chinese would surrender that false doctrine, they would accept Christianity by thousands where they accept it by twos and threes now. The Chinese word for "soul" is represented by a character the main portion of which means "devil." To the left of this character is another which means "death." Taking it literally, it means "dead devil." That is the word the Chinese use when they speak of the soul. That is why it is so difficult to preach the gospel in China—because when we think we are speaking of the soul, we are conveying to our hearers a very different idea. The Chinese believe that a man has three spirits, or souls, and that when he dies, these are released from the body. One, they believe, abides in the grave, one in the ancestral tablet, and one in hell. The ancestral tablets are preserved from generation to generation. They are pieces of wood, on which are written the name, date of birth, and date of death of the deceased. They are worshiped by the dead man's descendants. It is the belief of the Chinese that each of these spirits has an existence, especially the one which goes to hell, and whether this one is a beggar spirit or one of wealth, whether it has a good or a bad time, depends entirely upon how it is treated by its descendants. If a man who dies, leaves considerable property, his descendants will have a paper house made, with paper furniture, paper servants, paper horses, and at the time of his burial all this is burned. These are all believed to go to hades. They believe if they did not do it the poor fellow would have nothing when in hades, but that he would be a beggar. At certain times in the year you will find on all the graves a great amount of paper. It has been cut into circles, great strings of them. Some of them are stamped with something which looks like gold and silver. That is make-believe money. They go to the priests, and spend millions of dollars a year for this paper money. This is burned before the grave, to supply these souls in hades with sufficient cash to live upon. It is a great system of fraud. This idea that they can defraud the spirits in the other world by giving them paper money has its effect upon the Chinese character. It causes them to cheat and lie and steal. Another Chinese custom is to prepare big feasts at certain times in the year. These are set out in front of the door, and the spirits are believed to partake of them. At certain times feasts are set out for the beggar spirits, those who have no descendants, so that they may not trouble the living. Sufficient money is spent in this ancestor worship to take Christianity to all China. How It Hinders Christianity
Now you can see why this belief stands in the way of the acceptance of Christianity. Suppose I am an old man, ready to die. I have some sons. One comes to me and says: "I have heard the new teaching concerning Christ, and I believe it. I believe it is better than our ancestor worship. I want to become a Christian." My answer to him is, "You must not listen to that teaching any more." "Do you want me to go over there to be a beggar spirit simply because you want to accept this Christian religion? No, sir. You are a very unfilial son. When I get over there you must worship me." The Chinese believe that for their descendants to accept Christianity, is the worst thing that could happen to them after they die. This belief has had its effect upon every institution, upon all Chinese life, upon their building, their buying, their selling, upon their women and upon their men. Everything connected with China has felt the blighting influence of this falsehood which Satan has led them to believe. Responsible for Girl Deaths
When a baby girl comes into the family, the mother looks at it and weeps. Sometimes she will say to the nurse, "Go and get me a bucket of water." The little one is held in it, face down, and then they say that the baby was born dead. What is the matter? — Girls are not welcome. Sometimes you will find a little baby girl outside the city wall, crying, with nobody to care for it, starving to death. Why? — It has been thrown out there and abandoned because it is a girl. Sometimes they throw them into the wells. They will do anything to get rid of them. Thousands of them are given away, to be raised for lives of shame. But why aren't the girls as welcome as the boys? — Simply because of this doctrine of the immortality of the soul. It is the custom in China that when a woman marries she belongs to the family of her husband. Therefore she worships and provides for the ancestors of her husband. They don't seem to care so much what happens to them in this life, but every one wants a son, that he and his descendants may worship him and provide for his soul in hades. That is why women hold the position they do to-day in China. Can we not be thankful we were not reared in China? That little belief, which some people here say has no bearing upon a man's salvation, has cost wo to millions of hearts in China, has caused millions of baby girls to be killed, and millions of others to be given away to be raised for lives of shame. Do you think it is of no consequence what we believe? The Lord says, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." To-day China is a poor nation. Why? Has not China mines rich in gold and silver? Has she not millions of tons of coal? Has she not iron and copper and lead and tin and many precious metals? — Yes, China has enough mineral wealth to make her the richest nation on earth. You say she is unprogressive, that she lacks ambition to mine it? No, indeed. Do you think the Chinaman is stupid? He is one of the sharpest, shrewdest men you will meet anywhere in the world. General Grant said the funniest sight he ever saw was a Chinaman beating a Jew at a bargain. Then why has he not mined this wealth? — Simply because of his belief in the immortality of the soul. Not only does the man who dies depend upon his descendants to worship him, but it is the prevailing belief that the choosing of a suitable burying-place will bring either good or bad luck. The burial places are always in the hills. The hills are literally covered with graves. But the minerals are generally in the hills, and to open a great mine in the side of one of these hills would be to spoil the good luck of these graves. Therefore when a man comes along and says, "Here is a gold-mine," the village elders get together and inform him that the minute he opens that hill up he will die. "We do not propose to have our good luck spoiled by your digging a big hole in the midst of those graves," is the way they express themselves. Ill Health and Inconvenience
In some localities you will find none but one-story houses. You can see that if they were put up two stories high the sleeping rooms would not be so unhealthy. But in some of these localities the people believe if they build the houses more than one story high they will invite bad luck. In some places foreigners are absolutely prohibited7 from building any structures more than one story high. Because they have put the graves on the hills, it would spoil their good luck to build also on the hills. Consequently the houses are built in the hollow. They provide for no ventilation, no sanitation, no drainage. The water just stands there. As a result a man gets the plague. There is no quarantine, and scores of friends of the man visit him, and ask, "I wonder what spirit this is that is bothering him?" They send for the witch-doctor. He names the spirit, and instructs the relatives to sprinkle sand on the floor, to say certain things, and to fire firecrackers. Or perhaps they give the man some ground-up spiders to drive out the devils, or pierce his flesh with red-hot needles so as to drive the devils out. He dies, and before long a whole street has plague patients, or a whole neighborhood, or, in some instances, tens of thousands of cases of smallpox. There is no quarantine. If a man is ill, his neighbors visit him, and try to rid the place of the evil spirits. The great difficulty is the lack of sanitation, the crowding together, and the lack of drainage. These things are traceable to their belief in the immortality of the soul. Their streets are crooked, and in Canton it is a wide street that you can not touch on both sides with your hands at the same time. Many are so narrow you can not carry an umbrella in them. The trouble is, the people fear all the time that the spirits of other ancestors than their own will visit their houses. So they make the streets crooked in order that these spirits will not be able to find the place. The spirits of a man's own ancestors are regarded as spirits, but the spirits of all others are devils. The Chinese live daily and hourly in fear of these devils. Everything of importance that is undertaken is preceded by the firing of firecrackers. China to-day is hundreds of years behind the rest of the world in civilization, is poor and needy, is wretched and blind and naked, simply because of this belief which thousands of people here in the United States say is of no importance. There is not one truth in God's Word but it is important we believe, and not one lie which has been invented by the devil but it is important we know to be a lie, and treat it as such by refusing to believe it. Just the minute we believe a lie, no matter of how little consequence we regard it, just that minute the devil can use that lie and our belief in it to take us away from the kingdom of God, and away from all true happiness. There is nothing but the truth of God on this question of the immortality of the soul, that will ever take China out of the spiritual depths into which she has sunk. The Lowest Room
By Eliza H. Morton
'Tis not for us to seek the highest place
While here below.
Our times are in the hands of One above,
And He doth know
The heart, and He would have us humble it,
That He may give
His power and strength, and teach us day
by day
Truly to live. And by and by our ears may hear the word,
The call of God,
The call to go up higher in the courts
Of Christ the Lord;
And sweet 'twill be upward to go, and on,
Until we stand
Exalted in the sight of holy ones,
A holy band. The Coming of Our Lord
By George W. Rine
Will There Be Announcement of His Coming?
THE most tragic mistake that the professed church of God has made repeatedly, is her failure to recognize the signs of the times. Because the race had become irreclaimably sunk in wickedness in the time of Noah, God saw that the only merciful thing He could do, was to destroy, by a world-wide deluge, "the world that then was." In His love and pity He sent to the world an explicit and protracted message to that effect through His servant Noah. We all know the painful sequel of that message. Of the millions of mankind, only eight souls, including the messenger, believed the warning, and accordingly escaped the cosmic catastrophe. Now, Jesus explicitly announced that as it was in the days of Noah, so would it be in the time when the Son of Man was about to come. Matt. 24: 37. The parallel that our Lord pointed out between the time of the Noachic message and the time of His coming in glory, can mean only two very definite facts: first, an equally definite message of warning would be given at the proper time, respecting the imminence of His final coming; and, secondly, that relatively few would believe and embrace that message. Similarly, when Sodom and Gomorrah had become irretrievably abandoned to sin, God sent to the people of those cities an explicit warning as to their impending doom. Between that event and the time of His second coming Jesus again enunciated a parallel. "As it was in the days of Lot," He declares, "they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed." Luke 17: 28-30. Just as surely, then, as Lot bore a warning message to the people of Sodom, so surely will a clear, definite message of warning be given to the world at the time when the second advent of the Son of Man is impending. This fact is further attested by the clear-cut testimony of the Spirit, declaring, "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets." Amos 3: 7. Jesus' Additional Testimony
Our Lord unequivocally asserted that of the day or the hour of His coming in glory can neither man nor angel know. His verdict is final. Where He has spoken, there is no room for difference of opinion. No person loyal to the Master can be a "time-setter." But in terms just as terse and lucid, Jesus also taught that when His coming is near, His believing children will know that it is near. Not the day or the hour can they know, but they will and ought to know that the day and hour are imminent. In answer to the question of the disciples, "What shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?" Jesus declared definitely, "There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity." In order to lay stress upon the certainty that His coming is near when these signs in the heavens should be given, He added the following piquant illustration: "Behold the fig-tree, and all the trees; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand." Luke 21: 25, 29-31. Through the apostle Peter the Holy Spirit bears witness to the same truth, as follows: "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts [desires], and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." 2 Peter 3: 3, 4. It is in the last days, observe, that scoffers will utter these words of contemptuous unbelief. It is certain that these scoffers would never think of asking, "Where is the promise of His coming?" if the Master's faithful servants were not definitely announcing to the world that the coming of Jesus is close at hand. Note, please, that the Spirit of God stigmatizes as scoffers all those who flout the preaching of the advent message. Hence that message proclaimed to the world "in the last days" bears the impress of the sanction of God. This fact shows unmistakably that God designs that His people shall know that they are living in the last days, when those days shall have come. And if they know that they are living in the closing days of "this present evil world," assuredly they know too that the coming of the Lord is near, inasmuch as that momentous event marks the close of the history of the kingdoms of this world.8 Summoned to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb
The following sublimely eloquent passage is found in verses six to nine of Revelation nineteen: "And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb." The Lamb is, of course, Christ, to whom John the Baptist referred as the "Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." The Lamb's wife, or bride, is clearly shown by the text to be the countless hosts of the saints taken collectively; that is, the church universal. The following scriptures further identify the spiritual bride of the Lord as the universal church: "I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." 2 Cor. 11: 2. Again, in the nineteenth verse of the second chapter of Hosea the Lord declares to His church, "I will be-truth thee unto Me forever." See also Eph. 5: 31, 32. We are strikingly impressed by the distinct blessing, or benediction, pronounced by the Holy Spirit upon all who respond to the gracious invitation to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Now note that it is called the marriage supper, not the marriage dinner, of the Lamb. Supper is eaten at the close of the day. Accordingly, this spiritual or gospel supper will be eaten by the Bridegroom with His bride, immediately after the close of the gospel day. It is evident that this blessed invitation is virtually a call to all people to get ready to meet and greet the Bridegroom when He comes. This solemn and stirring truth is impressively enunciated in the following words uttered by our Lord near the close of His earthly ministry: “Let your loins be girded about, and your light’s burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.” Luke 12: 35-37. The significance of these words is obvious. Jesus is Himself the nobleman, or “lord.” He went back to His Father, from whom He receives in marriage His church. In the end of the gospel age He “will return from the wedding” to take “His wife,” or church, back to His “Father’s house,” where He will cause her to sit down to meat, that is, partake of the “marriage supper.” We remember that when He instituted the “Lord’s Supper,” Jesus declared to His disciples: “But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.” How beautifully and impressively all this shows that when our Lord is about to be revealed from heaven, that when the Bridegroom is about to return to claim His spiritual bride, the church, a message to that effect would be proclaimed to all the world! Dear reader, precisely such a message has been preached for more than half a century, and is still preached and taught by thousands of devoted, Spirit-guided gospel messengers. These messengers are “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of . . . our Saviour Jesus Christ,” and are appealing to others, through the power of the Spirit, to “look” for the same blessed hope. For by prayerful study of the prophecies, they have been led to see that all things to-day portend the solemn fact the “coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” But the one question of eternal moment to each one of us is, Am I responding to this blessed call? Will I be ready to open to Him “immediately” when He comes and knocks? In one of His own parables our Lord enunciates clearly the sad fact that relatively few who hear the invitation will accept it. While Jesus was partaking of food, as a guest at the home of a Pharisee, one of His fellow guests said to Him, “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.” Jesus replied by going on to say that a certain man made a supper and bade many; that he sent forth his servants at supper time to say to those who had been called that “all things are now ready.” But they all began to make excuses. One offered the pretext that he had bought a piece of ground; another, that he had bought a yoke of oxen; another felt he could not respond, because he had married a wife. Of course these excuses were all, on their very face, preposterous. The servants were next sent out into the streets and lanes of the city. Some of those found there responded, but not enough of them to make up the prescribed number. The servants were therefore commanded to go out into the “highways and hedges” and compel them, by the sheer urgency of their invitation, to come in, that the master’s supper might be furnished with guests. When finally the forerordained number of guests was made up, the master solemnly declared that not one of those who had flouted the gracious invitation should ever taste of his supper. Does not this parable strikingly illustrate the tragic fact that when Christ sends forth His servants—gospel messengers—“at supper time” to announce to the nominal church and to the world that all things appertaining to the marriage supper of the Lamb are ready, very few, indeed, would respond to the divinely sent call? In the words of the inspired prediction, they will sneeringly reply, “Where is the promise of His coming?” When the Lord of Glory came to our world, as the Lamb of God, to be offered in sacrifice for our sins, “His own received Him not.” “He was despised and rejected of men.” Just before He appeared as the Saviour of the world, John the Baptist was sent of God to herald the advent of the long-expected Messiah. The Jews, the nominal church of Jehovah, rejected the message and despised the messenger. They were wilfully, and hence culpably, blind to the signs of their times. They heard the invitation sent from heaven, through John, to prepare for the gospel dinner—to prepare to meet and welcome their coming Lord and King. “But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise.” As a nation, the Jews rejected with scorn the distinctive gospel message for their day. They sowed to the wind; and think of the terrible whirlwind they reaped—national extirpation and world-wide dispersion! When our Lord, at the time of His last entry into Jerusalem, so graphically predicted that their enemies would come upon them and cast a trench about them, and shut them in on every side, and lay them low, even with the ground, and would not leave one stone of their temple, or of their city, upon another, He declared that it was because they knew not the time of their visitation. The Jews ought to have known the time of the appearing of their Messiah; for a score of Messianic prophecies found in their Scriptures, all conspired to attest that He would come at the very time He did come. A few of the Jews did recognize the message of John as the voice of prophecy, and eagerly accepted the call to the wedding dinner. This was their salvation, and also the guaranty that they will be raised to immortality at the first resurrection, and be present at the marriage supper of the Lamb and His bride. We should not forget that our Lord, after setting forth the definite signs which should portend His coming as impending, commanded His people to know that His coming is near, when they should see those signs. Mark you, He did not state that they might know, or should know, but He put it imperatively—“Know that it is near, even at the doors.” True it is that the day or the hour we can not know; but we can know, and are commanded to know, when that day and hour are approaching—are about to dawn, Through His apostle, Jesus says further as to the time of His appearing: “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, . . . and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of the light, and the children of the day.” 1 Thess. 5: 2-5. If this shall be true of us, we will have on the wedding-garment of divine righteousness, and with all the host of the redeemed, we shall hail Him with gladness, when He comes—with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Exceeding Great and Precious Promises
By H. E. Sawyer-Hopkins
“YE are My witnesses, saith the Lord.” “Fear ye not, neither be afraid: . . . ye are even My witnesses.” Isa. 43: 10, first part; 44: 8. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” Matt. 5: 16. “Peace be unto you: as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.” John 20: 21. “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” Joshua 1: 9. “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.” 2 Chron. 16: 9. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Ps. 46: 1. “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness.” Isa. 41: 10. “Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded.” 2 Chron. 15: 7. “Fear not: . . . I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.” Gen. 15: 1. “So shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Isa. 55: 11. “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Matt. 28: 20. “Ah Lord God! behold, Thou hast made the heaven and the earth by Thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for Thee.” Jer. 32: 17. “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” Luke 18: 27. “What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.” Ps. 56: 3. “Let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Gal. 6: 9. “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” Ps. 126: 6. Surely, these precious gems of truth should encourage all to labor diligently for the rescue of perishing souls, ever looking with earnest faith to Him who has promised not only help, but that a sure reward will follow the effort.