Angelic Revelations—the Gospel of God’s Love
Chapter 11
Sin and Error
Sin Has No Existence Except as It Is Created by Mankind, and Man Must Pay the Penalties (Jesus)
Mrs. Padgett Comments on Jesus' Message on the Cause of War
God Does Not Set Aside His Law of Compensation When Answering Man's Prayers (Elias)
Sin and Error
Sin Has No Existence Except as It Is Created by Mankind, and Man Must Pay the Penalties
I am here, Jesus
I come tonight because I see that you are lonesome and feel the need of companionship. I come to you as a brother and friend to cheer you and make you feel that, although you have no mortal friend with you, yet you have a friend in the spirit who is closer than a mortal brother, and who loves you with a deep and abiding love.
Today has been one in which the people of your land have celebrated what they suppose is my birthday. They have also worshiped me as one of the "Triune Godhead," as they believe. But as I have told you before, such worship is all wrong and is very distasteful to me. It only makes me the more anxious and determined that this great falsehood shall be exposed and not believed in any longer.
There is only one God, and that is the Father. He alone must be worshiped, for He alone can save mortals from the result of their sins, and from the consequences of the great fall of the first parents. I do not want men to look upon me as anything more than an elder brother who is filled with the Divine Love of the Father, and is very close to Him in the qualities of Love and faith.
I am a spirit who is possessed of a knowledge of the attributes of the Father that no other spirit has; yet I am only one of his children, as you and the rest of mankind are. And for my own brothers to worship me as God makes me very unhappy, seeing that they can have such little knowledge of the Truths of the Father.
Tomorrow, this worship and praise will be continued, and I must look upon it with all the distaste that I have, realizing that I am not able to set men aright in their beliefs and worship. Oh, I tell you, the harvest is ripe and the laborers are few! But very soon, I hope this truth of the Oneness of God and the brotherhood of myself with all humanity may be revealed to mankind, through the messages that you may receive and transmit to men.
The one great Truth that is the
foundation of men's salvation is the New Birth, and the fact that the Divine
Love of the Father is waiting for every man to let It enter his soul and make
him at-one with the Father.
I am with you very often and am trying to impress you with the great necessity of having these Truths revealed, as men's souls are longing for the Truth. Their intellects are dissatisfied with the present teachings of theology and with the sayings of the Bible in many places. While this is to be deplored, yet the time will come when the light that I came into the world to disclose will shine for every man who may come within the reach of my teachings.
Last night, I was reading as you read an article which advocated eliminating a large part of the New and nearly the whole of the Old Testament from the Christian teachings, and formulating a faith based entirely on my sayings and the writings of some of the Bible writers. Such a plan is one that should be investigated by the thinking Christians of the present day and, in a modified way, adopted.
The only difficulty in carrying out this plan effectively, and having it produce the results desired, is that the Bible does not contain many sayings of mine disclosing the Truths, and does contain many sayings attributed to me which I never said.
Take that saying over which a controversy is now occurring and which is referred to in another article contained in the book mentioned; that is, that I said I came not to bring peace to the world but rather a "sword."
Now, while this appears in Matthew's Gospel as coming from me, I never said it nor used any expression that would convey the meaning that some of the commentators are endeavoring to place upon the words. I never taught war upon a man's neighbors, and never at any time was such a thought a part of my teachings to the disciples or to any others.
No, militarism is all wrong and against all the precepts of truth. It should not be believed for a moment by any Christians, or by anyone else, that such action was ever advocated by me.
While I know the truth will cause a division among men as to what the truth is, and may even separate men and cause bitter thoughts and even hatred to arise in the souls of men towards their fellowmen, with even brother perhaps coming to dislike brother, yet the accomplishing of such results was not the object of my coming to earth and teaching the Truths. Rather, they are the results of the unavoidable conflict between truth and error. Truth cannot compromise, even for the sake of peace, and error will not submit or acknowledge its untruth so long as it can get any mortal to believe in and advocate it.
And because of the great gift of free will to man, truth itself, with all the Power and Knowledge of the Father in back of it, will not compel a man to accept it against his will. Hence, as man is very fallible and thinks and believes as his finite mental faculties convince him that a certain thing is or is not true, he will not be willing to surrender his convictions until the truth shall come to him in such a way as to persuade him of its reality. And as men differ so much in the operations of their minds and reasoning faculties, there will be necessarily a great division among them as to what is and what is not true. Consequently there will arise disputes and hatred, and even wars among them, in maintaining their respective beliefs and opinions as to what is truth.
While these feelings of discord must necessarily follow the advent of truth, yet I did not come for the purpose of bringing a "sword," but for the purpose of showing men what the truths are, and of causing harmony and belief in these truths. Never is hatred or discord or war among men justified, no matter what the cause. And if men will only learn the truth, there will never exist such feelings or acts.
Truth is, of itself, a thing apart, and admits of no variations or modifications. Hence the minds of men must submit to and embrace truth; it will never accommodate itself to the beliefs of men. One is fixed and unchangeable, and the other is always changeable. And until founded on a knowledge of the truth, men's beliefs will at some time or other have to change, because in the end truth will be established in the hearts and minds of men, so that harmony and peace shall reign in all God's universe.
Error does not exist in the world because God created it or permits it to exist, but solely because there belongs to man an unrestricted will which controls and influences his thoughts and acts, and which in turn is influenced by the desires and appetites of the mortal.
I know it is said that if God did not permit evil and carnal thoughts and desires to exist in the world, there would be no reason or possibility for man to exercise his will in a way that would bring him to all these feelings of hatred, etc. that I speak of. But this is merely saying that if a man had not the power of free will, he would commit no sin and indulge in no error. For you must know that, in his creation, he was given (under certain conditions) not only the privilege and the power to become a being entirely free from sin (which is merely the violation of God's established laws) but also the privilege and power to violate these laws. As he will, so shall he be.
Everything in nature may be turned into an instrument of harm if the laws which establish the functionings and workings of these things are violated. Sin does not exist as an abstract thing, but is the result of disobedience to some law whose operations must be pursued in conformity to its creation; and men who violate it must suffer the consequences of such violation. Mortals may not fully realize that every law carries with it a penalty for its violation, and this applies to the smallest law in the material universe as well as to the greatest law in the Spiritual Kingdom. And this penalty is just as sure in its operation as is the law itself.
A man may be created, physically, almost perfect. And as long as he lives in that way which does not violate some physical law, operating to keep him in that physical perfection, he will suffer no pain or inharmony in his being. But just as soon as he does violate this law, the penalty therefor asserts itself, and he suffers. Now, this arises not because there existed any pain or suffering in the abstract, and had not man violated this law, he would never have known that there was such a thing as pain or suffering. Rather, when he did violate the law, there came into operation the penalty which, as I have said, is always the result of violating the Laws of Harmony.
And the same principle applies to the moral and spiritual universe. As I have said, there is no such thing as sin or error in the abstract. As long as a mortal may know and follow the truth, he will never realize the existence of any such thing as sin or error. But the moment that law of truth is violated, the penalty asserts itself, and man realizes that sin and error do exist - not as an abstract entity, but as a concrete, sensitive thing, which will continue to exist until the violation of that law ceases, and harmony, in its operation, is again restored; or rather until man in his thoughts and acts is brought into harmony with the operation of the law.
So you see, God did not create or permit sin or error to exist, in the sense that it is an independent entity waiting to influence men to do wrong and violate his laws of perfect harmony. Rather, when men, in the exercise of their will (which God will not compel) violate one of his laws and thereby interfere with that harmony themselves, they cause the inharmony to arise, which brings with it the pains and sufferings and sins and errors which are prevalent in the world.
Let men think, if they can, of sin or error in the abstract, and then let them try to describe it. What is the result? Only vacuity.
So I say, God did not create sin or error, but gave to man that great gift of free will, free and not subject to His control, and then man became the responsible being that he is. But in giving man this great gift, He did not relinquish or subordinate His Will to that of man, nor did He confer upon man the power to change or modify His immutable Laws, which He Himself will not do. And within the limitations that man can exercise his will - that is, when such exercise does not interfere with the Will of God or His Laws - man may exercise that will with impunity and without responsibility, as it were. But when he infringes upon the Will of God, or violates one of His Laws in the exercise of that will, then, while man is not controlled in the exercise of his will, yet, for such violation, he must pay the penalty which such violation calls into operation.
God has decreed that His Universe shall be one of harmony in its workings, and that no man shall destroy or interfere with that harmony; and no man can. But, as man is a part of that harmony, his every act which tends to interfere therewith (and it does not, except as to himself) brings upon himself the penalty of that interference.
Let a man who has violated this harmony (and thereby becomes inharmonious himself) again get into that harmony, and, as to him, there would be no sin or error. Let every man do this, and there would be no sin or error in all God's universe.
So I repeat, there is no sin or error in the abstract in all the universe. They appear only when man himself, in the exercise of his will, interferes with the harmony of God's laws. It makes no difference what the cause of this interference may be; in what way the will of man may have been exercised, or for what reason inharmony is brought about. The effect is the same, because harmony and inharmony cannot exist together, no matter what the cause may be. It does not matter that, in one case, the cause may appear excusable, or even apparently forced on the individual. The excuse for, or apparent justification of the cause will not make what is inharmonious unite and work in unison with God's laws of harmony.
And hence, the man whose will may be excused in the way mentioned by reason of heredity, or environments, or want of proper mental or moral instruction, is just as much out of harmony with the violated law as is the man who willfully violates the law. The penalty must be enforced just the same in each case, as the only remedy is the restoration of the harmony.
But there is this difference between the individuals of what may be called the involuntary class and the individuals of the voluntary class: The former will find it easier and faster to get into this condition of harmony than will the latter.
So, man must not accuse God of permitting sin and error to exist in the world, as they do not exist, except as man brings them into existence by the wrongful exercise of his will.
All sin and error bring their sufferings. And if there were no sufferings, and men were permitted to exercise their wills irrespective of the laws which govern the universe, and without incurring the penalties, then the only result would be that anarchy would prevail in all God's Universe where men live, and in the spirit universe as well.
However, the will and its great franchise of unrestricted exercise pass with the mortal when he leaves his material body.
So, with all my Love, I will say good night.
Your
brother and friend,
Jesus
God Loves All of His Children. His Love and Care Are Over All, Even Though Some Are Strangers to His Love and Mercy
I am here, Jesus
I was with you tonight at the meeting and heard what the preacher said, and he declared some truths. He also said some things that were not true, such as: "Only those who have been converted are sons of God."
All men are the children of God. His Love and Care are over all, and they are very dear to Him. Otherwise, He would not have rebestowed His Love upon them and given them the privilege of becoming inhabitants of His Celestial Kingdom.
The mere fact that they are sinners makes them no less His children, whom He is so anxious to redeem and fill with the Divine Love. And when the preacher says, "They who are sinners are not the sons of God," he does not declare the truth; for they are all His sons - some to enjoy the pure life and bliss which the purification of their natural Love will bring to them, and others to enjoy and inhabit the Celestial Kingdom which the New Birth will bring to them. But all are His sons, though some have wandered and become strangers to His Love, just as the prodigal son was who left his Father's house for a far country.
This doctrine of the sinful not being sons of God is a damnable and harmful doctrine, and it will cause many to give up hope of ever becoming anything else than the sons of perdition, or as these orthodox say, of the devil.
The Father's Mercy is for all. If certain of His children do not choose to seek and receive the Divine Love which, when possessed, will make angels of them, yet, they are still His sons. And in the fullness of time, or before the time of the Great Consummation, they will become pure and happy beings, as were the first parents before the fall.
And while this preacher has a great amount of the Divine Love in his soul, and is earnestly seeking for more in the right Way, yet his beliefs and teachings as to the destiny and future condition of those who may receive this Love and become at-one with the Father are all wrong. This error will tend to retard his own progress in the development of his soul and in his advancement towards the Kingdom of God.
He is possessed of these beliefs, of course, because of his study and interpretation of some of the declarations of the Bible. Therefore he is not teaching what he does not believe, or what is false to his own conscience. Nevertheless, it is false, and he will have to suffer the consequences of such false belief and teachings.
While his ignorance will not invoke the penalties of the law that applies to the willful deceiver or teacher of false doctrines, yet neither will it excuse him or relieve him from the penalties of that law which demands the truth and only the truth to be believed and taught. He will have to get rid of these false beliefs, even though he may have some of the Divine Love in his soul; for whenever there exists untruth in belief in the heart and soul of man, to that extent it interferes with the inflowing of the Love, and the progress of that soul towards perfect unity with the Father.
Truth is a fact of itself. It can have no affiliation with untruth, no matter that untruth is the result of ignorance; for all untruth is the result of ignorance, and must be eradicated from the hearts of men before there can be that harmony between God and man which the very nature of truth itself requires. So, if no man could be the son of God, in not having the perfect harmony which truth absolutely demands, God would have no sons amongst men. The condition of the sinner and that of the man who has experienced the New Birth differs only in the fact that one has not commenced to have in his soul the Essence of Truth, while the other, to an extent, has that Essence. All may have that Essence, and to a great abundance. Some may never have the Essence of Divine Truth; yet no man will be left without the essence of the truth which leads to the perfect man.
The Truth of the angel existence and the truth of the perfect man are equally truths, though the former is of a higher degree and nature than the other.
Our first parents were the children of God - His Own creatures, good and perfect - and after their fall, they were no less His children; for His Love was so great for them that, in the fullness of perfection of His Plans, He again bestowed upon them the privilege of receiving His Divine Love, and sent me to proclaim the fact and to show men the Way to obtain that Great Love. The death that had existed for all the long centuries was supplanted by Life potential, and I became the Way, the Truth, and the Life; and Immortality became a possibility to men.
So all men are the sons of God in one relation or the other, depending upon, in the one case, whether a man will turn from his sins and be satisfied with the perfection of his natural love and the home that belongs to the perfect man, or whether, in the other, he seeks for the inflowing of the Divine Love into his soul, which will enable him to enter the Divine Heavens and have the certainty of Immortality.
When God rebestowed this Divine Love on man, there was no man in existence, or spirit either, who could have been called His son if, as the preacher said, it was necessary that men or spirits had received this Love and had been converted prior to this rebestowal. None had received this Love, which is the only thing or Power in all God's Universe that can convert a man, dead in trespass and sin, into a Divine angel. Yet God loved all His children. He conferred upon them this Great Gift not because they were converted or sinless but because they were the children He created and still loved. If God had loved only the righteous, there would have been no one who could have been the object of His Bounty. He would have had no sons or children of His Love.
And now that He has rebestowed this Gift, and some of the sons of men have received and possess It and are more in harmony with Him, it is not true that those who were His sons and children before Its bestowal are any less His sons and children because they may not have sought for and have made this Gift their own. No, the Father's Love is so great and broad and deep that It goes out to all the children of earth and waits upon their call for Its bestowal. But the lost sheep is as much His child as the ninety and nine who are safe in the fold. And although the lost one may never find or enter the fold where those who possess His Divine Love are sheltered, yet that sheep is and remains the object of His Love.
God is Love - and love knows no limitations in its heights or depths. It exists in the highest heavens, and reaches to the lowest hells, and will in its own way and in its own time work its own fulfillment. All men will come into harmony with the Will of the Father, which is perfect. And even though some, and I may say the majority of men, will not accept the invitation to become angels of His Celestial Kingdom, which is not compulsory, yet they do His Will by becoming, in the future, near or far, free from the sin and error of their own creation, and as pure and perfect as they were when first created and pronounced "Good" by the Father.
Man's greatest enemy to man is he who, having received the assurance of possessing the Divine Love and thereby becoming, as it were, a Divine son of the Father, and who believes in the errors of the Bible and the misinterpretations of its Truths, declares that all others of mankind are "hated" of God, are objects of His "wrath," and are certain of eternal damnation and everlasting torment.
It is deplorable that such beliefs and such declarations should exist and continue to be made, especially on the part of those who undertake to lead the masses in the Way to God's Truths and Plans for men's happiness, and toward redemption from the evils and sins that cause them so much suffering.
But all this shows the power and blindness of belief founded upon error and untruthful teachings. And strange as it may seem, these leaders of the ignorant may have some of the Divine Love in their souls. Yet their mental and intellectual beliefs are so fixed and unmovable that even the possession of this Love will not permit them to understand that the Father's Love is for all, and that wrath is not a part of His Being, but is actually a quality of sinful man that these believers in error attribute to Him.
If God may be said to hate anything, He hates sin; but He Loves the sinner who is the creature of His Will, and who is so unfortunate as to have created that which defiles him, and which causes him to wander away, not only from the Father, but also from his own perfect and pure creation.
Well, I have written enough for tonight, and I hope that what I have said may prove beneficial not only to the sinner, but also to the man, preacher, or layman who, possessing some of the Divine Love, proclaims that only he or others like him are the sons of God.
As Paul said, "They see through a glass darkly, but then they shall see face to face"; and when they do, they will see such evidences and manifestations of the Father's Love that they will know that they and their sinning brothers are all sons of the Father, although one may be an heir to the Celestial Kingdom and the Divine Essence of the Father, while the other may be an heir only to the pure natural love and perfect manhood which the so- called "Adam" possessed before his fall.
I must stop now, but in doing so, will say that you must not let what any of these orthodox believers may say disturb your faith in our communications; for they know only what the Bible tells them, and you know the Truths that we declare.
I will soon come and write you a message of truth that I have been waiting some time to write. Believe that I love you and am with you, praying for you and helping you with my influence.
Good night, and may the Father bless you.
Your
brother and friend,
Jesus
What Men Can Do to Eradicate War and Evil from Men's Souls. Jesus Never Came to Bring a "Sword," but to Bring Peace Through His Teachings
I am here, Jesus
I desire to say that I was with you tonight at the church. I listened to the preacher's sermon and was somewhat surprised that he should have declared, in the manner described, that all the wars and persecutions and outrages that have been perpetrated on mankind since my coming can be ascribed to my coming and my teachings. I, of course, can only resent the imputation, and declare that the preacher has misconceived the cause of these wars and persecutions. And to charge that they are due to my truths, or the truths that I taught, is not only an injustice to me but also a great injury to the truths and objects of my mission to mankind.
Never did I attempt by force or constraint to compel a human soul to believe in my truths or to become a follower of me, in or out of the church.
My mission on earth was to show men the Way to the Father's Love, and to declare to them the Great Gift of this Love; also, to break down and destroy the erroneous beliefs and ignorance that then existed among men as to what was necessary in order to seek for and obtain this Love of the Father and their own salvation. And so far as the moral or spiritual truths which I taught antagonized the false beliefs and practices of men, there was, and necessarily would be, a conflict in the thoughts and lives of those who followed me, and those who persisted in their existing beliefs. To this extent, I brought a "sword" into the world. But it was not the sword that called for bloodshed and murder and persecutions; it was the sword that pierced men's souls, where this great conflict should and must be fought to the end.
No nation can be more spiritual in its government, or in its treatment of other nations, than the individuals composing it are spiritual. The nation cannot be greater than, or different from, the individuals who control it, be such control centered in one or more individuals, or in a secular or religious head. The ruler, if he be not a real follower of me (although he may claim to be), cannot attribute to me the results of his acts and deeds in carrying into action his thoughts and desires and ambitions. The present war (World War I), of which the preacher spoke with such horror and lamentation, is not due to my coming into the world as an iconoclast or destroyer of sin and error, but to the fact that men refused to be controlled or persuaded by my doctrines of peace. They acted as they did because of the sin and evil desires and immoral ambition that they possessed and permitted to control them. The "sword" which he claims I brought into the world did not cause these sinful and inhuman desires and ambitions to manifest themselves in the form of war and all the evils that follow it. No, this war is not a part of my warfare or the Plan of the Father to bring salvation to mankind.
The cause is this and only this: the exercise by men, in control of the nations, of their desires for increased power and territory and subjugation of nations, together with their sinful cravings for what they call glory and unsatisfied ambition. Had they understood my warfare, each of these men would have found his enemy in himself and nowhere else; and the great war would be a war of the soul and not the war of nations.
Each nation claims that its war is right and that God is on its side, and prays to that God to assist it in overcoming its enemies. But I want to say here (and it may astonish those who believe that if they conceive they are in the right, and pray to God for success, their prayers will be answered) that God hears only the prayers of the righteous, or of the sinner who prays for mercy and salvation. Never in all the history of mankind has God responded to the prayers of men or nations to assist in the destruction of other men or nations, and this notwithstanding the accounts in the Old Testament of the many times that He was supposed to have helped the Jews to destroy their enemies.
If men will think for a moment that God is a God of Love, and that all people are His children, and the equal recipients of His love and care, they will realize that His love would not permit Him to sacrifice the happiness or well being of one class of His children to satisfy the desires of revenge or hatred or outraged justice, as they conceive it, of another class of His children.
In all the beliefs of this kind, men have misconceived God and His nature. With men, like other creatures, His powers are governed by His immutable laws, and those laws are no respecters of persons. Man was given a free will, which he could exercise righteously or sinfully, and God does not forcibly control such exercise. But the same, exercised rightly or wrongly, is subject to law, which imposes penalties or rewards as the law is being violated or obeyed.
This war, which so many mortals believe and declare is a punishment inflicted on men because of their sins and disobedience - that is, that it was specially caused by God because of such condition of men, and some expounders of the Bible teach that it was prophesied centuries ago - this war, I say, is actually the result of the sinful conditions and workings of men's souls and thoughts, the natural effect of the causes that men themselves created, and the exact workings of the laws that such causes brought into operation. And in a similar condition, where the same causes exist, laws will invariably operate, and wars will occur and recur until the possibility of the causes ceases to exist.
God never ceases to love and care for mankind. He always desires that men shall be happy and at-one with Himself, and that they shall exercise their wills in accordance with His will and His laws. But just as certainly, He never endeavors to compel men by compulsion or force to exercise their wills in a manner that is not voluntary with them. Should He do this, men would cease to be the greatest of His creation, and would be incapable of giving Him that voluntary love and obedience which only are acceptable to Him.
But from what I have said, it must not be inferred that the Father is indifferent to men's sufferings and the calamities that wars bring upon mankind, for He is not. And if, in His wisdom, He saw that it would be for the lasting good of the men who are engaged in the present war that He should intervene by the mere force of His powers and end the war, He would do so. But, in that wisdom, He sees that there is a good which men should have that is greater and more eternal than their mere physical and material good. And that greater good cannot be obtained by them through His bringing the war suddenly to an end without regard to their souls, thoughts, and desires. The law of compensation must work for nations as well as for individuals, even though the innocent apparently suffer as well as the guilty.
On earth, as men are now constituted - that is, in their condition of sin and disobedience to the laws of their being - exact justice cannot be expected, and is not received, because this justice is the subject of men's dispensation, and not that of God. A man is influenced by his desires, which in turn control his will, and results in his acts and deeds, which must of necessity bring their results. These results can be avoided only by absence of deeds; and these, by a different exercise of the will; and this, by the change of desire. So, when a man so desires and wills, God will not set aside the Law of Compensation and cause results to follow that are not the consequences of such desire and will.
But God is always willing that these evil results shall have no existence. And through the influence of his Love and Holy Spirit, He is calling men to learn the Way to wholly prevent the possibility of these results coming to them, either as individuals or as nations. He has provided the Way, and is teaching men the knowledge thereof, through and by which the causes that produce these harmful results may be utterly destroyed, and prevented from ever arising to bring the deplorable results to them such as are manifested in the present war.
God will not interfere by His mere Fiat to cause the one side or the other of those who are engaged in this war of bloodshed and carnage to become victorious. The Law of Compensation must work. And as the leaders of the respective nations have sown, so must the nations reap; and in this, the innocent must suffer in this reaping because, as conditions are, the law could not work its fulfillment unless all within the scope of its workings should feel its operation.
But the Father and the hosts of His angels and the spirits of men are working to bring this terrible catastrophe to an end. You have written long, and it is late, so I will postpone the further consideration of this subject to another time.
Believe that I am with you and love you, and will sustain you in your desires to do my work.
Your
brother and friend,
Jesus
Mrs. Padgett Comments on Jesus' Message on the Cause of War
I am here, Your own true and loving Helen
You have received quite a wonderful message from the Master tonight, and it will cause some surprise, no doubt, to many who believe that God confers a special dispensation for every prayer, irrespective of the workings of His Laws.
But the Master has clearly shown that this belief is erroneous, and that man himself can prevent God from answering prayer. I do not mean that it will not be possible for Him to do so, if He should choose to exercise His Power, but that man, by his own will and deeds, places himself in such a condition that God would have to violate His Own Laws to make a response in accordance with the prayers of man, which He will not do.
I know that you will find the message very interesting, but not so much so as what will follow. For the one places man in the condition of having to depend on himself without expectation of the Father's Help, and the other will show that the Father is not only willing and ready to help men in their distress, but also will show the Way in which He will help, and the absolute certainty of that help being given.
Your
own true and loving
Helen
God Does Not Set Aside His Law of Compensation When Answering Man's Prayers
I am here, Elias, prophet of old (Elijah)
I will write a short message tonight, as it is late and you are tired.
Well, I desire to say that the message you received from the Master contains some of the most important truths affecting the relationship of God to man in his worldly or material living.
Every truth that was uttered has in it an element which shows that man must expect and know to a certain extent that God will not interfere with the law of compensation as to its effects and results. He will only help man to remove the causes that so certainly entail the results. And the sooner men know this and more thoroughly understand it, the better will they become able to avoid the consequences of sin and the violation of law, and understand that no prayer will cause God to respond where a suspension or setting aside of His laws or their workings is necessary.
He will respond to prayer where that prayer asks the removal of causes, but never when it applies only to effects.
Men should learn this truth, and in their prayers, ask that those things or causes which (in compliance with the law of compensation) bring about results that are harmful to them be removed or eliminated from their acts and deeds, as well as from their desires.
I could write a long message on this subject, but will not do so now, as you are not just in condition to receive it. I will come soon and write at length.
So, with my Love, I will say good night.
Your
brother in Christ,
Elias
The Greatest Sin Is Against the Holy Spirit That Conveys the Divine Love into the Soul
I am here, Judas Iscariot
I come tonight to write a short message, for I have been interested in what you and your friends have said regarding the "greatest sin."
Now, to me, and for a long time, the greatest sin in all the Universe of God was my sin in betraying Jesus to the Jews. And it was a real, living, blasting sin, and so enormous that I could not endure my life and face the recollection of that awful tragedy. But since I have been forgiven of that sin, and have become a redeemed child of the Father, and an inhabitant of the Celestial Heavens and a possessor of Immortality, I realize and now know that my sin was not the greatest, even though I suffered for long years after I became a spirit.
As sin may be committed by neglect as well as by affirmative action, and my betraying the beloved Master was a heinous one, yet even in my case, and as applicable to me, my greater sin was not seeking for the Divine Love of the Father. We were not ignorant of this, for the Master had taught us that this Love was open to us and waiting for us to seek and obtain It. But I had not sought for It in the right way, and of course had not obtained It. And in such neglect, I was not the only one of the disciples guilty of that sin.
No, even we who had been with the Master for so long a time did not fully understand the importance of obtaining this Great Love. We were more interested in his establishing his Kingdom on earth and, as we thought, a material Kingdom, to be controlled by spiritual powers manifested in him, and in us as his disciples. In our minds, the material was of more importance than the spiritual. And our expectations were that this great power would come and that the Master would become our king.
As I say, he had taught us that this Divine Love was open to us and that, by prayer and earnest seeking, we could receive It. But, to us, there were so many important things to be done - connected, as I say, more immediately with our earth lives - that we neglected the Great Gift that was ours for Its seeking. And, as a consequence, in my case, I had to suffer for a long time before I awakened to the fact that it was not too late, even for me, to receive It.
My sin of betrayal had been forgiven me, in that I realized that the recollections of it were leaving me, and that I was progressing in the way of purifying my soul in its natural love; that, as the spirit of the one time murderer, I was coming into happiness and light.
And then I had memories of what the Master had said to me about this Great Love and, after awhile, I had sufficient awakening to cause me to make the effort to obtain this Love. And as that awakening came to me, my old time associates who had progressed to the higher spheres came to me and, in their great beauty and transcendent love, helped me to progress and to pray until at last this Love came to me. I then realized that not only had my sin of murder been wholly forgiven but also that the greater sin of rejecting and neglecting to seek for the Divine Love had been forgiven me.
The sin of the murderer or of any violator of God's Laws, other than that of rejecting the inflowing of this Love, may and will be forgiven a man, and he will become pure and happy in his natural love. But such forgiveness will not make him an inhabitant of the Divine Heavens or an inheritor of Immortality; while the forgiveness of the sin of rejecting the Holy Spirit will not only take away from him the recollections and taints of all other sins, but will also open up to him the very portals of the Celestial Heavens and give him a home in the Father's Kingdom.
And thus you see, every sin, except that of sinning against the Holy Spirit, may be forgiven a man, with the result that he will become the perfect man. But the forgiveness of all these sins many times over, if it could so happen, would not make him a Divine angel.
And I need not explain to you, for you can readily see from what I have written, that the greatest sin in all the world is the sin against the Holy Spirit; the sin of neglecting or refusing to let the Holy Spirit bring the great Divine Love of the Father to and into the soul of man. This sin is the greatest not only because of the results that flow from it but also because it will continue to be the unpardonable sin so long as man refuses to permit its forgiveness.
When the sin of murder and such kindred sins are committed, the sin then ends and only its consequences must be suffered and the penalty paid. But the sin against the Holy Spirit is a continuing sin, committed every day and hour and minute, and never having an end until the mortal seeks and receives the inflowing of this Divine Love. As has been written you many times, yes, the large majority of men and spirits will continue forever and ever to commit this sin. And in the effects to them to follow, it will become, and is, the unpardonable sin.
As we are much interested in you, and have determined that you shall not go astray from these Divine Truths, my brother spirits of the Celestial Spheres thought it fitting that I should write to you on this subject, inasmuch as the world considers that I committed the greatest sin in all the history of the world; and that I should explain that the greatest sin in all the world is the sin against the Holy Ghost.
We all know this; and, while I write, you must believe that all of us, and the Master too, declare that the sin I name is the greatest sin, for it is true.
And now, to be a little more personal, for your gratification and comfort, I desire to tell you that you three will not be found guilty of having committed this great sin, for you have much of this Divine Love in your hearts and souls. And the Holy Spirit is with you quite often in answer to your prayers, and in answer to ours also. For we all pray for you, causing this Love of the Father to possess your soul, even as the leaven wrought in the batch of dough.
I have written longer than I expected, and will now stop. But be assured that you have our Love and the Blessings of the Father.
Your
brother in Christ,
Judas
