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In our last number we noticed the origin of man to be of God and not derived from monkeys; and how man was created by God out of the dust of the ground and quickened to life by the breath of God. So, we do either accept this infallible record of God or reject it. If we accept it, then we must reject the damnable and God dishonoring errors and poisonous venom of evolution. Which poison drives us farther from God and consequently deeper into sin. On the other hand, if we reject it, we then despise and abhor the very witness of God, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. For it is He that saith, “Let him that is athirst come: and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I corne quickly.” Rev. 22:17-20.

Father—Thus you see children that this witness is coming quickly to testify for or against you. And, if you entertain any hopes that He will testify on your behalf, before the judgment seat, how then can you be misled by such abominable errors of evolutionists and scientists? O no! my dear children, be not deceived: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last,” (Rev. 22:13). Therefore, as sinful man has received his origin from God he is also subject to God. And as you live, move, and have your being in Him, so too, your end is destined by Him.

Martha—You say, “our end is destined by Him”; What are we to consider, as our end? Is it that lowering of our body into the grave? I have heard it expressed very often, at the grave: “that is the end of him,” or, ‘that is the last of him.”

Father—No my dear child! that is not the end of a person. It is the end of all flesh, as the scriptures teach; for, “dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” Gen. 3:19. But, Martha! does man consist only of dust or a body? Indeed not! God created man in His image (Gen. 1:27). Wherein did that image of God consist? In the form of the earthly body? That cannot be, for God has no body. What then? Look at Col. 3:10, where we read, “And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of Him that created him.” Again, look at Ephes. 4:24, which reads, “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Here then we have two proofs that the image of God consists, not in any external form of the body, but rather, in KNOWLEDGE, RIGHTEOUSNESS, and HOLINESS, which is internal, or the soul, which is an immortal spirit which proceeded from God, Gen. 2:7. And as this immortal spirit was breathed into the form of dust whereby it became a living soul, so at death this breath of life is cut off and man becomes lifeless, without reasoning powers and turns cold as the stones of the earth. And as the body is returned to the ground from whence it was taken; likewise the soul returns unto God from whence it proceeded. Children, is God the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end? He certainly is!

James—But why must we return unto the dust?

Joan—Yes! I would like to know that too. If God made man, and that too, supposed to be so very good, as in Gen. 1:31, why then does He destroy the good work of His hands? Look at so many dear loving little babies and young boys and girls that die so soon after they are born. And if those men lived so many hundreds of years as we read of in the Bible, why do they only live sixty and seventy years today? Is God beginning to get weary?

Martha—O sister, think before you speak. If you have read so much of the Bible and believe that God did preserve those men of old so many years, why dont you bring to mind that blessed truth of Isaiah 40:28, “The Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary.” O no, Joan, the Lord is not weary nor unable to preserve life in man. The simple answer is—that man has sinned against God and therefore God must bring an end to sinful man. He must punish man, for his transgressions, in soul and body as He threatened to do when He said to Adam: “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” Gen. 2:17. On the contrary, He promised Adam “eternal life” upon perfect obedience to the law of love to God and his neighbor which God implanted in him by creation. And God even confirmed this promise by the tree of life, Gen. 2:9. And God added a probationary command, whereby Adam could manifest his obedience. For, as long as he did not eat of that tree he would live. But alas, Adam did freely and of his own accord accept from Eve and ate of that forbidden fruit, and, thus, he sinned against God and brought the curse of death upon himself and all his posterity, Rom. 5:12, “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.” Now Joan! why don’t you read and remember such truths and ponder them before you spit out your gall of bitterness against God and His Word? Surely you prove that by your much reading of all sorts of books, excepting the Bible, you are rapidly acquiring a store of knowledge which is only after the many sought out inventions of men, Eccles. 7:29. The end of which is “a weariness of the flesh. Let us …. fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”

Joan—What is God’s commandment, then, that death should mar our pleasures and good times?

Father—We find that command of God in Gen. 2:16 and 17:—“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Here we may learn that God required obedience of man to His command. Now comes the serpent, or Satan, and he said to man, for Eve was part of Adam, “Ye shall not surely die”: if ye eat of that tree, but you will “be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Then she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband; and he did eat. Whereupon their eyes were opened, and they beheld their shame and hid themselves from God. This act of man was a disobeying the command of God by which he brought the threat of death upon himself. He transgressed against God and the Lord called unto Adam, “Where art thou?” And he said, I was afraid, because I was naked.” And the Lord asked him whether he did eat of the tree, whereof he should not eat. Then he said, “The woman gave me of the tree”; and God asked her what she had done, and she answered, “the serpent beguiled me.” Hereupon God cursed the serpent, and spoke out His awful woe upon man for his disobedience. Drove him from paradise to ever after eat bread in the sweat of his face, till he return unto the ground. Thus man was driven from the presence of God as a bitter consequence of his sin. Likewise man must also die as to the body so well as he died in soul when he sinned; and then he will be driven from God in soul and body at the Judgment Day, when all men will be judged according to their works done here below. Joan! do you now understand, “why, we must return unto the dust?”

Joan—Yes, I believe so:—Because we have sinned against God and the punishment is death.

Martha—Exactly, now you have it. Do you still think that God is not just because He takes young and old away by death? Is He becoming so weary that He cannot continue to preserve man in life? Oh no, dear sister, He is the Almighty God, and He crieth aloud by His prophet Isaiah in chapter forty, verses twenty-five and six: “To whom then will ye liken Me, or shall I be equal? Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: He calleth them all by names by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power; not one faileth.”

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