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OUR TEXT for this evening is found in the eighth of Paul's letter to the Romans, verse 21: "Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."

When we speak of liberty in respect to our human family, we must necessarily use the term in an accommodative sense. All civilized nations are prone to boast of their liberty. Christian people are also disposed to boast of our liberty, and yet as a matter of fact the whole world (as the Apostle explains) are slaves. We were born slaves, and only those who have been set free know what real liberty is. Our text, however, assures us that it is part of the Divine program that all of God's creatures who will, may eventually experience this liberty.

As we look out into the world we perceive that everyone, not the world merely but the Church also, are bound in a certain way, bound by our own ignorance for one thing, bound by our own mental weakness, our lack of knowledge, our moral weakness and imperfection, and our physical weakness, so that, as the Apostle has truly said, we cannot do the things which we would. From this standpoint, dear friends, all talk of liberty might seem to be strained. And then the natural question arises: Why did God create us? Why did He bring us into circumstances of slavery, sin, and imperfection in our own flesh? The Bible answers that we were all born in sin, we were all shapen in iniquity, "in sin did my mother conceive me." That is the explanation.

We know it is the truth that none was ever perfect born except one, Jesus. Adam was in his perfection when God created him in His own image, in His own likeness, and declared him to be very good, very satisfactory to God. That must have been perfection, my dear friends; nothing short of perfection is satisfactory to God. We are imperfect, and therefore cannot of ourselves be satisfactory. We require that something should be done on our behalf in order to render us satisfactory to God. We need a great work of restitution and reconstruction. We need that these mortal bodies of ours should be changed, made perfect. If they were perfect, with our minds, our will, and our intentions perfect, what grand privileges we would have in life, and especially so if all the human family were of the same mind. If right-mindedness prevailed, Oh how grand the world would be!

Even at the present time, notwithstanding all the disadvantages of the curse, how beautiful it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. To have the spirit of a sound mind, to have the spirit of liberty, is a great advantage in the present life. What advantage has a Christian? Much every way, he has been made free, not wholly free but partially free.

This matter of slavery, then, dear friends, in order to have the thing properly before our minds, must be recognized as a slavery which began six thousand years ago, when our first parents were disobedient to God and were expelled from Eden, and cut off from fellowship with the Divine Creator. Then, indeed, their weakness and their ignorance began to weigh upon them, and to impair their powers of mind and of body. It was not long before the disappointments and dissatisfactions of their minds were impressed upon the children that were born, and even in the first of their children we find a murderer. Doubtless he was marked by the very conditions that prevailed at the time of his birth and before.

The parents, cast out of Eden, would naturally feel a measure of resentment, dissatisfaction and discontent, wondering if they should not have had more consideration, wondering who should be blamed, and striving to console themselves with the changed conditions in which they found themselves under the curse, outcasts from Eden. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground from whence thou wast taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. That is to say, the curse under which they lived, and the sweat of face which was incidental to gaining their livelihood, so changed their general attitude towards everything that selfishness came in. All this, we can

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see, marked the children, and thus the first son was a murderer, he had the spirit of a murderer born in him; a spirit of resentment was there. Not that Cain was wholly to blame for his condition, any more than you and I are wholly to blame for our condition. You were born in sin, I was born in sin, and so was the whole human family, according to God's Word, born sinners; and the responsibility for this lies not with God; God did not create our race imperfect; the responsibility lies with Father Adam. With everything perfect and everything to his advantage, his was the disobedient act, the sin that brought the trouble upon himself and upon all of his children. God's share in the transaction, therefore, has been merely the holding up of those glorious principles of righteousness which eventually shall shine out and be manifest to angels and to men, as the only proper course which God could have pursued in respect to His rebellious children.

And the fact, dear friends, that we were thus born under these conditions explains to us a great deal that previously was so mystifying. How many people ask: Why did God create that man in such a condition? Why did God bring forth into life the imbecile? Thus the Lord is charged with what Adam did, and what the children of Adam do. People are thus very unjust because of their ignorance of God, and because of their ignorance of the laws of heredity. But we are now seeing that the laws of heredity prevail. The manner in which you live as parents at the time of the birth of children has much to do with their future. Not that it is possible for us as imperfect beings to bring forth perfect children. That is impossible, because "who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" as the Scriptures remark. But in proportion as the parents are sanctified to God, in that proportion the child will have a blessing.

You remember how the Apostle Paul says that the believing parent (even if the other parent is an unbeliever), exercises a sanctifying, setting-apart influence in respect to the child. Whether the believing parent be father or mother, the child is counted as belonging to the believer; for the Apostle says, "Else would your children have been unclean." Because God's people enter into relationship with God, all that they have shares in their relationship to Him. Not only their children, but all that they possess, belongs to the Lord when they have made themselves fully His by consecration. And so our children from this standpoint, the Apostle declares, are the Lord's children, and His special care is over these children of believing parents. But even upon this simple doctrine of God's Word (and the beauty of it is manifest), namely, that He should have a special care over the children of those who have made a consecration of their lives to Him, that their consecration should more or less mark their children favorably, many have stumbled. We know what errors have been taught right from this very text. Presbyterians, having established to their satisfaction the doctrine that persons are either elect or non-elect, and that this election took place long before this world was made, naturally enough believe that their children are elect also, and thus in olden times they divided between elect children and non-elect children. The elect were all to go to Heaven and the non-elect were all to go to eternal torture. The Presbyterian General Assembly meeting in the United States, held about eight weeks ago, in the city of Atlanta, Ga., passed a very wonderful resolution on this subject of eternal torture. I was pleased to read that they resolved that, henceforth, no infants shall be damned to eternal torment. That is grand, dear friends! Think of it: If 90,000 a day are dying, at least one-third of that number are infants, and thus 30,000 infants are saved every day! Now, the only wonder is that our dear Presbyterian friends did not do this sooner. But we rejoice at every step, and we believe that others will be sure to follow. I do not, indeed, have any feeling of retaliation. Quite to the contrary, I rejoice. My parents were Presbyterians; I was duly baptized that I might be one of the elect infants and get to Heaven, and I appreciate the confidence of my parents. They did according to their light, and I am glad that by the grace of God our light is still better than theirs, not that we have a new light, but that the same lamp (God's Word) is now illuminated as never before. Each page is casting light and glory upon the other pages. Indeed, the whole book is luminous; and as you and I become real Bible students, and take off the sectarian spectacles that so troubled us, we begin to see light in God's light. Then our hearts also are illuminated. The illumination is going on, and I find that I can see that illumination even in the faces of those who have come to a knowledge of the Truth. Their faces seem to shine in a way they did not shine before. They seem to shine more than the faces of other good people even.

You know so many people in the world have only blank faces, they have nothing within that gives the real brightness, and even if they be Christ's and are trusting in the Lord, there is so much that is obscure and so much that is dark, just as it was with ourselves, no wonder that their countenances are more or less overcast. But now, thank God, the true light is shining more and more clearly, and we enjoy it, and it is shining from our faces I trust, and is being told by our tongues for the edification and the blessing and refreshment of others, that all may have a share in the blessing that is coming to God's people. That light was obscured for a time during the Dark Ages, because the Word of God was then neglected. It was not studied at all for over 1,400 years. Only creeds were studied; and even since the abandonment of creeds to some extent, the Bible is generally only partially studied, with fear and trembling, lest anyone should get away from the creeds. Such forget that God never had anything to do with the creeds, that they were man-made, and even worse than that, devil-made.

I am glad, dear friends, that Presbyterians are seeing the plan of God more fully, and that they are realizing, as we are realizing, that God is love, and that a God of love never damned even the infants. We would hold that nobody is in danger of going to the eternal torment that we once said we believed in. We are glad that our Presbyterian friends very kindly let the little ones off, it is a step in the right direction. We rejoice with them, and we hope that some steps will be taken for the liberation of others who died before this resolution was passed, that the damage may thus be removed entirely. Yet with our understanding of the matter none need have troubled. We know that the little ones are merely waiting, just as all the remainder of Adam's race are waiting, for the second coming of Messiah. They are all waiting for the time in which Christ will set up His Kingdom, when He will bind Satan for 1,000 years, that the "Old Dragon" may deceive the nations no more. Oh, how sadly he has been deceiving us, and how glad we are to get rid of the deception, and to see God's true character more fully!

So, then, dear friends, this doctrine of eternal torment is merely one of the delusions that have been upon us, merely one of the chains of slavery from which we were freed. And yet we were there under those heavy chains of superstition, ignorant of God's Word. We did not know our God, not having properly studied His Word. Now we are getting a little more freed from the obscurity of the past, and we thank God.

The world is grasping after liberty today perhaps more than ever before. They are seeing the value of liberty, they are appreciating it. Right here I might remind you of one great stroke for liberty, which ended in anarchy, namely, the French Revolution. It looks to us, not only from the natural standpoint but also from the standpoint of God's Word, as if the tendency of our day is very much in the same direction. The whole world today, with its greater knowledge, is appreciating liberty more than ever before, and in their agitation for liberty they are inclined to go to the other extreme and resort to anarchy. The fear of the whole world is anarchy.

Not only do the common people fear it, but the most intelligent statesmen in the world fear it, even as Jesus said (describing this particular day), "Men's hearts are failing them for fear, and for looking after those things that are coming." Those things have not come yet, but Jesus referred to men's attitude before the events should come; the anticipation of the trouble brings fear, and thus the world is in this measure of dread. We ought to have a great deal of sympathy with those who are in this fearful attitude, and who are loving liberty. We love liberty ourselves, and if they are inclined to make some mistakes, we should think very sympathetically of them. We see our own mistakes. Perhaps if we had not come to a better knowledge of God's character and His glorious plan respecting the future, you and I might have entertained just as wrong conceptions of liberty as some of the world do today; and you and I might be making for anarchy just as some others are making for anarchy today.

Socialists say to us: "Never mind about the future. We have been told long enough to look to the future for our reward. We are now intending to look to the present for our reward." The poor creatures are without enlightenment in respect to their liberties and rights as men. They have no enlightenment respecting God's true plan, and they are thus losing faith in the future life. The danger is that when they lose faith in a future life, the present life may go for a

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song so far as they are concerned. They will then be ready to sacrifice it for any bauble, for any brutish arrangement that they may term liberty.

But we are talking this evening about the true liberty. There is a true liberty which God has provided, and that liberty is coming. It is not here yet, but every indication is in harmony with the testimony of God's Word, that liberty is coming, and getting nearer every day.

We are not to forget the part that Satan and the fallen angels have had in man's degradation and enslavement. The Apostle particularly tells us about the influence of the "doctrines of devils," that is, of the fallen angels, and how they have affected the world. The whole world is more or less deluded by these doctrines of demons; and the strange thing is that in Christian lands the very worst of these devilish doctrines is found! I was put to shame not a great while ago when speaking to some intelligent natives in India. Apologizing for the fact that they were not Christians, they said: "We cannot be Christians, because we cannot believe what your missionaries have told us, and we cannot believe in your God. We acknowledge that the white man is very brilliant in many respects, and we realize that in a number of respects he is our superior; but when they tell us in their religious talks that our forefathers for generations past have been in eternal torment because they did not believe in Jesus, we cannot receive it.

Our God would not allow us to torture even dumb creatures, and how can we believe in and worship a God who would torture human beings, and all on account of their ignorance?" I was obliged to reply: "My friends, we agree with you. But such is not the character of our God. We Christians have misrepresented our Heavenly Father and His glorious arrangements. We are sorry now that we misrepresented our God, and as we get our eyes more widely opened from day to day, seek to tell others of how loving and merciful He is." They said: "Will you not stop awhile and explain it to us?" But I replied: "My appointments are booked ahead and it is impossible for me to stay, but I will arrange for someone to visit you and tell you about the God of Love, and to point out to you what God's plan is."

With this promise they were measurably satisfied, and bade me good by, trusting that they would find something satisfactory. They acknowledged that they had nothing satisfactory of their own, but indeed, my dear friends, I was obliged to confess that what they had was as good as anything that was being offered to them--doctrinally, I mean. The missionaries indeed did have moral practices and moral ideals to present, and some education along the lines of sitting upon a stool instead of upon the ground, and eating with knives and forks instead of fingers, all of them very good lessons; but so far as instructions in God's real character was concerned, I found nothing.

Well, this bondage, this slavery in which we were born, has affected us mentally, morally and physically. During the 6,000 years since Adam it has come down and made great inroads upon all the powers and talents that belong to man, so that today we are what we are, and very much ashamed of ourselves as a whole. London could not boast of itself as a whole. London could pick out some noble characters from amongst its inhabitants, no doubt, and take pride in these. And Brooklyn could also take some great characters and take pleasure in them, and also in every other nation and city there would be a disposition to take pride in some of the best and noblest specimens; but as a whole we are sadly undone; as the Prophet David expressed it, speaking as God's mouthpiece: "From the crown of the head to the sole of the foot there is no soundness."

We are all enslaved to the extent that we have these imperfections. We are all handicapped, we are not free. Now, what do we need to make us free? We need the very things that God has declared He intends to give. Notice the language of our text in Romans 8. The Apostle is pointing us down to the end of this Gospel age, and also pointing us to the work which the Master will do at His second advent. He says (verse 20), that the creature was made subject to vanity, that is, to frailty--mental weakness, moral weakness, physical weakness. We came under that influence not willingly. We did not prefer to be born in sin, we did not prefer to be born in weakness, either mental, or moral, or physical, but we were born thus unwillingly. God was responsible. He was responsible for the curse coming upon our race. He brought that penalty. He cut us off from fellowship with Himself, and justly so.

Are not all the interests of His creatures in His hands? Was it not entirely proper that our Heavenly Father should say to Adam and Eve: "If you will keep in line with the thing I have given you, if you will use your powers and talents in harmony with the righteous arrangement that I have made, then you may have them forever, you may live forever, you may inhabit the earth forever, and it will be yours to possess." The Lord said to them that they might multiply their children and fill the earth and subdue it, that is to say, as their children would be born they might extend the boundaries of Eden and take in more and more, subduing the earth, until the progeny of Adam and Eve, all righteous and perfect like themselves, would be of sufficient number to fill the whole earth, and to control and fully use it.

That was the arrangement, and the arrangement also included a penalty, that if they did not be obedient they would not possess the earth so easily, but instead the curse of death would come upon them. (How mistaken were we in imagining the curse was eternal torment.) "You will not be worthy of living at all. My law will see to it that you shall not live as rebels. I am not preparing a universe to be filled with rebels, and those who wish to rebel against My law and authority, they shall be destroyed from amongst the people." So, then, the death penalty was a just penalty. And the fact that God did not strike down our first parents in a moment with a thunderbolt, was merely the exercise of His mercy. He cast them out of the Garden of Eden and permitted them to do the best they could to prolong their lives. Nine hundred and thirty years was the span of Adam's life. Oh, what a constitution he must have had! Fine indeed, an image and likeness of God, king of the earth. Nine hundred and thirty years was he able to battle with the adverse influences of the unprepared earth, without fellowship with God.

God was fully justified in bringing this penalty upon our race; and we rejoice to know that it is not the unjust penalty we once supposed. God had an object in being merciful to His creatures, in allowing them to live as long as they could. He had a purpose. He knew that by and by in the appropriate time He would redeem them, paying the penalty for them, recover them from their fallen condition, and bring them back again, and that all the experiences they would gain in connection with the fall, with sin, sorrow and pain, the groaning and the dying and the sighing, all those experiences would be valuable to them by and by. What a wonderful plan! How reasonable! Thus we see, dear friends, that God is not dealing ruthlessly with mankind in allowing them to have experiences with sin and death. The Scriptures tell us that we are to learn experiences of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, so that when these are brought back into full harmony with God they will know better. They will know that God's ways are made for happiness and for peace. Other ways are ways of unhappiness; they bring disaster.

The proposal of God lasted for 4,000 years, and yet that was no sign of its fulfillment. He did, indeed, give to the Jews a law, telling them that if they were able to keep that law, then He would know that they were able to do the work that He wanted to have done in the world. He would commission them as His people in the world; but first He desired them to demonstrate that they were properly the seed of Abraham. God said, in effect: "I have already explained to Abraham that it is My purpose to bless all the families of the earth, and that the blessing shall come through his posterity. Indeed, you are the children of Abraham; and if you only keep My law and obey My statutes, then I will perform on your behalf all that could be asked. I will give you eternal life, and then you will be prepared to accomplish the work which the "seed of Abraham" was to accomplish, and thus become the blessers of the remainder of the race of mankind." The Israelites rejoiced exceedingly when God promised them such special favor.

How disappointed the poor people were as they, year by year, tried to keep that law but were not able to do so. They, like the remainder of the world, were imperfect through the fall, and therefore, like the remainder of the world, could not keep God's perfect law. We cannot do the things that we would. The Jew found he could not obey that law much though he desired to do so. He did get a blessing, however, by trying to keep it; and every person who tries to live in harmony with God and with the principles of righteousness will surely receive benefit in himself (in his mind and his body); but he cannot gain everlasting life. No, God has shut the door to everlasting life, and it can be gained only in one way, through the one door that God has appointed, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ.

But I say that in due time God sent His Son, born of a virgin, that He might redeem, purchase back, that which Father Adam and all his race lost. How? Why, the penalty

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all came through one man, therefore God can justly let the death of one man offset the death penalty of another man. We perceive a perfect equation here. As the whole race came under condemnation through one man's disobedience, so the whole race may come into the other man's justification. "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead, For as all in Adam die, even so all in Christ shall be made alive." But this grand deliverance is not yet, it is merely prospective. Jesus came, and Jesus died. Yes, the ransom price is in the hands of justice; but it has not yet been applied for the sins of the world. No, we are still waiting. This ransom price affects the whole human family. Everyone involved is equally interested in the death of Jesus.

Now, what is God's proposal? Oh, His proposal is so broad and grand that when first we learned of it we were amazed and said: It is too good to be true. But, my dear brothers and sisters, why should we prefer to think our Heavenly Father is a devil, instead of thinking of Him as being a gracious God and (as He tells us Himself) the Father of mercies and the God of all grace? This message appeals to our hearts, it is the message that we need. All the heathen have devil-gods, none of them have a worse one than we imagined we had. Oh, I was ashamed when I asked the natives why they made their images so horribly ugly. They had no answer, but my conscience smote me when I remembered what an ugly idol I had mentally made for myself in past times. My idol was not graven by the tool of a carpenter, or a stone-mason, but my idol was printed with ink on paper; describing a creed that required a worse god than any heathen god in wood or stone. But the best of God's people gradually triumph over those wrong conceptions. They get better ideas, and try to forget the dream, the nightmare of the Dark Ages. They try to live more in the sunlight of God's precious promises. And yet at times the dreadful creed-god will come in only to cause us trouble and distress.

But thanks be to the true God, we now see that the penalty for sin is not eternal torment, but death; and the recovery is a resurrection from the dead, applicable to the whole human race. The resurrection of the dead, says the Apostle, "Both of the just and of the unjust." It leaves none out. Then those dear little infants that we thought were damned and going into damnation at the rate of 30,000 a day, are simply going down into the tomb. Rachael speaks of these. You remember it is written in the Prophets: "Rachael weeping for her children" because "they are not." She was not weeping for her children because they are in hell or purgatory, but because they "are not." And the Lord's message to Rachael was: "Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy"--the great enemy Death. Death is the enemy that has been stealing our children and loved ones, and causing all the havoc in the world under the curse. God has made His arrangement, and the time is all set.

As there was a set time in which Christ was to come at the first Advent and the set work for Him to do then, so there is a set time for Him to come at the second Advent. We may not all know it, but God has a set time. Known unto the Lord are all His works from the foundation of the world. In God's set time Messiah shall come again, not to be crucified, not to suffer again the just for the unjust, not to redeem man again. Oh, no, there is no need for any further suffering for sin. He did suffer, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us back into harmony with God; but now He comes a second time, says the Apostle, without a sin offering unto salvation; that He may save those for whom He died. For whom did He die? Jesus by the grace of God tasted death for every man, Jew or Gentile, bond or free, of every nation and race, color and sex, all are included. I tell you, my dear friends, we have a God who is a great one, and He does His work so grandly. He has lengths and breadths and heights and depths of love and mercy and gracious provision that we never would have dreamed of. In that future time Messiah shall be reigning. The Kingdom shall be the Lord's, and Satan shall be bound that he may deceive the nations no more. The dead shall be awakened and then helped up out of their depravity and mental weakness. All the bondages of ignorance and superstition will be broken off. Strength of mind and body will be obtained by the restitution processes.

I have often tried to think what a perfect human being would look like. I would like to have a picture of the Savior, for I believe that such a picture would give us a good idea of what a perfect man must be like. The Scriptures say, indeed, that when the people heard Jesus they wondered, and bare him witness respecting the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth, the fine gentle thoughts and grand expression coming down to the simplicity of the common people, that they could all appreciate. And I think that Pilate bare record in that act of his when he brought forth the Master for the last time. Evidently perceiving that there was no cause for death in Jesus, you remember that he had thought to satisfy the fiendish sentiment of the mob by having Him whipped, then he presented our Lord to the people and proclaimed, "Ecce homo!" that is, "Behold the man!" "See the man! You have not another Jew like this man! Do you really want Him crucified? Do you want to crucify the best appearing Jew you have?" This seems to be the last appeal. "Look at the man now. Look Him in the face and tell me, do you want to have Him killed?" Well, dear friends, we are glad that the time is coming when all such misunderstandings will be things of the past.

We are not faulting those who crucified the Savior. Indeed, we remember there was a great deal of loving interest, as St. Peter explains, saying: "I wot, brethren, that in ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers, for if they had known they would not have crucified the Prince of Life"--the life-giving Prince, the One through whom everlasting life is to come. They would not have crucified Him had they known; therefore God hid it from their eyes, from the eyes of those not in the proper condition of heart, and then in their blindness they did what they would not have done had their eyes been opened. Messiah must be cut off as foretold, according to Divine purpose.

Away back in Moses' time it was written, "Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree." In order that Jesus should be made a curse and should fulfil all the requirements of the law, He must suffer upon the cross. It was so arranged of God, and He allowed the Jews to be merely blinded to some of these facts; He allowed them to thus fulfil His word. But as I say, I have sometimes wondered what the perfect man will look like when the whole world shall have come back. The work of the thousand years shall not only have influenced those living at the beginning, but shall have affected all those who have gone down into the tomb.

You remember the Apostle says that they shall all have a resurrection, every man in his own order--in his own company--indicating that there will be a different classification of those coming forth from the tomb. They will come forth in the same condition, with the same imperfections with which they went down-- everything that they inherited from Adam apparently will be theirs still. They will come forth, and it will be declared to them, and they will understand, that God has provided a Savior and a great one, able to save to the uttermost, even to save those who have gone down into the pit, into Sheol, into hades, into the grave, into the state of death.

Thus will God show His power in a work of re-creation. What could equal such a manifestation of power? Nothing could compare with bringing father Adam from the state of death. Infinite power will be manifested in re-creating man with the same peculiarities and characteristics as he had before he died. That is what the Bible proposes, and that is the work of the thousand years, namely, the restitution, restoration. Those who fall in line with the Kingdom arrangement will make greater progress in restitution and reach perfection sooner than others. Even the slow will have the opportunity granted to them, and some Scriptures imply very clearly, we think, that one hundred years of trial will be granted to each one, and that if he makes no evidence of progress in a hundred years he will be cut off as merely a cumberer of the ground, and unworthy of any further consideration at the hand of the great Messiah.

My dear friends, when we notice how much men can accomplish even at the present time in ten years without the interposition of Divine power, even though handicapped with ignorance and superstition, and with every mental, moral and physical blemish, we wonder how much will be accomplished in ten years under Messiah's Kingdom. I think that ten years of Divine rule will make great inroads upon all the various vices and sins of the world. I think that ten years of Divine discipline will show great reformation and transformation throughout the world, twenty years still more; and I would like to imagine the condition of the world fifty years from the time Messiah sets up His Kingdom. I fancy it will be a glorious world. I fancy very few will fail in obedience to God; and yet it is not for me to judge, or for you or for anyone to judge. The Bible does intimate that some, even after all the display of Divine goodness, will have the characteristics of Satan himself. When fully surrounded by Divine favor Satan became a wilful transgressor, and in

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pride attempted to set himself up in opposition to God. All those who have Satan's spirit are spoken of as his messengers, his followers and disciples; and for Satan and all his followers God has provided the second death--everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power. They shall be treated like natural brute beasts, as St. Peter says.

Then, my dear brethren, our text leads us down to the time when all this work of restitution has been accomplished, and it says that when the whole world shall have been restored and brought back to perfection, that will be the deliverance of the creature from the bondage of corruption. Don't you see? The "creature" referred to is the human family. Our good brother Wesley made quite a serious blunder of this text when he said it might be cattle, and expressed it so in one of his writings. But any good man might make a mistake, and we are not finding fault with him. Still, we understand that God has not provided everlasting life for the brute creation. We find nothing of that in the Word of God. They die because that is the order of their nature, to live for a certain period of time and serve their purpose as natural brute beasts, and then having served their purpose to have others take their place.

Only for man did God ever propose everlasting life. And so when Jesus died there was no mention of redeeming the brute creation. They would perform, as it were, the functions that God had arranged for them. It was man who was the great object of God's arrangement. It was man who had sinned for whom Christ died. It was, as the Apostle Paul makes clear and explains, by one man's disobedience that sin came in, and by one man's obedience righteousness comes in. So, then, this text of the Apostle in Romans becomes clear and luminous from this standpoint.

The Apostle says that the creature was made subject to vanity not willingly. God arranged it so. Not willingly, but by reason of Him who had subjected the same. He allowed the curse to come, He allowed this inheritance to pass from one generation to the next, the father and mother to mark their children in sin. But He allowed this reign of sin and death that has been going on. He could have blotted them out of existence instantly with a thunderbolt, but He preferred to leave it as it is for the lessons to be learnt; He subjected it in hope. There was hope in it; He wished to give mankind a hope. It was not a sure thing for them because it was still to be left to themselves. When the Messiah shall reign and all the opportunities shall be granted to mankind to return to the Father's house and to return to the perfection in which they were created, to return from the ways of imperfection and from the bondage of corruption, when that opportunity is theirs, it will still be for them to decide for themselves.

Our Lord explains the matter: The Father seeketh such to worship Him as worship Him in spirit and in truth, and only to these will He be pleased to give the fulness of his blessing. So, then, it is in the hope that they would profit by this experience of pain and sorrow and sin and dying and sighing and crying, and fully learn the great lesson that a great mistake was made, and when they find themselves back again, they will be so armed with the knowledge of the past, and with the knowledge gained in connection with the fall of the race and the recovery of the race, they will be fully armed against all the alarms of sin and Satan, and they will say: To my Lord I will be true who bought 

me with His precious blood. It is for the hope that there would be such a class--a considerable class-- in that hope God arranged things, when he allowed this law of heredity to operate against our race, and to bring us down to weakness of mind and body. It was in this hope, and He kept repeating this hope, you remember.

He told Adam and Eve just a little about it, saying: The seed of the woman shall yet crush the serpent's head. The serpent represented evil, and the seed of the woman represented the Messiah. Then again He repeated the same thought to Abraham: In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. The hope was always kept prominent. Then to Israel, there is a hope for Israel, and to whom it was given if they could keep the law then you will get life and I can use you in connection with that hope. So, also, with the Christ, the same hope and the same promise. Unchangeable Himself, God seems to have been working according to the counsel of His own will. But as we get nearer and nearer to the great day when these things are to be consummated, God is granting more and more light upon His Word, upon the writings of the Old and New Testaments.

Our eyes are opening more widely to see more of the lengths and breadths, more of the heights and depths than we saw before. Thus we see, dear friends, that it is in hope. Let us consider what the hope is.

Because the creature itself (that is the groaning creation, mankind), also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption. The bondage of corruption is the bondage of death. What is the bondage of death? The bondage of death is a principle we all concede by the weaknesses we have. Your moral weaknesses are so much of that penalty working out in you. This is all the bondage of corruption and death that is holding the entire world. Is not that true? Can we improve upon the Apostle's statement? Is there a wise man anywhere that could write the matter more clearly that would fit all the circumstances as we know them in our experience? Surely not.

Now, then, God's purpose is to deliver the creation from this groaning body; and He has appointed the thousand-year day of Messiah's reign, and Messiah is to be the one who shall deliver men, break their shackles and set them free; not contrary to their wills, but little by little as they exercise their wills and strive to overcome their weaknesses and endeavor to get out of the bondage of corruption. All those endeavors will bring blessing and will be useful to them, far better indeed than if God were to bring them forth from the tomb perfect. If God were to bring them forth perfect they would not know themselves, let alone be known to others; and what then would be the advantage of all the experiences of the downward course? Everything would be lost, they would be just like new Adams all over the world if brought back perfect, and just as liable to sin as Adam was liable to sin because he had not the experience.

Adam had not tasted of evil, he had only tasted of the good; but now God for six thousand years has been giving the world a taste of evil. We have all been eating the bitter fruit, and so the Prophet Ezekiel, you remember, tells us how the children's teeth are all set on edge. The fathers (i.e., father Adam) had eaten the sour grape of sin, and all the children's teeth have been set on edge. You have your weaknesses and imperfections, and I have had mine all as a result of the same transgression. God speaking through the same prophet says that in the coming glorious epoch this law shall no longer be operative. He that eateth the sour grape in that day his teeth shall be set on edge; the soul that sinneth will be the one that will die. In the case of Adam, one soul sinned, and twenty thousand million souls die as the result because they are his children. But one soul died for Adam, as we read: Jesus poured out his soul unto death; He made His soul an offering for sin.

In the future Jesus shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied. He shall behold the grand result--the whole human family bought with the precious blood, and all will have the opportunity of profiting by this uplifting, and thus identify themselves with the experiences of the past and with those other experiences of the future, so that at the conclusion they shall fully get rid of the bondage of corruption, the bondage of death. They will be grand creatures, they will be even better than father Adam. Adam was perfect so far as the physical organism was concerned, but his knowledge was deficient. He knew some thing of the favorable side of life, but he lacked experience of the dark side.

As men return they will be fully informed--having gained knowledge of sin and death, they will now gain knowledge of righteousness and life. If they then decide in favor of righteousness, they will get God's blessing of everlasting life, because "the creature also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God." Was Adam a child of God before he became entangled with the bondage of corruption? Yes, indeed. Is he not in the Bible spoken of as a son of God? But are his children spoken of as sons of God? Oh, no; not down to the time the Redeemer came.

During all that time no sons of God were mentioned. At the very most Abraham was a friend, not a son. And at the very most the people of Israel were the house of servants under Moses, not a house of sons. Indeed you remember that that was the very plea upon which they once thought to stone the Savior. He said He was the Son of God, while they denied that anyone could be a son of God. They were quite right, they were not sons of God, for the door to sonship had not yet been opened. No one could be a son until God had made provision for his return to sonship.

The whole world, as they gain perfection by the restitution process, will get back to the liberty of sons of God. Oh, that will be glorious, that will be joyful! The holy angels, you know, are all sons of God. He acknowledges them that they are sons, though they are sons on different planes from ours--some upon one plane and some upon another.

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They will all have the same liberty from corruption, the same freedom from death. God does not have any dying sons; whoever is counted of God as a son must have life. He has no dead sons, they are all living sons. Well, where do we come in, Brother Russell? Where is our share? You have talked about restitution in the future, how the creation is coming forth into the liberty of sons of God, but do not the Scriptures say that we are sons of God? Yes, the Apostle John says: "Now are we sons of God;" but he adds that it doth not yet appear what we shall be. We are sons of God, and yet we have not received the full blessing that belongs to the sons of God. We are sons of God in an embryotic sense, in a sort of anticipatory sense. We have the promises of God and the acceptance of God, but we have these in an unfulfilled condition. We are only sons of God in proportion as we can exercise faith. But how do we get to be sons of God? Sons all have liberty. We are speaking of all who belong to Christ.

When I speak of belonging to Christ I do not recognize any sectarian lines whatever, whether Baptists, or Presbyterian, or Episcopalian, or Roman Catholic, or Lutheran, or whatever they may be. Those sects are not of God's arrangement; God has only arranged one Church, the church of the first-borns whose names are written in heaven. God's people, wherever they may be, whether in these different denominations or out of them all, if they belong to Christ then they belong to the Church which is the church of the first-borns whose names are written in heaven. No one can blot them out from their membership except the Master Himself; and He says He will not blot out the names that He writes there, except for disloyalty in coming up to the agreement we have entered into as our reasonable service. How do we become sons? How much liberty have we got? There are questions that can be viewed from different standpoints.

If you ask the world today, "What liberty do Christians have?" I think they would reply that they have not any liberty at all, they are the most bound-up people imaginable. I was traveling one time in Germany, and there were two passengers in the same compartment with myself. They noticed that I did not get out at the wait stations and get a drink of beer, that I didn't smoke and didn't seem to do any swearing. One of them looked over in a kind and compassionate way, and said: "Say, Mister, what pleasure do you have in life?" Well, I could only smile, my dear friends, because I had so much pleasure, far more than they had, and I was just wondering what pleasure they had in life. Our standpoints really are so different that, as the Apostle says, the world knoweth us not even as it knew Him (Jesus) not. A different standpoint, you see. The world cannot understand our position, and we do well not to take it too seriously with them.

But now, as to our own position, from God's standpoint what is it? Well, in one sense of the word we become free, and in another sense of the word we become bond-slaves. First of all we will see what the Apostle says. He says we become bond-slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ. St. Paul was speaking of himself. He says, "Let no man trouble me, I bear about in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ." What did he mean? The Greek implies much more than our English does. In olden times they had slaves, and every slave had a branding iron upon him to indicate that he belonged to such a person, so that if he ever strayed or was lost he could be identified. The Apostle spoke of himself as having become a bond-servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, and thus he says, I bear about in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ, having in mind the blows he had received when he had been whipped and beaten because of the witness to the truth and his fidelity to the Lord. He had gloried in his difficulties.

You remember on one occasion we read of St. Paul and Silas being cast together in the prison at Philippi. They had been lashed, notwithstanding that Paul was a Roman citizen and could have claimed otherwise. In their haste the authorities had lashed them before investigation, and according to the custom, salt was rubbed into the wounds. You can imagine how their poor backs felt as they lay bound, with their feet in the stocks and their backs bent in a very awkward position, bleeding and smarting with the salt! That was a very sore experience, my dear friends, and let us be thankful that we have not the same experiences today; yet let us make the resolution that if, by God's providence, anything of that kind should come along, we shall strive that by any means we might be accounted approved of God, and receive grace sufficient for such experience. But regarding these two noble men--whoever reads the narrative must confess that there are very few such characters in the world today suffering for righteousness sake. These two noble souls broke out in praise to God until the prison walls rang! My dear friends, this is the same Apostle that says to you and me, "Rejoice in tribulation."

He knew how to rejoice in tribulation, he could speak from experience; and if you and I should have the same experience, or if our experience come through some other kind of tribulation, in any event let us learn to rejoice in tribulation; knowing (it is the knowledge that makes such a difference) that tribulation worketh patience, and that patience is working experience, and that experience is working hope. All these trying experiences God permits to come, and must be intended to work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. We have, like the Apostle Paul, become bond-servants to the Lord Jesus Christ. I have described what slavery we have come into. How much liberty do we have in Christ? Let us view it from one standpoint. May you eat what you please? May you drink what you please? No. May you be clothed as you would? No. Oh, you say, almost any slave would be allowed to drink and eat whatever he could get. But not so with us. Whether we eat, or whether we drink, or whatever we do, do all to the glory of God. Bound like that? Just so, just so. Pretty severe bondage is it? Worse than that though. More of it still? You cannot even think as you want to.

Now, my dear friends, did you ever know a slavery before that attempted to hinder a man's thought? That is the slavery of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only slavery that attempts to hinder a man's thoughts, and, as the Apostle says, to bring every thought of the heart into the captivity to the will of God in Christ. Tightly bound up! If you can get any tighter bonds than those show them to me.

Well, now, my dear friends, there is a peculiarity about this matter, for while you are tightly bound up you have absolute liberty at the same time. Yes, my dear friends, because these bonds are voluntary bonds. It is not that the Lord binds you up, it is not that the Lord puts these shackles upon you. No, indeed, you put these on yourself. He never made a slave, he merely tells you the privileges and the opportunities, and if you choose then to bind yourself, and to bring yourself into subjection and under restraint, then you will be kept of Him. Jesus Christ did not do His own will, but the will of His Father who sent Him. If we would be of His mind and spirit, this must be our attitude and our course, to seek not to do our own will but the will of the Father in heaven. It is therefore a voluntary matter. And more than that, the yoke you have to put on for yourself. He would not even say, Will you take my yoke? He said, Take my yoke, put it on yourself. And if you have fastened it on the Lord with an eternal covenant to be servants of Him, you put that yoke upon yourself. More than that, if still upon you you have the key, and you can open that lock and discard that yoke and be your own freeman again if you choose.

So you see, my dear friends, you have not been brought into subjection, you have merely subjected yourself. Christ has not subjected you, you have merely made yourself a bond-slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. Your own will has done it, that is what the Lord is pleased with. There are not very many, but the Lord seeketh such. He has been seeking such for 1800 years, to be copies of His Son. They must be all copies of His Son, for only copies of Christ will be in the Kingdom class. The seed of Abraham will all be sons, and that is why it has taken so long to find this spiritual seed of Abraham. Jesus Himself was the spiritual seed of Abraham according to the flesh--yet, according to the flesh He could not fulfil the demands of that Abrahamic covenant.

He needed to lay down His earthly life, because He needed the earthly rights to give to mankind. If He had kept His earthly rights He would have had nothing to give on our behalf, but when He laid down His life on our behalf sacrificially God highly exalted Him to the Divine nature. Now He has the earthly life-rights at His disposal, for He did not forfeit them by disobedience. He presented His life-rights to justice on behalf of father Adam's life and all the children of Adam, so that by this one sacrifice for ever He might perfect all those who come unto the Father by Him. He perfects the Church now, those who now choose to take up their cross and follow Him, by giving them the experience that they need to enable them to come off conquerors. He makes them free from all other authority, and becomes the only one to whom they are responsible. If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. How? Well, he has already made us free in that he has given us freedom of mind. And then He has shown us how to use this liberty, this freedom. We did not know enough to choose before, now we are free to that extent. And then He has shown us how to use this liberty, this freedom, that by using this liberty

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and sacrificing the earthly nature, we might become joint heirs with Him in glory, honor, and immortality, and partake in all the glorious things that God has in reservation for them that love Him; that thus we may make our calling and our election sure with him--making it sure by obedience now. The glorious first resurrection shall complete the work.

We are not fully liberated now, for as the Apostle explains we have this treasure, this new relationship, only in an earthen vessel, only in a mortal body. The new creature cannot use this mortal flesh as it would, owing to imperfections and weaknesses. It would indeed long to bring every power into full obedience to God's will, but it cannot do the things that it would, and so the new creature is waiting for the time when the change shall come; and thus the Apostle mentions this in connection with the blessing that is coming to the world, saying, For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, and not only they (that is the creation in general) are waiting for perfection and waiting for liberty, freedom from the bondage of corruption, but we, ourselves also, the Church, are waiting. We, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, we, even we, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, for the deliverance, waiting for our change, waiting for the time when the new creature, the new man that has already been begotten of the Holy Spirit, shall receive the completion of God's blessing in that glorious resurrection change. That shall make us free indeed! Whom the Son makes free shall be free indeed. He will make us free indeed in the resurrection, in a moment in the twinkling of an eye.

Then His work for the world will be to make them free, and during the thousand years He will be liberating them, and then at the close of the thousand years all who will come into harmony with Him will be free from corruption, and will have the glorious liberty of sons of God on the earthly plane. We are not on the earthly plane because we have had a change of nature by becoming related to Christ Jesus and becoming joint-sacrificers with Him, sacrificing the earthly nature. We have become heirs of God with Him, and associate heirs in that higher nature.

Thank God, dear friends, for the glorious prospect, not only for ourselves, but for the unhappy groaning creation. May the Lord help us more and more to appreciate not only the liberty we have in Christ, but to appreciate the fact that it is our privilege to be the bond-servants of the Lord Jesus. Amen.

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