The Spirit World part 1

The speaker discusses the concept of the spirit world and the immortality of the soul. They argue against the belief that there is a world of invisibility or that the soul and spirit cease to exist after death. They emphasize that the inner man, made up of soul and spirit, is eternal and immortal. They also mention various kinds of spirit beings mentioned in the Bible, such as angels and cherubim. They argue that God is a real and personal being, and that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are separate and distinct persons. They believe that God has a body and has been seen with the natural eyes. They refute the idea that God is invisible, saying that invisibility refers to distance, not substance. They assert that one day, people will be able to see these spirit beings. Tonight, the underworld of the parted spirits, the spirit world, the immortality of the soul, where are the dead and kindred subjects? First of all, the spirit world. When we say that, we do not mean that there is a world or worlds of invisibility, as you can't see, or made up of spirit substance. In the fourth chapter of 2 Corinthians, Paul said that which is seen is temporal. That which is not seen is eternal. And there is something in you that we cannot see that is eternal, every one of you. Your inner man, made up of soul and spirit, the invisible part of you, the eternal part of you, the immortal part of you. First Peter 3.4 says, Let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible. When Mr. Armstrong and the Adventists and the Russells get through with you, you don't have any soul at all. You don't have any immortality about you. Well, they believe that you're just like this piece of wood here. When you die, your soul, your body, and your spirit passes out of existence or goes back to dust again. The Bible does not teach that. It teaches that you have an eternal, immortal inner man. The outer man is the only mortal part about you. And even that man, the outer man, is going to become immortal in the resurrection. That's the purpose of the resurrection. For this corruption must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruption shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought the passage, the saying that is written, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The mortal part about you, you look in the mirror every day and see yourself. I suppose you do. You think that much of yourself, I'm sure. You want every little hair to be right, every little part of your body. You want to look as cute as you can look, don't you, for the day. That's the human about you. That's the mortal part of you. And Peter said, Now the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible. The Greek word translated not corruptible in this verse is translated immortal of God elsewhere, meaning literally that you have an inner man, and that inner man is immortal. When we read of eternal life, that's literally true. Those who believe on Jesus Christ will have everlasting life, eternal life. You will never cease to be conscious. Even the wicked are conscious in the underworld of the part of the spirituals we'll see tonight. So just think of it in this light, then. There is no such thing as a world of material substance whereby certain creatures are spooky, spiritual, invisible, nothingnesses, we might say. I cannot understand for the life of me so many ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They have no more concept of God than a poodle dog sometimes. They claim that God does not have a body. He is a spirit being of some sort of a spooky substance that floats around everywhere and is a nothingness, really. Your Bible gives you 20,000 statements about God, and God wants you to get at least more than one of them. Bible scholars, from the very beginning of my existence as a Christian, I went to a Bible institute when I was 18. They told me so many funny things, so many things that I didn't read in my Bible, I had to make a, I had to make a division, what I am going to believe and what those fellows taught me. I made up my mind I was going to believe the Bible. I was going to be one man to do that if no other man ever did. Because when I'd bring scriptures to them in the classroom, many of those scriptures they didn't believe because all they knew about God was He was a spook. And they left it up to me to believe like they believed. That meant nothing. That meant that God was invisible. God never has been seen, never will be seen. God doesn't have a body. He doesn't have bodily parts and all that tomfoolery. But God is at least half as real as you are. Believe that. The word spirit does not refer to invisibility at all. You can see spirits if you get close enough to them, and if your eyes are adjusted properly. There are all kinds of spirit beings, that is, beings of various kinds made up of spirit substance in body. Your inner man now is already immortal and spiritual, and it leaves the body at the time of physical death, as is stated in James 2.26, as the body without the spirit is dead. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. You see, you leave the body at the time of physical death. Your souls have been seen leaving the body. They have been even seen coming back into the body. Souls have been seen. We have many records of that. But ordinarily your eyes have to be adjusted. You just don't have your eyes adjusted properly to see spooks or spirit things. But you will, when you get into the next life, have eyes that are adjusted to see spirits of all kinds. Now there are all kinds. I don't know how many kinds of spirits, but there are many kinds of spirits that are mentioned in the Bible. Take, for example, back in the book of Genesis, the third chapter, here is an angel. Really, he doesn't look like that, but that gives you the idea of a spirit being. Angels do not ordinarily have wings, and cherubim, though, that this creature is supposed to look like, they do have wings. You've heard of those flying saucers in the first and eighth and tenth chapters of Ezekiel. They're not flying saucers. They're just plain spirit beings called cherubim. You have an eightyfold description of the cherubim in those three chapters. They have bodies like men, hands like men, feet like calves' feet. They have four faces instead of one face like you have. They have a face of a man, the face of an ox, the face of an eagle, and the face of a lion. Four faces. That scared me half to death. I don't know how Ezekiel ever lived through it to write about it. But he got through it all right, and he told us what they look like, and those creatures were harnessed to a chariot on which God rides. God rides on various vehicles. He's got means of travel just like you. Not like the preachers tell us so many times that God's an invisibility, an invisible something out there. He's omnipresent. He's everywhere, present. He's everywhere, all at the same time, and never goes anyplace. Poor fellow, he just stays in one spot all the time. That's everywhere. But in a new book I'm writing, I've traced the journeys of God throughout the universes. Boy, it's interesting to find out where all God has traveled. He's a traveler of travelers. He not only just sits on a seat and sits in one spot, and his whole body fills the universes, he goes from place to place and body, just like you do. One time he got ahead of a mule three times. You remember that? And he's been seen here, he's been seen there, and he's always a local person, just like you are. At any rate, that chariot, Ezekiel, the twenty-eighth, the twenty-seven, twenty-eighth verses of that chapter, first chapter, tells us that God was seen sitting on this throne, and he was to look upon like a man from his loins upward and from his loins downward, we read. And in the eighth chapter it said, this is the vision of the God of Israel. The God of Israel is a personal God, a real God. In fact, there are three persons called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. They're real, separate persons, separate and distinct from each other. They are the chief of all spirit beings. In fact, they brought into existence all other spirit beings. Where they came from, you'll have to ask them later on. But there's a little verse in Deuteronomy 29, 29, the secret things belong unto the Lord our God. But those things which are revealed belong unto us and unto our children forever, that we may know the Lord. The idea is that these three spirit beings have always existed from all eternity. They have been seen with the natural eyes. They are seen with bodies time and time again. In fact, they sit side-by-side in heaven all the time. They're up there when they carry on their business in particular. Twenty-six times we read of Jesus Christ sitting on the right hand of the Father. They are the chief of all spirit beings. We read in the first chapter of Colossians, verse 15, by him were all things created that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible and invisible. Whether they be thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, all things were created by him and for him. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Don't think of invisibility now as something you can't see. There isn't any such substance like that in existence. It's so you'd never know it because you couldn't see it. And no one else could ever see it because you don't know whether it's there or not. But invisibility, you must understand, refers to distance, not the substance. New York City is invisible from here. Atlanta is invisible from here, isn't it? Hmm? But I guarantee if you go a little way south and a little east, is that right? Just a little east, you run onto a place called Atlanta, Georgia. That becomes just as visible as you are here tonight. If you were down there, I couldn't see you now. But if I get close enough down there to where you were, I could see you. So if you look at God in the same light, look at spirit beings in the same light, and when they're called invisible beings or creatures, are that they are really too far away to see. But you will be able to see them one of these days. A Bible scholars have written to me since I put out the big Bible that no man has ever seen God at any time, and they tell us that no man has ever looked upon Him with the natural eyes, and that no man will ever see God. But on the first day we were here, wasn't it? Last Sunday morning, we showed you that God had a body. He had been seen with the natural eyes. And the last chapter in your Bible said, They shall see His face, His name shall be in their foreheads, and they shall reign forever and ever. Because when you get too smart to believe the Bible, you're going to have a problem all the days of your life. If you be simple about the Bible, have a simple understanding of truth as you read it, you will have a bit of problem. God created all other spirit beings, though, and they were created for His glory. Now then, not only are there cherubim mentioned in the Bible, but seraphim are mentioned in the sixth chapter of the book of Isaiah. The prophet said, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and His many skirt filled, oh I beg your pardon, His garment filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim. They had one face each and six wings. Now these creatures have only four wings and four heads. These have one face or head and six wings. They are stood above their throats. One of them took some tongs off of an altar and went over to the altar where they had fire on the altar. They've got fire in heaven, coals in heaven, tongs in heaven. They have all kinds of animals in heaven, all kinds of places called cities and country places you know. They've got furniture, they've got food to eat, they've got everything you could ever conceive of right here on the planet earth. They have all that in heaven. In the 12th chapter of 2 Corinthians, Paul one time said, I knew a man in Christ about 14 years ago, whether out of the body or out of the body, I cannot tell. Such and one was caught up into the third heaven and heard, he said, and saw unspeakable things which were not lawful for me to tell you about. If I would tell you what I actually saw in heaven, you might want to go to Milledgeville. Something wrong with him. Paul, keep your mouth shut. Keep your big mouth shut until those poor weak saints down there that don't have intelligence enough and ability enough to comprehend mentally, you might break their brains some way. So just keep quiet. And he did. But it's along with that, he made a statement that gives us the secret if you want to get into it just a little bit. And maybe you can keep your sanity while we do it. You want to cry? Shall we? Shall we not? Turn to the first chapter of the book of Romans. First chapter of the book of Romans in verse 20. Now these things I'm giving you are in your own Bible, believe it or not. That's why I want you to turn to it. Romans 1 20. Here he said, the invisible things, plural. The invisible things, the things that you do not now see, but you will see when you get close enough to see them. The invisible things which are not made of visible, invisible substance, but yes, too far for you to see. Are what? How do you understand these things he tells us here? Are what? Hidden from us so we're not supposed to know anything about it? What does it say? Are what? What? Clearly seen. Of course now, you're not supposed to believe that. You're not supposed to believe simple things in the Bible. You've got to make hard, make everything hard and complicate, you know, before we can comprehend, understand it. We're just that type of being. I don't know why. We have to concentrate to be simple enough to understand what the book really says. So he says here, the invisible things are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even to his eternal power on Godhead so that there is no excuse for ignorance at all about God or about other invisible things. Isn't that simple? I'm sure we could if we just put forth a special effort right now, all of us at once, believe a simple thing like that. Get the idea. How many of you do? The things you can't see out there in the world because they're too far distant from you, things on other planets. They're clearly seen by one method. Look around here in the visible world. That's why when you read of a holy city called the New Jerusalem in heaven, and we read that God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and all those fellows a city, and he promised the church a city, and Christ promised us mansions, and when the Bible mentions a city on the planet heaven, then we can understand that the city there is just like the cities we have down here. We read about food in heaven, we know we have it down here because three meals a day you generally eat, don't you? And they have carpets, they have mansions, they have houses, they have furniture, they have every conceivable thing in those houses. I'm not going up there, I'd be out of place if I went up there and my mansion was nothing but some bare walls of some kind. Boy, I'd want to get out of there as quick as I can get out, get back down to my little home where I've got a few things hanging around on the walls, and I've got carpets and places to eat and so on. You'll be surprised what all heaven is like if you'll get a book on heaven. That red book over there will give you scores and scores of things about the planet heaven, what's on the planet heaven, and here this will give you enough, even if it's one verse, you don't want to buy a book. He told you the invisible things are clearly seen by the visible things down here. Even to the Godhead, you can understand him, there's something like God down here. If you were going around trying to find out what it is like God, what would you settle on, a giraffe or an elephant or a man? You'd settle on a man, because let us make man in our own image and in our own likeness. All right, then, they have all kinds of animals in heaven, vegetation, trees, cities, country places, everything you can think of that we know down here, clothes, food, everything. Years ago, a publisher I had at one time, didn't like a lot of these things in the Dake Bible, because I told them the truth on everything. They didn't know whether a book was going to sell or not. And you know what, he wrote me a letter one time, Brother Dake, they tell us that you even believe in horses in heaven. Well, I said, that sounds just like me. I said, I gave them scripture. I had to go through all these things, you see. They had critics, Bible scholars, great Bible scholars that don't believe the Bible as it reads, but believe what it doesn't say. Now, they're supposed to criticize the notes in my Bible. So I went through the little rigmarole, showing what's what. I said, here in the second chapter of 2 Kings, Elijah was taken to Israel in the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof. And the sixth chapter of the same book, 2 Kings, Elisha and his servant saw chariots of fire and horsemen all over the mountain around the body of Elisha. Remember that? And the fifth, the first and sixth chapters of Zechariah, well, we read of white horses and black horses and bay horses. God himself was riding a horse, cowboy fashion. I don't know whether he had a western saddle or whether you're Tennessee kind up here. But there God was sitting on a horse and the scouts were reporting back to him from different parts of the universe. One fellow came from the north country and God said, how's everything in the north country? And he said, everything's okay, everything's peace. All right, he said, go report, take care of your job. And the prophet got bold enough to say, who are all these horsemen riding around here? And God said, these are the spirits of the heavens sent forth to minister to him all over the earth. Scout for him, you know. And when we read about all those kind of horses, some of them were hooked to chariots of brass, some of them were ridden cowboy fashions on. Now these are things in your own Bible, believe it or not. Twentieth chapter of Revelation, verse 11, I saw heaven open and behold a white horse. And he that sat upon him was called faithful and true and in righteousness. He doth judge and make war. The armies of heaven followed him on white horses. So I called the attention of the publisher all about these things. I said, your critics have already taken away my God. And I said, now they've taken away my riding horses. I won't have anything to ride. But oh, when I get out of religion, just a funny thing is the theories and teachings of Bible scholars and people who are supposed to know more than I know about it. The funniest thing they come up with, I have a biggest laugh by the way. Just today I had a great big laugh. Well, all kinds of cruel things in the name of common sanity is expressed in all kinds of theories about the Bible and what it teaches. At any rate, we have all these kinds of things. We know there are horses in heaven. We know then from this statement of Romans that there are cows and mules and all kinds of creatures. Maybe a little dog in there. I don't know. Think about it. But we're going to find out when we get there, because Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2, 10, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man the things God hath prepared for them that love him. Well, I better go on or I'm not going to get through here tonight. In the 12th chapter of Revelation, verse 12, rejoice ye heavens and ye that dwell in them. Inhabitants of heaven, you see. Ye that dwell in them, but woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea, because the devil has come down among you having great wrath, because he knoweth he hath but a short time. 13th chapter of Revelation, verse 4, we read the dragon, or the beast rather, will open his mouth to blaspheme God in his tabernacle, them that dwell in heaven. Daniel 4, 35, he doeth according to his own will in the army of heaven and in the army of the earth. Colossians 1, 15, by him are all things created, now listen here, whether they be in heaven or on earth, he said, visible and invisible. Invisible things, visible things in heaven, visible things, invisible things on earth. Dominions, principalities, powers, thrones, kingdoms, you'll be surprised what all you'll find out there in that world. And if these fellows keep fooling around from Houston down here and get out there too far, they'll run across some of those little green men, if you just mark my word. They'll find life on other planets. Astronomers tell us that at least one-tenth of the planets are habitable, and the Bible tells us the heavens are in heaven, and all these statements and others like them, just a few. What I'm going to give you is, it gives you the idea that in the invisible world are all kinds of spirit beings, spirit creatures of various kinds. Hey man, I'm going to a real place. People even ask me so often, will we know each other over there? As if we're going to an insane asylum the very minute we leave the body. By God forbid we have such an idea of heaven and the future like that. Then shall we know as we are also known, we're told, 1 Corinthians 13 12. All right, now here we have then cherubim, seraphim. We have angels, innumerable angels, they do not have wings, that much you must be satisfied with before you get over there. Don't expect to feel so many wings flopping over there. They are creatures just like you are, with a body about your size, without wings, having faces, arms, hands, bodily parts. They've been described in the Bible in 104 different places. If you have a big Bible, the 13th chapter of the book of Hebrews, you'll find those 104 places. You can get a lot of information from what you read about spirit beings in the spirit world, about God who has over 20,000 references about himself in these. And cherubim and seraphim and angels and archangels and whatnot. Every time you see a revelation of one of these creatures, then you know that they're that real. And you know then from the whole story that they're half as real as you are. Innumerable these angels are, Hebrews 12 23 and 2 and 23, innumerable company of angels, we're told. Hebrews 1 14, are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation? All right, then we have those. We have demon spirits of all kinds, different sizes, shapes and forms, I don't know what not. We do find in the 12th, 9th chapter of Revelation, two kinds of demon creatures and gives us their shapes and sizes and so on. This group here coming out of the bottomless pit, out of the smoke of the pit in the tribulation period, said they had bodies like horses, wings and the sound of the wings was the sound of many chariots running the battle. They had faces like men, hair like women. So there must be a little distinction in the Bible between the hair of women and the hair of men, but this day you can't tell the difference anymore. But here it said, faces like men and hair like women. And they had breast plates of fire and brimstone, and they had serpent-headed tails and scorpion stings. These will be liberated out of the earth to torment men for five months. Men will desire to die until death, and death will flee from them. Then we have all these 200 million demon creatures looking like this, coming out of the mouth of the pit. They also have bodies like horses, riders on them. The riders have breastplates of fire and brimstone. They have lion heads, teeth like lions, fire-smoking brimstone issuing out of their mouths, and they have serpent-headed tails. So you know these two kinds of creatures, but the millions are now bound in hell. When Jesus met some of them, do you remember, they said to him, Art thou come to torment us before the time? And on other occasions, don't suffer us to go into the abyss. Let us go into this herd of swine, anything but to go down into torment. They know they're doomed to be one of torment, because they have sinned against the Almighty God and are confined now, some of them, in the abyss. Others are still loose, and they possess both men and beasts without which they cannot operate in the material realms, it seems. All right, we have then those kind of creatures. Now your soul is just a little further about you. You're somebody too, believe it or not. We have instances of your, of the inner men, of persons dying out of the body, described for us, telling us where they are. For example, in the 16th chapter of the book of Luke, verses 19 to 31, the rich man in hell lifted up his eyes, being in torments. And he saw Lazarus in another compartment, far off, way over a great gulf, which was between the two compartments. And he cried, Send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. So he had a tongue left, and he had feelings, full consciousness. He had memory of his brethren back on earth. He had memory of that poor man that he was talking about. And he saw Lazarus have at least one finger left, because he said, Dip his finger in water and cool my tongue. And if he had one finger left, he had ten fingers left, and ten toes left, and two legs left, and two arms left. And he had his, every other bodily part. There they were, two different compartments. One compartment of bliss and comfort, and the other a department of torment, of pain and suffering. So that's that. Both of them out of their bodies, both of them fully conscious, both having their inner man bodily parts just like your outer man has. Your inner man fits right into this outer man, even to the outer skin. Your soul is that which feels. That's why you can get feeling, because your soul fits right out to the outer skin. Anytime you touch yourself, you have feeling. That means you're touching your soul. Your spirit is that which knows. 1 Corinthians 2, 12, What knoweth the things of man save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so knoweth no man the things of God save the spirit of God. So you have intellectual power, willpower, feelings, emotions, passions, desires. So does God. Now then, in the 17th chapter of the book of Matthew, verse 5, we read of Moses and Elijah appearing with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. Elijah was still alive in his physical body, and as one of the two witnesses of Revelation 11 and Zechariah 14, 14, where we read, these are the two anointed ones which stand before the God of all the earth. There was Moses outside of his body. He wasn't in his body, because his body at that time was in corruption, having been buried 1,700 years previously. Here he was, the inner man, appearing with Christ, and a man who was not out of his body yet. A man who had his physical body yet. Both of them talked with Christ. In the 6th chapter of the book of Revelation, verses 9 to 11, we read, In the fifth seal I saw unto the altar the souls of them that were slain, for the witness of Jesus, for the word of God. They cried out, Hallowed Lord, holy and truthful, thou dost judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth. White robes were given to every one of them. Well, you see, God, He won't even allow people out of His life to go nude, and He certainly doesn't want it down here now. So let's be careful what we do. White robes were given to every one of them. You rest yet for a little season, till the rest of your brethren shall be killed, as you are shall be fulfilled. They eat food in the next life. They drink. Well, what all they drink. Good things, though, couldn't be better than buttermilk. At any rate, they drank, and they ate, and they have fellowship, and they're fully conscious, and the whole thing goes on as if they were still in the body and down here in this life. Jesus said, you remember when He was here? I'll no longer drink of the fruit of this vine, till I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom. I'll no longer eat of this Passover lamb, these bitter herbs, and this unleavened bread, till I do it anew with you in my Father's kingdom. And He said to the twelve that you may sit at my table, or eat at my table. I guess they'll sit down. Eat at my table in my kingdom, you twelve, so I'm going to have a table big enough for twelve anyway. I think you'll have one that big for your own mansion, where you can invite me once in a while. We'll talk these things over a little bit more fully. No? And Jesus said, he that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden matter. He that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life. So you're going to have a real life. Think of heaven as being a real place, going to a real city, going to a real mansion of your own, and having all kinds of food provided for you, and all the clothing already made, tailor-made for you up there, everything you want. Well, so much for the spirit world now. Now then, let's look at the underworld of departed spirits a few minutes. This green line back here to the Garden of Eden represents death. This pale horse in Revelation 6, it's a green horse in the Greek, it means green instead of pale. That's why we've got death here. It's a green line from Abel right on through to the end of the millennium, when death and hell will deliver up the dead which are in them, and death and hell will be cast eternally into the lake of fire. We read in 1 Corinthians 15-24, then come at the end, referring to the reign of Christ the first thousand years, when he shall put down all enemies under his feet. And it says there, the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. Death is a real power, and it's now in the hands of the devil and in your hands. We read of the devil having the power of death. That is the devil in the second chapter of the book of Hebrews, and even you are capable of bringing death. You have that power. Jesus said, fear not him that is able to destroy the body, but also, but rather fear him that is able to destroy both body and soul in hell. So death means the place of the grave in the scriptures. Never the lower parts of the earth where the souls and spirits and where spirit beings of various kinds are confined and will always be confined in all eternity to come. Now, as far as heaven is concerned, we know there is a paradise in the third heaven, any beautiful park like your Chickamauga Park here. That's called a park paradise in the Bible. So they've got paradises like that in heaven. They had a paradise down underneath the earth. That's where Lazarus went, you remember. That's where the people on the cross went. Today, thou shalt be with me in paradise. That was below the earth. Now, there are five prisons in the underworld of the parted spirits, as we mentioned in the Bible. One of them is Tartarus here, which is mentioned one time in your New Testament. We read in 2 Peter 2.4, the angels that sin, he hath cast down to Tartarus, to hell, to be reserved in chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Angels can be bound with chains, and here gives you an idea of it. Lucifer will be bound by a chain and put into the bottomless pit for a thousand years. You can see how real spirit beings are there, and they're capable of having chains on them and being bound in chains and being confined to prisons and being defeated and cast down or put where they belong. In other words, in Revelation 12, we read of a great war in heaven, Michael and his angels fought, and the devil and his angels fought, and Michael cast the devil's angels and the devil down to the ground to contain them there. We read there that their place was found no more in heaven.