Immortality or Resurrection (Updated) by William West (reading strategies book .TXT) 📖

cast forth. The same as at the marriage
feast (above), the Jews, because they rejected Christ as their king was cast out of the
kingdom. The church, not Israel, is now God's kingdom. Those who teach Hell read the
prophecies of Christ about the judgment of Israel in AD 70 and move the weeping and
gnashing of teeth to Hell after the Judgment Day is over. They have not found one
passage that says anything about the lost after the judgment. Nothing can happen to
nothing. After the second death there could be nothing said, for there will be nothing to
say anything about. There is this life, then the first death, a resurrection to life from the
first death, then the second death for the lost, but nothing is said about a third life for the
lost after the second death. They need something to prove eternal life in their Hell, and
try to make it look as if weeping and gnashing of teeth could only be because of eternal
torment in Hell; although both weeping and gnashing of teeth are used throughout the
Old Testament and those who believe in Hell do not believe weeping and gnashing of
teeth in the Old Testament have any reference to a time of punishment after the Judgment
Day, but they assume that in the New Testament both are used in reference to punishment
in Hell after the judgment day. Weeping and gnashing of teeth has a reference to Hell
only when they want or need them to.
WEEPING AND GNASHING OF TEETH: God says the "wages of sin is death," not
an eternal life of weeping and gnashing of teeth in Hell that will go on forever, for there
is no death for the soul that cannot die. We would never be able to know that this
weeping will be in Hell unless:
FIRST: Many say that there is a Hell, but there is not one word about it in the Bible.
SECOND: Then they tell us that this weeping shall be in Hell. How could they know this
when there is not one passage that says there will be weeping in "Hell"?
Some of the words used by Christ to describe the Jews: blind guides, hypocrites,
murderers, adulterous, transgressors, faithless, perverse, fools, generation of snakes. "O
JERUSALEM, JERUSALEM...BEHOLD, YOUR HOUSE (the temple Christ had just
left) IS LEFT UNTO YOU DESOLATE" [Matthew 23:38].
B. W. Johnson, Matthew 23:33-39, "The People's New Testament With Notes" Gospel Light Publishing
Company, 1889. “33. You generations of vipers, how can you escape? Etc. Brood of vipers, full of
venom, deadly as serpents, treacherous as the lurking serpent. So John had called them nearly four
years before (Matt. 3:7). 34. Wherefore, I send unto you prophets and wise men. In Luke 11:49, is a
passage much like this. The men sent were inspired apostles and evangelists. By giving the Jews still
further opportunities after the sin of the cross, the guilt of those continued to reject the crucified
Lord was aggravated. Prophets. Inspired teachers, like the apostles, Philip, Stephen, etc. Wise men.
Faithful, devout and learned, but uninspired preachers. Scribes. Usually, those who copy and teach
the wisdom of others, but I suppose also embracing those who wrote the New Testament Scriptures.
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Some of them you shall kill and crucify. Literally fulfilled in the next few years. 35. That upon you
may come all the righteous blood. Thus would they fill the measure full and become guilty of all the
righteous blood shed by the whole army of martyrs. Unto the blood of Zacharias. The reference is
probably to 2 Chron. 24:20. 36. VERILY, I SAY UNTO YOU, ALL THESE THINGS SHALL COME UPON
THIS GENERATION. As the Amorites were spared until ‘their iniquity was full’ (Gen. 15:16), so the
iniquity of Israel was allowed to accumulate from age to age, till in that generation it came to the full,
and the collected vengeance of justice broke at once upon it. So it is often in the destruction of a
nation. The French Revolution of 1793 is another example. 37. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kills
the prophets. The intense feeling that spoke in this utterance comes out first in the redoubling of the
word Jerusalem; next in the picture of the sins of the city which he draws--a city so wicked that it was
not content with rejecting the messengers of God, but even slew them. I know of nothing more
touching than this apostrophe. How often would I have gathered your children together. Not only
had the city been warned again and again by the prophets, but the Lord had visited it at least six or
seven times, and had for months taught in its streets. Nor did his solicitude end with the cross. His
long suffering, patience and love are shown by his charge in the commission to the apostles: ‘To
preach repentance and remission in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.’ You would
not. ‘Would not’ explains the cause of the rejection of the gospel. It is not because God in Christ is
not ready: he would gather them. It is not because men cannot come, but because they will not
come. Christ wished the salvation of Jerusalem; his will was for them to be saved: he sought to
influence their wills to make a choice of salvation, but they would not. So God still ‘is not willing that
any should perish, but that all should come to repentance’ (2 Peter 3:9), but there are many ‘who will
not come to Christ that they might have life’ (John 5:40). While God wills the salvation of men, he
does not destroy free agency by coercing the human will, but says: ‘Whosoever will, let him come.’
38. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. This was the consequence of refusing to come to
Christ. The temple is the house meant. God will abandon it and leave it desolate. He will no longer
accept its worship. 39. You shall not see me henceforth. This seems to imply that the temple shall be
deserted when he leaves it. With his departure the presence of God departs. He was the Lord of the
temple. ‘Till you shall say.’ These were his last words in the temple precincts, but they do not shut
out all hope. Even yet when the Jews shall join in the hosannas of those who, on the Sunday before,
had sung his praises, and cry, ‘Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,’ they may be
permitted to behold their Messiah...When Christ abandoned the temple in Jerusalem, it was only fit
for the destroyer.”
"That which Israel seeks for, that he obtained not; but the election obtained it, and the
rest were hardened" [Romans 11:7]. Whatever Israel did not obtain, THE ELECT HAD
OBTAINED IT, PAST TENSE AT THE TIME PAUL WROTE THIS. It is not
something that will be obtained by Israel or anyone after at A. D. 70 or at the second
coming of Christ. How is anyone saved today, Jew or Gentile? Only by the Gospel. I was
saved when I heard the Gospel and obeyed it; all that are saved are saved in the same
way. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is THE POWER of God for salvation to
EVERYONE who believes, TO THE JEW FIRST and also to the Greek" [Romans
1:16]. Neither a Jew nor a Greek can be saved without believing and obeying the gospel.
Today a nation cannot be saved as a nation (Israel or any other nation). Individuals must
believe and obey the Gospel; there is no other way. "But if SOME OF THE BRANCHES
were broken off, ["some of the branches," plural, are individuals Jews, not "some of the
nations"] and you, being a wild olive, was grafted in among them [among some of the
branches, the Jews that believed and were not broken off, Paul was one of the Jews that
believed]...Well; by their unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by your faith...for
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if God spared not the natural branches [individuals Jews], neither will he spare you
[individuals Gentiles, not nations]. Behold then the goodness and severity of God: toward
them that fell (individuals, not nations), severity; but toward you, God's goodness;
otherwise, you also shall be cut off. And they [individuals Jews] also, if they continue not
in their unbelief, shall be grafted in" [Romans 11:17-24]. Many of the believers in the
early church were Jews. Paul was a Jew, and he said, "Even so than at this present time
also there is a remnant according to the election of grace" [at the time Paul was writing
this some Jews believed] [Romans 11:4]. Salvation is always available to anyone of any
nation if they will accept Christ. The law was only a shadow of that which was to come.
Israel cannot be restored as a nation without restoring the shadow, including restoring
animal sacrifice, etc.
There is individuality "about the Christian religion that cannot be dispensed with. Those who
accept Christ must do it as individuals, not as a nation. Each one must come to Christ on his own
individual faith. He can come in no other way. In this way he can come now; and this is the only
way a Gentile, or anyone else can come. The Jews were broken off for unbelief, and they must
come in faith. This opportunity they have now, and have always had--they need not expect, or
wait for any thing more." Dr T. W. Brents, Gospel Sermons, Page 329, 1918, Gospel Advocate
Publishing Co.
"Woe unto you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
So you are witnesses and consent unto the works of your fathers: for they kill them, and
you build their tombs. Therefore, also said the wisdom of God, I will send unto them
prophets and apostles; and some of them they shall kill and persecute; that the blood of
all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, MAY BE
REQUIRED OF THIS GENERATION; from the blood of Abel unto the blood of
Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary: yea, I say unto you, IT
SHALL BE REQUIRED OF THIS GENERATION" [Luke 11:47-51].
[1] THE LORD'S LAMENT OVER JERUSALEM WHEN HE WAS ON THE
ROAD TO JERUSALEM Luke 19:41-44: When Jesus drew nigh Jerusalem He wept
over the city and tells His disciples of the destruction of it in language that is similar to
what He said in Luke 21:5-33. "And when he drew nigh, he saw the city and wept over it,
saying, ‘If you had known in this day, even you, the things which belong unto peace! But,
now they are hid from your eyes. FOR THE DAYS SHALL COME UPON YOU, WHEN
YOUR ENEMIES WILL THROW UP A BANK ABOUT YOU, AND SURROUND YOU,
AND HEM YOU IN ON EVERY SIDE, AND WILL LEVEL YOU TO THE GROUND
AND YOUR CHILDREN WITHIN YOU; AND THEY SHALL NOT LEAVE IN YOU ONE
STONE UPON ANOTHER; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation’"
[Luke 19:41-44 New American Standard Version]. The Romans did surround Jerusalem,
put up a bank against the wall to go over it, and did not leave one stone upon another.
[2] IN AN ADDRESS TO THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEE AT JERUSALEM:
In Matthew 23 Jesus gives seven woes to the scribes and Pharisees [Matthew 23:13, 15,
16, 23, 25, 27 29] and ends the address with "Verily I say unto you, ALL THESE THINGS
SHALL COME UPON THIS GENERATION. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem that kills the
prophets, and stones them that are sent unto her! How often would I have gathered your
children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would
not! BEHOLD, YOUR HOUSE IS LEFT UNTO YOU DESOLATE" [Matthew