January 3, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
I am with you tonight to warn you against letting any doubt enter your mind or heart as to our actually writing to you for we, and none other, are actually in communication with you.
The book that you read (Pastor Russell on Spiritualism) is a snare and a lie, for there are no angels who have become devils as the author of that book declares. Never were there any angels who through ambition or any other reason revolted against the power of government of God and thereby lost their estate as angels. Never was there any Lucifer, and never were there any angels who were thrown from the battlements of Heaven into Hell, as it has been written and as I told you before. There are no Devils and no Satan considered as real persons and fallen angels.
The only spirits in the spirit world are those who at one time were mortals and who lived lives on earth, shorter or longer, and whenever angels are mentioned in the Bible, or rather in the New Testament in places which contain my sayings or those of the apostles, and I mean those sayings which were actually said, the word "angel" always refers to the spirit of some mortal who had passed the line between life and death as commonly understood.
I desire to tell you of these things at large very soon and to instruct you as to who were the angels of God that are supposed to have had an existence prior to the creation of man and of the world; and who the inhabitants of Heaven were before the Spirit of God entered into man and caused him to become a living soul as the Bible says. But the time is not yet ripe for me to instruct you in these matters, because there are so many more important truths to be first taught you - truths which are vital to man's salvation and happiness to those on earth and in the spirit world.
But this you must believe that no Devils ever write you, or in any manner manifest to, or through, any of the numerous mediums who are used to show the existence of spirits of men in the spirit world no matter whether these mediums be good or evil. There are spirits of all kinds - just as there are mortals of all kinds - having all the traits and characteristics of mortals, and some of these spirits may be justly called wicked or evil spirits, and even devils; but they are nothing more or less than spirits, such as I describe.
l know that the belief of the majority of mankind is that there are such things as devils and that they are independent creations of God made by Him to tempt and inflict all kind of trouble and unhappiness on mortals, and because of the great number of years that these beliefs have existed, and the fact that many of the churches still teach that such devils do exist and are at all times trying to tempt and injure men, it is hard and will be difficult to induce men to believe that there are no such things as devils, which is the truth.
I know that the Bible, in many places, speaks of my casting devils out of men, and of men being possessed of devils, and of the apostles casting out devils, and of their not being able to cast out some of these devils, but I tell you now that the Bible is all wrong in this regard, and the writers and translators of the Bible never understood what the word devil, as used in these various instances, meant or was intended to mean. As I have told you, there was never any devil or devils in the sense mentioned and taught by the churches and, consequently, they never could have possessed mortals nor have been cast out of them.
It is true that by the workings of the Law of Attraction and the susceptibility of mortals to the influence of spirit powers, mortals may become obsessed by the spirits of evil; that is, evil spirits of men who once lived on earth. And this obsession may become so complete and powerful that the living mortal may lose all power to resist this influence of the evil spirits and may be compelled to do things that the mortal will not desire to do and to show all the evidence of a distorted mind and present appearances of a lost will power, as well as of the ability to exercise the ordinary powers given him by his natural creation. And in these instances referred to of casting out devils, wherever they occurred, and they did occur in some of the instances mentioned, the only devils that existed were the evil spirits who had possessed these mortals.
And this obsession obtains today just as it did then, for the same laws are in operation now as were in existence then, and many a man is in a condition of evil life and disturbed mind from the obsession of these evil spirits; and if there were any men of today in that condition of soul development and belief that my disciples were in, they could cast out these so called devils just as the disciples cast them out in the Bible days.
But men have not this faith, though there are many who have been blessed with the inflowing of the Holy Spirit; but they have not the belief that such work as the disciples performed can be performed by them now and, in fact, the most of them believe that it would be contrary to God's will to attempt to exercise such powers and, hence, they never attempt to do such work.
But when men learn that in all ages God is the same, that His laws work the same way, that mankind is the same so far as the soul's possibilities are concerned, and that the faith which God made possible for man to attain to may be possessed by him now - just as it was possessed by my disciples, then they will attempt this work of beneficence and will succeed, and the sick will be healed and the devils cast out, the blind made to see, and the deaf to hear, and the so-called miracles will be performed as they were in my days on earth.
There is not and never was such a thing as a miracle in the sense of having an effect produced by a cause which was not the result of the ordinary workings of God's laws, for these laws in their workings never vary, and when the same law is called into operation upon the same condition of facts the same results will always be produced.
So, let a mortal have in his soul the same amount of God's Divine Love, which the Bible writers meant or should have meant, when they spoke of being endowed by the Holy Ghost, and let him have the necessary faith that when he prays to God, He will give him the power to exercise this Love in a sufficient degree to produce the desired results, and then try to exercise the power of casting out devils or healing, etc., and he will find that success will attend his efforts. God is the same at all times and under all circumstances, and only mortals vary in their conceptions and conditions.
So I say, there are no devils as independent creatures of God, in contradistinction to the spirits of men who once lived on earth, and you must believe that there are not.
I tell you now that the teachers of such false doctrines will have to pay the penalties for their false teachings when they come to the spirit world and see the result of these false teachings, and no relief will be granted until they have paid the last farthing. To believe such doctrines entails results that are bad enough for any spirit to endure, but to teach others these beliefs and convince them of their truth, entails upon the teacher, whether he actually believes them or not, sufferings and duration of sufferings of which men have no conception.
I will not write more tonight but will, in closing, say that you have my love and blessings, and my promises I will fulfill, so that you will realize your expectations and be in condition to perform the work that you have been selected to do.
Well, you let doubt come into your mind and, as a consequence, your soul does not respond, although, strange as it may seem the Divine Love is there, but when this mental doubt exists, it is as if it were a covering which prevents the existence of the Love in the soul to shine forth and produce the great feeling of happiness and joy which otherwise you might experience.
The mental condition of the mortal, undoubtedly has a great influence on the consciousness of the man as to his possession of this soul development and the Divine Love and, consequently, there will have to be this continuous fight as long as life lasts on earth between the mental conditions and the soul's consciousness. But as the mental beliefs are brought into harmony with the soul's condition, more and more the fight will grow weaker and less frequent, and it is possible that they will cease altogether, and the mental beliefs become entirely and absolutely subordinated or rather absorbed in the soul's consciousness of its being possessed of this Divine Love of the Father.
So my dear brother, I will say good night.
Your brother and friend,
Jesus
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