Thanks so much for your views. They don’t in the least offend me because they are your views. That comes with the beautiful gift of free will that God has given us.
I choose to believe the messages not the messenger of the Padgett messages. The messages at the bottom of this post came from your website and were brought to Mr. Padgett by Jesus and John and there is even another message from Helen herself regarding the non-existence of fallen angels.
.I know that it is very largely believed in the churches that there are such beings as devils of whom Satan is the chief, but such belief is wholly erroneous and has worked a great injury to the cause of truth and to my teachings
If James Padgett did get it wrong, I also with certainty believe that Jesus would have pointed out that error to him. Jesus worked so fervently to finally get the truths to us and he would not have let it gone uncorrected much less in print if indeed it was in error.
If I am at liberty to pick and choose which messages that I feel are right and wrong then I might as well disregard the messages as a whole. Isn’t that what has happened to the bible with a few people distorting the words said by Jesus and the apostle to what they believe was in error? As Jesus also stated in the messages our beliefs don’t change what is truth. Truth is Truth.
I truly hope that I didn’t give the impression that James Padgett personally or as a medium was on pedestal for me as my relationship with God and of receiving his Divine Love and my soul development is of the highest importance to me. And as Al so rightly described - my soul is singing.
With respect, hugs and love,
Jan
January 2nd, 1916.
Received by James Padgett.
Washington D.C.
I am here, Jesus:
I come to tell you that you have not been in a very good condition of spirituality since last night when you read that book.
Well, in the first place I want to say that there are no such things as the fallen angels or any spirits except the spirits of those who once lived as mortals and who are living now as spirits. Of course many of them are what may be called evil spirits but they are not devils in the sense that the author describes them.
There never were any rebellions in heaven of any of the angels of God and whenever such a thing is mentioned in the Bible it has no foundation in fact for there never was a Seraphim or any other angel that fell and became the devil or Satan as he is called and you must not let your thoughts disturb your belief in our writing to you for we who profess to write to you actually do write. I know that it is very largely believed in the churches that there are such beings as devils of whom Satan is the chief, but such belief is wholly erroneous and has worked a great injury to the cause of truth and to my teachings.
The men who teach this false doctrine will have a great sin to atone for when they come to the spirit world and especially will the author of the book you were reading and not only for this false doctrine but for others which he teaches. He will find as soon as his breath leaves the body that there is a spirit world and that he is a living spirit and one who will find come to him the recollections of all his false teachings. I know that it may be said that he actually believes what he preaches but that fact will not alter the fact that his teachings are untrue and that he must pay the penalties of these false teachings until at last they shall no longer exist on earth.
This may seem unjust when it is considered that he may be honest in his beliefs, but as I said on earth, the man who believes these false doctrines and teaches other men to believe them will have to pay the penalties of results of these teachings - not because they injured him and not even if taught insincerely - but because they injured others and as a consequence placed those whom he taught in a condition which is not in unison with the truth or with the laws of God. And that condition can only be reversed (reinclosed - as printed) by the truth (or knowledge of the truth) being possessed by these misguided beings. They can only come into the possession of the truth by being untaught as it were these falsehoods and being taught the truths. This will be the work of the author mentioned and all those who assist him in teaching these doctrines until all who have ever been deceived by such teachings have been shown the error of the same and brought to a knowledge of the truth.
This will arise not because of any special punishment inflicted upon him by God, but because of his realization of the great harm he has done to those who believed in and followed him in these teachings. He will need no other punishment than that of his own recollection and his conscience.
So I say, give no further heed to what you may have read and believe that I Jesus am actually writing to you and that all the others who claim to write are the spirits that they actually represent themselves to be.
January 3rd, 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.
. In my mind, they are the central issues of the discussion around the Lucifer issue and yes Geoff I understand that the Lucifer that you are referring to is not the devil. But without reading the whole story as laid out in the Uranthia, these questions seem relevant in order to validate your point. I hope I'm not walking into a very long dialogue here discussing the veracity of this book. Quite frankly I have no vested interest in verifying or discrediting these writings because they have no relevance to my spiritual life. It's just another publication like thousands of others that line the book shelves of your local book store. Each happily confirming or contradicting the other. Padgett is no different in this regard. The mind of man can create more contradictions than truths because of it's inherent capabilities and flaws so I will reiterate again that I understand that truth will never be fully understood with words, intellect or books. Real truth comes with soul perception. Soul perception comes with the development of the soul with the abundant infusion of God's Love. Until we are at that place of soul wisdom and perception ( maybe this is what perfection is eh Geoff) we will never know truth in all it's perfection. Everything else that is spoken here is really just idyll speculation and as such is welcome by me but not seen as God's Truth, just a shadow of it.
. I hope you will stick with it here and have tolerance for this stubborn, somewhat fundamentalist guy who loves to spout off about his spiritual life. Maybe we'll learn something from one another? God bless for now.......Al