"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1).

The majesty of mountains; the brilliance of sun, moon, stars, and planets; the beauty of nature--all creation of the universe is overwhelming to the human mind. Greater astonishment is experienced when we marvel at the creation of human beings and the breath of life.

"The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7).

God's most magnificent masterpiece is the IMMORTAL SOUL, created in His own image and crowned with a diadem engraved "ETERNAL."

A current television commercial introduces a new cereal, claiming "It will warm your soul!"

An elite restaurant is advertised as serving cuisine so succulent that patrons express with zest, "SOUL FOOD!"

A woman desiring to purchase an antique table with the price marked down from $1600 to $1200, commented that she believed in buying soulful things. She said, "This table has more soul than any table I've seen anywhere!"

JUST WHAT IS A SOUL?

Who can define "SOUL"? Where is its origin? How much is it worth? Where can you find it? Does a nation have a soul? What is the destiny of the soul?

The English language has been so distorted that original meanings of words become very confusing. Beautiful words have been made ugly. "Gay" still means cheerful. "Grass" still means a green ground cover. "SOUL" STILL MEANS "SOUL"!

This subject is written solely from a Biblical perspective; the Holy Scriptures give us the clearest exegesis of the soul---past, present, and future.

What happens to the SOUL when we die? Where are the dead? Are the SOULS of departed ones sleeping? Do we know what they are doing? Do they know each other? Can they see us? Is heaven an extension of this world? Do we go to heaven when we die and then come back to earth for the Judgment Day? When do we receive our rewards? How long is eternity?

Some of these questions are clearly answered in the Bible. Others may imply answers, while to some we find no answer at all. The only true light into the future comes from the Holy Scriptures. As you read the pages of this writing you will be challenged to prepare your SOUL for here and hereafter. You must choose the DESTINY OF YOUR SOUL!

Souls Are Forever...

"For you, O Lord, have delivered my soul from death" (Psalm 116:8)

During the days when it was popular to believe only what you could prove scientifically in a test tube, some people questioned anything invisible. It was falsely assumed that to be an atheist or an agnostic was a mark of intelligence.

Before elevators were invented, a maid was dusting the hospital starcase. A doctor, his bag in hand, was putting on his overcoat while hurriedly descending the stairs. His bag brushed the shoulder of the maid, almost throwing her off balance. She cried, "Well, bless my soul, Doct-a!" "Your soul?" he replied. "You have no soul!" The maid said, "Doct-a, yo' surprises me! Yo' is so smart--how can yo' say I has no soul?" In an arrogant tone he responded, "I've performed autopsies on all kind of bodies--black, brown, white, small, and large. I've cut them up and down and crossways looking inside, and I've never found a soul." Reacting in a gentle manner, the maid exclaimed, "Doct-a, yo' really 'mazes me! Yo' is supposed to be so smart--and yo' been looking for a soul in a dead man!"

The first Biblical reference to the soul is found in Genesis 2:7. "And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." The soul is invisible. Physical eyes have never inspected a soul. With all the technology of x-ray, computerized axial, tomography, ultrasound, telescope, microscope, and much more, man has never yet located the soul. All surgery and physical research fails to produce evidence of the spiritual being. Human wisdom has placed man on the moon, and on the floor of the ocean, but never produced a soul.

Years ago a skeptical physician argued with a group of Christian nurses concerning the existence of a "soul." In room 207 of Community Hospital a patient was near death. The doctor gave orders for the patient to be weighed on the exact scale with meticulous measurments, with the precise weight to be recorded. Thirty-six minutes later the patient expired. The doctor ordered the weighing process be repeated. He then gave the evidence of the exact weight being the same both before and after death. "Now you see," said the physician, "if man had a soul, the weight measure would change when the soul left the body." Wise nurses replied, "All you have proved, doctor, is that a soul can't be measured in avoirdupois."

The soul is invisible, colorless, shapeless, weightless, genderless, and indestructible. Souls are housed in bodies of all sizes, male and female, and with different colors of skins.

There is an old parable that was popular with Negro preachers in the days of slavery. Supposedly, after Adam was expelled from the Garden of Eden, he sat down to rest and fell asleep. Satan came and stole his soul. Satan called for the four Spirits of earth to hide Adam's soul where he would never find it. The Spirit of Earth said, "Give me the soul. I will hide it in the deepest cave of my dark underground." But the Spirit of the Waters cried, "Oh, no--man would search and dig until he found his soul in the earth. Let me bury it in the deepest of my mighty oceans." But the Spirit of the Air protested, saying, "Man will invent a ship and search the waters until he find his soul. Give me the soul and I will carry it far beyond the faraway stars in spatial vastness. He will never find it." But the Spirit of Fire said, "I have a better idea. Give me man's soul. Even if you carried it to the highest wind, man would build an airship and find his soul. I will place it in the hottest flames of fire and that will be the end of it." To this they all agreed. They cast the soul into the flames. But alas! To their utter amazement the soul emerged from the flames without even a scar or smell of smoke. Then Satan shouted, "Fools, fools! You thought you could destroy man's soul created in God's own image, in the earth, the waters, the winds, or the fire. Fools! I have decided what I will do. I will hide man's soul inside himself. Man will not think he has lost it." And that is the tragedy!

WHAT IS A SOUL?

The Great Encyclopedic Dictionary gives several definitions:

1. The rational, emotional and volitional faculties in man, conceived of as forming an entity distinct from the body

2. The divine principle of life in man

3. The moral or spiritusl part in man as related to God, considered as surviving death and liable to joy or misery in a future state

Dr. F. G. Smith in his book What the Bible Teaches defines the soul, or spirit, "as the knowing, volitional, responsible par of man." In reality we are a soul and have a body. It is the soul in us that loves, hopes, is tempted, sins, aspires, prays, repents, makes decisions, suffers, and can be saved. Submitted to every test, the soul is the greatest thing in man, God's supreme creation!

We stand in awe when we see the magnificent creation of God! It is almost inconceivable to realize that everything fvisible to the physical eye will someday vanish. We join with the psalmist and cry--

"When I consider the heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor"
(Psalm 8:3-5).

When the sun, moon, stars, mountains, trees, and all the earthly thing have passed away, we shall know what Paul the Apostle meant when he said,

"...we fix our eyes not on what is seen,
but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary,
but what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18).

When these physical bodies of ours are returned to dust, we shall behold the souls that remain. Of all creation, God has marked only the soul ETERNAL.

SOULS ARE FOREVER!

God's Exquisite Masterpiece

"God created man in His own image...
male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:27).

Do you remember the first time you uttered the world "soul"? We live in a culture that is very money-conscious, time-conscious, body-conscious and even self-conscious, but not may people are soul-conscious. Most individuals take greater concern for their occupation, bank accounts, stocks, bonds, posessions, and pets then they do for their soul. More time is spent with automobiles and golf clubs than on the needs of our spiritual being.

My earliest remembrance of saying the word "soul" comes with the first prayer my mother taught me:

"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take."

I did not know the meaning of my prayer. However, the word "soul" was frequently sounded from the pulpit. At an early age I became very soul-conscious. My inquisitive mind prompts me to seek more understanding of the great mysteries of the soul. It is exciting to learn that human creatures are dual persons. The Apostle Paul recognized there are two persons in his being: the inner Paul that loved God's law and the human Paul that expressed a sesire to serve self. He wrote: "For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law working in the members of my body" (Romans 7:22-23). There is a striking comparison between our outer person (the body) and our inner being of the soul.

The psalmist, David, tells of the miraculous creation of the body and soul. He writes:

"For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know full well.
My frome was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are you thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand" (Psalm 139:14-18).

Life begins at conception.(?) It is logical to believe that soul and body are created together.(?) The miracle of life and the mystery of birth is inexplicable. When the embryo is as small as the pollen of a glower, the sex, color of hair and eyes, plus much more is already decided. Life is present before it is visible.(?) In like manner the invisible soul is present. Jeremiah, the prophet, wrote, "The word of the Lord came to me saying, 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations'" (Jeremiah 1:5). David sings, "Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us and we are his" (Psalm 103:3). The physical body takes the likeness of earthly parents; simultaneously, the spiritual body is formed in the image of the heavenly Father.

The Greek New Testament defines the word "brephos" as a breathing, nursing infant. The fetus both breathes and receives nourishment. It is a person having body and soul. Birth does not creat life, but is evidence of life created. Isaiah expressed, "Before I was born the Lord called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name" (Isaiah 4:1). The scriptures unequivocally teach that the Heavenly Father beholds the growing, developing bodies of the unborn. What a stab in the heart of God it must be to see unborn infants suffer burns from saline injections, or broken bones in the section aspirator for abortion! It is impossible for us to even imagine what a diferent world this may have been if unborn infants had not been aborted. Abortion on demand without just cause is murder.

The Biblical story of creation is astounding! How can God hang the earth upon nothing? (Job 26:7) What power is expressed in the universe! The grandeur of all creation is overwhelming! God looked upon all this, then said, "It is good" It was now time to create his masterpiece. God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness..." (Genesis 1:26). It was the sixth day of creation when he created man. "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Genesis 1:27).

It is interesting to note the dictionary definition for "man": (1) An adult male being, (2) Human beings collectively; the human race; mankind. Woman is termed female man. We observe they were created equally. Blessings to Apostle Paul! He writes: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). [ The End ]