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DANIEL, the Prophet of God of the Old Testament.
I am with you to-night because you have reason to believe that you have been selected to do the work of Jesus in transmitting his messages to mankind; and I want to add my testimony to that of the others who have preceded me.
I am a follower of the Master, although I lived on earth many years before he came to announce the rebestowal of the great Divine Love of the Father, and show the way by which every man who so desires may obtain it.
I never knew what this Love was until Jesus came and declared it to man and to spirits, as he did; and when he came to the spirit world, after his crucifixion, he preached to us who were in the spiritual spheres the great doctrine of God's plan of salvation.
Men must not think that mortals are the only recipients of this Love, or that they are the only ones that had the privilege of learning the way to this Love, for, as I tell you, Jesus came to the spirits who lived in the spiritual heavens, and made known this great plan and taught the way to immortality.
I was, before his coming, a spirit who enjoyed the favor of the Father to the extent that my natural love was developed to the highest degree, and in that love I was comparatively happy. I also possessed great intellectual development but as to the Divine Love, which I now possess, I knew nothing of, nor did any spirit then living.
This may seem strange to you, because from my history as contained in the Old Testament, you would naturally suppose that I was in high favor with God, and so I was; but that favor extended no further than in receiving from Him a very great amount of the natural love which He had bestowed on all mankind, and in knowing by my spiritual perceptions and the power of a psychic nature, which I possessed, that God was caring for me and using me to convince the heathen nations, that there was only one God, and that He alone should be worshiped.
Never did I know the reality of what the Divine Love was, or that I was not in position other than I might have been, had not that Love been taken from mankind when our great earthly father committed his fatal act of disobedience. No spirit in those times before the coming of Jesus, could possibly progress higher than the sphere where this natural love and intellectual development existed in their greatest degree of perfection.
So you see, I was never a spirit possessed of this Divine nature, until after the coming of the Master; and you will find nowhere in the Old Testament, any declaration or promise the man should possess this Divine nature, and we who lived in the days of my earthly life, were satisfied with and expected only the favors and gifts of God as they might affect our earthly prosperity and happiness.
I was a prophet, as it is written, and God spoke to me through His spirits the things which I declared to the people, and also enabled me to foretell many things which would and did happen. But this great favor and gift did not bring to me the possession of the Divine Love or nature of the Father; and when I came to die, I passed to the spirit world a sprit possessed only of the natural love and the great moral development which my communications from my associations which with the spirits of the Father had given me.
So man must not think that we of the Old Testament, no matter whether prophet or seer or the specially favored by God, ever had this Divine Essence of His, while we lived on earth or while we existed as spirits, before the coming of Jesus.
Abraham, Moses or Elias never possessed this Divine nature, although they were the specially chosen of God to do His work in the particulars in which they were chosen; and they never understood that their lives after death were to be anything more than a mere existence in the spirit world as spirits, or, as it was expressed, they were gathered to the home of their fathers. Rest was then understood as the great condition of the good men of God, and this rest meant to them a relief from all earthly troubles and a happiness that would result from such freedom.
So that, when the Master came into the spirit world and preached the great truth of the rebestowal of the Divine Love, the spirits were as much surprised as were mortals; and there was just as much unbelief among them as among mortals.
The Jews still believe in their doctrines which had been their rule of faith when in the flesh; and the laws of Moses and the declarations of the prophets control them as spirits just as they had controlled them on earth.
Of course, after they became spirits, they learned many things which pertain to the spirit world of which they had no knowledge as mortals; and among the laws which they learned as spirits was the great law of recompense. Of course, Moses had in a way taught the principles of this law as instanced in his decree of "an eye for and eye, and a tooth for a tooth;" but this was merely a shadow of what the law of recompense means in the spirit world.
This law was then in existence just as much as it is now, but then spirits had only the natural love to help them get out of their condition of suffering and darkness, and, in many cases, it required centuries and centuries for this love to work out their salvation.
And I must tell you also, that when this natural love had done its work, the spirit came into a condition of happiness and satisfaction. So much so, that many of them remain contented; and some who lived on earth when I lived and became spirits when I became a spirit, are still in that condition of happiness which this natural love in a pure state gives them. They did not awaken to the great truth that the Divine Love had been offered them at the time of Jesus' coming to earth, just as many, yes, as the large majority of men, have never awakened to this fact.
So you see, while God in His goodness and mercy has provided a way by which all may become partakers of His Divine nature and of the corresponding great and never dying happiness, yet, He has also provided a natural love which may become free from all sin and earthly grossness, and when so purified enables the spirit to enjoy a happiness far beyond what mortals may conceive of.
But this latter condition does not bring immortality, and no spirit with only this natural love has any assurance that it is immortal.
Well, I have written very much and must stop for this time.
Well, at the time Moses and Elias met Jesus in the Mount of Transfiguration, they had received a portion of this Divine Love, because they had learned previous to that date of its rebestowal on mankind. And as they were very spiritual beings, in the sense, that they had developed their natural love to its supreme excellence and were very near the Father in their soul development, so they were ready recipients of this Divine Love when it came again to man and spirits. But they were so filled with it then as many spirits who were mortals in your time, are now.
AS I UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF THE TRANSFIGURATION, IT WAS TO SHOW TO THE DISCIPLES OF THE MASTER, THAT WHILE JESUS WAS THE POSSESSOR AND EMBODIMENT OF THIS DIVINE LOVE IN THE MORTAL WORLD, SO MOSES AND ELIAS WERE THE POSSESSORS OF IT IN THE SPIRIT WORLD. IN OTHER WORDS, JESUS' APPEARANCE SHOWED THAT IT HAD BEEN BESTOWED ON MORTAL MAN, AND THE APPEARANCE OF MOSES AND ELIAS SHOWED THAT IT HAD ALSO BEEN BESTOWED ON THE SPIRITS.
Sometime I will come and relate to you my experience in finding this Love and in becoming convinced of the real mission and truth of Jesus' teaching--and how this Love came into my soul and resulted in my becoming a Christian.
The sphere in which I live has no number, but it is high in the Celestial Heavens, but not so high as that in which the apostles live. They have wonderful soul development, which means the possession of this Love to a great degree, which determines their place of living.
Well, I am grateful that I could write to you to-night, and I feel that by having done so, I am opening the way to my being able to do good to mortals, for we are now forming an army, as you would say, to make a great and successful onslaught on the powers of evil and darkness as they now exist in the mortal world. Jesus will be the leader of this army. He is the greatest spirit in all God's universe, and we, who are his followers, realize that fact and follow him without question.
So, my friend, I must stop.
With the love of a brother, who to you may seem ancient, but is very young, I will say, good-night.
DANIEL.Vol. II, p. 262
