15
January, 1940
ACID
TEST
By WILLIAM
McCARRELL
TRUTH
In our evangelistic ef forts, are we making suf ficient use of the Biblical teaching with regard to eternal punishment?
“ Conviction that a God of holiness will deal in exact justice with sin is a deterrent to sin, crime and mur der. Fear of capital punishment by the' government curbs murder. R ea l ization of future eternal punishment for sin will curb it much more. Teach ing that enfeebles or destroys faith in Bible declarations of judgment and reward in the after life, robs man of the greatest incentive for correct liv ing. Ultimately it steals from -him any comfort of Heavenly bliss, for he will logically conclude that if Biblical teaching is not true concerning hell, neither is it true concerning Heaven. Such deductions result in a careless attitude toward suicide; It increases deaths by one’s own hand because of the erroneous idea that suicide is ‘the only way out.’ Any philoso phy of life which eliminates the truth of judgment and reward after death forces one to reject the direct state ments of Jesus Christ, for all New Testament teaching on this subject is based upon His own words. “The individual who claims to re gard Jesus as no more than man’s best m o r a l example and master teacher, endeavors to maintain an untenable position if he fails to ac cept such declarations from His lj?s
punishment for sin and reward for righteousness during life beyond the grave. This diminishing emphasis upon Bible declarations concerning the reality of Heaven a n d h e l l has been accompanied by increase of un belief in Scripture, lowering of moral standards, and a rising tide of divorce, suicide, l a w l e s s n e s s , crime and murder. “Teaching that weakens conviction regarding the Biblical warnings that ‘every one of us shall give account of himself to God’ (Rom. 14:12), and that ‘it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment’ (Heb. 9:27) encourages the shallow, prevalent, present-day tendency to live for the material and temporal rather than for the spiritual and eternal. Such teaching is one explana tion of the shattering of sacred foun dations of Christian culture and moral civilization. When individuals follow « it to a culmination, they usually yield to a life of self-gratification with ‘eating, drinking and making merry’ its highest attainment. Such living destroys personal moral stamina, fol lowed by the breakdown of home life and good constructive govern ment. It ever paves the way for sin ful living.
S OMETIME ago the Educational De partment of one of the country’s best known daily newspapers request ed that I send them in written form my opinion on a vital subject. They wanted to know whether I believed that the matter of judgment for sin after death was emphasized less than formerly in the present-day philosophy of life teaching, and to what extent it should be stressed. I complied with their request but my reply was not published. However, a writeup by a Modernist which did not. concern itself with Biblical statements and did not fairly represent the thought of orthodox, Protestant Christianity, was printed. The newspaper also ran articles by a Reformed Jewish rabbi, which evi- , denced no belief in the Scripture, and by a Roman Catholic educator, con taining a sad mixture of Scriptural truth and church error. These answers to this significant inquiry offered little, if any, spiritual light to either the saved or the unsaved. I believe that my response, based upon the Word of God, was right, and it is quoted herein: “Present-Oay philosophy of life has noticeably lessened, and often denied previous teaching of the certainty of
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