THE KING’S BUSINESS
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proven facts, facts which no man can dis pute, that prove to a demonstration that the Bible God’s ^Word. So the question resolves its'elf into this, Is it revealed in the Bible that many will be doomed to eternal punishment? Any one who will take the Bible and study it to find out what it teaches and not merely to try to bolster up his own opinions or philosophical no tions will be driven to the conclusion that the Bible does teach that all who persis tently reject Jesus Christ will be tormented forever and ever. W e cannot go into the proof of this at length here. If any one wishes tb study the subject, he is referred to the chapters on the subject in the writ er’s book on Bible Doctrine, “WHAT THE BIBLE ^TEACHES:’’ : It is also clearly revealed^ S i tge Bible jh dt God is all-wise and that He is a Being of infinite love. It may be b^yontl us,, to reconcile the fact that God is jj loving God with the fact that |He created men knowing that some of them would persistently reject, Jesus Christ, but that does not alter at all the two facts which the Bible clearly sets forth, that He is a loving^.fbd, and that; i $ has created man witfr jrforbknowledge that some would not accept Christ and thus would perish forever. It is difficult ’fo r ! some people to reconcile facts which they know by per sonal experience or observation to be facts, i. e. the facts of the awful sins and awful miseries which result from sin which be yond a question now exists in the world, with the doctrine that God is love. But no intelligent person denies the facts on this account. Some foolish people do deny that God is love because of these facts which they observe. It is difficult for a finite mind to reconcile some things we know to be facts today with the doctrine that God is love, nevertheless, we know on the au thority o T 'tie Word of God that He is love. Just so it may be difficult for many of us to reconcile the awful doom as set forth in the AVord of God of the persis tently impenitent with the doctrine that God is love, none the less we know that God is love because the Book, which beyond a question is His Word, declares it and we
also know the certainty of this awful doom because this same Book declares that There is no conclusive proof outside the Bible that God is love, but the Bible is con clusive proof o f it. If we give up the Bible, we must give up the doctrine that God is love and all the inferences about all men being saved which universalists have drawn from it. The positon of those who hold that God is love because the Bible teaches it and yet reject those por tions o f the Bible that teach the eternal punishment of the persistently impenitent is utterly illogical and irrational. The Bible is either true or false. If it is false then we have no proof that God is love and therefore no foundation for the hope that all men will be saved. If the Bible is true (as it certainly is), then there is no foundation for the hope that all will be saved, because the Bible expressly declares that many will not be saved. One may take whichever horn o f the dilemma he chooses, but in either case Universalism is untrue. I do not know, and no man knows, how God can do a great many things which we know that He has done, but I have sense enough neither to question the facts nor the perfection of the character of God on that account. I learned long ago not only from the Bible, but by experience, that “ God’s thoughts were not my thoughts and that God’s ways were not my ways,” but that as the heavens were higher than the earth so His ways were higher than my ways and His thoughts than my thoughts. I found out something o f the depth of the riches both o f the wisdom and knowledge of God, that His judgments were unsearch able and His ways past finding out. I learned the Divine wisdom that there is in Paul’s question, “ Oh, man, who art thou that repliest against God ?” The sooner we all learn this, the better it will be, not merely for our comfort o f heart but for our progress in knowledge. The Lord is . . . long suffering to us- ward, not willing that any should perish, hut that all should come to repentance __ 2 Peter 3 :9.
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