BIBLE STUDY FEATURE
*»ir Lewis C. Hohenstein
V ERY rarely DO I speak on the subject of retri butive action or punishment from the hand of God—the subject of Hell—and the rarity of my speaking is not because of my lack of concern, but because I feel so inadequate to deal with such a subject. When speaking on judgment and punish ment, we should have the attitude of Robert Mur ray McCheyne, the great Scottish preacher, who never spoke to his people until he had wet the cushion of his study chair with his tears. Then he always spoke as a dying man speaks to dying men. Will God ever empty Hell into Heaven? A few weeks ago a young Los Angeles police man was shot by two men as he stopped a car to make some inquiries — a senseless murder. Some statistics were released at the time that are quite shocking and revealing: Since 1960, thirteen Los Angeles police officers have been murdered, and of those thirteen, eleven have been shot to death by men who were paroled from the state prisons of California. We certainly should ask: Do we dare to pour Hell into Heaven? Every home that is effective, where the author ity of that home is respected, has some kind of
“woodshed.” In the schools of our county and state, if the authority of the teacher is to be respected, there must be a principal’s office with a paddle. If the authority of the state and nation is to be respected, there must be prisons. It is only right, then, for us to assume, without any revelation from God, that if the authority of the Sovereign God is to be recognized and understood and not mocked, there must be a Hell. Hell is a necessity. It grows out of a need. I have never spoken with reference to retribu tive attitudes, as far as God is concerned, but that someone asks if I think God would forever punish a human being for his rebellion. The problem is not that we have a wrong concept of God, but that we have a wrong concept of the nature of man. Someone once said to Dr. Bamhouse concerning the eternity of Hell, “ You wouldn’t even punish a cat for that long.” Dr. Bamhouse explained that if a cat were going to live forever and ever and could not die, if that cat were infected with a dis ease with which, if left alone, he would infect all other cats with the same disease, so that we would have a universe filled with diseased cats running
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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