God's Plan with Men

sinned."

obedience received a just re

God."-Is

for the land of of judgement

loved ones, with the most obscure, worthless creature, with the most refined, delicate nature, with the most cruel, debased creature that ever lived, God will do no wrong. Many have turned away to infidelity, not on account of the Bible's complete teaching as to future punishment, but because they have taken some one passage of Scripture and warped it or gotten from it a distorted idea of the Bible's teachings as to Hell; or they have taken some preacher's views as to the Bible's teachings on the subject. For example, here is a boy fifteen years of age, whose mother died when he was an infant, whose father is a drunkard and gambler and infidel, who has given t

this teaching without realizing that it is spiritual anarchy and absolutely horrible and detestable. A woman and four little children are murdered in cold blood by three robbers for the purpose of robbing the home. When the three are arrested, the first is found to be thoroughly penitent, thoroughly reformed, broken-hearted, over his horrible crime. If sin should be punished only to reform the sinner, this man should not be punished at all, though he murdered five people in cold blood; for he is already reformed. The second is such a hardened criminal that he never can be reformed, and the more he is

ins of the debased, the smaller sins as surely as the greater sins. Hence the teaching of God's word, Rom. 1:18, "The wrath of God[1] is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men

fiend. He who loves purity and chastity and has no wrath against impurity and unchastity, but loves them, too, is a moral leper. He who loves the defence of the poor and the helpless, but has n

re and Sidon which were done in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgement than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be brought down to hell:

r condemnation" Jesus revealed to Pilate God's judgment of a difference

tsoever a man soweth, that shall he also

That is what Jesus taught. The people of Sodom were more wicked than those of Capernaum; but heredity and environment were against them. The people of Capernaum had not sinned so terribly as the people of Sodom, but th

ly to your own case, reader: for every added ray of light, for every added opportunity, there will be that much added punishment for your sins. And that is just; that is right. The opportunities that wealth brings, the light that

ence, the more one sins, the greater the punishment. If one knew that he was going to Hell, corrupt human nature wou

yet God recognizes degrees in sin, and as a consequence, there are degrees in the punishment of sin. Following from degrees in the punishment of sin comes inevitably the fact that

llowance for surroundings and conditions, and will take into consideration the number and kinds of sins? God has a right to have laws; His laws are right; a law witho

rible after all, and that you need not fear it. Instead of letting it allay all dread of the future, it is enough to make the bloo

th given all judgement to the Son." Peter reveals the same fact, Acts 10:42, "He commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that this is he who hath been ordained of God to be the judge of living and dead." Remember, that he whom the world praises as so good, so just, so discriminating, so loving, so tender, will be the judge at the Gre

wrong in punishing sin. Men have proven untrue to their denominations and turned traitors to God's word, because they have, Abraham-like, suspected God of wrongdoing in the punishment of sin. It is not that the proof is not ample that the Bible is God's word, but the hatred of the human heart for the Bible teaching about Hell, that has brought in so much of modern religious vagaries and New Theology and Higher Criticism. As Abraham presses his pl

ally ended in rejecting the teaching that "Christ died for our sins" (1 Cor. 15:3); that He "his own self bare our sins in his own body upon the tree" (1 Peter 2:24). As a result of their fighting against God's punishing sin, they have become so blinded as t

he Bible's Hell; for Hell will be exactly the result of the life here on earth; and, as a result, they have in theory, and, alas! will have in fact, the Bible's Hell which they label Heaven, without any real Heaven at all. As an example, consider Mr. R. G. Ingersoll's words, "I believe in the gospel of justice, that we must reap what we sow (Bible's Hell without any Heaven). I do not believe in forgiveness (Bible's Hell without any Heaven). If I rob Smith and God forgives me, how does that help Smith? If I cover some poor girl with the leprosy of some imputed crime and she withers away like a blighted flower and afterward I get forgiveness, how does that help her? If there is another world,

r sins as our substitute, as our Redeemer from all iniquity, and yet, in order to avoid believing in Hell, to profess to believe in the forgiveness of sins, makes one far worse than Mr. Ingersoll, a spiritual anarchist. Mr. Ingersoll at least

ust still"; but the Revised Version gives what the Greek says, "He that is unrighteous let him do unrighteousness still!" And that inevitably means eternal punishment. It is God's last sentence on the sinner. The objector may say that it is horrible to let men sin beyond the grave, in He

.), can have no meaning if the wicked

meaning of literal fire. Yet they do not try to force on the language of the Bible concerning Hell, that it means literal worm when it says "to be cast into Hell where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched." They do not

beat God on the subject of Hell. Proof: the same men will flee to safety from fear of smallpox, from fear of yellow fever, etc. Sh

ll God condemn a man when he has no light?" There never lived such a man. Listen to God: John 1:19, "That was the true light that lighteth every man coming into the world." Again, Rom. 1:20, "The invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; so that they are without excuse." But the objection is raised that they have never heard of Christ, and that it is wrong for people to be lost, condemned, who neve

before, for it is connected by the word "for," pointing back to what had just been said, that there is a "righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all that have faith: for there is no difference," that all that have faith are equally certain of salvation, "for th

teaching of the Saviour that there is a difference in sinners, and different degrees in their punishment. The meaning is that the law is a unit, and that he

the 'Gehenna of fire' (Matt. 5:22) will be the same place and the same degree of punishment for all. But the above passage and many others show that there will be differences. The degrees of punishment must be as remote as the east is from the west. All inherited proclivities, 'taints of blood,' all differences of environment, every privilege and every disadvantage, will be taken into account. It is the Divine Judge that will apportion punishment, with perfect knowledge and perf

ubject, is a slander on a just and holy God. The sermon is drawn largely from Dante's Inferno or the distorted imagination of the prea

uate conceptions of the evil and guilt of sin, and with many, the almost lost