God Will Not Fail

THE poet has well said that “hope springs eternal in the human breast.” It is fortunate that man has the ability to rise above the chaos and distress of the present and to keep hoping for better times to come. The sages of the past looked forward to and wrote about a “golden age” which ultimately would become a reality through the good will and co-operative efforts of those who believed that human destiny promised something better than continually to be at war. Idealists of today still entertain this hope, and are doing all they can to translate their hope into reality. This has been emphasized for us recently by a letter received from a vice-president of the “United World Federalists,” in which the viewpoint of the prophecies and promises of God was criticized, and an appeal made to join hands with them in helping to establish a federal government of the world. The letter stated, in part:

“It is difficult for me to believe that anyone in this country would believe in the kind of God that you appear to worship. The idea that it is the divine purpose that we should destroy ourselves and look forward to living happily in heaven forever after is beyond my ability to comprehend. If I thought that that was a sound interpretation of the prophecies I think I would prefer to be an atheist. I very much regret that an enlightened country should produce people with such conceptions of the Creator—a cruel and sadistic sort of God.”

This part of the letter reveals that the writer failed to grasp the viewpoint of the prophecies presented by “Frank and Ernest” for certainly it is not the teaching of the Bible that it is God’s will for the human race to destroy itself and then to live happily in heaven forever after. If this were the viewpoint of biblical prophecy we would be inclined to agree that it might be better to be an atheist. We are glad that thinking men and women in all walks of life, in America and throughout the world, are revolting against interpretations of the Bible which in effect do represent the Creator as a sadistic sort of God.

However, the fundamental orthodox understanding of the Bible does just this. Take the theory, for example, of the eternal torture of the wicked. Could there be a viewpoint more cruel and sadistic than that? Properly, the enlightened people of America and the world were shocked at reports of cruelties inflicted against political and racial enemies by dictators during the period of the last war. Freedom-loving people of the world today are just as properly crying out against the cruelties of the slave labor camps in Russia and other atrocities which so frequently are the earmarks of communist totalitarianism. Should we not all, and with equal emphasis cry out against the claims that the Creator of the universe, the God of the Bible and of Christianity, is far more cruel in dealing with his enemies than totalitarian dictators have ever been?

Then there is that tradition of the Dark Ages pertaining to the “end of the world”—that one day Jesus will return to earth and precipitate a literal world conflagration which will destroy the entire planet in the short space of twenty-four hours. This is truly a sadistic viewpoint.

The question of morality is raised today in connection with the use of atomic bombs. Is it morally right for the United States to do this? the question is asked. The chances are, however, that many who raise this question, themselves claim to believe that their God will, when he gets ready, destroy, not one city, but all the cities of every nation, and every countryside, every mountain and every valley, slaughtering all the billions of the human race except the few who will at that time be deemed worthy to be snatched away to heaven. What an unhappy ending to a domain which, when created, was designed to be filled with the glory of God!

And even worse than this, when nations destroy cities with bombs, the victims slaughtered are beyond the reach of having further punishment inflicted upon them by their national enemies, but according to the traditions of the Dark Ages, when God destroys the whole earth, and the communists and all other unbelievers who live on it, they will not be beyond his reach, for he intends, in addition to destroying them by fire, to torment them forever afterward in a burning hell of brimstone.

If you have continued reading this far, you are perhaps shocked that we should present such a sadistic conception of God. You may be saying to yourself, Why talk about anything so horrible? And we feel that way, too, but the point is that there are still many who claim to hold to this belief concerning the purpose of God. They are conscientious in these beliefs, and perhaps if they could be helped to see them in their true light they would re-examine the Bible and learn that the God of Christianity is not such a cruel monster, but instead has made plans for the blessing of all the families of the earth following the second coming of Christ; that the earth is not to be destroyed, but is to be made perfect and is to be the everlasting home of the human race, rescued from sin and restored to life.

Going back to the letter received from a vice-president of the “United World Federalists,” after telling us that he does not care to worship a sadistic God—to which we say, Amen—he then writes about the aims of the organization with which he is affiliated. I quote:

“I hope you will see your way clear to realize that we are all individually responsible for affairs in this life and that it behooves all of us to work for such things as world peace and world brotherhood. I have supported every sincere peace movement during the past thirty years and now I am supporting the United Nations for a revision of the charter to make the United Nations into a law-making body with jurisdiction to outlaw war and prevent aggression. In a world of natural law on every hand, it would seem to be in harmony with the divine purpose for man to finally establish law and order on an international basis—a world basis. I sincerely hope that you will reflect on these ideas.”

One can’t help but recognize and appreciate the sincerity and earnestness with which this statement was written. This gentleman, like millions of others, wants peace. We all want peace. Better than this, the Bible assures us that the world will have peace. But we have to face the facts, and the facts are that ever since The Prince of Peace was born, noble-minded men and women have been working for peace, yet now, after more than nineteen centuries of such sincere efforts, we have nothing better to show for these labors than threatened destruction by super bombs. The present generation has already witnessed two global wars, and the third, perhaps, has already started.

We should not discourage those who are working for peace. It is a great deal more honorable to be working for peace than to be promoting war. At heart, probably nearly everybody wants peace, and even the promotion of war is usually with the hope that thereby permanent peace will some day be established. But the great handicap to attaining lasting peace is fallen human selfishness, and this ungodly element of depraved human character is to be found everywhere. It is not a characteristic merely of communists, or Germans, or Russians, or Americans. It is universal.

It is this element, for example, which causes sellers to raise prices the moment war starts, even though there may be no need to do so. It is human selfishness that induces people to hoard food when a war threatens, even though by so doing it might well deprive others from obtaining what they actually need. Fallen human beings cannot cope with the problem of human selfishness. This is the fundamental reason no progress has been made throughout the centuries toward actually establishing universal and lasting peace. And, from the human standpoint, there is certainly no prospect that mankind will suddenly discard selfishness and deal with one another on a basis of genuine mutual interests, the basis of love.

But the problem of human selfishness is not beyond God’s ability to solve! That’s the reason we can have confidence in his promises to establish peace, why we can believe his promise that under the administration of his kingdom “the desire of all nations shall come.” (Hag. 2:7) It is true that God knew about the terrible debacle into which human selfishness would finally plunge the world. God permitted this, but he did not design it, nor does it represent his will. In addition to foreknowing the present crisis of the human race, God also foretold it. It has not come as a surprise to him.

One reason God has allowed man to go to this extreme limit of his selfish propensities is in order that he might be convinced of his own inability to establish lasting peace. Most of those even today, however, who are so zealously working for peace, have not yet learned this lesson. They still want to establish peace by their own wisdom and power. If they believe in God at all, they seem to think that while he may be looking on as they struggle against such desperate odds, he doesn’t intend to do anything about it.

And it is right at this point that the teachings of the Bible part company with all human philosophies pertaining to the ultimate destiny of man. While man tries to lift himself by his own bootstraps, the Bible assures us that in his own due time God will intervene in human affairs, rescue man from the result of his own selfish foolishness, and establish peace and good will on a world-wide scale. And not only will he give the nations peace, but life also, for the same agencies—the agencies of Christ’s kingdom—which will bring peace to the nations, will also exercise divine power to give the people health and life—everlasting life.

Even the professed Christian world holds the viewpoint of the worldly wise in supposing that whatever of good is to be accomplished in the world, man alone must do it. The promise of God assuring us of the establishment of Christ’s kingdom have been misconstrued to mean that Christians must set up this kingdom themselves, hence the church-state systems of Europe, and all the various efforts of the churches in America to influence lawmakers to enact better laws. This wrong viewpoint of Christianity finds expression in many ways, but it is always wrong, always contrary to the teaching of the Bible; and efforts based upon it will always fail, for they are attempts to accomplish the divine purpose without God, and in ways not designed by him.

As we said in the beginning, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” But apart from God it is a hope that is ever failing to mature into reality. We can have a genuine hope, however, by placing our confidence in the promises of God, by which he assures us that even now his hand is overruling in the affairs of men in preparation for the complete fulfillment of the angelic song on the night when Jesus was born, that glorious assurance of peace on earth and good will toward men.

Nations have not yet learned that they cannot establish peace—cannot solve the problem of human selfishness. But ultimately they will, and then they will say, as the prophet foretold, “Let us go up to the mountain [kingdom] of the Lord, … and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” Then “they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation” any more. Then also, as the Lord promises, Every man shall dwell under his vine and fig tree, and none will molest or make afraid, not because man has finally succeeded, but because “the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform it.”—Micah 4:1-4; Isa. 9:6,7

Catholics’ Fear of Communism

THE outbreak of war in Korea naturally has not only increased the tension of the “cold war”—if, indeed, it can still be called cold—but it has also stepped up Catholic action against communism, both in this country and elsewhere. Says Father John C. Heenan, Superior of the Catholic Missionary Society of England:

“America seems to have communism on the brain. In particular, the Catholics of America seem to have a fixation on this subject. Catholics must be acutely conscious of the communist danger to the world, but there is such a thing as crying ‘wolf’ too often.

“On recent visits to America I found it depressing that attacks on communism should take up so much of the energy of Catholic speakers and writers. It was almost impossible to hear a speech from any priest or prelate in which communism was not the dominant theme. I once saw a beautiful congress of children marred by a philippic against Soviet Russia. The thousands of children taking part might so easily have been stirred by a sermon on the beauty of the church of God. Nor was it possible to doubt that a more certain blow would have been struck against communism by deepening the faith of those children than by playing over the anti-communist record for their parents.

“Of course Catholics should not sleep while the enemy is restlessly active. Catholics again should resolutely refuse to take the bromides offered by the left-wing journalists. But the Soviet should not become an obsession. It should be possible just occasionally to have a communion breakfast without communism on the menu.”

Thus does a prominent British Catholic view the anti-communist campaign of the Catholic Church in America. There is no doubt that Russian-sponsored communism is a threat to all organized religious efforts, not only in America, but throughout the world. And this is particularly true with respect to the Roman Catholic organization. It is also true that the Catholic Church the world over now considers communism its number one enemy, and the lineup of these two powerful forces is developing into a struggle such as never before witnessed by man.

It is a struggle of the ideology of absolutism of the Roman church against the ideology of communist totalitarianism. Or, expressed by Msgr. Fulton Sheen, it is a conflict for supremacy in which, on one side, a man sets himself up to be God, and as the head of the state demands the worship of his subjects; while on the other side, God is represented in a man, a god-man, the Pope. In this great struggle the democratic world is of course involved, with the danger of being swallowed up by one or the other of the major contending powers.

Going back to Father Heenan’s plea that the people, particularly the children, be shown the beauty of the church as a safeguard against communism, rather than always preaching to them the evils of this archenemy, it seems to us that this is a very sound approach to the problem. It is considered a sound principle in advertising to proclaim the virtues of what we have to sell, rather than condemn what others are selling.

Yes, this principle is good, and as we have observed the activities of the Catholic Church in America in recent years, while they have tiraded much against communism, they have also been doing the best they could to sell Catholic doctrines and practices to the American public. Probably the main reason they have not been more successful is that the American public has not been convinced of the virtues of Catholicism.

Nevertheless, this principle is a sound one. Nothing would do more to combat the influence of communism in America and throughout the world than for the churches, Catholic and Protestant, to unite in a campaign to inform the people concerning the love of God as set forth in the Bible. True, they would first of all have to become convinced themselves of the love of God. Communist propaganda, particularly in Europe, keeps reminding the people of the cruel persecutions of Protestants and Jews by the Catholics during the middle ages. These persecutions were the outgrowth of the belief that God himself had planned to torture forever all sinners—and sinners, to them, meant those who did not obey the dictates of the church.

Basically, then, we should get back to the pure teachings of the Bible, and proclaim far and wide that the Bible does not teach eternal torment; also that it does not teach the doctrine of purgatory. Instead, God’s loving provision of life through Christ, life provided by his death, and to be made available during the thousand years of his kingdom, should be proclaimed to a fear-filled world. It should be explained that the true church of Christ is made up of all who faithfully follow the Master, and that these, when raised from the dead, are to live and reign with him in his kingdom, and that the purpose of that kingdom is to bless all the families of the earth. No one could be interested in Russian communism once he learned to know the true God of the Bible.

“Truly Shocked”

The professed Christian world as a whole is not accustomed to think of the love of God as being a powerful influence in the lives of men and women. Millions are still influenced by the practice of the Dark Ages of holding a whip of fear over the heads of the people in order to keep them in the straight and narrow path of righteousness. But this method has not been successful. The professed Christian world has steadily become more selfish and more sinful under the influence of a religion of fear. Nevertheless, there are those even now who sincerely think that the threat of hell-fire is the only thing that will keep the world from becoming worse than it is. One of these sincere persons recently wrote a letter to a radio station protesting against the broadcasting of a recent “Frank and Ernest” discussion in which they call attention to the fact that the Bible does not teach eternal torture for the wicked. The letter reads:

“Dear Sir: I was truly shocked today to hear program on your station by ‘Frank and Ernest.’ I have always liked your station, and have especially enjoyed your religious broadcasts, but when people are allowed to teach frankly that there is no hell, don’t you think that is going too far? I realize there is nothing I can do about it but express my feelings, and I hope many others will do the same. It hurts to know that our young people will hear such teachings. Most of us have enough common sense not to let it sway us in the least, but there are lots of young people who have very little religious training. Think what it can do to them. I’ll admit that it would be nice to know there was no eternal punishment, but I beg you, don’t defile your station with such lies.”

Here is an earnest appeal, made in all sincerity, but with the mistaken belief that people will head pell-mell into a life of sin should they get the idea there is no hell of eternal torture to which they will go when they die. The president of a state university in Ohio told a group of Christians in convention at the university that if everybody in the world were like them there would be no war, and no need for armies and navies. It so happened that not a single individual in this group believed the Dark-age theory of eternal torture for the wicked. This group—and there were many young people in it—had learned to know the God of love, the true God of the Bible, and the influence of divine love had become a powerful factor for good in their lives. Along this line Whittier wrote:

In the minister’s morning sermon he told of the primal fall,
And how, henceforth, the wrath of God rested on each and all;
And how, of his will and pleasure, all souls, save a chosen few,
Were doomed to eternal torture, and held in the way thereto.

Yet never, by faith’s unreason, a saintlier soul was tried,
And never the harsh old lesson a tenderer heart belied.
And after the painful service, on that pleasant, bright first day,
He walked with his little daughter through the apple bloom of May.

Sweet in the fresh green meadow sparrow and blackbird sung;
Above him its tinted petals the blossoming orchard hung.
Around, on the wonderful glory, the minister looked and smiled:
“How good is the Lord, who gives us these gifts from his hand, my child.

“Behold in the bloom of apples, and the violets in the sward,
A hint of the old lost beauty of the garden of the Lord.”
Then up spake the little maiden, treading on snow and pink,
“O father! these pretty blossoms are very wicked, I think.

“Had there been no Garden of Eden, there never had been a fall;
And if never a tree had blossomed God would have loved us all.”
“Hush, child!” the father answered, ‘By his decree men fell;
His ways are in clouds and darkness, but he doeth all things well.

And whether by his ordaining to us cometh good or ill,
Joy or pain, or light or shadow, we must fear and love him still.”
“Oh, I fear him!” said the daughter, “and I try to love him, too;
But I wish he were kind and gentle—kind and loving as you.”

The minister groaned in spirit, as the tremulous lips of pain,
And wide, wet eyes, uplifted, questioned his own in vain.
Bowing his head, he pondered the words of his little one.
Had he erred in his lifelong teachings, had he wrong to his Master done?

To what grim and dreadful idol had he lent the holiest name?
Did his own heart, loving and human, the God of his worship shame?
And lo! from the bloom and greenness, from the tender skies above,
And the face of his little daughter, he read a lesson of love.

No more as the cloudy terror of Sinai’s mount of law,
But as Christ in the Syrian lilies the vision of God he saw.
And as when, in the clefts of Horeb, of old was his presence known,
The dread, ineffable glory was infinite goodness alone.

Thereafter his hearers noted in his prayers a tenderer strain,
And never the message of hatred burned on his lips again.
And the scoffing tongue was prayerful, and the blinded eyes found sight,
And hearts, as flint aforetime, grew soft in his warmth and light.

| Home Page | Table of Contents |