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RobertW
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Joined: 2004/2/12
Posts: 4636
St. Joseph, Missouri

 Re:

Are You Criticizing God (Part 20)
R. A. Torrey

Jesus Christ says distinctly in Matthew 25:41 that at the judgment of the nations living on the earth when He comes again He will say to those on His left hand, 'Depart from me, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." And, five verses farther down, He says, "And these shall go away into eternal punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." Now, I did not invent that. That was in the Bible before I was born. Jesus said it eighteen centuries before I was born. I simply found it in the Bible and preach it because it is there. I received a letter once from a Universalist preacher in New Hampshire, saying, "The doctrine you preach makes God a monster." Whoever says that this doctrine makes God a monster is himself a blasphemer, for it is God's doctrine. When you say that "Whosoever preaches this doctrine makes God a monster," you say that God is a monster. A lady in Liverpool wrote me, "I cannot conceive how a God of love should leave anybody to everlasting punishment." Why should she conceive how a God of love should leave anybody to everlasting punishment? It seemed to have never entered her head that anything she could not conceive could be easily conceivable by someone who knew more than she did. If she had had even a modicum of commonsense, she would have seen at once that although she, with her very limited intelligence, could not conceive it, an infinitely wise God might have a thousand reasons for doing it, even though she could not see one.


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Robert Wurtz II

 2005/3/12 19:15Profile
RobertW
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Joined: 2004/2/12
Posts: 4636
St. Joseph, Missouri

 Re:

Are You Criticizing God? (Part 21)
R. A. Torrey


It has never dawned on some people that even God could by any possibility know more than they know. It never dawned on me for years, and in those days I was a Universalist. I thought that all men would ultimately be saved. I was a Universalist because I had an argument for the ultimate salvation of everybody for which I could see no possible answer. I thought if I could not see an answer, why, no one could. So I challenged anybody to meet me on that argument and answer it. I went around with my head pretty high and said, "I have found an unanswerable reason for Universalism." I thought that I was a Universalist for all time and that anyone who was not a Universalist was not well posted.

One day it occurred to me that an infinitely wise God might possibly know more than I did. That had never dawned on me before. It dawned upon me also that it was quite possible that a God of infinite wisdom might have a thousand good reasons for doing a thing, when I, in my finite foolishness, could not see even one. So my fondly cherished Universalism went up in smoke.

If you get that thought, that an Infinitely wise God may possibly know more than even you do, and that God in His infinite wisdom might have a thousand good reasons for doing a thing when you cannot see even one, you will have learned one of the greatest theological truths of the day-one that will solve many of your perplexing problems in the Bible.

Men try to lay hold of infinite wisdom and fancy that they can squeeze it down into the capacity of their pint-cup minds. But because they cannot squeeze infinite wisdom into their pint-cup minds, they say, "I don't believe that Book is the Word of God, because it has something in it that I cannot understand the philosophy of." Why should you understand the philosophy of it? Who are you, anyhow? How much of a mind have you, anyhow? How long have you had it? How long are you going to keep it? Who gave it to you?

It is not our business to find out the philosophy of things; it is not our business to see the reason of things. It is our business to hear what God has to say, and when He says it, believe it, whether you can understand the philosophy of it or not.

When my children were small and ignorant, I told them a lot of things that I could not explain to them because of the limitations of their minds. There are a great many things that even God cannot explain to you or to me because we do not know enough yet to have it explained to us. God is too wise, I say it reverently, to try to explain some things to a person who does not know more than you do.


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Robert Wurtz II

 2005/3/12 19:17Profile
RobertW
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Joined: 2004/2/12
Posts: 4636
St. Joseph, Missouri

 Re:

Are You Criticizing God (Part 22)
R. A. Torrey

There is one more class that is replying against God, that is the men who instead of accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior and surrendering to Him as their Lord and Master and openly confessing Him as such before the world, are making excuses for not doing it. Jesus says in John 6:37, "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." God says in Revelation 22:17, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Anybody can come to Christ, and anybody who does come will be received and saved. Yet many of you, instead of coming, are making excuses for not coming. By every excuse you make you are replying against God, you are entering into controversy with God, you are condemning God, who invites you to come. You cannot frame an excuse for not coming and accepting Christ that does not condemn God. Every excuse that any mortal makes for not accepting Christ, in its ultimate analysis, condemns God.

For example, some of you say, "I am too great a sinner to come." But God says in 1 Timothy 1:15, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." And when you say, "I cannot come because I am too great a sinner," you give the lie to God. He says you can. Another says, "I cannot come because I am too weak to hold out in the Christian life." But God says in Jude 24, "He is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy." You say, "God cannot keep me." God says He can. And when you say He cannot, you make God a liar and condemn God. Another says, "I cannot come because I have not the right kind of feeling." But God says, "Whosoever will, let him come and take the water of life freely." God says, 'You can come," and you say, "I cannot," and that excuse condemns God. Every conceivable excuse the sinner makes for not coming to Christ at once, in its ultimate analysis, condemns God, and every man and woman who, instead of coming right to the Lord Jesus and accepting Him, surrendering to Him, confessing Him as Master and going forth to serve Him—everyone who is making an excuse of any kind instead of accepting Christ is replying against God. "O man, who art thou that repliest against God?"


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Robert Wurtz II

 2005/3/12 19:18Profile





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