099. Would an earthly father consign his child to everlasting suffering? And if he would not...

Would an earthly father consign his child to everlasting suffering? And if he would not, can we believe that God is not as good as we are, and that He would treat His children in a way that we would not treat ours? This question takes it for granted that all men are Gods children. The Bible teaches that this is not true. All men are God’s creatures and were created originally in His likeness, and in this sense they are all His offspring (Acts 17:26-29), but men become God’s children in the fullest sense by being born again of the Holy Spirit 0ohn 3:3-6) through the personal acceptance of Jesus Christ as their Savior (John 1:12; Galatians 3:26).

Second, God is something besides the Father even of believers. He is the moral governor of this universe. As a righteous moral governor of the universe He must punish sin, and if sin is eternally persisted in He must eternally punish it. Even a wise earthly father would separate one of his own children who persisted in sin from contact with his other children. If a man had a dearly beloved son who was a moral monster, he certainly would not allow him to associate with his daughters. If one whom you greatly loved should commit a gross wrong against some one you loved more, and should persist in it eternally, would you not consent to his eternal punishment?

Third, it is never safe to measure what an infinitely holy God would do by what we would do. As we look about us in the world today do we not see men and women suffering agonies that we would not allow our children to suffer if we could prevent it? What one of us could endure to see our children suffering some to the things that the men and women in the slums of the great city are suffering today? Why a God of love permits this to go on it may be difficult for us to explain, but that it does go on we know. What men and women suffer even in the life that now is as a result of their disobedience to God and their persistence in sin and their rejection of Jesus Christ ought to be a hint of what men will suffer in the eternal world if they go on in sin as a result of their having rejected the Savior in the life that now is. It may sound well to say: “I believe in a God of love, and I do not believe that He will permit any of His creatures to go to an eternal hell,” but if we open our eyes to the facts as they exist about us on every hand, we will see how empty our speculations on this point are, for we do see even now this same God of love permitting many of His creatures to endure awful and ever-increasing agonies in the life that now is.