“TO SAVE MUCH PEOPLE ALIVE.”
By G.
WHATEVER may be the varied designs of man according to circumstances, the one purpose of God in the earth is to save. Whatever comes in the way of this purpose will, sooner or later, have to give way. One illustration of this fundamental truth is found in the selling of Joseph into Egypt by his brothers. They hoped to get him and his dreams forever out of their way, but God overruled their action so that it was made a means in His great work of salvation. When Joseph made himself known to his brothers in Egypt, he said to them, “Be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither; for God did send me before you to preserve life. . . . God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.” Again, when Jacob died, Joseph’s brothers were fearful that he would now have his revenge, and they earnestly and humbly appealed to him for mercy. They could not yet see that he was not at heart such a one as themselves; they were still judging him by themselves. Notwithstanding his great kindness to them, they evidently thought that his vengeance, like that of Esau, was only restrained through respect for the feelings of his father. But Joseph again allayed their fears by speaking kindly to them. He said, “As for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” When our first parents yielded to the tempter, they brought sin and its consequences upon themselves and all their posterity. Then the great plan of salvation was introduced in order to save all who would accept it. Ever since that time all heaven has been engaged in the work of salvation, not of destruction. “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 19:10. “The Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” Ch. 9:56. The principle of the plan of salvation was illustrated in the antediluvian age. Immediately after the fall, the Gospel was preached to Adam and Eve, to save them from the penalty of their sin. They had been told that in the day that they should eat of the forbidden fruit, they would surely die; so their salvation must be immediate, if at all. Death was then the penalty of sin, and so it is to-day,—“the wages of sin is death.” And as to-day “the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord,” so it was when the Gospel was proclaimed to Adam. Adam’s acceptance of the Gospel procured for himself and his posterity a probationary season, and tho Satanic influences have been at work to destroy, God has used this period to “save much people alive.” God destroys only sin and its consequences. He will purify the earth of the curse that came because of sin. All who cling to sin and its effects will be destroyed because they refuse to let go of that which must inevitably perish. God does not willingly destroy them. He is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” But God’s purpose being a renewed earth and a clean universe, this probationary time, with Satan and his adherents running riot in the earth, must necessarily have an end. The time will come when men will no longer listen to overtures of peace, and then there will be no further occasion for offers of salvation, no further need of tolerating sin and its effects. The tares have been allowed to grow, lest in pulling them up some wheat might be destroyed. But when the harvest shall have become fully ripe, the tares must be gathered for burning, and the wheat gathered into the garner. The Spirit of God will no longer strive with man, when it is known to Him that further striving would be useless. The Gospel was preached through the patriarchs in the antediluvian age until it would no longer be heard. God knew the hearts of men; He “saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Then what would a continuation of such conditions mean, as viewed by all the universe? Would it not appear that God was unable to put down the rebellion in the earth? and that He was unable to conquer sin and annihilate its effects? It would certainly appear that sin was being tolerated without a purpose. In the eyes of heaven and earth the authority and power of God was at stake. Yet even under such untoward circumstances, “the long-suffering of God waited” another period of one hundred and twenty years. And during this time, “while the ark was a preparing,” the Spirit of Christ through Noah preached the Gospel to those “spirits in prison,” in the bondage of sin. This was a special appeal to them in view of the coming judgment, and a witness against them in the eyes of angels and of the inhabitants of other worlds that had not fallen under sin. A like message—the last appeal of mercy to a dying world, the Gospel of the soon-coming Christ, our Ark of safety—is going to the world to-day. The world to-day is “as it was in ‘the days of Noah;’” it is “filled with violence,” and God is still anxious to “save much people alive” from the impending “famine for the Word of God,” and the sure destruction of sin and its appurtenances that will swiftly follow. In the days of Noah men deliberately destroyed themselves through unbelief of the Word of God. His long-suffering love would have saved them “to the uttermost” if they had but heeded the call to come unto Him who was able to save them. But they rejected the offer of salvation. There was the coming flood, and there was the ark. They scoffed at the ark, and chose to take chances on the flood. There was righteousness on the one hand, and sin on the other; they chose the sin, and necessarily reaped its consequences. When one purposely takes poison and refuses an antidote, we say that he commits suicide. So, knowing that “the wages of sin is death,” the one who deliberately inoculates himself with sin and refuses to apply the cleansing blood of Christ, verily destroys himself. When the earth is purified by fire, and the works that are therein are burned up, he will have placed himself in the devouring flames. His destruction will be naught but suicide. When sin is finally eradicated from the earth, its victims will go down as the logical result of their refusal to be saved. God does not willfully destroy sinners; He simply can not save them against their will. Said Christ to the Jews of His time, “Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life.” Also these words: “This people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.” And the same spirit prevails to-day toward “the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” But when “they that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, . . . shall be punished with everlasting destruction,” it will be the result of their own choice, and not the will of God. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” G.