AYE, “GLAD TIDINGS” INDEED.
FROM a secularist organ we clip the following:— The Gospel Means Glad Tidings.
What are the glad tidings?—(1) That man is totally depraved and polluted. Good news! (2) That he deserves eternal torment. Glad tidings! (3) And that nine-tenths of the human race will get their deserts. “Many are called, but few are chosen.” Glorious news! (4) That hell is in view—near at hand. Delightful tidings! (5) That the reprobate can not escape. Glorious Gospel! (6) That God hates the most of the race and has from eternity doomed them to eternal wo. And all this is the Gospel of glad tidings! But, fellow-mortal, you have misread the Gospel. (1) The Gospel does not say that man is totally depraved. But it tells his true condition. He is not a faithful physician who tells you there is no danger when he knows you are stricken with an incurable disease. Could he not help you or cure you, he might tell you in sheer cruelty or mistaken kindness. The Gospel tells you that you are “without hope,” sick with a sickness unto death, and, so far as man is concerned, hopelessly sick, sick with the leprosy of sin. The Gospel tells you this, makes the faithful diagnosis of your case, which every-day life demonstrates to your satisfaction in others; and then the Gospel points you to the Great Physician who can heal the disease, destroy the sin, and give life. The “glad tidings” point out a present fact that you may know the perfect healing. Is not this “glad tidings”? 2. The Gospel nowhere says that man deserves eternal torment. Its message is, “The wages of sin is death,” “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” And this also is demonstrated by this every-day life of sin, not only in man, but in nature. And the “good tidings” is: “Turn ye, O turn ye, for why will ye die?” “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” 3. The Gospel does not say how many will be saved or lost, save this: God will gather out the desired number, and you may be one. It does not debar any. It warns with an agony of intensity all who are in need. It points out the sure result of a life of sin, and the further fact that the majority will not accept the message of life. Secularists themselves from their own view-point will agree with this. The majority do not become Secularists. 4. No, the Bible does not present the “hell,” or Gehenna, of final punishment as “in view—near at hand.” It presents in mercy the inevitable doom of sin, which is death. It brings salvation from sin through Christ. 5. “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” “God is no respecter of persons.” 6. God so loved a sinful race that he gave his only-begotten Son to save them. And he has doomed no one to eternal wo. “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?”