p. 520 | WHY NOT BELIEVE? by C. P. B.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 26, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 33.

WHY NOT BELIEVE?

By C. P. B.

WHY not believe the promises of God? Are those things which are still future any more wonderful than that which has been in the past? Is not the death of the Son of God a sufficient pledge for the fulfillment of everything that God has promised? Says the apostle: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" How can anyone believe that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life," and not believe that the provision is ample, the sacrifice sufficient, and that Christ "is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him"? To believe the former and not the latter is certainly to be governed by caprice rather than by reason and sound judgment.

But that which is true, in this respect, of spiritual things is also true of physical things; and many as fondly contradict themselves in the latter as in the former. Not a few who are quite ready to avow their belief that God created the world, yea, that he spoke into existence the whole material universe, find themselves unequal to the task of believing that which the pen of Inspiration has recorded relative to the destruction of this earth by fire, and its final renewal as the dwelling-place of the righteous. Thousands who believe that God placed the worlds in their orbits, and set the machinery of the universe in motion, and that he sustains it by his divine power, are staggered at the simple statement that "the holy city, New Jerusalem," is to come "down from God out of Heaven." Rev. 21: 2.

Very many accept without question the fact of the resurrection of our Lord, and yet have no faith in the final resurrection of all who "sleep in Jesus." Others have apparently full faith in the gospel narrative of the first advent of Christ, of his literal sufferings and death, and yet seem to be utterly incapable of believing the plain predictions of his second coming. The prophecies concerning his first advent they believe were all literally fulfilled; the equally plain predictions of his second advent they spiritualize and explain away till they are altogether meaningless. Surely in these facts are confirmed the words of the prophet: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" C. P. B.