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First Great Deception
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receiving his gifts, they dishonor the Giver; they hate God because
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they know that he abhors their sins. The Lord bears long with their
perversity; but the decisive hour will come at last, when their destiny
is to be decided. Will he then chain these rebels to his side? Will he
force them to do his will?
Those who have chosen Satan as their leader, and have been
controlled by his power, are not prepared to enter the presence of
God. Pride, deception, licentiousness, cruelty, have become fixed
in their characters. Can they enter Heaven to dwell forever with
those whom they despised and hated on earth? Truth will never be
agreeable to a liar; meekness will not satisfy self-esteem and pride;
purity is not acceptable to the corrupt; disinterested love does not
appear attractive to the selfish. The destiny of the wicked is fixed
by their own choice. Their exclusion from Heaven is voluntary; it is
just.
Like the waters of the flood, the fires of the great day declare
God’s verdict that the wicked are incurable. They have no dispo-
sition to submit to divine authority. Their will has been exercised
in revolt; and when life is ended, it is too late to turn the current
of their thoughts in the opposite direction,—too late to turn from
transgression to obedience, from hatred to love.
In mercy to the world, God blotted out its wicked inhabitants in
Noah’s time. In mercy he destroyed the corrupt dwellers in Sodom.
Through the deceptive power of Satan, the workers of iniquity obtain
sympathy and admiration, and are thus constantly leading others to
rebellion. It was so in Noah’s day, and in the time of Abraham and
Lot; it is so in our time. It is in mercy to the universe that God will
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finally destroy the rejecters of his grace.
But the doctrine of never-ending torment has no sanction in the
Bible. John in the Revelation, describing the future joy and glory
of the redeemed, declares that he heard every voice in Heaven and
earth, and under the earth, ascribing praise to God. There will be
no lost beings in hell to mingle their shrieks with the songs of the
saved.
“The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord.” [
Romans 6:23
.] While life is the
inheritance of the righteous, death is the portion of the wicked.
The penalty threatened is not merely temporal death, for all must