God's Plan with MenMartin, T. T. (Thomas Theodore)
Religion
God's Plan with Men
Martin, T. T. (Thomas Theodore)
Salvation
Riding along a lonely country road one Sunday afternoon, many years
ago, returning from a country church, a young preacher was talking to
his companion, a young man eighteen years of age, telling him of God's
love and of _God's plan with men_. The conversation had ended, and for
some minutes they had been riding along in silence, when suddenly the
young man spurred his horse up to the young preacher's horse, and
seizing the reins, stopped both horses. Dropping the reins, he threw
both arms around the preacher's neck, and as he began sobbing said,
"Oh, R----, how good God is!" How little men consider God's goodness.
How good God is to have ever brought us into being! How good God is,
though we have all sinned against Him (Rom. 3:23), "that he might be
just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus" (Rom. 3:26),
to have provided complete redemption for us from all iniquity (Titus
2:14)! How good God is to have "in love predestinated us for adoption
as sons through Jesus Christ to himself"!--Eph. 1:5. How good God is
to chastise us in love (Heb. 12:5, 6) instead of punishing us in Hell
for our sins after we become His children (Ps. 89:27-34)! How good God
is to place us where we will serve Him from love, and not from fear of
punishment (2 Cor. 5:14, 15)! How good God is, in addition to our
salvation, to provide rewards in Heaven for the services we render
here (Matt. 6:20)! How good God is to provide that the poor, the
ignorant, the obscure, can have just as great rewards as the more
fortunate ones (Mark 1:41, 42)! How good God is to say, "if any man's
work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be
saved, yet so as through fire"!--1 Cor. 3:15.
_FOR FURTHER STUDY_:--The objection that the teaching of rewards in
Heaven makes Christianity too matter-of-fact is not well taken.
Punishments or rewards last through all eternity; with the unredeemed,
in added degrees to the punishment in Hell; with the redeemed, in
added rewards in Heaven. And they need to realize that with both
classes this applies to the smallest deeds: "But I say unto you, That
every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account
thereof in the day of judgment."--Matt. 12:36. "And whosoever shall
give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only
in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise
lose his reward."--Matt. 10:42.
Neither is the objection well taken that to teach men to aim to have
rewards in Heaven is appealing to an unworthy motive. Jesus taught it
(Matt. 6:20), Paul taught it (1 Cor. 3:11-15), Moses endorsed it (Heb.
11:26), and the objector himself prays for God's blessings here in
this life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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