I wish that all men would repent and accept Christ. If any one could
show me one single passage in the Bible that clearly taught that all
men would ultimately repent, accept Christ and be saved, it would be
the happiest day of my life, but it cannot be found. I once thought
it could, and I so believed and taught. These ideas so widely noised
about to-day as something new, these theories of "Pastor" Russell,
formerly of Pittsburg, Mr. Gelesnoff of this city, and Dr. Mabie of
Long Beach, and Mr. Pridgeon of Pittsburg, and many others, are not at
all new to me. I held and taught substantially the same views regarding
ultimate universal salvation years before these men were heard of,
indeed nearly forty years ago. I was familiar with the arguments that
they now urge, and other arguments which they do not seem to know, but
which were to me more decisive than those that they urge. But the time
came, as I studied the Bible more carefully, when I could not reconcile
my teaching with what I found to be the unmistakable teaching of God's
Word. I had to do one of three things: I had to either give up my
belief that the Bible was the Word of God, or else I must twist the
words of Jesus (and others in the New Testament) to mean something else
than what they clearly appeared to teach, or else I must give up my
doctrine of ultimate universal restoration and salvation. I could not
give up my faith that the Bible was the Word of God, for I had found
absolutely overwhelming proof that it was God's Word. I could not twist
the words of Jesus and of others to mean something else than what was
clearly their intended meaning, for I was an honest man. There was only
one thing left to do and that was to give up my doctrine of universal
restoration and salvation. I gave it up with great reluctance, but
I was compelled to give it up or be untrue to my own reason and
conscience. It is the inescapable teaching of the Word of God that all
who go out of this world without having accepted Jesus Christ, will
spend eternity in hell, in a hell of unutterable, conscious anguish.
This Bible conception is also a reasonable one when we come to see the
appalling nature of sin, and especially the appalling nature of the sin
of trampling under foot God's mercy toward sinners, and rejecting God's
glorious Son, Whom in His love He has provided as a Saviour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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