Hell and Judgement - Walter Martin

"I will also forget thy children!" Is there not something wrong with the young people today? Maybe some light can be thrown on the situation by considering this quotation, for it is God Himself speaking.

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou has forgotten The Law of Thy God, I will also forget thy children!" Hosea 4:6.

Weigh these words! It is a terrible message of judgement! Destroyed on account of "lack of knowledge" or ignorance. Rejection and ignorance of "The Law of Our God!" The results: they shall be no priest to God, and God will forget their children, seeing they have forgotten "The Law of Thy God!" -- Protestantism gives us the true teaching of God's Word that every sincere believer is a priest unto his God. Have we not forgotten "The Law of Our God!" We "breach the Sabbath," and destroy "The Goods of God!" We mock and scorn His Laws regarding the home, marriage and sex relations. Our land is lousy with murderers, and yet quite a number of our states have decided that The Almighty did not know what He was talking about when He said:

"Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death -- Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death -- So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it. Defile not therefore the land which ye shall inhabit, wherein I dwell: for I The Lord dwell among the children of Israel." Numbers 35: 30-34.

Our land is also filled with stealing, lying and coveteousness. If this writer's appraisal is correct even many of the laws of our nation and states encourage its people to covet that which in God's sight belongs to another instead of teaching and urging them to take heed to one of the very first laws of God to fallen man to live by "the sweat of his own brow." We are trying to run over Almighty God Himself! And in order to make peace with men who deny and blaspheme The God we claim to serve, we turn and make war on God Himself! Shall we have peace with man by making war on God Almighty? Was it not Bill Shakespeare who said: "What fools these mortals be!"

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge!" What is your vocation, doctor, lawyer, teacher, etc.? Say you are a lawyer: If you had spent that same amount of time on your law books, court cases, decisions, etc. as you have on studying the Law of God and His Judgements, what kind of a lawyer would you be? If a doctor, what sort of doctor would you be if you had spent no more time studying the necessary subjects than you have spent learning of The Creator of the body -- "we are fearfully and wonderfully made" -- and taking heed to the injunction and invitation of The Great Physician to "Learn of Me?" Whatever one's vocation may be, their success or failure doubtless depends on their knowledge of the subject and their ability to make application of same. But fail or succeed, it is only temporal. But the knowledge of God, or lack of it, has to do with our Eternal Life, or eternal death! God says: "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man," and "He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool!"

"Search the Scriptures, they testify of Me," said Jesus Christ. "The Scriptures cannot be broken." Search and you will find the Almighty pleading with you:

"And the Lord said unto me, -- 0 that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children forever!" Deut. 5. 28-29.

"Oh, that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I should have soon subdued their enemies, and turned My Hand against their adversaries. The haters of The Lord should have submitted themselves unto Him: but their time should have endured forever. He should have fed them with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee." Psalm 81: 13-16.

"Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer -- 0 that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! Then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea: thy seed had been as the sand." Isaiah 48. 17-17.

For the sake of the children we should not forget the "Law of Our God!"

MAY 19, 1962