scriptures can be warped by the honest or the dishonest, to mean that.
If any man makes any passage of Scripture mean that any real believer in Christ can afterwards be lost, what is he going to do with Matt. 7: 12-23, where the Saviour, speaking of those at the judgment who were professed Christians, but are lost, "I never knew you!" Or, with John 10:28, 29, "I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. The Father which gave them me is greater than all and no man can pluck them out of My Father's hand."
Or, with Jer. 32:40, "1 will make an everlasting covenant with them that. 1 will not turn away from them to do them good; and I will put my fear into their hearts, that they shall not depart from me?"
Many do turn back. Let God's word explain. "They went out from us but they were not of us." (1 John 2:19).
The second fatal mistake, "I believe in God," said a great University President, trying to hedge on the subject of Evolution. So does the Devil! "Thou believest there is one God; thou doest well; the devils also believe and tremble." But this University President, and these Uni- versity professors who boast that they believe in God, do not tremble! They are worse than the devils!
But the devils never did "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," that "Christ died for our sins" and "gave Himself
that He might redeem" them from "all iniquity."
God the Father hasn't any more power to save a lost sinner than the devil has. "This is a faithful saying and Worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the World to save sinners, of whom I am chief, and to give B:imself a ransom ("Our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave
108 T. T. MARTIN, LIFE STORY
Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity").
God the Father did not redeem us from all iniquity, by dying for our sins, any more than the Devil did, not a bit!
Third fatal mistake: "If we confess our sins, he is faith.
ful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all iniquity." Not to a priest, but to God the Father; "Our Father which art in Heaven-forgive us our sins~"
Oh, the multitudes that have been sent to Hell with that passage of Scripture by some "soul winner" or Some c;
preacher!
If that is the way a lost sinner is saved, why did not Paul and Silas tell the Jailer that? And why did Jesus Christ ever die at all? God never forgives ;t lost sinner his sins; if He does, then what did the Saviour die for? "For our sins." That is not forgiveness. That is redemption.
That Scripture comes from First John and First John is every line of it to Christians; John says so plainly, "These things have I written unto you that believe on His name."
(I John 5:13).
"Can we not apply it to the unredeemed?" Not one particle more than you can apply it to horses and dogs!
Whenever you take Scripture from its intended meaning, it is no longer Scripture.
The lost, the unredeemed, get rid of sin by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."
The redeemed, the child of God, gets rid of his sins by confession to God the Father.
Confession has nothing to do with staying out of Hell.
The death of Christ has already paid the Hell penalty.
Confession has to do only with the restoration of felloW- ship and joy with the Father and to do with your not being
T. T. MARTIN, LIFE STORY 109 chastised, whipped, in this life. The death of Christ paid.
for all the sins of the believer up to the end of life, and, hence he can. never .go to Hell for. them, whether he ever confesses them or not. . But oh, the desolate, joyless, power.
less life of a Christian with unconfessed sins in it! Oh, the lashing whip of the Heavenly Father's chastening rod on the back of a disobedient child of His who has sinned against the Heavenly Father and has not come and asked·
the Heavenly Father's forgiveness. I press it; forgiveness belongs to a father for his child and not to a judge for a prisoner at the bar. The judge executes a penalty. Jesus Christ paid the penalty up to the end of life, for, "Our Saviour Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity." Christ died one death.
He will never die another one. All the sins He will ever pay for He paid for then. Hence, He says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth My word and believeth on Him that sent Me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation"-the Greek is given in the Margin- Judgment-Shall not come into judgment; there is no judgment for sin to come to! Christ has already borne the judgment for the believer's sin! Forgiveness has to do only with escaping the whipping in this life and the restoration of fellowship. God forgives the believer because God has become the Father of the believer, "Predestinated us unto the adoption of sons"-a father can forgive his child; "As many as received Him to them gave He the right to become the children of God, even to as many as believe on His name" and "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ."
The Scripture quoted to prove that God is the Father of the unredeemed is horribly warped and mutilated. Mal.
110 T. T. MARTIN, LIFE STORY 2: 10, "Have we not all one Father?" But who are the we?
Mal. I: I, "The burden of the wocd of the Lord to Israel."
In Jer. 21:9, God says plainly, "I am a father to Israel." He is simply the Creator to the others. Hence, "When the fullness of time has come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we (the redeemed) might recei\e the adoption of sons," Gal. 4:4.
Acts 17 :28, "For. we are also His offspring" is often quoted to prove that God is the Father of all unredeemed.
The word for offspring here is. ethnos, and every Greek student on earth knows that that means race and is not the Greek word for sonship!
But now then, let just one positive Scripture settle it;
"But they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God."
The Lord's prayer has been pressed into service to
prove that He is the Father of all because it says "Our Father"-but that prayer was taught to the disciples (see Luke II: 1-2) and not to unbelievers.
How that wonderful prayer has been warped! Many make it seem that God is the Father of everybody, the drunkard, the harlot, the gambler, the whoremonger, and the atheist; and then that God is going to send these, His children, to Hell!
Oh, the ludicrousness and tragic nonsense of teaching
unbelie~ers to say the Lord's prayer. Little tots will kneel down at the mother's knee all over this land and say, "Our Father which art in Heaven ... Give us this day our daily bread . . . " and right then their stomachs are as tight as drums from the bread they have already eaten that night.
A murderer on a gallows to be hanged, the rope already