God Is Good, Always

Why will so many people end up in hell after they die? The scripture plainly tells us that God “is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (II Pet. 3:9). We are told the same thing in Ezekiel: “As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezek. 33:11). The apostle Paul gives us the same assurance about God’s will to save all men: “Who [God] will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (I Tim. 2:4). So that point is unanimous, but unfortunately it is also unanimous that most people will NOT be saved, including a lot of God’s people, old covenant and new alike. Pertaining to those in the old world before the flood, it is evident: “By which also he [Jesus] went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water” (I Pet. 3:19,20). As for those who lived under the law, the prophets are replete with sobering statements like the following: “Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it” (Isa. 5:13,14). Jesus himself stated with great clarity that many new covenant believers would not be able to make the grade of eternal life (Mat. 13:41,42,47-49; Mat. 24:12,13; Mat. 25:1-12; Lk. 13:24; Jn. 15:5,6; etc.). Seeing that God is SO willing to save all men, again I ask, why will so many be lost? Well, it is certain that it will not be God’s fault. It is very simple really, just like everything else when we understand it. Most people are just not willing to fully trust God with their lives, or to continue to fully trust God with their lives after they have begun to do so. Unbelief is the problem, but I think we can better understand it if we call it mistrust.

It is the same exact lie that Eve believed in the Garden of Eden, and it is still the reason that people remain in sin, and go back to sin after having been delivered from it. The serpent persuaded her to mistrust God’s total goodness, and his absolute good will toward them. She fell for the lie that God had an ulterior motive in commanding them to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that he was withholding something good from them: “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). So she thought it over a little and decided that the serpent must be right (Gen. 3:6). She and Adam alike found out the hard way that God was the one telling the truth, and that he was also the one looking out for their good. The devil has made a whole lot of people afraid to entrust their entire lives to God, and it’s by the same old lying persuasion that he put on the serpent. Somehow a vast majority of folks just feel that their own plan for themselves is better than God’s plan for them. The saddest reality is that many, after having given their lives to God through faith in Jesus resulting in the baptism of his Spirit and power; take their lives back from God, at least in part. Anything in our lives that we are self willed about, and not willing to yield to God, will damn us in the end if we stubbornly hold to it. That includes being willfully ignorant about things that we would just rather have our way about, that are not acceptable to God. The apostle Paul addressed this spiritual danger with grave soberness: “Take heed, BRETHREN, lest there be in any of YOU an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For WE are made partakers of Christ, IF we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation” (Heb. 3:12-15). I have something that I like to tell people that I feel brings down the curtain on all unbelief and mistrust toward God. It is this: Can you put your finger on one single thing that you absolutely know beyond the shadow of any doubt that God has EVER done for your good? Most people can answer yes to that question, and that settles the whole issue because God NEVER changes!

He simply is who and what he is, and he is nothing else, EVER (Exd. 3:14; Mal. 3:6; Heb. 13:8; Jas. 1:17). The scripture clearly says, along with all of creation, that GOD IS LOVE!! (I Jn. 4:7,8). It also says, “For God SO LOVED the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should NOT perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn. 3:16). Trust me when I tell you my friend, that God loves you so much more than you or anyone else could EVER love you, that it is almost an insult to his person for me to even make that comparison in a writing like this. His plans for you are to make you so happy and overjoyed that you won’t know what to do with yourself! If you have slipped from trusting him fully with everything in your life, I can tell you with authority and scriptural confirmation, as well as real life experience; that his heart is yearning toward you in love MORE than it is toward those who are not slipping: “I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance” (Lk. 15:7). Understand my friend, that parable is talking about a believer gone astray, who renews his trust in God. God is so good that even the bad things that happen in our lives have no choice but to work out for our good if we continue to trust fully in his goodness (Rom. 8:28,31,38,39). Yes, chastening and correction are involved in our walk with God, but it is always perfectly measured by and through his love and good will toward us, and the result is our furtherance of love and joy; again IF we continue to trust in his love for us (Heb. 12:5-13). The truth is my friend, giving our all to God is the only thing that makes sense in this life, and it is the only way to true happiness and peace. The only reason ANYONE will be lost is because they have willfully chosen to be apart from the glorious love and goodness that God has for them to be blessed with; which love and goodness he has shown through his Son, and through absolutely everything we are surrounded with and encompassed by in his creation every day. That is a unanimous AMEN with everyone who has ever allowed themselves the grandest of all privileges, which is to be in God’s complete loving care on a continual basis. Amen.