Do good how long?

[FineLinen]

Jesus said: "If you love them (only) that love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same"? Matt. 5:46.

If God loves only those who love him is He better than the publicans?

If God loves only those who love him, why should not we love only those who love us?

Is it not right to imitate God?

God loves all, blesses all, does good to all.

He is unchangeable, he always will love all, do good to all, and bless all.
The dogma of endless hatred and endless cursing is false, perjury plain and simple!

Jesus condemns all spite, hatred, and revenge and informs us that those evil passions are not of heaven, but of earth, and are sensual and devilish.

We are required to love our enemies, do good to them that hate us, and pray for those who despitefully use us and persecute us, that we may be like God; perfect, as he is perfect; merciful, as he is merciful; and hence, it must be that God loves all, and hates none; blesses all, and curses none.

"If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for, by so doing, you shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Rom. 12:20; Prov. 25:21.

Would God require us to deal thus with our fellow men if he will soon, in another world, put it out of our power to do good?

We must, according to his command, ever be striving to reform our fellow men by deeds of kindness; but, we are told that in the spirit-land, God will not permit us to obey this injunction, or regard it himself; so that what is right and holy here, is wrong and sinful there.

What is obedience in this world is disobedience in the next, therefore it will be perfectly right for Him to pour coals of hell fire in one everlasting storm upon the heads of part of his children while the "pure in heart" stand by and say, Amen!

[FineLinen]

"Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." Rom. 12:21.

This is the way God overcomes evil, or he would not require us to overcome it in that way.

While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Here is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us.

He makes his sun to shine on the evil and the good, and sends his rain on the just and the unjust.

All these blessings and favors are for sinful men. Our God overcomes evil by good, blesses those who curse him, and loves those who hate him.

According to partialism, he is trying to overcome evil with threatening an everlasting evil; and if the work is not done when death closes our eyes and freezes our hearts, he will instantly place our souls in such a condition that our sins cannot be overcome with either threatening or pleading, or evil or good!

Can anything be farther from the truth?

Instead of overcoming evil with good, he will, it is said, inflict an infinite series of unspeakable evils!

For one evil, he will cause millions!

For the evils of a few days, he will inflict an eternity of evils!

The apostle Peter tells us "not to render evil for evil, nor railing for railing; but, contrariwise, blessing." I Peter 3:9.

If the apostle believed that the administration of the divine government was conducted on the very opposite principle, the tooth for tooth principle, and that, for the evils of a moment he will render an eternity of most excruciating agony, would he have penned that sentence?

The Bible teaches: "Say not, I will do unto him as he has done unto me."

Does this mean that God will do worse by us than we have done by him, or better?

If better, will he cast us off in his anger to the mercy of the devil and his angels, to suffer the pains of separation from Him forever?