God's Plan with Men

by T. T. Martin

God's word makes it plain that what is called the Lord's Prayer was not taught by the Saviour to the unsaved. "As he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples, and he said unto them [His disciples], When ye [His disciples] pray, say, 'Our Father.'" How did they become disciples? "As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the children of God, even to them that believe on his name."—John 1:12. "Ye are all the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus."—Gal. 3:26. Concerning this prayer the Southern Baptist Sunday School Teacher says, "It is a special gift to believers only." "We cannot too earnestly insist that the Lord's Prayer is beyond the use of mere worldlings. They have no heart for it. It is the possession and badge of the disciples of Christ. It belongs to those who can offer it in humble and hearty faith." The Sunday School Teacher, published by the American Baptist Publication Society, says: "This is a prayer that befits only Christian lips and was given to the disciples only, and so it is addressed to 'Our Father.'" D. L. Moody, in "The Way Home," "But who may use this prayer, 'Our Father which art in Heaven'? Examine the context. The disciples when alone with Jesus said, 'Lord, teach us to pray,' and this was the answer they got; they were taught this precious prayer: 'In this manner pray ye: Our Father, which art in Heaven.' It was taught by Jesus to His chosen disciples; then it is only for Christians. No man who is unconverted can or has a right to pray thus. Christ taught His disciples, not all men, not the multitude, to pray like this. A man must be born again before he has any right to breathe this prayer. What right has any man living in sin and in open enmity with God, to lift up his voice and say, Our or My Father? It is a lie and nothing else for him to say this."

The Saviour was very explicit on this point: "Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We are not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me; for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil."—John 8:41-44. Here are the unredeemed calling God their Father. If He is their Father, here was the time for the Great Teacher to make it plain. If He is their Father, in any sense, here was the opportunity to make it plain. The Saviour does not reply, "Yes, He is your Father in one sense, but I am speaking of another and a higher sense." His answer is plain and unequivocal.

There are those who fly in the face of the Saviour's plain teaching. Hear two of them:—Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, in "Science and Health," "God is the Father of All." "Man is the offspring of Spirit." "Spirit is his primitive and ultimate source of being; God is his Father and Life is the law of his being." "He recognized Spirit, God, as the only creator, and therefore as the Father of all"; "demonstrating God as the Father of men." Another makes his meaning just as plain: "He [Jesus] was the son of God in like manner that every other person is; for the Creator is the father of all."—Thomas Paine, in "The Age of Reason."

The issue is joined between these two on the one side and the Lord Jesus and Paul on the other, and men are lining up on one side or the other, and many of them will spend eternity with the ones whose teaching they are following now, with whom they are lining up; and the reader may as well face the fact that many of them will not spend eternity in the same place with the Saviour and Paul. With many the question as to whether the Saviour, when He said, "Ye are of your father the devil," told the truth, or was a wilful liar and deceiver, or a deluded fanatic and ignoramus, is merely a matter of taste, or preference, or opinion. It may be claimed by some that "Ye are of your father the devil," grates on refined ears and finer sensibilities. But it is more than a question whether it is pride, or religious prejudice, or refined sensibilities, when the sensibilities and feelings are so coarse and hardened that without indignation, often with complacency, they see Him who "spake as never man spake," God's "only begotten Son," branded as a liar and deceiver. Such scholarship and finer sensibilities and such refinement will fill their possessors with horror and remorse in that day when the sun shall become black as sackcloth of hair, and the full moon shall become as blood, and the heavens shall depart as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island shall be moved out of their places, and the kings of the earth, and the great men and the rich men and the chief captains and the mighty men and every bondman and every freeman shall hide themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains and say to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?"—Rev. 6:12-17; "for the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgement unto the Son, that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father who sent him."—John 5:22, 23. "And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he who hath been ordained of God to be the judge of living and dead."—Acts 10:42.

If all men who are unredeemed would just stop and realize their real position in the scale of being, and that they really have no Heavenly Father, and that "as many as received him to them gave he power to become the children of God, even to them that believe on his name,"—John 1:12, there would fall upon this world such a feeling of orphanage as it has never known since the Saviour hung on the cross. But in their pride or religious prejudice, or love of the world, or secret sin, blinded by "Our Father," they go on through life repeating it, and die, never having been redeemed from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13), and adopted as God's sons (Gal. 4:4-7).

Teaching the unredeemed that God is their Father, and to say "Our Father" is the incubator of religious error and the hot-bed of infidelity. Many religious denominations that are fundamentally in error, that really have no Redeemer, and therefore no Saviour, have as their foundation teaching that God is the Father of the human race; and there is scarcely an infidel but that was taught "Our Father." Teach a person that God is his Father, that his Heavenly Father is far better than his earthly father, and then teach him that his Heavenly Father is going to send him to an eternal Hell, and, if he thinks, he is far on the road to infidelity, or he is ready for some modern church that denies that there is any Hell.

It is said that a missionary to one of the heathen lands, after laboring for some time among the people, employed a learned heathen to help him translate the New Testament into the heathen language. The missionary would read and the heathen would translate and write it down. They finally came to the first epistle of John. One morning as they began their work, having finished the second chapter, the missionary read, "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us." The heathen translated and wrote it down. The missionary read, "that we should be called the children of God." The heathen bowed his head upon the table and began weeping. Gaining control of his feelings, he said, "Teacher, don't make me put it that way; I know our people; that is too good for us; we don't deserve it. Put it this way, 'That we may be allowed to kiss his feet,' That is good enough for our people." He had listened to the story of God giving His Son for us; of His life, of His teachings, of His death for our sins; and the thought that, beyond this, God makes the redeemed His children, was too much for him. But in enlightened, so-called Christian lands, many who have never even claimed to have been born of God ridicule the teaching that God is the Father of the redeemed only, and they blatantly proclaim God to be the Father of all human beings, of the drunkard, of the thief, the murderer, whereas, even the angels do not call Him Father. "Unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my son?" But when men are redeemed (Heb. 9:12), and born again of the Spirit (John 3:8; 1 John 5:1), they are really God's children (Gal. 3:26). Then they are above angels in the scale of being, "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ" (Rom. 8:17),—the highest, most exalted of all beings in the universe. Oh, that men would put their heels upon their pride, be redeemed from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13), and become God's real children (Gal. 4:4-7).

But just as many mix and confuse the teachings as to two roads to Heaven, and as to law and sonship, so they mix and confuse the old motive of fear under the law (Rom. 8:15), and of love as sons. The new motive of love could be produced in no other way than by real Redemption. Let the reader give close study to the following principles laid down in Walker's "Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation":

"1, The affections of the soul move in view of certain objects or in view of certain qualities believed to exist in those objects. The affections never move, in familiar words, the heart never loves, unless love be produced by seeing, or by believing that we see, some lovely and excellent qualities in the object. When the soul believes those good qualities to be possessed by another, and especially when they are exercised towards us, the affections, like a magnetized needle, tremble with life, and turn towards their object.