Basic HTML Version
noticed, had to be of just a certain thickness.
It
had to be plastic, too, so he could move it and
bend it. It had to give and to move in his hands.
If it was too stiff, he couldn't use it, if it was too
thin, he couldn't do anything with jt.
It
had to be
just right. That's the way we have to be:
plastic!- yielding in the hands of God, just as that
clay yielded in this man's hands.
God made us free moral agents. And God made
us so that we can resist- we can stiffen up and
barden up against him- or we can accept him and
we can yield. God made us so that we must choose
on that point. God is not going to do anything
with us if we resist.
So, then, what are we? We are an unfinished
piece of God's workmanship!
Creation was not completed in the time of the
garden of Eden and the creation of Adam and Eve.
lt
was only begun there. That was the material,
the physical creation. God was, then, only
beginning his real creation- which is a spiritual
creation-of creating something spiritual out of
man who has been made mortal, out of the dust of
the ground.
We were born, all of us, from Adam. Adam was
not in the spiritual image of God, as most people
seem to think he was. He lacked God's perfect
spiritual character. He was not made of the same
substance as God. Adam was made of the dust of
the ground but God is Spirit.
So far as composition is concerned, we have only
been bearing the physical image, not the spiritual.
But we are in the form and shape of God. We can
receive his spirit, bis character and bear his image,
spiritually. God is reproducing himseiP.
1
wonder if
you can begin to realize that wonderful truth.
And so, now, what is God? God is perfect,
spiritual character. That's what he is. God has all
power, but what God is, is perfect, spiritual
character. Character cannot be automatically
created by fiat. Neither can character be inherited
from father or mother to child.
What is perfect character? Character, perfect
character, is the ability of a separate entity to
come,
FIRST,
to the knowledge of the truth, and of
the right as opposed to the wrong; and
SECOND,
to
make the decision to choose the right instead of
the wrong; and
THJRD,
to exercise the will and the
self-discipline to do the right instead of the wrong.
God is the perfect character. God has all
knowledge. God always chooses the right. God
never does wrong. We were put here to build
character until we become like God. Animals have
instinct, but animals do not develop righteous
character.
Character involves such characteristics as !ove
and patience, humility, tolerance, merey, wisdom,
initiative and right doing through free choice. So,
God of necessity made man the clay model. He
made man a free moral agent, so that man must
make his own decision. God has decreed that we
must decide. He doesn't force us to obey him or
2
come under bis government.
There could be no character any other way. And
to do that God had to allow man to do wrong.
Now, get that! To fulfill his purpose, God had to
allow man to be able to do wrong.
Character must be developed by experience.
Jt
can't be created automatically. Experience requires
time; and so God set apart a total of 7,000 years
to carry out his purpose.
The first 6,000 years-as there were six days of
material creation-are for man's way of going
contrary to God. Then there is going to be a
1,000-year day of spiritual rest, when Jesus Christ
is coming to rule this earth God' s way and rule it
with a rod of iron. The whole world will be full of
the knowledge of the Eterna! God.
God's law or way is !ove. Love is always away
from self-not toward self. Never lust or anything
of that sort. The opposite way is lust and greed,
that' s all toward self-vanity! And it Ieads to the
system in this world-competition and strife-yes,
the getting way, the accumulating, the taking way.
And that is the cause of wars. Why does God
allow war and human suffering?
We have competition. Everything is competition
is this world. Everything is carried along on the
selfish, the getting, basis- greed and vanity. To
prevent the evils of competition and wars today
· God would have to cram bis religion down our
throats. Our way, the violation of the law of God,
the law of !ove, is causing war, human anguish and
human suffering. God had to allow it (to Jet us
have our own way) in order to fulfill bis purpose
of creating holy character.
The only way that God could stop war would be
to stop the cause. He would have, in effect, to
cram his religion down our throats-down the
throats of all humanity.
There wouldn't be any free moral agency; there
wouldn't be any character and God's purpose could
never be fulfilled. That 's why God allows wars, and
that's why God allows suffering. To prevent it
would be to prevent the very purpose that God is
working out here below.
Do you know that man learns by suffering? Did
you ever hear of anyone learning that the stove was
hot by putting his finger on it? We do learn by
experience. And do you know that Jesus Christ
learned by experience?
Turn to Hebrew 5:8-9. "Though he were a Son,
yet Jearned he [Christ] obedience by the things
which he suffered; and being made perfect, he
became the author of eterna! salvation unto all
them that obey him."
Experience develops character-either good or
bad. If we're going to have good character it comes
through experience.
lf
we develop bad
character-and man has done that, of course-God
provided for that too, because "God so loved the
world, that he gave bis only begotten Son" that we
can repent. We can come to him and have all of
the sin forgiven. We can
(Continued on page 44)
The
PLAIN TRUTH