without realizing that it is spiritual anarchy and absolutely
horrible and detestable. A woman and four little children are
murdered in cold blood by three robbers for the purpose of robbing the
home. When the three are arrested, the first is found to be thoroughly
penitent, thoroughly reformed, broken-hearted, over his horrible
crime. If sin should be punished only to reform the sinner, this man
should not be punished at all, though he murdered five people in cold
blood; for he is already reformed. The second is such a hardened
criminal that he never can be reformed, and the more he is punished
the more hardened he will become. Then if sin is punished only to
reform the sinner, he should not be punished at all, though guilty of
the murder of five people in cold blood. The third is tender-hearted
and easily influenced, and by sending him to prison for thirty days,
he will be thoroughly reformed, though guilty of five cold-blooded
murders. On this principle of punishing sin only to reform the sinner,
all a sinner would have to do to make sure of Heaven would be to
become such a hardened sinner that he could never be reformed, and
then he would go to Heaven without any punishment at all.

People need to call a halt and realize that sin ought to be punished
because it is right to punish it, because it is just. But this means
the punishment of all sins, the sins of the refined as surely as the
sins of the debased, the smaller sins as surely as the greater sins.
Hence the teaching of God's word, Rom. 1:18, "The wrath of God[1] is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of
men," But we need to keep in mind that it is discriminating wrath, and
God's word makes this plain, Heb. 2:2, "Every transgression and
disobedience received a _just recompense of reward_." "A just
God."--Is. 45:21.

[1] Many sneer at a "God of wrath" and say they believe in a "God of
all love." God is love, but He is just as surely a God of wrath; and
were He not a God of wrath, He would not be God, but a fiend. He who
loves purity and chastity and has no wrath against impurity and
unchastity, but loves them, too, is a moral leper. He who loves the
defence of the poor and the helpless, but has no wrath against the
cold-blooded murderer, the one crushing the defenceless, but loves
him, too, is a fiend. Character, from God to Devil, can only be
told by what one loves and what one hates.

Notice