Page:Studies in the Scriptures - Series I - The Plan of the Ages (1909).djvu/101

 it must be admitted either that the Church wilbfail to ac- complish her mission, and that the plan of God will be thus far frustrated, or else, as we claim and have shown, that the conversion of the world in the present age was not expected of the Church, but that her mission has been to preach the Gospel in all the world for a witness, and to prepare her- self under divine direction for her great future work. God has not yet by any means exhausted his power for the world's conversion. Nay, more : he has not yet even attempted the world's conversion.

This may seem a strange statement to some, but let such reflect that if God has attempted such a work he has sig- nally failed ; for, as we have seen, only a small fraction of earth's billions have ever intelligently heard of the only name whereby they must be saved. We have only forcibly stated the views and teachings of some of the leading sects Bap- tists, Presbyterians and others viz., that God is electing or selecting out of the world a " little flock," a Church. They believe that God will do no more than choose this Church, while we find the Scriptures teaching a further step in the divine plan a RESTITUTION for the world, to be ac- complished through the elect Church, when completed and glorified. The "little flock," the overcomers, of this Gos- pel age, are only the body of "The Seed" in or by whom all the families of the earth are to be blessed.

Those who claim that Jehovah has been trying for six thousand years to convert the world, and failing all the time, must find it difficult to reconcile such views with the Bible assurance that all God's purposes shall be accomplished, and that his Word shall not return unto him void, but shall pros- per in the thing whereto it was sent. (Isa. 55:11.) The fact that the world has not yet been converted, and that the knowledge of the Lord has not yet filled the earth, is a jproof that it has not yet been sent on that mission.

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