RESTORATIONISM - USES FALSE ASSUMPTIONS

Restorationism Takes Its Stand on Certain Assumptions Which are False

• That God is the Father of all men. And therefore all men will be saved.

John 8:44 - Another Father in the world.
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."
The word "father" does not essentially mean progenitor.
The real thought of "father" has nothing in it that suggests the origin of being; it is the word that suggests care, watchfulness, attention; and the terrible thought of this passage therefore is that these men were under the care, the watchfulness, the attention of the devil; and if those sacred words, care and watchfulness and attention, seem out of place in that connection, I use them deliberately, for the revelation of Scripture is that of the appalling persistence with which the devil will attempt to encompass the ruin of a soul, and the wreckage of society.

• That man's intuitions are a safe guide to follow. Man's feeling that God would not condemn.

Prov. 14:12 "Seemeth right . . . end . . . death."
"There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."
Rom. 6:21  "What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death."
Prov. 12:15  "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise."
Prov. 16:25 "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."

• That punishment is reformatory in its effects. In general the answer is No. (The prison systems around the world.)

Amos 4:6-11 cf. Rev. 9:20
"And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered. So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased, the palmerworm devoured them: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD."
"And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:"The living continue to worship as they have worshipped. cf. vs. 21
The works of their hands is the making and use of images. Idolatry is connected with pagan worship (1 Cor. 8:4-5).
They worship demons as they have previously done. The word is "demons" in the RV. These are the spirits behind the images. All Gentile pagan worship is demonic (1 Cor. 10:20-21).
Killing is associated with paganism because of the low value placed on life.
 Sorceries and witchcraft have always been associated with pagan worship.
 Fornication or sexual sin has also been associated with pagan worship.
Thievery has also been associated with paganism because of the low value placed on personal property.

Rev. 16:7-11, 21

"And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments. And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory. And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds."
"And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great."

Edmund Burke "The infliction of punishment has no tendency to reform the guilty."

• That the fires of hell can accomplish what God could not do the present means of grace.

If this is true, then the Spanish Inquisition was right and should be restored.