Part 4
Friend, in the way of awakening your conscience and making you
feel yourself a sinner, He may come to you very speedily. And
when He does come to awaken you–it is somewhat in this way.
First, He comes seasonably–"in the cool of the day." Adam's
work was done and Eve had no more to do until thenext day. At
that hour they had been accustomed, in happier times, to sit down
and rest. Now God comes to them and the Spirit of God, when He
comes to awaken men, generally visits them when they have a little
time for quiet thought. You dropped in and heard a sermon–the
most of it slipped from your memory, but there were some few
words that struck you so that you could not get rid of them.
Perhaps, though, you thought no more about the message to which
you had listened. Something else came in and took your attention.
But a little while later you had to watch all night by the bedside of
a sick friend–and then God came to you and brought to your
remembrance the words that you had forgotten. Or it may be that
some texts of Scripture which you learned when you were a child
began to speak to you throughout the watches of the night. Or
perhaps you were going along a country road or, it may be that you
were out at sea on a dark night and the billows rolled heavily so
that you could not sleep–and you even feared that you would be
swallowed up by the raging sea–then–then came the Voice of the
Lord God speaking personally to you! When other voices
weresilenced, there was an opportunity for His voice to be heard!
Not only did the Lord come to Adam and Eve seasonably, but He
spoke to Adam personally and said, "Where areyou?" One of the
great mistakes in connection with all preaching is that so many
hearers will persist in lending other people their ears. They hear a
faithful Gospel sermon and they say, "That message would fit
neighbor So-and-So admirably! What a pity Mrs. So-and-So did
not hear it! That would have been the very word for her." Yes, but
when God comes to
you, as He came to Adam and Eve–and if you are not converted I
pray that He may–the sermon He will deliver to you will be, every
word of it, for you! He will say, "Adam," or, "John," or, "Mary," or
whatever your name is, "where are
you?" The question will be addressed to you, alone! It will have
no relation to any of your neighbors, but to you, alone. The
question may take some such form as this–"Where are you? What
have you been doing? What is your condition now? Will you now
repent, or will you still go on in your sins?" Have not you, young
man, had some such experience as this? You went to the theater,
but when you came home you said that you had not enjoyed it and
that you wished you had not gone. You went to bed, but you could
not sleep. It seemed as if God had come to wrestle with you and to
reason with you about your past life, bringing up one thing after
another in which you have sinned against Him. At all events, this is
the way He deals with many–and if He deals thus with you, be
thankful for it and yield yourself up to Him–do not struggle against
Him!
I am always glad when men cannot be happy in the world, for, as
long as they can be, they will be. It is always a great mercy when
they begin to be sick of the dainties of Egypt, for then we may lead
them, by God's guidance, to seek after the milk and honey of the
land of Canaan–but not till then. It is a great blessing when the
Lord puts before you, personally, a true view of your own condition
in His sight–and makes you look at it earnestly, concentrating your
whole thought upon it–so that you cannot even begin to think about
others because you are compelled to examine yourself, to see what
your real condition is in relation to God!
When the Lord thus comes to men and speaks personally with
them, He makes them realize their lost condition. Doyou not see
that this is implied in the question, "Where are you?" Adam was
lost–lost to God, lost to holiness, lost to happiness. God, Himself,
says, "Where are you?"That was to let Adam know this, "I have
lost you, Adam. At one time I could speak with you as with a
friend, but I cannot do so any longer. You were once My obedient
child, but you are not so now. I have lost you. Where are you?"
May God the Holy Spirit convince every unconverted person here
that he or she is lost–not only lost to themselves, to Heaven, to
holiness and to happiness–but lost to God! It was God's lost ones
of whom Christ so often spoke. He was, Himself, the Good
Shepherd who called together His friends and neighbors, saying to
them, "Rejoice with Me, for I have found My sheep which was
lost." And He represents His Father saying of His son when He has
come back to Him, "'This, My son was dead'–dead to Me–'and is
alive again. He was lost'–lost to Me, 'and is found.'" The value of
a soul to God and God's sense of loss in the case of each individual
soul is something worth thinking over and worth calculating, if it
can be calculated. God makes man realize that he is lost by His
own moans and pleas, even as He said to Adam, "Where are you?"
You will observe, too, that the Lord not only came to Adam and
questioned him personally, but He also made Adamanswer Him.
And if the Lord has, in this way, laid hold of any of you, talking
with you in the cool of the day and questioning you about your lost
condition, He will make you confess your sin and bring you to
acknowledge that it was really your own. He will not leave you as
Adam wanted to be left–namely, laying the blame for the
disobedience upon Eve. And He will not leave you as Eve tried to
be left–namely, passing the blame on to the devil! Before the Lord
has done with you, He will bring you to the point that you shall
feel, confess and acknowledge that you are really guilty of your
own sin and that you must be punished for it. When He brings you
down to that point and you have nothing at all to say for yourself,
then He will pardon you!
I remember well when the Lord brought me to my knees in this
way and emptied out all my self-righteousness and self-trust until I
felt that the hottest place in Hell was my due desert–and that if He
saved everybody else, but did not save me–yet He would still be
just and righteous, for I had no right to be saved! Then, when I was
obliged to feel that it must be all of Grace, or else there could be no
salvation for me–then He spoke tenderly and kindly to me. But at
first, there did not seem to be any tenderness or pity to my soul.
There was the Lord coming to me, laying bare my sin, revealing to
me my lost condition and making me shiver and tremble while I
feared that the next thing He would say to me would be, "Depart
from Me, accursed one, into everlasting fire in Hell!" Instead, He
said to me in tones of wondrous love and graciousness, "I have put
you among My children. 'I have loved you with an everlasting
love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you.'" Blessed
be the name of the Lord, forever and ever, for such amazing
treatment as this meted out to the guilty and the lost!
IV. Now, fourthly, and very solemnly, I want to show you that
THIS COMING OF THE LORD TO ADAM AND EVE IS ALSO
PROPHETICAL OF THE WAY IN WHICH HE WILL COME AS
A JUDGING SPIRIT TO THOSE WHO REJECT HIM AS AN
AWAKENING SPIRIT.
I have already reminded you unconverted ones that as surely as
you live, you will have to come to close terms with God like the
rest of us. Sooner or later you will have to know Him–and to know
that He knows you. There will be no way of escaping from an
interview which will be most serious and most terrible for you. It
will happen "in the cool of the day." I do not know when that may
be. On my way to this service I called to see a young lady to whom,
"the cool of the day" has come at twenty-five, or thirty years of
age. Consumption has made her life a comparatively short one, but,
blessed be God, His Grace has made it a very happy one and she is
not afraid, "in the cool of the day," to hear the voice of the Lord
God calling her Home! It is well that she is not afraid, but you who
have not believed in Jesus will have to hear that same Divine Voice
in the cool of your life's day! You may be spared to grow old–the
strength of youth and of manhood will have gone and you will
begin to lean on your staff and to feel that you have not the vigor
you used to have–and that you cannot do such a hard day's work as
you used to do and you must not attempt to run up the hills as you
once did. That will be "the cool of the day" to you–and then the
Lord God will come in to you and say, "Set your house in order, for
you shall die, and not live."
Sometimes that cool of the day comes to a man just when he
would have liked it to be the heat of the day. He is making money
and his children are multiplying around him, so he wants to stay in
this world a little longer. But that cannot be–he must go up to his
bed and he must lie there for so many days and nights–and then he
must hear the voice of the Lord God as He begins to question him
and say, "Where are you in relation to Me? Have you loved Me
with all your heart, and mind, and soul, and strength? Have you
served Me? Are you reconciled to Me through the death of My
Son?" Such questions as these will come to us as surely as God
made us! And we shall have to give an account of the deeds done in
the body, whether they have been good or whether they have been
evil. I pray you to think of these things and not to say, "Ah, that
will not happen just yet." That is more than any of us can tell–and
let me remind you that life is very short even at the longest. I am
especially appealing to those who are of my own age. Do not you,
dear Friends, find that when you are between 40 and 50 years of
age the weeks seem to be much shorter than they used to be when
you were young? I therefore gather that when our friends are 70 or
80 years of age–time must seem far shorter to them than it ever was
before! I think that one reason why Jacob, when he was a 130 years
old, said to Pharaoh, "Few and evil have been the days of the years
of my life," was simply this–that he was really such an old man,
though not as old as his ancestors, that time seemed even shorter to
him than it did to younger men. If that was so, then I suppose that
the longer a man lives, the shorter time would appear to be. But,
short or long, your share of it will soon be over and you will be
called upon to gather up your feet in bed and meet your fathers'
God.
When that solemn and decisive hour comes, your interview with
God will have to be a personal one. Sponsors will be of no use to
anyone upon a dying bed! It will be of no use, then, to call upon
Christian friends to take a share of your burden. They will not be
able to give you of their oil, for they have not enough Divine Grace
for themselves and you. If you live and die without accepting the
aid of the one Mediator between God and man, all these questions
will have to be settled between your soul and God without anyone
else coming between yourself and your Maker! And all this may
happen at any moment. This personal talk between God and your
soul at the end of your life may be ordained to take place this very
night–and I am sent, as a forerunner, to give you this warning so
that you may not meet your God altogether by surprise, but may, at
any rate, be invited and exhorted to be prepared for that great
interview!
Whenever that interview takes place, God will deal with you in
solemn earnestness–personally bringing home your sin to you. You
will be unable to deny it, for there will be One present at that
interview who has seen it all–and the enquiries which He will make
about the state of your soul will be very searching ones. He will not
merely ask about one sin, but about all life–nor yet merely enquire
about your doings, but about your sayings, your willings and your
thinking–and about your whole position in relation to Himself,
even as He asked Adam, "Where are you?"
In imagination–I pray that it may be only in imagination–I see
some of you die unsaved. And I see you as you pass into the next
world unpardoned and your soul realizes, for the first time, what
was the experience of the rich man, of whom our Savior said, "In
Hell he lifted up his eyes"–as though he had been asleep and had
only just awakened to his true condition! "He lifted up his eyes"
and gazed all around, but he could see nothing except that which
caused him dismay and horror! There was no trace of joy or hope,
no trace of ease or peace. Then, through the awful gloom, there
came the sound of such questions as these, "Where are you,
Sinner? You were in a House of Prayer a few weeks ago and the
preacher urged you to seek the Lord, but you procrastinated! Where
are you now? You said that there was no such place as Hell, but
what do you say about it now? Where are you? You despised
Heaven and refused Christ–where are you now?" What horror will
seize the disembodied spirit as it reflects that it has brought itself
into the condition of which it was warned–and from which it was
invited to escape–but which it willfully chose for itself, thus
committing eternal suicide! The Lord in mercy preserve all of you
from doing that! But if you will do it, then shall come forth from
the lipsof the justly offended God the irrevocable sentence, "Depart
from Me, you cursed."
One of the most dreadful things in connection with this meeting
of God with Adam was that Adam had to answer the Lord's
questions. The Lord said to Him, "Have you eaten of the tree of
which I commanded you that you should not eat?" In our courts of
law we do not require men to answer questions which would
incriminate them, but God does. And at the Last Great Day the
ungodly will be condemned on their own confession of guilt!
While they are in this world they put on a bronze face and declare
that they have done no wrong to anybody–not even to God. They
say they pay their way and they are as good as their neighbors–
better than the most of them! But all their brag and bravado will be
gone at the Day of Judgment and they will either stand speechless
before God–and by their speechlessness acknowledge their
guiltiness in His sight–or if they do speak, their vain excuses and
apologies will but convict them! They will, out of their own
mouths, condemn themselves like that wicked and slothful servant
who was cast into the outer darkness where there was weeping and
gnashing of teeth! God grant that we may never know, from sad
personal experience, what that expression means!
Now, lastly, this meeting of God with Adam should lead us who
believe in Christ to EXPECT TO MEET HIM ON THE MOST
LOVING TERMS, for if even when He came to question guilty
Adam and to pass sentence upon him, He did it so gently and
mingled with the thunder of His wrath the soft shower of His Grace
when He gave the promise that "the Seed of the woman" should
bruise the serpent's head, may we not expect Him to meet us, by-
and-by, on the most loving terms if we are in that woman's Seed
and have been saved by Jesus Christ, His Son?
He will come in the evening, Brothers and Sisters, when the day's
work is done, so do not fret about the burden and heat of the day.
The longest and hottest day will come to an end–you will not live
here forever. You will not always have to wear your fingers to the
bone in trying to earn a scanty livelihood! You will not always have
to look round upon your children and wonder where the bread will
be found with which to feed them! No, the days on earth cannot
last forever and, with many of you the sun has already climbed the
hill and begun to go down the other side–"the cool of the day" will
soon come! I can look upon a good many of you who have already
reached that period. You have retired from active service, you have
shaken off a good deal of business care and now you are waiting
for your Master to come to you. Rest assured that He will not
forget you, for He has promised to come to you. You will hear His
voice before long, telling you that He is walking in the garden and
coming to you. Good old Rowland Hill, when he found himself
getting very feeble, said, "I hope they have not forgotten poor old
Rowley up there." But he knew that he was not forgotten! Nor will
you be, Beloved.
You will hear your Lord's voice before long and the mercy is that
you will know it when you do hear it! Have you not often heard it
before now? Many a time, in this house, you have heard His voice
and you have been glad. In the cool of many an evening you have
sat still and communed with God. I like to see an old Christian
woman with her big Bible open, sitting by the hour together and
tracing with her finger the precious Words of the Lord–eating them,
digesting them, living on them and finding them sweeter to her soul
than honey or the droppings of the honeycomb to her taste! Well,
then, as you have heard your Lord's voice and know its tones so
well. As you have been so long accustomed to hear it, you will not
be astonished when you hear it in those last moments of your life's
day! You will not run to hide yourself as Adam and Eve did! You
are covered with the robe of Christ's righteousness, so you have no
nakedness to fear and you may respond, "Did You ask, my Lord,
'Where are you?' I answer, 'Here I am, for You did call me.' Did
You ask where I am? I am hidden in Your Son! I am 'accepted in
the Beloved.' Did You say, 'Where are you?' Here I stand, ready
and waiting to be taken up by Him, according to His promise that
where He is, there I shall be, also, that I may behold His Glory."
Why, surely, Beloved, as this is the case, you may even long for
the evening to come when you shall hear His voice and shall go up
and away from this land of shadows and chilly nights, into that
blest place where the Glory burns on forever and ever, the Lamb is
the Light thereof and the days of your mourning shall be ended
forever!
God grant that you may all have a part and a lot in that Glory, for
His dear Son's sake! Amen.
Ge 3:9 • God's First Words to the First Sinner
ERMON 0412
God's First Words To The First Sinner
"The Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where are
you?"
Genesis 3:9
IT will be interesting to the members of this Church to know that
it was under a sermon delivered by Mr. William Wallin from this
very text that my honored and venerable predecessor, Dr. Gill, was
converted to a knowledge of the Truth as it is in Jesus. I looked
with some degree of curiosity to his interpretation of this passage. I
had half hoped to find there some allusion to his own conversion,
but I did not, although I was edified by his clear and methodical
comment upon it to which I am under obligations for suggesting
the present discourse.
May I hope that, as this text has been the means in the hand of
God of conferring upon the Church of Christ a man who valiantly
defended the Truth of God and was the means of expounding the
doctrine of grace with great clearness, that there may be here
present today someone at least who like John Gill may hear the
Word with power and may receive it in its quickening influence
into his soul. No, let us pray that not one alone but that many may
hear the enquiry of God as it rings through the multitude and while
it reaches the ear may it reach the heart, too. And may some be
brought before God in answer to the question, "Where are you?"
and receive the assurance of pardon and go on their way in peace.
It is not necessary that I should, in expounding this text, enter at
all into the circumstances which led to the enquiry. Man had sinned
against God. Mark the alienation of heart which sin causes in the
sinner. Adam ought to have sought out his Maker. He should have
gone through the garden crying for his God, "My God, my God, I
have sinned against You. Where are You? Low at Your feet Your
creature falls and asks mercy at Your hands. My Father, You have
placed me in this lovely Paradise. I have wickedly and willfully
eaten of the fruit of which You said that I should not eat of it, since
in the day I ate thereof I should surely die.
"Behold, my Father, I submit to the penalty. I confess Your justice
and beseech Your mercy, if mercy can be shown to such an one as I
am." But instead thereof, Adam flees from God. The sinner comes
not to God–God comes to him. It is not, "My God, where are You?"
but the first cry is the voice of grace, "Sinner where are you?" God
comes to man–man seeks not his God. Despite all the doctrines
which proud free will has manufactured, there has never been
found from Adam's day until now a single instance in which the
sinner first sought his God. God must first seek him. The sheep
strays of itself but it never returns to its fold unless sought by the
Great Shepherd.
It is human to err, it is Divine to repent. Man can commit iniquity
but even to know that it is iniquity so as to feel the guilt of it is the
gift of the grace of God. We have and are nothing but what is vile.
Everything which is God-like, everything which aspires towards
righteousness and true holiness comes from the Most High.
And while the text manifestly teaches us the alienation of the
human heart from God, so that man shuns his Maker and does not
desire fellowship with Him, it reveals also the folly which sin has
caused. Sin made man a fool. He was once in God's image, wise.
Now, since the trail of the serpent has passed over his nature he has
become an arrogant fool–for is not he a fool who would cover the
nakedness of sin with fig leaves? Is not he indeed mad who would
hide from the Omniscient Jehovah beneath the spreading boughs of
trees? Did not Adam know that God fills all space and dwells
everywhere? That from the highest Heaven to the deepest Hell
there is nothing that is hid from His understanding?
And yet so ignorant and stupid is he that he hopes to escape from
God and make the trees of the garden a covert from the fiery eyes
of Divine Wrath. Ah, how foolish we are! How we repeat the folly
of our first parent every day when we seek to hide sin from
conscience and then think it is hidden from God. Fools when we
are more afraid of the gaze of man than of the searching of the
Eternal One–when because the sin is secret and has not entrenched
upon the laws and customs of society–we go to our beds with the
black mark still upon us–being satisfied because man does not see
it, that therefore God does not perceive it.
O sin, you have made man ask the question, "Where shall I flee
from Your presence?" And you have made him forget that if he
ascend to Heaven, God is there. If he makes his bed in Hell, God is
there and if he says, "Surely the darkness shall cover me," even the
night shall be light about him.
But now the Lord Himself comes forth to Adam and note how He
comes. He comes walking. He was in no haste to smite the
offender, not flying upon wings of wind, not hurrying with His
fiery sword unsheathed–but walking in the garden. "In the cool of
the day"–not in the dead of night when the natural glooms of
darkness might have increased the terrors of the criminal. Not in
the heat of the day, lest he should imagine that God comes in the
heat of passion. Not in the early morning, as if in haste to slay, but
at the close of the day–for God is long-suffering, slow to anger and
of great mercy.
In the cool of the evening, when the sun was setting up Eden's
last day of glory, when the dews began to weep for man's misery,
when the gentle winds with breath of mercy breathed upon the hot
cheek of fear. When earth was silent that man might meditate and
when Heaven was lighting her evening lamps that man might have
hope in darkness–then and not till then–came forth the offended
Father. Adam flees and seeks to avoid that very God whom he had
once met with confidence and with whom he had the sweetest
fellowship, talking with Him as a man talks with his friend. And
now hear the voice of God as He cries, "Adam, where are you?"
Oh, there were two truths in that short sentence. It showed that
Adam was lost, or God would not have needed to ask him where he
was. Until we have lost a thing we need not inquire about it. But
when God said, "Adam, where are you?" it was the voice of a
shepherd enquiring for his lost sheep. Or better still, the cry of a
loving parent asking for his child that has run away from him,
"Where are you?" There are but three words, but they contain the
dread doctrine of our lost estate. When God asks, "Where are
you?" man must be lost. When God Himself inquires where he is,
he must be lost in a more awful sense than you and I have as yet
fully known.
But then there was also mercy here, for it showed that God
intended to have mercy upon man or else He would have let him
remain lost and would not have said, "Where are you?" Men do not
inquire for what they do not value. There was a Gospel sermon, I
think, in those three Divine words as they penetrated the dense
parts of the thicket and reached the tingling ears of the
fugitives–"Where are you?" Your God is not willing to lose you.
He is come forth to seek you, just as by-and-by He means to come
forth in the Person of His Son, not only to seek but to save that
which now is lost. "Where are you, Adam?"
Oh, had God meant to have destroyed the race, He would have
hurled His thunderbolt at once and burned the trees and let the
ashes of the sinner lie beneath His angry gaze. He would have
rushed in the whirlwind and in the storm and tearing up the cedars
and the pomegranates by their roots, He would have said, "Here
you are, you rebel! Traitor, take your due deserts! Let Hell open
before you and be you swallowed up forever." But no, He loves
man. He cares for him and therefore now inquires where he is in
tones of calmness, "Adam, where are you, where are you?"
The question which the Lord asked of Adam may be used in five
different ways. We are not sure in what precise sense the Lord
intended it–perhaps in all–for there is always in the utterance of the
Divine One a great depth which couches beneath. Our words, if
they give one sense, do well. But the Lord knows how to speak so
that He shall teach many Truths in few words. We give little in
much–God gives much in little. Many words and little sense–this is
too often the rule of man's speech. Few words and much meaning–
this is the rule with God.
We give gold beaten out into leaf–God gives ingots of gold when
He speaks. We use but the filings of gems–God drops pearls from
His lips each time He speaks to us. We, perhaps, even in eternity,
know how Divine are God's words–how like Himself, how
exceeding broad, how infinite.
We believe that the enquiry of God was intended in an
AROUSING SENSE–"Adam, where are you?" Sin stultifies the
conscience, it drugs the mind so that after sin man is not so capable
of understanding his danger as he would have been without it. Sin
is a poison which kills conscience painlessly by mortification. Men
die by sin as men die when frozen to death upon the Alps–they die
in a sleep. They sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep on, till death
closes the scene and then in Hell they awake in torments.
One of the first works of grace in a man is to put aside this sleep,
to startle him from his lethargy, to make him open his eyes and
discover his danger. One of the first deeds of the Good Physician is
to put sensibility into our flesh. It has become cold and dead and
mortified. He puts life into it and then there is pain–but that very
pain has a salutary effect upon us. Now I think that this question
from the Lord was intended to set Adam thinking. "Where are
you?" He had perceived in some degree into what a state his sin
had brought him but this question was meant to stir the depths of
his spirit and wake him up to such a sense of danger, that he should
labor to escape from the wrath to come.
"Adam, where are you?"–look at yourself now, naked, a stranger
to your God, dreading the presence of your Maker, miserable,
undone. "Adam, where are you?"–with a hard heart, with a
rebellious will, fallen, fallen, fallen from your high estate. "Adam,
where are you?" Lost! Lost to your God, lost to happiness, lost to
peace, lost in time, lost in eternity. Sinner, "where are you?" O that
I might, by the earnest words which I shall now utter, stir up some
callous, careless sinner to answer the enquiry for himself! Man,
where are you?–where are you this morning?
Shall I tell you? You are in a condition in which your very
conscience condemns you. How many there are of you who have
never repented of sin, have never believed in Christ! I ask you, is
your conscience easy?–Is it always easy? Are there not some times
when the thunder is heard? Are there not seasons when the
watchman lights his candle and searches the secret parts of your
soul and discovers your iniquity? Where are you, then?–For
conscience is to God what the hook is to the fisherman.
Conscience, like God's hook, is in your jaws today and He has
but to draw in the line and you are in the consuming fire. Though
conscience makes you smart, Justice shall be far sterner with you
than your poor imperfect conscience. If your heart condemns you,
God is greater than your heart and knows all things. Your
conscience tells you you are wrong–O how wrong, then, must you
be!
But man, do you not know you are a stranger from your God?
Many of you seldom think of Him. You can spend days and weeks
without a mention of His name, except, perhaps, in some trivial
language, as in an oath. You cannot live without a friend but you
can live without your God. You eat, you drink, you are satisfied.
The world is enough for you. Its transient pleasures satisfy your
spirit. If you saw God here you would flee from Him. You are an
enemy to Him. Oh, is this the right case for a creature to be in? Let
the question come to you–"Where are you?" Must not that creature
be in a very pitiable position who is afraid of his Creator?
You were made to glorify Him. You were made to rejoice in His
presence and to delight in His goodness. But it seems you love not
the very food which was meant to sustain you. You must be sick–
you must be sick, indeed! "Where are you?" Remember, the
Almighty God is angry with you. His Commandments, like so
many guns are all pointed against you this morning. And it needs
only the uplifted finger of the Divine One and they shall soon
destroy you and break you in pieces. Would a man be comfortable
with his neck upon the block and the axe gleaming above his head?
It is your case today. You are in the position of the courtier at the
feast of Dionysius, with the sword over your head suspended by a
single hair. Condemned already!! "God is angry with the wicked
every day." "If he turn not, He will whet His sword: He has bent
His bow and made it ready." Where are you, man? O God, help the
man to see where he is! Open his eyes. Let the question startle him.
Let him start in his sleep a little–yes, let him wake and discover
where he is–obnoxious to Your wrath and the object of Your hot
displeasure!
"Where are you?" Your life is frail, nothing can be more weak. A
spider's line is cable compared with the thread of your life. Dreams
are substantial masonry compared with the bubble structure of your
being. You are here and you are gone. You sit here today–before
another week is past you may be howling in another world. Oh,
where are you, Man? Unpardoned and yet a dying man!
Condemned, yet going carelessly towards destruction! Covered
with sin, yet speeding to your Judge's dread tribunal! Lost here, yet
hurrying on, each moment bearing you on eagle's wings to the
place where you shall be lost eternally!
How hard it is to bring ourselves to know ourselves! In other
matters if a man is a little sick he seeks his doctor and would know
his position. But here a man says, "Peace, peace. Let well enough
alone." If we fear that our personal estates are at all in jeopardy we
have anxious nights and toilsome days. But, oh, our souls–our poor,
poor souls–we play with them as if they were worthless counters or
bits of platter which a child might pick up in the streets and cast
away!
Sinner! Sinner! Sinner! Is your soul so poor a bauble that you can
afford to lose it, because you will not break your sleep and stop
your pleasurable dreams? Oh, if a brother's heart can move your
heart and if a brother's voice can wake your sleeping eyes, I would
say, "What ails you, O Sleeper? Arise and call upon your God!
Awake! Why do you sleep?! Awake to answer the question, 'Where
are you?'–lost, ruined and undone! O sinner where are you?"
II. Now, secondly, the question was meant to CONVICTS OF
SIN and so to lead to a confession. Had Adam's heart been in a
right state he would have made a full confession of his sinfulness.
"Where are you?" Let us hear the voice of God saying that to us if
today we are out of God and out of Christ. "Where are you, Adam?
I made you in My own image. I made you a little lower than the
angels. I made you to have dominion over the works of My hands. I
put all things under your feet–the fowl of the air and the fish of the
sea and whatsoever passes through the depths of the sea. I gave this
whole garden of delights to be your home.
"I honored you with My presence. I thought of your welfare. The
moon did not hurt you by night. The sun did not smite you by day. I
tempered the winds for you. I clothed the trees with fruit for your
nourishment. I made all things minister to your happiness. Where
are you? I asked of you but that little thing that you would not
touch one tree which I had reserved for Myself. Where are you?
Are you in the room of a thief, a rebel, a traitor? Have you sinned?
O Adam, where are you?"
And now, Sinner, hear me. "Where are you?" To many of you the
Lord might say, "I gave you a godly mother who kept over you in
your childhood. I gave you a holy father who longed for your
conversion. I gave you the gifts of Providence–you never wanted
for a meal. I clothed your back. I put you in a comfortable position
in life. I raised you up from a bed of sickness. I overlooked ten
thousand follies. My mercies like a river have flown to you. When
you opened your eyes in the morning it was to look upon My
goodness. And till the last moment of the night I was your helper
and drew the curtains about your defenseless head.
"I have covered you with My feathers. Under My wings have you
trusted and now where are you? Have you not forgotten My
Commandments, abhorred My Person, broken My Laws, rejected
My Son? Are you not at this day a disbeliever, content to trust to
your own works but not to take the finished righteousness of My
Beloved Son, the Savior of the world? What have you done for
Him who has done so much for you? What are you? Have you not
been a cumberground–a tree that sucks the soul but bears no fruit–
that drinks in the genial rain of Heaven but yields no grateful fruit?
Where are you? Are you not today in the camp of My enemy? Are
you not on Satan's side, defying Me and lifting up the puny arm of
your rebellion against the Lord that made you and that keeps the
breath in your nostrils–in whose hand your life is and whose are all
your ways? Sinner, where are you? After all God's goodness–still a
sinner!"
Read the question again thus, "Where are you?" The serpent said
you should be a god. You thought to be made exceedingly glorious.
Is it so, Adam? Is it so? Where is your boasted knowledge? Where
the honors? Where the vast attainments that rebellion would bring
to you? Instead of the clothing of angels you are naked. Instead of
glory you have shame. Instead of preferment you have disgrace.
Adam, where are you? And Sinner, where are you? Sin said to you,
"I will give you pleasure"–you have had it. But what of the pain
which followed the pleasure? Sin gave you its cup full of mixed
wine. But what of the red eyes and of the woe? Sin said to you, "I
will make you great," but what has it done for you?
Drunkard, what has it done for you? Given you rags and poverty.
Adulterer, Fornicator–what has it done for you? Filled your flesh
with leprosy and your soul with agony. Thief! Cheat! What has it
done for you? Disgraced you and branded you before the eyes of
men. Sinner in secret! Polite sinner! What has it done for you?
Soured your sweets and poisoned all your joys. Where are you?
Where are you? In every case sin has been a curse. Without
exception, rebellion, if it has not yet brought its due deserts will do
so and sinners shall be filled with their own ways.
And then to add to the conviction, the Lord asks of Adam,
"Where are you," as if He asked him, "How did you come there?"
Adam, you came there of yourself. If you had been upright Eve had
not cast you down. Eve 'twas not the serpent with whom the main
guilt must lie. Had you not given ear, he might have tempted long
if you had been deaf. And so today God says to the sinner, "Where
are you?" You are where you have brought yourself. That you have
sinned is your own fault and none else's but your own.
Oh, it is hard to make a sinner see that sin is his own property. It
is the only thing we have. There is only one thing we created and
that is sin and that is our own. If I permit anything that is evil, I
must confess it is a child that has sprung from my own heart–it has
its origin in myself. If we talk of the Fall men will throw their sin
on father Adam. They speak of the depravity of nature and then
they think they are to be excused, as if depravity of nature did not
prove the man to be desperately bad–as if it were not saying that
sin is essentially man's own thing–that he has it in his very bones
and is his blood.
If we are sinners there is no excuse for us whatever. And if we
live and die so, the guilt shall lie at our own door and nowhere else.
"Adam, where are you?" You are where you have willfully put
yourself and you remain willfully in the same desperate state of
rebellion against God and of alienation from Him. I would God that
something would not only arouse the sinner this morning but work
conviction in him. It is easier to make a man start in his sleep than
to make him rise and burn the loathsome bed on which he
slumbered–and this is what the sinner must do–and what he will do
if God is at work in him.
He will wake up and find himself lost. Conviction will give him
the consciousness that he has destroyed himself and then he will
hate the sins he loved before. He will flee from his false refuges,
forsake his joys and seek to find a lasting salvation where alone it
can be found–in the blood of Christ.
III. This brings me to the third way in which we may regard the
question of the text. The Lord God called unto Adam and said unto
him, "Where are you?" We may regard this text as the VOICE OF
GOD BEMOANING MAN'S LOST ESTATE.
Some have even ventured to translate the Hebrew, "Alas for you,
alas for you!" It is as if God uttered the words of the Prophet,
"How can I give you up? How can I utterly destroy you? How can I
set you as Admah, How shall I make you as Zeboim? My
repentings are kindled, My heart is moved for you. Where are you,
My poor Adam? You did talk with Me, but you have now fled from
Me. You were happy once, what are you now? Naked and poor and
miserable. You were once in My image glorious, immortal,
blessed–where are you now, poor Adam? My image is marred in
you, your own Father's face is taken away and you have made
yourself earthy, sensual, devilish. Where are you now, poor
Adam?"
Oh, it is wonderful to think how the Lord felt for poor Adam. It is
taken for granted by all theologians that God can neither feel nor
suffer. There is no such thing in the Word of God. If it could be said
that God could not do anything and everything–we should say that
He was not Omnipotent. But He can do all things and we have not
a God that cannot be moved–we have one who feels and who
describes Himself in human language as having a father's heart and
all the tenderness of a mother's heart. Just as a father cries over a
rebellious son, so does the eternal Father say, "Poor Adam, where
are you?"
And now have I here this morning any soul on whom the former
part of the text has had some effect? Do you feel yourself to be lost
and do you discern that this lostness is the result of your own
willful folly? Do you bemoan yourself? Ah, then, God bemoans
you. He is looking down upon you and He is saying, "Ah, poor
drunkard, why will you cling to your cups? Into what misery have
they brought you?" He is saying to you who are now weeping over
sin, "Ah, poor child, what pain you suffer from your own willful
folly!" A father's heart moves, He longs to clasp His Ephraim to
His breast.
Do not think, Sinner, that God is stony-hearted. You have a heart
of stone, God has not. Do not think that He is slow to move–you
are slow to move–He is not–the hardness is in yourself. If you are
straitened anywhere, it is in your own heart, not in Him. Soul, Soul
convicted of sin! God loves you and to prove how He loves you, in
the Person of His Son He creeps over you and He cries, "O that you
had known, even you in this, your day, the things that make for
your peace. But now are they hid from your eyes."
I hear Him saying to you, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often
would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her
chickens under her wings, but you would not!" I pray you, let this
mournful wailing voice of the Eternal God come to your ear and
move you to repentance! "As I live, says the Lord, I have no
pleasure in the death of him that dies but had rather that he would
turn unto Me and live." Oh, does your heart feel ready to burst
because of your sin and the misery into which it has brought you?
Pray, poor sinner, "I will arise and go unto my Father and will say
unto Him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven and in Your sight
and am no more worthy to be called Your son."
He sees you, Sinner. When you are yet a great way off, He sees
you–ere are eyes of mercy! He runs–Here are feet of mercy! He
clasps you–ere are arms of mercy! He kisses you–ere are lips of
mercy! He says, "Take off his rags"–here are words of mercy! He
clothes you–here are deeds of mercy! Wonders of mercy–all mercy!
O did you know what a reception a God of mercy gives to sinners?
You would not stay away if you did!
As John Bunyan says, when the besieger hangs out the black flag,
then those within the walls say they will fight it out. But when he
runs up the white flag and tells them that if they will open the gates
he will have mercy upon them, no, he will give a charter to their
city, then says Bunyan, they say, "Fling open the gates," and they
come tumbling over the walls to him in the readiness of their
hearts. Soul, let not Satan deceive you by telling you that God is
hard, unkind, unwilling to forgive! Try Him, try Him! Just as you
are–black with sin, filthy, self-condemned and if you need anything
to make you come to Him, hear again the Lord's plaintive cry, as it
rings through the trees of Eden, "Adam, poor Adam, My own
creature, where, where are you?"
IV. But now I must turn, lest time should fail us, to a fourth way
in which no doubt this verse was intended. It is an arousing voice, a
convincing voice, a bemoaning voice–but, in the fourth place–it is
a SEEKING VOICE.
"Adam, where are you?" I am come to find you wherever you
may be. I will look for you till the eyes of My pity see you. I will
follow you till the hand of My mercy reaches you and I will still
hold you till I bring you back to Myself and reconcile you to My
heart.
Again–if you have been able to follow me through the three parts
of the discourse, I can speak confidently to you. If you have been
aroused, if you have been convicted, if you have some longings
toward God, then the Lord has come forth to seek you and to seek
you this morning. What a thought it is, that when God comes forth
to seek His chosen He knows where they are and He never misses
them. And though they may have wandered ever so far yet it is not
too far for Him. If they had gone to the gates of Hell and the gates
were half opened to receive them the Lord would get them even
there.
If they had so sinned that they had given themselves up and every
Christian living had given them up, too–if Satan had counted upon
them and had made ready to receive them–yet when God comes
forth to seek them He will find them and He will have them after
all. You who are lost, perishing sinners, hear the voice of God, for
it speaks to you, "Where are you?" for I am come to seek you.
"Lord I am in such a place that I cannot do anything for myself."
"Then I am come to seek you and do all for you." "Lord, I am in
such a place that the Law threatens me and Justice frowns upon
me." "I am come to answer the threats of the Law and to bear all
the wrath of Justice."
"But, Lord, I am in such a place that I cannot repent as I would."
"I am come to seek you and I am exalted on high to give
repentance and remission of sins." "But, Lord, I cannot believe in
You, I cannot believe as I would." "A bruised reed I will not break
and a smoking flax will I not quench, I am come to give you faith."
"But, Lord, I am in such a state that my prayers can never be
acceptable." "I am come to pray for you and then to grant you your
desires." "But, Lord, you do not know what a wretch I am." "Yes, I
know you. Though I asked you the question, 'Where are you?' it
was that you might know where you are, for I knew well enough."
"But, Lord, I have been the chief of sinners–none can have so
aggravated their guilt as I have." "But wherever you may be I have
come to save you." "But I am an outcast from society." "But I am
come to gather together the outcasts of Israel." "Oh, but I have
sinned beyond all hope." "Yes, but I have come to give hope to
hopeless sinners." "Yes, but then I deserve to be lost." "Yes, but I
have come to magnify the Law and make it honorable and so to
give you your deserts in the Person of Christ and then to give you
My mercy because of His merits."
There is not a sinner here conscious of his lost estate who can be
in a position out of which he cannot be brought. I will conceive the
worst of all the worst, the vilest of all the vile–we will bring up
those who have taken high degrees in the devil's synagogue and
become masters of iniquity. But still if with the tearful eye they
look alone to the wounds of Him who shed His blood for sinners–
He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by
Him.
Oh, I cannot preach this morning as I would, nor can you perhaps
hear as you would wish, but may the Lord speak where I cannot
and may He say unto some despairing sinner here, "Soul, your hour
is come. I will pluck you out of the horrible pit and out of the miry
clay and this day and at this very hour, I will set your feet upon a
Rock. I will put a new song into your mouth and I will establish
your goings." Blessed, blessed, be the name of the Most High if
such may be the case.
And now, lastly, we feel sure that this text may be used and must
be used, in another sense. To those who reject the text as a voice of
arousing and conviction–to those who despise it as the voice of
mercy bemoaning them–or as the voice of goodness seeking them–
it comes in another way. It is the voice of JUSTICE
SUMMONING THEM.
Adam had fled but God must have him come to His bar. "Where
are you, Adam? Come here, Man, come here, I must judge you–sin
cannot go unpunished. Come and your guilty spouse with you.
Come here. I must put questions to you, I must hear your pleadings
and since they will be vain and void I must pronounce your
sentence." For though there was much of pity in the question, there
was something of severity, too. "Adam, Adam, where are you?
Come here to be judged."
Today you hear not that cry–it is mercifully postponed. You shall
hear it soon. You shall hear it for the first time like mutterings of
thunder when the storm begins. You shall hear it when sickness
casts you on your bed and death looks through his bony eyes upon
you and touches you with his ghastly hand and says, "Prepare to
meet your God." You may put off the question today–you will have
to deal with it when God Himself shall come into closer contact
with your nature than He does today.
Then shall your bones be as a jelly and your ribs shall quake and
your very heart shall melt like wax. You shall contend with the
pains of sickness or disease–but there shall be a direr pain than
these. You shall have to look on death–but death shall not be the
most terrible of all your terrors–for you shall see behind death the
judgment and the doom. Then you will hear it–when the room is
silent–and voices of wife and child are hushed. When only the
clock is ticking you shall hear the footfalls of God coming to you in
the eventide of your life, saying to you, "Where are you? Now you
shall meet Me. Gird up your loins! No more invitations of mercy
for you! Your day of mercy is gone. No warnings from the minister
again. Now you shall meet Me face to face."
"Where are you?" Can you brag and boast now, when your nerves
have become loads for the hot feet of pain to travel on and your
strength has gone endued and you are as a candle ready to die out?
Where now are your oaths? Where now your merry-makings and
your jests? Where are you now? You may toss and turn. But you
will not be able to escape the question. You will try to look back to
this life but you will be compelled to look forward to the life or the
death to come. And still will the Lord whisper into your ears,
"Where are you? Where are you?"
Then shall come the last struggle when the strong man shall be
bowed. When the bright and glittering eye shall be covered over
with film and the tongue shall cleave to the roof of the mouth and
the hand shall lie strengthless on the bed–and the feet shall no more
be able to support the body. When the pulse shall fail and the
clammy death-sweat shall stand upon the brow and in those last
moments there will still be heard that awful voice, rising with the
gathering storm till it reaches the full grandeur of the awful
tempest–"Where are you?"
In the Jordan without God, nearing the grave without hope.
Dying, but no Christ to help you. Launching upon eternity, but no
hope of eternal salvation. It is over and the last pang has passed and
the thread is snapped that bound the spirit to the body and you are
gone into another world. But the question follows you–"Where are
you?" Your Spirit is now awake, it sleeps no more. It is rid of the
dull flesh that kept it sullen, stolid, stupid, dead. Now it hears that
voice indeed and it thrills through and through the spirit, for the
soul is brought before its God. "Where are you? Where are you?"
cries the quickened conscience. And God answers it, "Depart, you
cursed one!"
The spirit departs from God, not to hide itself among the trees of
the garden but to plunge itself into waves of agony. And how many
years have passed and the body–though the soul has been alive and
has suffered–has been sleeping in the grave and the worms have
devoured it. But hark, the Day of Judgment, the day of thunder has
arrived. Shrill above all thunders sounds the awful trumpet. After
the trumpet comes the voice–"Awake, you dead and come to
judgment!" Amidst that awful tumult is heard the cry, "Where are
you?"
The angelic messenger has found your body and from the grave
your body starts, from underneath the green sward. Up it leaps in
answer to the question, "Where are you?" and to its horror its
ghastly spirit comes back. Its soul, that long has suffered, returns
into the resurrection body and they two, comrades in sin, are now
comrades in judgment. The cry rings forth once more and that very
ear shall hear it that now listens to me–"Where are you?"
Then comes the Great White Throne and those very eyes shall see
it that now gaze on me. And then comes the commencement of the
dread assize–and that heart shall quail then which moves not now.
Then shall come your own personal trial. And oh, Sinner! Sinner! It
is not for me to describe your terror. I could not give even the
faintest picture of that death-sound and of the death of your
immortal spirit while you hear it–"I was an hungered and you gave
Me no meat. I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; inasmuch as
you did it not unto one of the least of these My Brethren you did it
not to Me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment,
but the righteous into life eternal."
Oh, earth! Earth! Earth! Hear the Word of the Lord! I pray each of
you to hear it for yourselves. I have not talked to you of dreams.
You know they are realities. And if you know it not now you shall
before long. I do beseech you by the blood of Him that died for
sinners–and what stronger argument can I use?–think of the
question, "Where are you?" May God show you where you are.
Hear the bemoaning voice of God, as pityingly He weeps over you.
Seek His face for He seeks you. And then you need not dread to
hear Him say at the last, "Where are you?" But you will be able to
say, "Here am I and the children You have given me. We have
washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
And, Father, here we are, hoping to dwell in Your presence forever
and ever."
Oh, that I could plead with you as a man pleads for his life!
Would that these lips of clay were lips of fire and this tongue no
more of flesh but a live coal taken with the tongs from off the altar!
Oh, for words that would burn their way into your souls! O Sinner!
Sinner! Why will you die? Why will you perish? Man, eternity is
an awful thing and an angry God is a dreadful thing! And to be
judged and condemned–what tongue can tell the horror?
Escape for your life! Look not behind you. Stay not in all the
plain. Escape to mount Calvary, lest you be consumed. "Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ." Trust Him alone with your soul. Trust Him
with it now, "and you shall be saved and your house."
Ge 3:14 • The Serpent's Sentence
ERMON 2165
The Serpent's Sentence
"And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because you have done
this, you are cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the
field. Upon your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the
days of your life: and I will put enmity between you and the
woman, and between your seed and her Seed; it shall bruise your
head, and you shall bruise His heel."
Genesis 3:14, 15
SOME master in Israel who wanted to help the memories of his
hearers has said that the three things to be preached above
everything else are the three R's–Ruin, Redemption and
Regeneration. He spoke wisely and well. How will men seek
salvation if they do not feel their ruin? Where is there salvation
except in the atoning blood? What is salvation but being created
anew unto holiness? It is a noteworthy fact that, in Holy Scripture
there are three third chapters which deal with these things in the
fullest manner. The third of Genesis reveals Ruin. The third of
Romans teaches Redemption. The third of John sets forth
Regeneration.
Will our young friends be so good as to read those chapters
through with care, at home? It is also worthy of mention that not
only do each of these chapters teach its own R, but that it also
teaches the other two R's. In this third of Genesis we have not only
Ruin, but we have the Redeemer in "the Seed of the woman," and
we have Regeneration in the expression, "I will put enmity between
you and the woman." God's regenerating power creates a hatred of
evil in the chosen seed. The same you will find in the other
chapters, for the third of Romans contains a fearful description of
the sin and ruin of men. And in the third of John, after you have
read, "You must be born again," not far from it you find it written,
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him might
not perish, but have eternal life." Believe any of these great Truths
of God and the rest follow as a necessary consequence.
May we be helped this morning to learn something with regard to
Ruin, Redemption and Regeneration from the passage now before
us! I pray you, never regard that story of the serpent as a fable. It is
said, nowadays, that it is a mere allegory. Yet there is nothing in the
Book to mark where history ends and parable begins–it all runs on
as actual history and as Bishop Horsley forcibly remarks, "If any
part of this narrative is allegorical, no part is naked matter of fact."
It seems to me that if there was only an allegorical serpent, there
was an allegorical Paradise, with allegorical rivers and allegorical
trees. And the men and women were both allegorical and the
chapter which speaks of their creation is an allegory. And the only
thing that exists is an allegorical Heaven and an allegorical earth. If
the Book of Genesis is an allegory, it is an allegory all through–and
you have an allegorical Abraham–with allegorical circumcision.
Then you would have an allegorical Jacob and an allegorical
Judah–and it is not unfair to push the theory onward and impute to
Judah allegorical descendants called Jews. But if you borrow any
money from this race, you will not find them allegorical when you
have to pay! It is idle to call the narrative of the Fall a mere
allegory–one had better say at once that he does not believe the
Bible. There is something sane about that declaration, although it is
folly. But to say, "Oh, yes, it is a venerable volume and worthy to
be studied, but it is padded out with many an allegory," is to say
something which confutes itself if you come to look into it.
The Bible is intended to be real history and it contains some
portions which, by the consent of everybody, are real history. But
Moses could not be an historian and yet set mere fables before us
as a part of his story. To write a jumble of allegory and of fact
causes a man to lose the character of a reliable historian and we had
better repudiate him at once. There was a real serpent, as there was
a real Paradise. There was a real Adam and Eve who stood at the
head of our race, and they really sinned and our race is really
fallen. Believe this. When Satan, "that old serpent, the Devil and
Satan"–as the Apocalypse calls him–determined to tempt Eve in
order that he might destroy the race in which God evidently took
much delight, he could not appear to the woman as a spirit.
Spirits are not to be discerned by the eye since a pure spirit is a
thing which none of the outward senses of human beings can
apprehend. An immaterial spirit must be invisible and therefore he
must embody himself in some way or other before he can be seen.
That Satan has power to enter into living bodies is clear, for he did
so upon a very large scale with regard to men in the days of Christ.
He and his legions were even compelled to enter into the bodies of
swine rather than be cast into the deep. Being compelled to have an
embodiment, the master evil spirit perceived the serpent to be at
that time among the most subtle of all creatures–and therefore he
entered into the serpent as feeling that he would be most at home in
that animal.
Out of the serpent he spoke to Eve as though the serpent itself had
spoken. There was an actual and material serpent, but the evil spirit
who is known as "the old serpent" was there, possessing the natural
serpent with all his masterly cunning. Cruelly determining to lead
the human race into sin that he might thus ruin it and triumph over
God, the fallen angel did not hesitate to assume a reptile form. Well
might Milton make him say–
"O foul descent! that I, who once contended
With gods to sit the highest, am now constrained
Into a beast; and, mixed with bestial slime,
This essence to incarnate, and imbrute,
That to the height of deity aspired!"
Notice carefully, that when the Lord comes to deal with the
serpent, He does not question him as to his guilt and the reason of
it. And the reason is, perhaps, that the guilt of the arch-enemy was
self-evident or, better still, because the Lord had no design of
mercy for him. He meant to make no Covenant of Grace for the
devil or his angels. He took not up angels, though he took up the
seed of Abraham.
In the infinite Sovereignty of God He passed by the fallen angels,
but He chose to raise fallen man. Those who quibble at the
Doctrine of Election should answer this question–Why is it that
God has left devils without hope and yet has sent His Son to
redeem mankind? Is not Divine Sovereignty manifested here? We
can give no answer to the question, What is man that God thus
visits him with distinguishing Grace, except this–"He will have
mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He will have compassion
on whom He will have compassion"? Intending, therefore, no
forgiveness to this evil spirit, the Lord put no questions to him.
His interrogation of our first parents was a sign of mercy. When
God chides with a man's conscience, it is with the view of blessing
him. Do I speak to any man here whose sense of sin is aroused,
who is accused by the Word of God, who feels the Spirit of God
working within him as a spirit of bondage? You may be hopeful
because it is so. If God had meant to destroy you, He would have
left you alone, even as He left the serpent without a word of
expostulation and He would have passed sentence upon you
speedily. The very rebukes of God are tokens of His favor towards
men. With the serpent, that is, with the evil spirit, God had no
upbraiding, but dealt at once by way of doom. He pronounced a
sentence upon the serpent, which, while it was terrible to him, is
most encouraging to us. And so far as our first parents understood
it, it must have been a sun of light to their dark, depressed souls.
For many a year this was the lone star of believing hearts–this
Gospel of the serpent's doom. Satan was their enemy. He had done
them wrong. He was also God's enemy and God would fight
against him and call them into His battle. He would raise up One
who would suffer, but would win the victory–One whom He calls
"the Seed of the woman." By Him Satan's head would be bruised
and in that very fact the race of man would be unspeakably blest!
Last Lords-Day morning [] I introduced to you Immanuel–God
with us, born of a virgin. We are now running on the same lines and
again I would speak of our Lord Jesus as the woman's Seed and
extol Him as espousing our quarrel and undoing the mischief which