Eden
THE Creator established man in innocence. Surrounded by everything that made earth a paradise, man was sent forth into the world to enjoy it to his heart's content. Desire for wealth, he had none; all was his, and every creature of the air, sea, and land subject to him. Nor was this all. His beneficent Creator had given him a helpmeet to share all with him, and to add infinitely to his happiness. Placed, however, in a position in which he could choose between rendering homage to his Creator-God or obeying the wicked whisperings of the "father of lies," i.e., the Devil, he deliberately chose the latter, and in willfully disobeying God brought death upon the whole human race. The once happy pair were in consequence dismissed from the paradise in which God had placed them.
But a moment before this a remarkable scene had taken place. God had come out in grace to seek His fallen creature; but with guilty conscience he had fled as fast as possible to hide behind the trees of the garden. In that state he would rather have faced all the beasts of the forest than his Creator, God; but God saw him, and, more, God found Him.
And God sees you, reader, in all your sin and need of Himself. With your conscience, perhaps, as active as Adam's, and probably seeking to hide behind some tree of your own planting, your own good works or resolutions, prayers or Church attendances, God sees you; and more, though the grace of it may surprise you, God seeks you to bless you. He knows you altogether, your every thought, your every sin, and He wants to bestow upon you forgiveness, not for anything you have done or could do, but because of the infinite worth of the work of Jesus—God's glorious Son.
Sinai
Amid thunderings and lightnings there was given to a chosen people out of this fallen race a code of laws, the keeping of which would bring blessing to all who came up to its standard. It is easily summed up in a very few words: "Love God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself." As Moses came down the Mount with the Tables of the Law in his hand, what should he find but the very people to whom the law was sent engulfed in idolatry, worshipping a golden calf! What base ingratitude to the God whose outstretched arm had delivered them from Egypt, whose mighty power had brought them triumphantly through the Red Sea, and given them to witness their enemies dead upon the sea shore. Forgetful of their song of deliverance and of their Deliverer, they fall down and worship a golden image!
And so at every point in the history of man's responsibility he has failed utterly, hopelessly.
But, reader, are you one whit better than they? Have not you gone on in your own way, regardless of God or eternity? Stop! for such folly does not become any wise man or woman. Stop! and see what the love of God has provided—what the word of God declares has been done, and that on your account. Thus, in fullness of time we come to that favored city,
Bethlehem
Oh! sacred spot! Oh! glorious birthplace —the birthplace of Him whose advent was heralded by a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." This, indeed, was the Savior —the Savior, which is Christ the Lord. Once again man was to be put to the test. Now God in wondrous grace has sent His Son. Will men receive Him? Will they own Him and give Him His rightful place? They could have done so—they should have done so. But no! Such was the absolute wickedness of man's heart that they rejected Him, treated Him on every hand with scorn and hatred, and finally spat in His face and cried, "Away with Him. Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" And so they put Him upon a gibbet on Mount
Calvary
But, you say, surely such treatment could only be meted out to some criminal or murderer. Nay, friend! He was God the Son, the Creator of the Universe. He was the Christ of God, the Savior of the world. He was the Lord of Life and King of Glory. Need we wonder, then, that that act was final on the part of God so far as testing man in a position of responsibility was concerned. At the cross of Christ He definitely and finally closed up the moral history of man forever, so that he is now shown to be hopelessly and helplessly lost!
And man well deserved to be left in his miserable and lost condition forever. But what has happened? Listen!
In the very cross which so demonstrated the hatred of the heart of man against God, God Himself has come out in infinite love and grace; and at the end of man's moral history, Christ “appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." Marvelous love! Infinite grace! So that now, on the ground of that sacrifice, that finished work, God can come out in grace and blessing to man, in all his ruin and enmity.
Reader, have you believed that wondrous fact, and, if so, have you thanked Him? Sinful as you are, and although God could righteously execute the sentence of death upon you, He offers mercy. His Son has died in the sinner's room, so that now if you only believe in Him you shall be saved from your lost condition, and brought into God's family and joined forever with His beloved Son in all the blessing and happiness which is His as the result of what He has done.
Reader, don't stay away from Him a moment longer. Won't you trust and believe such a God now? Won't you accept such a Savior now? You have hitherto done no less than those wicked men did when they turned the Lord Jesus out of His own world. You, too, have refused Him, despised His grace, treated as naught His precious death; but, blessed be God, if you repent and turn to Him now, He can, He will abundantly pardon and eternally bless your unworthy soul. Then, as the line of the hymn says:
“Turn and believe this very hour.”
“Seek ye the Lord while He may be found; call ye upon Him while He is near." (Isa. 4:6.) "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Acts 2:21.)
A. E. M.