Genesis 1

Genesis 1:1-31

THE DAWN OF HISTORYGen_1:1 to Genesis 11:9.IN beginning this “Bible of the Expositor and Evangelist”, I am keenly sensible of the seriousness of my task. The book to be treated is the Book of Books, the one and only volume that has both survived and increasingly conquered the centuries, and that now, in a hoary old age, shows no sign of weakness, holds no hint of decay or even decrepitude; in fact, the Book is more robust at this moment than at any time since it came to completion, and it gives promise of dominating the future in a measure far surpassing its influence upon the past.The method of studying the Bible, to be illustrated in these pages, is, we are convinced, a sane and safe one, if not the most efficient one. Years since, certain statements from the pen of Dr. James M. Gray, superintendent of the Moody Bible Institute, fell under our eyes, and those statements have profoundly influenced our methods of study.Five simple rules he suggested for mastering the English Bible:First, Read the Book.Second: Read it consecutively.Third: Read it repeatedly.Fourth: Read it independently.Fifth: Read it prayerfully.Applying these suggestions to each volume in turn, if one’s life be long continued, he may not hope to master his English Bible, but he will certainly discover its riches increasingly, and possess himself more and more of its marvelous treasures,It was on the first Sunday of July, 1922, that I placed before myself and my people the program of study that produced these volumes. To be sure, much of the work had been done back of that date, but the determination to utilize it in this exact manner was fully adopted there and then.

It was and is my thought that the greatest single weakness of the present-day pulpit exists in the circumstance that we have departed from the custom of our best fathers in the ministry, namely, Scriptural exposition. If, therefore, these volumes shall lead a large number of my brethren in the ministry, particularly the young men among them, to become expository preachers, and yet to combine exposition with evangelism, my reward will be my eternal riches.Stimulated by that high hope, I turn your attention to the study itself, and begin where the Book begins and where all true students should begin, with Genesis 1:1, but in thought, an eternity beyond the hour of its phrasing, for by the opening sentence we are pushed back to God. “In the beginningGOD.”That is the starting point of all true studies.

The scientist is compelled to start there, or else he never understands where he is, nor yet with what he deals. God, the One of infinite wisdom, infinite power, infinite justice and of infinite goodness—“In the beginning God”.Having heard that name and having understood the One to whom it is applied, we are prepared for what follows,—“created the heavens and the earth” —marvelous first verse of the Bible!All in this first chapter is wrapped up in that first sentence; that is the explanation of all things; what follows is simply the setting forth of details.I agree with Joseph Parker that the explanation is “simple”. No attempt at learned analysis; that the explanation is “sublime” because it sweeps in all of time, all of material suggestions, all of power and illustrates all of wisdom—“the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork; day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge”, and it is a sufficient explanation, the only one that satisfies the mind of man.Infidel evolutionists cannot account for the beginnings. The geologist who does not believe, digs down to a point where he says, “Who started all of this?” and waits in sadness while the dumb rocks are silent; but for the Christian student no such mystery makes his work an enigma.Everywhere he sees the touch of God; in the plants, the animals, the birds and in man,—“God”. Where the unbeliever wonders and questions to get no reply, the believer admires, saying, “This is my Father’s hand, the work of my Father’s word”. “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Hebrews 11:3), and he joins with the Psalmist, “Let all nations praise the name of the Lord for He commanded and they were created” (Psalms 108:5).Competent scholars have called attention to the careful use of words in the Bible, a use so painstaking and perfect as to give a scientific demonstration of the verbal inspiration theory. When it is said that “God created the heavens and the earth”, the Hebrew verb “bara” is employed, and it means “to create something from nothing”, so that God gave the death blow to the evolution theory some thousands of years before that unprovable hypothesis was born!

The same word “bara” is also used in the 21st verse (Genesis 1:21) concerning the creation of mammals, and three times in the 27th verse (Genesis 1:27) concerning the creation of man, while a kindred word “asah” (neither of which convey any such thought as growth or evolution) is employed concerning His making man in His own image in Genesis 1:26.God, then, is not a mechanic; He is a Creator. He did not come upon the scenes of the universe to fashion what existed independent and apart from Him, but to create and complete according to His own pleasure.In later chapters we shall show how these creative acts are confirmed by science itself, and argue the utter folly of trying to find incompatibility between God’s Work and God’s Word.So for the present we may pass from God the Creator, as revealed in the first chapter, toADAM THE MANof the second chapter. “An infinite decline”, somebody says.

But let us be reminded that it is not so great as appears at this present hour. The only man God ever made outright was not what you and I see now. The man He made was “in His own image, after His own likeness”, only as far below Him as the finite is below the infinite; as the best creation is below the best Creator.The man God made “was good”. The man God made was great. The man God made was wise. The man God made was holy. The men we see now are not His children, but the children of the fallen Adam instead, for Eve, fallen, brought forth after her kind; and what a fall was that!When man disobeyed, he brought on himself and all succeeding ages sin, and its wretched results. There are those who blame God for the fall of man and say, “He had no business to make him so he could fall”.

But everything that is upright can fall, and the difference between a man who could not fall and a man who could fall is simply the difference between a machine and a sentient, intelligent, upright, capable being.There was but a single point at which this man could oppose Providence. Situated and environed as Adam was, the great social sins that have crushed the race could make no appeal to him. It is commonly conceded that the Decalogue sweeps the gamut of social, ethical and even religious conduct. Adam had no occasion to bow down before another God, for Jehovah, his Creator, was his counsellor and friend, and of other gods he knew nothing nor had he need of such. There was no provocation that could tempt him to take the name of that God in vain. There was no Sabbath day, for all days were holy, and the condemnation to labor was not yet passed.

There was no father and mother to be honored. To have committed murder was unthinkable; first because there was no provocation, and second, such an act would have left him in the world alone, his heart craving, unsatisfied, and his very kind to perish.

The seventh commandment meant nothing to the man whose wife was “in the image of God”, and the only woman known. Theft was impossible, since all things belonged to him. False witness and covetousness against a neighbor—he had no neighbor.But when God selected for Himself a single tree, leaving the rest of the earth to Adam, and he proved himself unwilling to let the least of earthly possessions be wholly the Lord’s, he gave an illustration to the unborn millenniums that man, in his almost infinite greatness, would not abide content that God Himself should be over and above him; and from that moment until this, that very thing has been the crux of every contention between the Divine and the human. If we may believe the Prophets, it was that very temptation that caused Lucifer’s fall and gave us the devil and hell!All talk of shallow minds “that God condemned the race because one man happened to bite into an apple”, is utterly wide of the mark. Condemnation rests upon the race because every man born of the flesh has revealed the same spirit of rebellion shown by our first parents—we will not have God rule over us even to the extent of keeping anything from us. The wealth of His gifts should shame and restrain against His few prohibitions.But, alas for man’s guilt and godlessness!

Equally wide of the mark is that other superficial reasoning that it is unjust of God to condemn me because some one of my forefathers misbehaved! Why charge God with injustice concerning something He has never done and will never do?

Why not let Him speak for Himself in such matters, and listen when he declares, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him” (Ezekiel 18:20).If, therefore, Adam with a body, mind and spirit unsullied, never having been weakened by an evil act or habit, did not stand, what hope for any man in his own merit. “Are we better than they? No, in no wise, for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that we are all under sin”. “As it is written, There is none righteous, no not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God.

They are all gone out of the way. They are altogether become unprofitable” (Romans 3:9-12).You say that the temptation was a subtle one.

I answer, Yes, that is Satan’s way to this hour. You say, The desire was for wisdom. I answer, Yes, that is still Satan’s appeal; you need to see and to know more than you do, hence you had better try this sin.Over one of the most palatial but wicked doorways of all Paris there used to be an inscription, “Come in; nothing to pay”, and so far as mere entrance to that place was concerned, that was true. But those who entered found when they had come out that they had visited the place at the cost of character, not to speak of that meaner thing— money.In passing, we call your attention to the justice of God’s judgment upon this sin. Its heaviest sentence fell upon the serpent, Satan’s direct agent; that wisest of all beasts of the field. He was accursed above all cattle, and brought down from his upright, manly-appearing position to go upon his belly and to eat dust all his days, and to be hated and killed by the seed of the woman with whom he had had such influence.The second sentence in weight fell upon the woman who listened to this deception and led the way in disobedience.

The man did not escape. The associate in sin never does.

His love for the principal may in some measure mitigate God’s judgment, but the justice of God would be called in question, and even His goodness, if He permitted any sin to be unpunished.EVE, THE PERSONin this third chapter must have been in her unfallen state Adam’s equal, mentally and morally. We have had great women, beautiful women, women worthy the admiration of the world, but I have an idea that the world’s greatest woman was not Cleopatra, the beautiful but selfish; nor Paula, that firmest of all friends; nor Heloise, the very embodiment of affection; nor Joan or Arc, heroism incarnate; nor Elizabeth, the wonderful queen; nor Madam De Stael of letters; nor Hannah Moore of education; but Eve, our first mother.When I think on her and look at the frail, feeble, sickly, sinful sister of the streets, I feel like weeping over the fact that our first mother fell; and today among her daughters are those so far removed from God’s ideal.THE FAMILYof the fourth chapter had its beginning in sin, and it is a dreadfully dark picture that is here presented. Envy, murder and lust appear at once. Abel is murdered, Cain made a criminal, polygamy introduced and all social vices which curse the sons of God. The picture would incite despair, but for the circumstance that in the third chapter God had made a promise which put Grace instead of Law.There was need, for unless the woman’s seed should bruise the serpent’s head, that serpent’s venom will not only strike the heel of every son, but send its poison coursing to his heart and head; without God, without hope—dead indeed!Truly, as one writer has said, “We lose our life when we lose our innocence; we are dead when we are guilty; we are in hell when we are in shame”.Death does not take a long time to come upon us; it comes on the very day of our sin. “In the day when thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”. Before that sentence there is no hope, except in these words spoken of the seed of woman against that old serpent, Satan; “It shall bruise thy head” —the first prophecy of the wonderful gift of God’s Son.OfCAIN AND ABELwe appreciate the contrast!

The self-righteousness on the part of one; self-abasement on the part of the other. Cain’s saying, “The fruit of mine own hands shall suffice for my justification before God”; Abel saying, “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission”, and that spirit of Cain dominates the early society, as we have already seen; for while the population grew rapidly, sin kept pace, and even seemed swifter still.

From self-righteousness they rushed to envy, to murder, and to lust.The Pharisee may thank God that he is not as other men are, but history is likely to demonstrate the want of occasion for his boasting, for “pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall”.The most dangerous man is the man who recognizes no dependence upon another than himself; and the man most likely to be an extortioner, to be unjust, the man most apt to be an adulterer, yea, even a murderer, is this same Cain who says, “See the fruit of my hands”. The youthful Chicago murderers thought their fine family connections and their university educations would save them from suspicion and condemnation! I tell you, it is the humble man who is justified in God’s sight!The man who cries, “God be merciful to me a sinner”—rather than the man who wipes his lips and says, “I am clean”, and is offended when you talk to him of the necessity of purifying Blood in which to baptize his soul—he is the man who is justified in God’s sight.THE FIFTH CHAPTERcovers a period of about 1,500 years, and contains but one great name, not introduced in the other chapters, and this is the name of Enoch. Note that his greatness consisted in the single fact that “he walked with God”.Dr. Dixon said, “He did not try to induce God to walk with him. He simply fell in with God’s ways and work”.Some one asked Abraham Lincoln to appoint a day of fasting and prayer that God might be on the side of the Northern Army.

To this that noble President replied, “Don’t bother about what side God is on. He is on the right side.

You simply get with Him”.Enoch was an every-day hero! Walking patiently, persistently, continuously is harder than flying. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint”. Like Enoch of old, they shall not see death, for God shall take them, and before their translation they shall have this testimony that “they please God”.We have said that this fifth chapter covers 1,500 years. I call you to note the fact that it contains a multitude of names; names that even the best of Bible students do not, and cannot call. Nobody has ever committed them to memory; nobody cares to. They are not worth it.

They were given to no noble deeds; they lived and died. The only wonder we have about them is that God let some of them live so long, unless it be that we also wonder how they managed to live so long and accomplish so little.

Yet these nonentities have a part in God’s plan. They were bringing forth children; grandchildren came, and great grandchildren, and the children of great-grandchildren until Enoch was born, and by and by Noah; then the whole line was noble from Seth, Adam’s better of the living sons, down to these great names. It is worth while for a family to be continued for a thousand years, if, at the end of that time, one son can be born into the house who shall bring things to pass; one Enoch who shall walk with God; one Noah who shall save the race! There are people who are greatly distressed because their parents were neither lords, dukes nor even millionaires. They seem to think that the child who is to come to much must descend from a father of superior reputation at least. History testifies to the contrary, and shows us that the noblest are often born into unknown houses.

The most gifted sons, the most wonderful daughters have been bred by parents of whom the great world never heard until these children, by their fame, called attention to their humble fathers.The multiplied concessions that advocates of the evolution theory are obliged to make by facts they face at every turn, excite almost tender pity for them. Professor Conklin, in his volume “The Direction of Human Evolution” puts forth an endeavor in splendid defense of this hypothesis worthy of a better cause, and yet again and again he is compelled to say the things that disprove his main proposition.

Consider these words. “Think of the great men of unknown lineage, and the unknown men of great lineage; think of the close relationship of all persons of the same race; of the wide distribution of good and bad traits in the whole population; of incompetence and even feeble-mindedness in great families, and of genius and greatness in unknown families, and say whether natural inheritance supports the claims of aristocracy or of democracy.When we remember that most of the great leaders of mankind came of humble parents; that many of the greatest geniuses had the most lowly origin; that Shakespeare was the son of a bankrupt butcher and an ignorant woman who could not write her name, that as a youth he is said to have been known more for poaching than for scholarship, and that his acquaintance with the London theatres began by his holding horses for their patrons; that Beethoven’s mother was a consumptive, the daughter of a cook, and his father a confirmed drunkard; that Schuberts father was a peasant by birth and his mother a domestic servant; that Faraday, perhaps the greatest scientific discoverer of any age, was born over a stable, his father a poor sick black-smither, his mother an ignorant drudge, and his only education obtained in selling newspapers on the streets of London and later in working as apprentice to a book-binder; that the great Pasteur was the son of a tanner; that Lincoln’s parents were accounted “poor white trash” and his early surroundings and education most unpromising; and so on through the long list of names in which democracy glories— when we remember these we may well ask whether aristocracy can show a better record. The law of entail is aristocratic, but the law of Mendel is democratic”.Quaint old Thomas Fuller wrote many years ago in his “Scripture Observations”,‘I find, Lord, the genealogy of my Saviour strangely checkered with four remarkable changes in four immediate generations:—1. Roboam begat Abia, that is a bad father and a bad son.2. Abia begat Asa, that is a bad father a good son.3. Asa begat Josaphat, that is a good father a good son.4. Josaphat begat Joram, that is a good father a bad son.I can see, Lord, from hence that my father’s piety cannot be entailed; that is bad news for me.

But I see also that actual impiety is not always hereditary; that is good news for my son’”.It is not so much a question as to your birth, or to the line in which you are, as to the nobleness of the family tree, as it is what sort of a branch you are; what sort of a branch you may become.The Duke of Modena flung a taunt at a Cardinal in a controversy, reminding him that his father was only a swineherd of the Duke’s father. The Cardinal calmly replied, “If your father had been my father’s swineherd, you would have been a swineherd still”.In the race of life it does not make so much difference where we start as how we end.I do not mean to despise the laws of heredity.

They are somewhat fixed, wise and wonderful. The child of a good father has the better chance in this world, beyond doubt. But our plea is that no matter who the fathers are, we may so live that our offspring shall be named by all succeeding generations. I call attention to Enoch in illustration.AboutNOAHfour chapters or more enwrap themselves. God’s man has a large place in history. It is hard enough for Him to find one who is faithful, but when found He always has an important commission for him.The most important commission ever given to any man was given to this man; namely, that of saving the race.

Noah did his best, but when he saw that he was not succeeding with the outside world, he turned his hope to himself as the last resort; to his family as his possible associates. That is always the last resort.

Man must save himself, or he can save no one else. The man who saves himself by letting God save him, stands a good chance of being accepted by his own family, and his faith will doubtless find its answer in their salvation as well. Even if it fail with the outside world, that world will be compelled to remember, when God’s judgment comes, that this commissioned one did what he could for them.In Hebrews we read, “By faith Noah moved with fear prepared an ark to the saving of his house”. “The fear of man bringeth a snare”. The fear of God effects salvation. The fear of man makes a coward; the fear of God incites courage. The fear of man means defeat; the fear of God accomplishes success. Be careful whom you fear! I like the man who can tremble before the Father of all.

I pity the man who trembles before the face of every earthly foe.The story is told that two men were commissioned by Wellington to go on a dangerous errand. As they galloped along, one looked at the other, saying, “You are scared”. “Yes”, replied his comrade, “I am, but I am still more afraid not to do what the commander said”. The first turned his horse and galloped back to the General’s tent and said, “Sir, you have sent me with a coward. When I looked at him last his face was livid with fear and his form trembled like a leaf”. “Well”, said Wellington, “you had better hurry back to him, or he will have the mission performed before you get there to aid”. As the man started back he met his comrade, who said, “You need not go. I have performed the mission already”.It was through Noah that the Lord gave to humanity a fresh start.

God is always doing that. It is the meaning of every revolution—God overrules it for a fresh start.

That is the meaning of wars— they may be Satanic in origin, but God steps in often and uses for a fresh start. That is the meaning of the wiping out of nations—a fresh start, and man is always doing what he did at the first—falling again.Noah was a righteous man; with his family he made up the whole company of those who had been loyal to God, and one might vainly imagine that from such a family only deeds of honor, of valor, acts of righteousness would be known to earth. Alas for our hope in the best of men!He has scarcely set foot upon dry ground when we read, (Genesis 9:20-21), “Noah began to be a husbandman and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine, and was drunken, and he was uncovered in his tent”, and down the race went again! Man has fallen, and his nakedness is uncovered before God, and the shame of it is seen by his own blood and bone. Truly, by the deeds of the law no flesh shall be justified in His sight, because our deeds are not worthy of it. Faith becomes the only foundation of righteousness.

That is what the eleventh chapter of Hebrews was written to teach us. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”, and when once a man has fixed his faith in the living God, and keeps it there, the God in whom he trusts keeps him, and that is his only hope. “For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).NIMRODthe principal personage in the tenth chapter has his offices given. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord, and he was a king.

The beginning of his kingdom by Babel and Erich, and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.Our attention has been called to the fact that before this chapter, nations are unknown, but now established government appears. Chapter 9:6 is the basis of it, and in Romans 13:2-4 we see that God set the seal of His approval upon it. Nimrod comes forth as the first autocrat and conqueror. One can almost hear the marches to and fro of the people in this chapter; cities are going up and civilization doubtless thought it was making advance, but how far it advances we shall speedily see.The things in its favor were dexterously employed. Some wise men suddenly remembered that they all had one speech and said, “We ought to make the most of it”. True, as Joseph Parker says, “Wise men are always getting up schemes that God has to bring to naught.

Worldly wise men have been responsible for the most of the confusion our civilization has seen”. Men who get together in the places of Shinar and embark in real estate, and lay out great projects and pull in unsuspecting associates, and start up tremendous enterprises, and say, under their breath, in their secret meetings, “We will get unto ourselves a great name.

We will exalt ourselves to heaven”, and after the world has done obeisance to us, we will walk among the angels and witness them bow down”; but God still lives and reigns. The men who count themselves greatest are, in His judgment, the least; and those that reckon themselves most farseeing, He reckons the most foolish; and those who propose to get into Heaven by ways of their own appointment, He shuts out altogether and drives them from His presence, and they become wandering stars, reserved for the blackness of darkness; for we must learn that self-exaltation brings God’s abasement. “He that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted”. God is willing that man shall come to Heaven but, as some one has said, “If we ever get to Heaven at all, it will not be by the dark and rickety staircases of our own invention, but on the ladder of God’s love in Christ Jesus”.God is willing that we should have a mansion, but the mansion of His desire is not the wooden or brick structure that would totter and fall, but the building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. God is willing that we should dwell in towers, but not the towers of pride and pomp, but those of righteousness wrought out for us in Christ Jesus.

Genesis 1:3-4

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLDGen_1:3-4IT could hardly be claimed with assurance that a speaker’s interest in his subject and his profit from the study thereof, is always a measure of the pleasure and profit of his auditors. Yet it will scarcely be denied that it is often a fair standard by which to estimate both. To me the studies in Genesis are proving at once pleasant and profitable. This morning we gave thirty minutes to a bird’s-eye-view of eleven chapters of the Book, thereby doing what may honestly be called “Bible study”. This evening we begin another kind of study in this same first volume of the Pentateuch, having in mind altogether another purpose, namely the study of a short text in order to show those who are in sin the way of salvation. When this text was written Moses meant thereby to give us a history of the introduction of light into the world’s atmosphere.

It is Inspiration’s abbreviated report of how Light, that nursing mother of all life, first found her way through the blackness that had brooded over this earth of ours. You will not expect me to enter upon a scientific treatise with Light for my subject, defining its nature, tracing its history and calling attention to its beneficent effects.

Such is the work of the teacher in the schools. The business of the man in the pulpit is altogether different, as I conceive the Gospel ministry, and I believe that his success is in part measured by the minister’s fidelity to the very ends for which he is divinely appointed, namely that of appealing to the hearts and consciences of men.So if I make this record of an incident in the development of the physical universe the basis of a plea for spiritual things, my method is justified by the magnanimity of my purpose. Let me call your attention, therefore, to two or three of the greater thoughts growing out of this Scripture.LIGHT IS TO GOD’S WILL.“And God said, Let there he light”.“And God said”.Then God is. The Bible does not attempt to prove the existence of God; it assumes it. To this assumption many men have made objection, saying, “We haven’t any right to assume anything; we must prove all things”. Those who so reason forget that many of the greatest truths are so self-evident that proof of them is needless, and any attempt at such proof only succeeds in introducing confusion where clearness existed.

I have never felt it necessary to prove that I had an existence. That is self-evident.

I never felt it was necessary to argue that I was a man. There may be people who are so nearly monkeys that they feel such argument to be a necessity, but if so, I am only sorry for them. I never have felt it was necessary to adduce labored evidence that I had passed the period of childhood. The lines in my face, the gray in my hair—these things speak more convincingly than anything mind could think or tongue formulate; and when a man tells me that I have no right to assume that God exists, I feel like saying, “My friend, come with me into the street. Look at yonder worlds and constellations of glory, and understand what David meant when he said, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork”, and know why the Psalmist wrote, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God”.Dr. Clarke, author of a very questionable “Outline of Christian Theology”, wrote also a volume on “Can I Believe in God?” So long as I live in this world, where all creation from the lowest to the highest life, from protoplasm to saint evidences a Creator, I shall be ashamed to raise any such a question.

So let the sentence pass, “And God said”, for “God is”.“And God said, Let there be light?”Then God wills. There are plenty of people today who will admit that God is, but who will not admit that God wills.

There are plenty of people who regard God as a universal principle, which may make for righteousness but which does not know it is doing it. Most Americans reject idolatry, and refuse polytheism, but pantheism is making progress among us in exact proportion as Christian Science, Theosophy and their allied “isms” progress. With all of these, God is an infinite “It”. And I feel a good deal as Dr. A. C.

Dixon said sometime ago to a company of Free-thinkers who had invited him to speak on the subject of “Christ, and Him Crucified”, namely that “people become like the object they worship, and if they worship an everlasting “IT”, they will soon become a lot of “Its”!If there is any one thing that this first chapter of Genesis makes clear, it is that God is personal and conscious just as certainly as He is powerful and creative. As Dr.

Behrends says, “If God be self-conscious and self-revealing—a personal being, the path is open between Him and me. He can speak to me and I can pray to Him. Religion vanishes if God cannot come to man”.“Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, And spirit with Spirit can meet;

Closer is He than breathing, Nearer than hands and feet”. “And God said, Let there be light and there was light”.Then God acts. He has power to bring to pass what He wills, and He does bring it to pass, as the light of the world evidences. The moon shining now in the heavens yonder is not there because blind Nature happened to hit upon that luminary for the night-time, but because God “made the moon to shine by night”, and when the sun rises tomorrow morning and every hilltop is kissed into glory, and on every valley the mellower lights are lying, it will not be because some unconscious principle compels, but solely because God is saying again, “Let there be Light”. Men who have come out of the night of unbelief, who are walking in the Light of Truth, are not enjoying the accidents of a moral evolution, but the excellence of a Divine revelation instead.James Russell Lowell said, “When the microscopic search of skepticism, which has hunted the heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of a Creator, has turned its attention to human society and has found a place on this planet ten miles square where a decent man can live in decency, comfort and security, supporting and educating his children, unspoiled and unpolluted; a place where Age is reverenced, Infancy nurtured, Manhood respected, Womanhood honored and Human Life held in due regard; when skeptics can find such a place ten miles square on this globe where the Gospel of Christ has not gone and cleared the way and laid the foundation and made decency and security possible, it will then be in order for the skeptical literati to move thither and ventilate their views. But so long as these men are dependent on the religion which they discard, for every privilege they enjoy, they may well hesitate a little before they seek to rob the Christian of his hope, and humanity of its faith in that Saviour who alone has given to man that hope of life eternal which makes life tolerable, and society possible, and robs death of its terrors and the grave of its gloom”.It is told that an unbelieving Arab guide had reported to the Christian traveler that a man riding a camel had passed the tent in the night. When the traveler inquired what proof he had to that effect, he pointed with triumph to the camel’s track in the sand, saying, “I did not see him, but there is your evidence”.

Thereupon the Christian pointed to the sun now setting in the west, and said, “You say I have no evidence that God exists; behold His track”. His illustration was perfect, for the light of the sun is indeed the track of God.The light of America is not her public school system.

The light of Asia is not Buddhism nor yet Confucianism. The light of Africa is not the civilization that begins to rim her around. The light of America, the light of Europe, the light of Asia, the light of Africa, and the light of the Isles, so far as it be true, cometh down from above, from the Father of Lights, and is God revealed through man and to man! For of Christ is it written, “He was the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world”.LIGHT COMES AT THE WORD OF GOD.It is within His power to speak it.“And the Lord said, Let there be light, and there was light”.He who spake the sun into existence and at whose word the darkness lifted from earth, is able to speak Light for your darkness, and Day for my night. Sometimes people complain to me that all is dark, and that if God would only make the way of right plain to them, they would gladly walk in it. But I have found out that my God, in whom there is no darkness at all, does make the way of right plain, and that men are not half so much troubled from lack of Light as they are by the presence of Light.

Many a man would be better content if only a deep spiritual darkness was round about him. His trouble exists in the fact that God has turned upon him the searchlight of truth, and he is compelled to see himself as God sees him, hence Christ said,“This is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.

For everyone that doest evil hateth the Light, neither cometh to the Light lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth, cometh to the Light that his deeds may be made manifest.” It is reported that when Admiral Cervera was being tried by a Spanish court for the loss of his fleet at Santiago, an attorney asked him why he did not go out from the harbor stealthily at night and thereby escape under the cover of darkness. Cervera replied that it was safer to attempt an escape in the daytime, since the great searchlights of AdmiralSampson’s fleet would have revealed at once the Spanish ships and blinded the Spanish soldiers. And so, it is easily within the power of God to speak the word that at once uncovers us to His eyes, and renders our escape from His presence an impossible thing. And whenever a man is in the act of sinning the very silence in which he may imagine himself shall be broken by the voice of the Son of God saying, “Let there be Light”.This Light comes as suddenly as speech itself.“And God said, Let there be light, and there was light”.No sooner had the Father spoken it than the face of the earth was flooded with light. I do not care how deep the darkness brooding over any life; I care not how thickly the mists of skepticism are settled down upon any heart. When God says, “Let there be light”, no time will be required for the darkness to pass away, or the mists to be dissipated.

This is a point that needs special emphasis. I have met very many people of late who are under conviction of sin, but some of them have been saying to me, “Well, I will struggle and I hope after a while to come into the light”.

Satan has deluded all such into the supposition that God is slow either in making the path plain or in imparting the power to walk therein. Look into the New Testament and see. On the day of Pentecost Peter preached to a multitude. They were blinded bigots. They had shed the blood of the Son of God. In such darkness did they live that they little supposed who He was. But when Peter had preached, thousands of them fell upon their knees and in penitence said, “What shall we do to be saved?” and even as Peter answered, “Repent”, God was saying, “Let there be light”, and lo! 3,000 were saved and added together.Peter and John were going up into the temple to pray. A lame man lay at the gate asking alms.

To him Peter said, “In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk”, and God said, “Let there be light,” and lo! “He leaping up, stood, and walked and entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God”.Zacchaeus, standing in a crowd, heard that Jesus Christ was coming that way. Quickly he climbed a sycamore tree, and when Jesus saw him He said, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down”. And, as Mr. Moody put it, “Somewhere between the limbs of that tree and the ground he was converted”, for while he was coming down, God seeing the darkness and yet the eagerness of his heart, said, “Let there be light”.Paul and Silas were imprisoned in Philippi. At midnight they prayed and sang praises unto God. An earthquake opened the doors and loosed their bands, and the keeper of the prison was ready to kill himself, supposing they had fled, “But Paul cried with a loud voice saying, Do thyself no harm for we are all here”.

Then he called for a light, and sprang in and came trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas, and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And while they were answering, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house”, God seeing that this same darkened heart was crying out for the Truth, said “Let there be light”, and lo in that same hour of the night, he and all his were baptized ***** and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.And now, my friends, you who are in darkness and need the light, need not wait. If, tonight, you are ready to let God into your heart to take possession of it, He will illuminate it by His presence and the whole pathway to Heaven by the precious truths of His Word.Thomas Dixon tells of meeting in an inquiry room in Raleigh, N.

C. a man of about sixty. This man seemed to be in the greatest distress, and as Dixon talked with him and tried to show him the way of life, he groaned and turned from side to side as though he were choking or smothering. At last he exclaimed, “O, my friend, I have been working on this problem forty years, and I cannot see it”. “Well”, answered Dixon, “suppose you cease to work and give it all to Christ and let Him settle the problem for you”. Inside of five minutes this man was making the very building ring with his shout of joy, for God had taken the darkness out of his heart by saying, “Let there be light”.There are men and women here tonight who think they have been searching for years after the truth, and who have often said, “O, if I could only come into the light!” Beloved, you do not have to come into the light, but you have to open your heart and let God come into you, for “God is Light”.GOD’S LIGHT MEETS THE NEEDS OF MAN.“And God saw the light that it was good”.It is essential to man’s bodily comfort. The blind man appeals to our pity because of that fact. We know what a deprivation it is to have the light shut out of the physical life.

Once a year in New York City hundreds of the blind are assembled to receive a certain sum of money distributed to them from the City Treasury, and strong men weep as they look upon this assembly which sometimes exceeds 400 of our sightless brethren and sisters. I have often tried to imagine the ecstasy of the blind who felt the healing touch of the Master’s hand.

I don’t wonder that some of those who have been healed of blindness, looking upon the beauties of earth have , asked, “Is not this Heaven?” He is an ingrate indeed who does not give God glory if he is able to sweep the earth and scan the skies with perfect vision.God’s light is also adequate to mental development. Phillips Brooks said, “Men are looking for light. With that insatiable passion which belongs to their humanity, they are running hither and thither seeking to know”. We cannot doubt that God approves this search after knowledge. All nature which is only another name for God’s Word, incites it; the whole Book of Revelation demands it. There have been in the past, and there are today, men, the magnitude of whose lives impress us with the fact that God has poured His Light into their minds.Dr.

Lorimer in his “Argument for Christianity”, tells us when a Hindu lad was placed for the first time beneath the dome of the great cathedral in London which bears the name of the apostle to the Gentiles, impressed by its majesty and magnitude, he inquired wonderingly, “And did man make all this?” When one studies a Peter, a Paul, a Polycarp, a Savonarola, a Luther, he feels instinctively that he is not the product merely of earthly teachers, but into his mind and heart God has poured eternal Light.And this Light meets the needs of the soul. The athlete, the physical man needs light—the light of nature; the scholar or the mental man needs light— the light of learning; but the soul, or the spiritual man, needs light, the light of God’s revelation.

He needs that Light to see himself, a sinner; he needs that light to see Jesus, a Saviour.Bishop James relates how a Jewess came to one of his meetings out of curiosity. On her way home this question thrust itself into her mind, “What if Jesus was the Christ?” The next evening she felt drawn to the meeting again and was the more impressed with the possibilities that the Man of Nazareth was her Messiah. Listening to the truth the third time, conviction came upon her, and she went home to pray this prayer, “O thou God of Abraham, the father of my people, give me the Light that I may know the Truth”. She opened the Book at the first chapter of Romans and began to read, and when she came to the 16th verse, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek”, God illumined the words and they flashed the Truth into her very heart, and from that hour she went forth saved and ready to serve. And I do believe that if any man or woman here tonight puts up before God an honest petition for Light, pledging at the same time to walk in it, that the Light will come; Light for present salvation; Light for future progress, and Light by which to pass through the Gates of Pearl.

Genesis 1:26

“THE THING IN THE WORLD”Genesis 1:26; Genesis 2:7; Matthew 16:26HENRY Drummond’s address on “The Greatest Thing in the World” has been almost universally read. You will recall that in that he proposes the question, “What is the supreme good; what is the supreme object of desire, the supreme gift to covet?” and imagines that he finds his answer in the word, “Love”. If one is to discuss the graces only, Drummond is right, and Paul the Apostle, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, 13th chapter, puts the grace of love above all other graces. He places it above eloquence, saying,“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass or tinkling cymbal”.He puts it above knowledge and faith, saying,“Though I have all knowledge, and though I have all faith and have not love, I am nothing”;and above charity and the martyr’s crown, for he adds,“And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not love, I am nothing”.But this only argues that love is the chief of the Christian graces, but greater than his graces is the man himself; greater than love is the lover. If one contended that the greatest thing in our solar system was light, he could present as good an argument in defense of the proposition as Drummond did in claiming “love” to be “the greatest thing in the world”. He could say, as Horace Bushnell has said, “Let the light of the morning cease and return no more; let the hour of morning come and bring with it no dawn; the outcries of a horror-stricken world would fill the air and make as it were the darkness audible; the beasts would grow wild and frantic at the loss, the vegetable growths turn pale and die.

A chill creeps on, and frosty winds begin to howl against the freezing earth; colder and yet colder is the night; the vital blood, at length, of all creatures stops, congealed; and the very globe itself becomes a ball of ice hanging silent in the darkness”.And yet, greater than the light that reaches us, is yonder sun swinging its way through space, illumining a thousand worlds; and greater than the love that fills the human heart, and makes human life worth the living is the throbbing, sentient soul that loves because it lives.These texts ought to impress us with three features of this greatness which attaches to man. First of all we ought to see his greatness in the fact ofTHE DIVINE IMAGE.“And God said, Let Us make man in our image after our likeness”.They tell us now that we will never see God; that He is without form or locality; but I insist that we have already seen God in the person of Jesus Christ, and in that same person we shall see Him again, and the longer we look upon Him, the more we shall appreciate the truth of this text that man was made “in His image”.This truth obtains as to physical form.

Of Jesus Christ it is written, that He “being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men”. It is quite popular now to deny both body and personality to God. Read Daniel 10:5-6. The physical frame of man has its splendid proportion, its natural graces, and its unexcelled powers in consequence of the fact that God created us in His own image.Dr. Hillis, in “A Man’s Value to Society”, reminds us of the veneration in which the ancients held the body, and how they sought by every possible invention to preserve it even after the soul had taken its flight. I think you will find that conception of its worth more in keeping with the teachings of Scripture than is the modern notion of regarding it mere dust fit only to be resolved again into Mother Earth.

The Psalmist speaking of his body said,“I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Thy works and that my soul knoweth right well; my substance was not hid from Thee; when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth, Thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them” (Psalms 139:14-16).Paul calls the body “the temple of the Holy Ghost”. And in all Jewish thought there was no institution so much venerated as the Temple in which was located the Holy of Holies, and none in defense of which they would so willingly have laid down their lives.

When a man through asceticism afflicts his body, or though sin abuses or degrades it, he at once depreciates the dignity of his own life and insults the God after whose likeness and in whose image he is made.Again, this Divine image appears in man’s mental ability. Monkeys may have minds, but if so the most marked thing about them is their easy limitations. In the light of modern accomplishments, who will undertake to give us the measure of man’s mind? We have sometimes thought that Christ’s greatest miracle was raising the dead, but do we so consider? When He dispossessed the Gadarene, and brought that man whose brain had been in deranged estate, back to a right mind, He wrought a miracle greater than raising the body and second only to the salvation of the soul. For no matter how perfect the physical proportions of a man, he will never remind us of God, nor seem to be after the Divine likeness except he exhibit mental balance and intellectual ability.

Paul writing to Timothy, seeking to stir up the gifts of God which were in him, said, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love and of a sound mind”.In his moral character, also, man is the greatest thing in the world. It is conceded of all that here the Divine Image is most marked.

Animals have no moral character. Through the fear of punishment or the hope of reward, they may come to do certain things that are right, and let severely alone others that their masters regard wrong; but that is not because they have any sense of ought or ought not. Darwin, in “The Descent of Man”, says, “A moral being is one who is capable of comparing his past and future actions and motives—of approving of some and disapproving of others, and the fact that man is the one being who with certainty can be thus designated, makes the greatest of all distinctions between him and the lower animals”. Aye, and to believers this moral character is also the best evidence that man is made in the Divine Image.A colleague of Mr. Gladstone, just before the death of that great statesman remarked, “If I were asked what was the distinguishing characteristic of Mr. Gladstone’s power, I should say that he never for a moment forgets, or allows his hearers to forget hat he regards man as a moral being”.

How could he forget it, when he was so familiar with the Word of God, in which it is distinctly declared of man that he was made in the image of God and after God’s likeness? The greatest thing about you, the greatest thing about me, the greatest thing about any man is that moral resemblance to our Maker, which enables us to see the right and distinguish it from the wrong.In the second place, man’s greatness is argued byTHE DIVINE .There are three respects in which that estimate is expressed in the early chapters of Genesis.

First, in God’s grief over man’s sin.One of the saddest sentences that God ever uttered was written into Genesis 3:9,“And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou?”God knew where he was! God knew what he had done! God knew what he had become!I have been with a father when, in the long hours of a summer afternoon he sought in vain for his lost child. I listened to his cries ringing out upon the darkness, from the dusk till the midnight hour was on. I sat beside him and heard the sobbings coming in consequence of having lost, for a little time only, his little son. But who can imagine the grief of God when Adam went away from Him into sin?The story of Absalom is familiar to each of you, and you can never forget David’s affection for him, nor yet David’s lament when word reached him that Absalom was dead.

For“the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept! and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!”But God’s grief over the sin of His son Adam was greater still. God’s grief over your sin and over mine, who can tell?

Listen to Ezekiel’s report of God’s language,“As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways, for why will you die?”And, in the question, learn again the Divine estimate of man’s life.That estimate also appears in the gift of God’s Son. Dr. Griffith, once secretary of the American Baptist Publication Society, in a sermon on “The Value of the Soul”, said, “We should estimate it by the price paid for its redemption. What must have been the valuation of the soul in Heaven when God, before whom all nations are as the dust in the balance, became an infant in the manger of Bethlehem, agonized in Gethsemane, was beaten and spit upon in the Judgment Hall, and expired on the ragged irons; every groan of Calvary pronounced the worth of the soul to be greater than ten thousand material worlds. The Son of God would not have given His life to redeem the whole material earth from ruin.

He would not have shed a drop of His blood to save the world from the flames; He will, of choice, give it to the flames when its use to the soul of man shall be ended; and yet He shed all His blood to save the soul”.It is related that in Africa a bloodthirsty chief passed sentence upon an innocent slave, that he should be shot. An Englishman pled for his pardon but in vain.

The chief only answered, “I want blood”. When the executioner drew his bow, the thrum of the string was heard and the arrow darted on its way. The Englishman threw himself before the intended victim, received the poisoned point in his own quivering flesh. Drawing it forth adrip, the white man said to the Chief, “Here is the blood you demand. I shed my own to save the life of this man”. And it is reported that the action so impressed the heathen blacks that ever after that day human life seemed to them a larger thing.When we read that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life”, God’s estimate of man’s greatness ought to make at once a lasting and profitable impression.

That estimate was voiced in Genesis, for no sooner had man sinned, than God was saying to the serpent, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel”.

That is commonly accepted now as God’s first promise of salvation through His Son.This Divine estimate also appears in the ministry of the Spirit. This is the age of the Spirit, the era in which the third person of the Godhead is completing the work which Christ commenced. It was to be His “to take of the things of Christ and show them” unto us. It was to be His “to convict the world of sin, and of righteousness and of a judgment to come”. But let no man think that that ministry of the Spirit which has been marked since Christ’s ascension was unknown to the world before Christ’s sacrifice. No sooner had God promised salvation through His Son than He sent His Spirit to strive with men that they might receive this proffered substitute for sin, In the sixth chapter of Genesis the Lord is saying to the scarlet sinners of earth, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man”.

And yet, after millenniums, His ministry of love is making more and more evident God’s estimate of human life, I do not know whether it has ever occurred to you, but you must admit the truth of it, every Gospel preacher, every personal worker, every praying saint is simply performing a part of that ministry over which the Holy Spirit presides.When Munson went down under the knives of cannibals, it was the Spirit ministering through him to wicked men. When Bunyan went to Bedford Jail because he preached the Gospel, it was the Holy Ghost who encouraged him in the dungeon.

When Judson was suffering the agonies of Oung Pen La, it was the Holy Spirit pleading with the people of East India; and when David Livingstone died on his knees in Africa, it was the Spirit’s appeal to the hundreds and thousands of that benighted land that they turn to God and be saved. David said, “No man cared for my soul”. That was the dyspeptic’s sentiment of a dark hour. Even had it been so, where is the man who, in the face of that ministry of the Spirit which has blessed centuries and resulted in the salvation of millions, can say, “God does not esteem me, and seek to save me!” Man’s greatness is also argued byHIS .“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul!”This Divine life is endless existence. There are not a few among us who are teaching now the conditional immortality theory, and who appeal to Ecclesiastes 9:5, “The dead know not anything”, and similar Scriptures. But when Longfellow wrote,“Life is real, life is earnest And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest Was not spoken of the soul”, he put himself in perfect line with sacred Scripture.In the parable of Dives and Lazarus, both the righteous man and the unrighteous are represented as living on beyond what we call death—Lazarus in blessed estate and Dives in the direst distress and suffering. To me it is unthinkable that Jesus Christ would speak a parable, which, by the plainest and most necessary interpretation, would teach a falsehood, or that He would employ the language used in the 25th of Matthew in assigning the wicked to “everlasting punishment” and calling the righteous to “life eternal”, unless He meant what He said. If we are going to live on, if eternity alone is to measure man’s history, it is little wonder that Jesus Christ put the question,“What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul; or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”This question also emphasizes the fact that man is the arbiter of his own destiny. From time immemorial, God has treated with man upon that basis. Before the fall it was so, and not less so since sin came and all our woe. Over in the Book of Deuteronomy we will find Moses marking a plea with a rebellious people, and after having called their attention to the commandments of God, the covenants of God, the judgments of God, he said, “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose”.

It is the very same appeal that another of God’s prophets made to the people. Joshua had assembled the tribes at Shechem.

He had reviewed before them God’s blessing and reminded them how they had gone after strange gods, and concluded by saying, “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. **** But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”.There comes a time in every man’s life when he is making the choice that will determine his destiny. Doubtless there are those here tonight who are doing that now. Oh, may I not plead with you, as Moses did with his people, “Choose life”, that the greatness of your immortality may become the ground of your endless joy, for “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”In concluding, may I remind you that your treatment of Jesus will determine your immortal estate.It is plainly written“that God hath given to us eternal life and this life is in His Son”, “He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life”.You know tonight whether you have received Jesus or not. If so, you are safe. If not, you have no security. Your purpose to accept Him at a later time is only a part of Satan’s plan by which to destroy the soul for all time.“It was my lot”, said a shipmaster, “to fall in with the ill-fated steamer “The Central America”.

The night was closing in, the sea rolling high; but I hailed the crippled steamer and asked if they needed help. “I am in a sinking condition”, cried Captain Herndon. “Had you not better send your passengers on board now?” “Lay by me till morning”, again cried Captain Herndon. I tried to lay by him, but at night such was the heavy roll of the sea, I could not keep my position, and I never saw the steamer any more.

In an hour and a half after the captain said, “Lay by me till morning”, the vessel with its living freight went down; and the captain and the crew, and a great majority of his passengers found a grave in the great deep. But for this delay all might have been saved”.By the death of all those who have perished through procrastination, let me plead with you to face this question honestly, and give to it an intelligent answer tonight,“What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”