Genesis 4
RileyGenesis 4:1-26
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 4:3-4
“I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15).“So He drove out the man, and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden a cherubim and the flame of a sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24).“And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, an offering unto Jehovah, and Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof” (Genesis 4:3-4). since I talked to you for an hour on “Paradise Lost” of “the Greatest Sin of the Centuries”. It was a scandalous procedure, the heated season considered. Tonight I want to speak to you for thirty minutes and no more, on “Paradise Reopened”.The opening chapters of Genesis present events after the manner of the moving pictures. Your eyes scarcely rest upon one statement until another has supplanted it, and the period intervening between the events may be as easily a millennium as a moment. Unquestionably God was ages upon ages building the world.
And yet when this brief report of His work is read, it sounds as if He accomplished it all in a week while the record of creation in Genesis 1:1 is as if perfected by an act of the will. The same movement is carried into the third and fourth chapters of Genesis.
How long a time intervened between the moment when Paradise was lost and that in which God gave some promise of restoration to our despairing first parents, we cannot know. The one thing of which we may feel fairly certain is this—that quite a time elapsed. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. It is not His present custom to follow acts of rebellion against Himself with instant pardon. He takes time, for the work of the Spirit is conviction. He grants the rebel time to meditate upon his iniquity, and time for genuine repentance.
The sight of tears does not stir Him to instant speech, for He knows that the more deeply the soul is moved over its sin, the longer time it spends in despair of pardon, the sweeter will be the release when once it is spoken.I am confident that days, and possibly weeks, if not months, went by between the moment when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and that in which God gave them promise of deliverance; between the hour when Paradise was lost, and that blessed moment when God reopened it again. This reopening rests in the three texts selected for this discourse.It was prophesied in Genesis 3:15; it was consummated in Genesis 3:24, and it was appropriated in Genesis 4:4.THE .In the curse pronounced upon the agent of sin. “And Jehovah God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life; and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall bruise thy head”. Men may say what they please about this affliction upon the Adversary’s agent, but any kind of justice demands that, always and everywhere. It may be true that every sin originates in Satan’s mind, but the moment a man adopts his suggestion, and becomes his agent for its execution, he puts himself in the way of the curse. It was Satan who entered into Judas, and prompted him to betray his Lord, but Judas could not escape the consequences of his evilly-inspired act. It will be Satan who will enter into the Anti-Christ, and suggest all his devilish endeavors, but the Anti-Christ must himself go into the pit with the Beast and the False Prophet.Last week an old man entered our state penitentiary who had long been a most respected citizen in the place where he dwelt and had held an office of special responsibility and peculiar honor. There came a time when Satan tempted him to violate the eighth commandment, “Thou shalt not steal”, and when the prison bars closed behind him, he went sobbing his way to his cell, to begin a penal servitude of eight years. He was but experiencing the curse that must come upon the beast or man who consents to be Satan’s agent.
There never was a man so erect but sin could bring him down; so strong but this same transgression could compel him to crawl as the serpent; or so cultured that its commission would not compel him to bite the dust.In the war declared against the author of sin!“I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed”.It is a remarkable thing, that so far as man’s knowledge goes, there has never been a truce in this war. There is not a serpent that crawls the earth but is hated by all natural men and all natural women.
The moment man or woman reveals another disposition and shows friendliness to the poison-fanged creature, we feel that such a person is uncanny, unmanned, unwomaned! Who ever believed that such were not themselves leagued with the Adversary and hence at peace with his first agent? And if this war is to go on, while time lasts, with the bestial agent of sin, is there ever to be a truce with the author himself, that “old serpent, Satan”? Nay, verily! In not a foot of earth has he a right; in not a nook of the mind nor corner of the heart.Paul was troubled to find that he had any possession in him and grieved, saying, “I am carnal, sold under sin”. His cry was, “Wretched man that I am; who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?” He speaks of his experience as a fight against this adversary, saying, “I have fought a good fight”.
He enjoins upon Timothy, “Fight the good fight of faith”. He writes to the Hebrews, “But call to remembrance the former days, in which after you were illuminated ye endured a great fight”.A few years since General Maximo Gomez wrote to General Blanco, Spain’s commander, asking why he had come to Cuba and reminding him he could neither exterminate nor conquer the people of that land, saying at the conclusion of his letter, “Victory always crowns those who fight for justice”, he followed his letter with his sword; and never laid down the latter until the enemy was vanquished.
But the recovery , of Paradise requires a more royal battle. A few years and Spain the oppressor was defeated, but our Adversary has held his way through millenniums and his oppressions increase.In the promise of Christ as Satan’s Conqueror. “He shall bruise thy head”. R. J. Campbell thinks that this reference in Genesis 3:16 is not to the coming Christ. That only proves that he is not among the prophets. For Moses and all the prophets believed that this was the prophecy of the coming Christ, and the conquering Christ. Paul was familiar with it and when he was writing to the Romans he said, “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly”.
As the members of Christ’s body they shared in this conquest.I heard a man say, not long since, that Milton, in “Paradise Regained”, made a mistake in putting the recovery of Paradise in the fourth chapter of Matthew; but a more careful reading of Milton shows that he did not so locate this event. Speaking of Christ’s victory over temptation in the wilderness, Milton says, “There He shall first lay down the rudiments Of His great warfare, ere I sent Him forth To conquer sin and death, the two grand foes By humiliation and strong sufferance.His weakness shall o’ercome satanic strength,And all the world and mass of sinful flesh;That all the angels and ethereal powers,They now, and man hereafter, may discern From what consummate virtue, I have chose This perfect man, by merit call’d my Son To earn salvation for the sons of men.”There is no more interesting study conceivable than that of Christ as Conqueror. He conquered prejudice, the strongest passion of the Jew. He conquered pride, the enemy of the Greek. At His touch sickness surrendered; before His face, leprosy fled. At His word, death yielded, and He who humiliated the proud, healed the sick, cleansed the lepers, raised the dead, is the very same of whom it is promised that “He shall reign until he hath put all enemies under His feet”; yea, the arch-enemy, Satan himself, shall feel that holy hand at his evil throat, and being bound, shall be cast for a thousand years into the abyss which the conquering Christ shall shut and seal, that Satan should deceive the nations no more until the thousand years shall be finished. Aye more, eventually that same hand shall hurl him into the lake of fire and brimstone, “where also are the beast and false prophet, and they shall be tormented day and night, forever and ever”.Alexander Maclaren reminds us that while man is unable to conquer the least of his sins, God’s own Son is adequate to the greatest of them. “He came down from heaven like an athlete ascending into the arena to fight with and overcome the grim wild beasts—our passions and our sins”, and trusting to Him, “by His power and life within us, we may conquer”. “They that follow Him shall trample on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the adder they shall trample under foot”.THE .“So He drove out the man, and placed at the east of the garden of Eden a cherubim, and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24).Bible readers commonly interpret this to mean the last act in excluding Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden!
Quite to the contrary, it is the first act in reopening Paradise.God’s pity is evidenced in the dispossession of Eden. The text says,“Behold, man has become as one of us, to know good and evil, and now, lest he put forth his hand and take of the tree of life, and eat and live forever,”therefore Jehovah God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden.
The tree of life seemed to have had power to confirm a man in whatsoever state he was; to take of it when one was innocent is to be confirmed in innocence; to partake of it when one is in sin is to be confirmed in sin. God drove Adam from Eden lest he should eat and become an immortal sinner. The worst estate to which a man can come is to that consummation of sin.We may grieve over a man who has been drunken once, and feel the shame of his transgression, but our grief will be assuaged by the hope that he will not repeat it, but when a man has been drunken a thousand times, that hope dies and we feel the awfulness of his disaster. We may grieve over the lad who has been found once at a gambling table, but we despair of the man who has followed it for years. The woman who has made one misstep may be recovered, but when she who is tempted has become confirmed in her sin and has turned temptress, we despair.The Bible seems to teach that death does for men in sin what the tree of life would have accomplished for Adam, had he in impenitence tasted the same, and so John has penned in his Epistle concerning its confirming power, “There is a sin unto death, I do not say that he shall pray for it”. The father who finds his boy lifting the goblet to his lips and strikes the damning liquid from his hand, is doing for him in a small measure what God did for Adam when He dismissed him from the place of the tree of life.
To be confirmed in sin is Hell!The cherubim are the expression of God’s truce with the penitent. They were not put at the gate of Eden to keep men out, but to invite men back.
Any good student of the Scriptures will note that the cherubim not only stood at each end of the mercy seat, but they were made of one piece with it. Their eyes were also full upon it; their wings covered the mercy seat. What is the significance? It is the Old Testament declaration of salvation by grace. That salvation was symbolized by these cherubim. The God of justice who exercised justice in driving Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden, is also the God of mercy who prepares a way for their return in holiness, their repented sins having been put away.
The mercy seat is the revelation of the Divine heart. That mercy seat is between the cherubim. “The Lord thy God is a merciful God”, is the statement of Moses (Deuteronomy 4:31). “Thou art a gracious and merciful God”, is the testimony of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 9:31). “Unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy”, is the Psalmist’s loving cry, and “His mercy endureth forever”. “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and of great mercy”.
Ezekiel in his lamentations, declares it is of the Lord’s mercy that we are not consumed, “because His mercies fail not”. Daniel joyfully boasts, “To the Lord our God belongs mercies and forgiveness” (Dan. p: 9). Isaiah has called upon the sinner to hope, “Let the wicked man forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return unto the Lord and He will have mercy upon him, unto our God for He will abundantly pardon”.This flame is the revelation of the Father’s face.“And the flame of the sword which turned every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life”.It is not a sword to cut off the way of men who would come to the tree of life, but it is a sword flame, revealing the Father’s face to those who seek the tree of life. No less an authority than Dr.William Smith, revised by Professors Hackett and Abbott, consents in his dictionary that this flame is the shekinah, admitting that this is the earliest notice of that glorious appearance, under the symbol of the pointed flame and constituting that local presence of the Lord from which Cain went forth, and before which the worship of Adam and succeeding patriarchs was performed. It is fitting, indeed, that God should manifest Himself to sinful men in the form of flame; fire consumes dross and refines true gold.The genuine man has no need to fear the God who reveals Himself by fire, but woe to the hypocrite who attempts to pass that way. God used to reveal Himself by fire when the burnt offering was consumed, and when all the people saw it they shouted and fell on their faces.
On the day of Pentecost, fire, in the form of swords or tongues, sat upon the disciples, and they were at once approved and empowered. Yet, when our works are brought into this glorious presence, those of them that are self-centered are consumed away, while those that are Spirit-prompted are glorified.THE .Abel employed it.
He came in the way appointed for propitiation. A man who would approach the presence signified by a flame must first have put his sins away. Apparently from the day of the promise that the seed of woman was to bruise the serpent’s heel, God foretells His coming by the bloody offering. The life of the bullock or of the he-goat, was taken. As he died, Abel saw the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and understood that God was making the atonement for sin. It is a strange thing that men should object to this, and call it “the shambles theory of salvation”. Shambles they were indeed, but of what did they speak? Not so much of an innocent animal suffering for a guilty man, as they did of a just God, enduring man’s cross that He might by His own affliction win men to holiness again.
When did you ever hear a father condemned for having laid down his life in defense of his family? How much greater is his virtue if that family has shown itself unworthy of his love, having been in rebellion against his will.You will remember, in “The Sky Pilot”, that Ralph Connor gives a beautiful interpretation of Paul’s speech in Romans 9:3. The Pilot was reading one night to Bill and the group about him. He seemed to be serious, this Bill whom we all learned to love so much, and they came across this word, ‘Brethren, I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren’s sake’. “What does it mean”, asked the Pilot. They thought a moment; one tried, and then another, and Bill said this, “Why it means—it means he would go to hell for ‘em”. And Connor says, “We must not be shocked; that was the exact meaning of the word.
Paul would go to hell to save his kinspeople”. But I bring you a more wonderful message.
God went to hell in the person of Jesus Christ, that men might be saved. I believe that the Psalmist means to suggest the agony of hell Christ suffered, and if so He suffered it for our sakes. Where in all the world outside of the Bible was such a plan of salvation conceived as this plan, this plan of a crucified Son of God!Again, Abel discovered without the shedding of blood there is no remission. Charles Spurgeon reminds us that in the Old Testament account of it a man who was too poor to bring two turtle doves “then he that sinned should bring for his offering the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering” (Leviticus 5:11). This was that no man might be condemned because he was poor and of himself incapable! God does not ask what we have not!
Being in mercy rich toward all men, He has provided an offering for all men, that is His own Son, slain from the foundation of the world. Is it then too much to ask that men should accept the offering which God has provided without expense to them?
Is it too much that this evidence of Divine goodness should lead them to repentance for sin and beget within them an eternal loyalty to the Saviour?Again, it is written, “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin”. Cain did not believe it; he trusted to the fruits of his own labor for his salvation, and God refused him. The principle was as certainly established then as now. “For the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight”. The man who would not have God’s way back in the garden of Eden would not find his way accepted. “There is no other name given under heaven whereby ye must be saved” except the name of Jesus Christ. There is no cleansing element but the blood of Christ. There is no access to the tree of life except by the way of the tree upon which He hung.
As for me, I want no other way; and, no man could have a better.“It was March and midnight. The air was full of driving sleet, and the streets were vacant.
Not even the form of a policeman broke the monotony of slippery pavement glittering under the waving shadows of the electric lights. Presently a boyish form emerged from a dark corner and crept slowly up the steps of a corner house. It was a large, handsome residence, not utterly dark and quiet. What business had one to creep stealthily into that house at that hour? Was the boy a burglar?He fumbled in his pocket and drew forth a tiny key. Yes, it opened the door; he stood within. The hall was dark but warm. He moved eagerly to the register; he seemed to know just where to find it; and crouched shivering over its heat.After some moments he started up the stairs, O, so carefully, lest he make a sound; but the steps were padded and carpeted and his old wet shoes sank into them noiselessly.
At the head of the stairs he felt his way to the door. It was closed, and he hesitated, leaning against the frame and breathing heavily. At last he laid his hand on the knob, and turned it a little. Was the door locked? No, it swung open quietly and he stepped in.The street light shone upon the dainty bed all made up and turned open, ready for an occupant. A dressing gown hung on a chair near the bed, and a pair of slippers stood before it. The rest of the room was in darkness. The boy gave a great sob and fell on his knees by the bedside.No, he was not a burglar, only a sick boy stealing home under cover of the night.
It was nearly two years since he had knelt by that bed. His mother had died; he had thought his father stem and cold and he had run away to live as he chose. Once in his miserable wanderings a much-forwarded letter from home had reached him. It contained no writing, just a tiny latch-key to the home door. For months the little key had burned as it lay in his pocket. It had reminded him of the Saviour whom his mother trusted, and in the time of his deepest distress he had said, “I will trust Him”. Still he was afraid; but the little key had still lain in his pocket and at last had drawn him home.The next morning the father opened his son’s door, as he had done every day since the key had been sent. He expected nothing, but it had become a habit.
Did his eyes deceive him? No, it was true! Ralph was in the bed, asleep. The face was thin and haggard, but it was Ralph’s! The father fell on his knees and the boy opened his eyes.“Oh, father”, he sobbed, “I’ve come home to die. I’ve been wicked, wicked.
Can you forgive me?” “Oh, my son, indeed I can. And God—have you asked His forgiveness?”“Yes, and I wanted to tell you before I die”.“Die!” exclaimed the father, gathering him into his arms. “No, indeed”.“The doctor at the hospital said that I would not live long”.“We’ll see about that”, replied the father stepping to the phone.When the family physician looked Ralph over he smiled. “The Hospital doctor knew that you had little chance, wandering about with no care”, he said, “but we’ll send you off to Florida and if you lead a sensible, pure life, you’ll live to be the stay of your father’s old age”.When the physician had gone Ralph turned to his father. “I’m so glad you sent the latchkey.
I never would have come home by daylight, but when I was out in the cold, wet night, I could not resist the comfort at the end of that key”.“It was God who gave me the thought, my boy. I asked Him what to do”.Our lesson is God’s latchkey to all who are exiles from Him. It will fit in the gate of Paradise. Use it tonight and come home!