Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 131, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1912 — God’s First Question [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

God’s First Question

4 ’ By Rev. Parley E. Zartmann, jociciary ct rjiimtioo iviooay Dune Institute, Chicago

TEXT—And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou?—Genesis 3:9.

This Is God’s first question so far as we have any record. He is the great questioner, z and a study of his interrogations is most Instructive. Sometimes he asks a question to awaken us, sometimes to discover to us our greatest need, sometimes to encourage our wavering faith, and sometimes to give

us a greater confidence in himself. This first question occurs in the first great tragedy of the human race. It began with the devil’s insinuating question arousing doubt In the mind of Eve, and ended, so far as Adam and Eve were concerned, with their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. 1. Environment is not proof against temptation. The story of Eden Is the unfailing and satisfactory answer to that theory. Sometimes the greatest sinners have the least excuse for their misdeeds. Thank God we have a Gospel, and a Savior, and a grace which can make the foulest clean, and which is equally effective In the case of the most cultured and refined. ' 2. Eve was doomed as soon as she began to discuss the matter with the serpent. Had she said "Get thee behind me, Satan,” what misery would have been saved the human race. 3. Self-deceit is an early step toward ruin. When Eve was trying to convince herself that her sin was pleasant, she opened the door to a troop of evil thoughts, and made sin’s progress easy. 4. One sinner helps to make another. It is bad enough, and sad enough, that our sins entail suffering and misery on ourselves, but how much sadder is it that in going down we take others with us. Adam and Eve had to choose, and they made a wrong choice. God pity them, and pity us, for wrong choice is sin. The greatest lesson of the tragedy is that sin always defeats the purposes of the soul. "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Results of Sin. 1. Shame and fear. “And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of God.” It is always so with the sinner, and there, are two reasons for this—God’s holiness and man’s sinfulness. No, hiding win not cover sin nor end it, and continuance in sin ultimately brings a harvest of shame and fear. Though you may hide behind false hopes, though you offer a thousand excuses for your transgression, though you boast at your selfrighteousness, though you blame your environment for your sin, God hunts you out and says “Where art thou?” Are you ashamed of your sinful condition, and are you afraid of God? There is only one end to the misuse of Eden and that is: 2. Separation and Isolation. This is sin’s worst effect It sent the prodigal into the far country, and cast him off from his father's house. Finally sin separates us from the holy, and' isolates from heaven. “For know ya not that the unrighteous shall not in-* herit the kingdom of God, be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor ldola<tors, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetuous, nor tricksters, nor revilers, nor extortionists shall inherit the kingdom of God.” These two things make hell. For we can think of no worse condition than the conscious shame and fear, and the eternal separation and Isolation of the soul. A converted miner was asked, “Where is hen?” He said, “At the end of aiChrlstless life.” But that whole life has all these characteristics. Oh to have no hope In Jesus How dark this world must be. The best part of the story is left until the last The question really shows us God’s heart He is not a policeman hunting us out that he may punish us, but a loving father, sad without us and loving us with an everlasting love. He is seeking us by Ms mercies, by the wooing of the spirit by the ministry of the Gospel, by the providences which surround our lives, by a thousand things which tell US of God, and heasen, and eternity. Who can tell all that is meant by God as a going after the erring one and saying, “Where are thou** The sinner is the lost sheep. "But none of the ransomed ever knew How deep were the waters crossed. Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through . ■ Ere He found Hte sheep that was tost” • ... - • / But there is a ray of hope in tbs story—the promise of a Redeemer: “I will put enmity between thee and the wnman and tnv Ste&u HDu *l6* wuuiau, dliu WLWWCU V**J wseed; he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” .•* - %