MEN ARE LOST—BUT THEY ARE NOT ABANDONED

“And unto Adam he said…cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life” (GENESIS 3:17)

There is sound Bible reason to believe that nature itself, the brute creation, the earth and even the astronomical universe, have all felt the shock of man’s sin and have been adversely affected by it.

 

When the Lord God drove out the man from the eastward garden and placed there cherubim and a flaming sword to prevent his return, the disaster was beginning to mount, and human history is little more than a record of its development.

 

It is not quite accurate to say that when our first parents fled from before the face of God they became fugitives and vagabonds in the earth; and it is certainly not true to say that they passed from the love and care of the One who had created them and against whom they had so deeply revolted. God never abandoned the creatures made in His image. Had they not sinned He would have cared for them by His presence; now He cares for them by His providence until a ransomed and regenerated people can look once more on His face (Rev. 21:3; 22:24).

 

Men are lost but not abandoned: that is what the Scriptures teach and that is what the Church is commissioned to declare.

 

In times of extraordinary crisis ordinary measures will not suffice. The world lives in such a time of crisis. Christians alone are in a position to rescue the perishing. We dare not settle down to try to live as if things were “normal.”

 

Nothing is normal while sin and lust and death roam the world!

 

  1. W. Tozer