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Men of the Bible

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entrance into human life--sin, which in its turn "Brought death into our world and all our woe." Now mark the effect of the first act of transgression. We are told that when Adam and his wife heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they "hid themselves" from His presence "amongst the trees." In other words, the cords of love which up to that point bound man to God were rudely severed. Before this the thought of God filled their souls with joy; they loved to hear His voice in the whisperings of the wind, to see His smile in the merry sunshine, to trace His power in the structure of the heavens; but now all was mysteriously changed, things which previously ministered to their enjoyment became a source of terror. Why should the love of the world lead to this result? It is because God must be all or nothing to the human soul. The first commandment in the law is--"_Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might_." This is not an arbitrary enactment, but it has its ground in the eternal fitness of things. God is the infinitely powerful, the infinitely wise, and the infinitely good, and as such demands the undivided love of man. Anything less than this, not only falls below His lawful claim, but also fails to satisfy our profoundest aspirations. As Augustine puts it, "Thou hast made us for Thyself; our hearts are restless, until they find rest in Thee." But it may be asked, Does love to God exclude all other loves? By no means. The second commandment in the law, "_Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself_," is inseparable from the first. It is impossible to obey the one without obeying the other. Obedience that does not regard both is partial, and therefore futile. The reason is plain. God is immanent in creation. The Christian beholds God in everything, and everything in God. Thus it comes to pass that his supreme love--his love to God--intensifies, ennobles, and hallows every other. If you would have an example of the highest type of love--love to God manifesting itself as love to man--go to a Christian home, and you will find it there in all its charm, uniting husband and wife, parents and children, master and servants, making the house a veritable "paradise regained." There is a sense in which the Christian even loves the world--loves it as no other man can love it--that is, when the term is applied to the wondrous system of nature. He loves sometimes to wander in the fields, where innumerable lovely forms, both animate and inanimate, reveal their beauty to the eye; and at other times to meditate upon the illimitable expanse of heaven, crowded by ten thousand worlds, which all declare the glory of Him who is Lord over all. Paul could not have had this meaning in his mind when he spoke of Demas as having, through loving the present world, made shipwreck concerning his faith. He was thinking rather of the sum-total of those pursuits, pleasures, and ambitions which bind man to earth, hamper his spiritual growth, and lead him to his ruin. The "world" in this sense is God's rival; to love the "world" is to hate God. What does separation from God imply, and when can it be said to take place? God is everywhere; who can flee His presence? God is a spirit; who can do Him injury? These are questions that have always presented some difficulty. It was asked in the days of Malachi, "_Will a man rob God_?" as if such a thing were beyond the range of possibility. At the day of judgment, those on the left hand will ask the Judge, "_Lord when saw we Thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto Thee_?" as if the things laid to their charge were without foundation. Now, the objectors in the days of Malachi who asked, "Wherein have we robbed thee?" were answered, "In the tithes and offering." And the objectors at the day of judgment will be answered, "_Verily, I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me_." Evidently, therefore, God--or God in Christ--and His cause are in a very real sense identical; so that he who forsakes the one, of necessity forsakes the other also. Separation from the world is an inward process; it takes place in the heart, and cannot therefore be perceived by a man's most intimate friends. But the forsaking of God's cause is the outward expression of this process, the manner whereby it becomes known to all the world. If it is asked why we assert that Demas had forsaken God, the answer is evident; it is because he forsook Paul, who was the representative of God's cause. This is never the work of a day, though it may sometimes appear such. A professedly religious man commits a flagrant act of sin--or perhaps a punishable crime--which places him at once among the open enemies of religion. We wonder at it; we say in our minds, "What a sudden change! yesterday a saint, to-day an unmitigated villain!" But are we right in saying so? Certainly not. That rash act was simply the culmination of a process that had been going on through a long period. The man had been sailing towards the rapids for months, or perhaps years, only the fact was unobserved; it was not until he was hurled headlong over the precipice into the foaming gulf, that the attention of the world was attracted to it.

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