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“Questions and Answers, Part II.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak0OoFBw3c
We are continuing in our Series, “Questions and Answers.” Last week in our first Installment, I presented to you a review and an examination of many the Questions that were asked in the Book of Genesis, with a cross-reference to the Book of Luke, and the Parable of The Good Samaritan. Last week, I stopped with three pages of material left to read. And, several of those in attendance each pointed out that there were questions that I omitted. We are going to go back to the early parts of Genesis and include the first of them in this Installment! Tonight, we will focus on the actual first recorded question asked in Scripture, “Hath God said...” But we need, first, to look at the build up to that first question being asked, and then before we close, what else we can learn from the Account of the serpent's temptation.
In the first two Chapters of Genesis, we find God busy performing an earthwide makeover, transforming the world from its “without form and void” state, to one of a beautiful, habitable planet. And every modification He deemed, “Good.” The light was good in verse 4; gathering the waters was good in verse 10; bringing forth grass and herbs and trees yielding fruit and seeds was good in verse 12; the division of light and darkness was good in verse 18; His bringing forth life, filling and blessing the oceans, the lands and the air with fish and four-footed beasts and creeping things, and birds was good in verse 21; and then, in verse 26 God said, “Let us make man in our Image, and after our Likeness.”
John Gill writes, “These words are directed not to the earth, out of which man was made, as consulting with it, and to be assisting in the formation of man, as Moses Gerundensis, and other Jewish writers, which is wretchedly stupid; nor to the angels... who are not of God's privy council, nor were concerned in any part of the creation...but they are spoken by God the Father to the Son and Holy Ghost, who were each of them concerned in the creation of all things, and particularly of man: hence we read of divine Creators and Makers in the plural number. Philo the Jew acknowledges that these words declare a plurality, and are expressive of others, being co-workers with God in creation: and man being the principal part of the creation, and for the sake of whom the world, and all things in it were made, and which being finished, he is introduced into it as into an house ready prepared and furnished for him;
a consultation is held among the divine Persons about the formation of him; not because of any difficulty attending it, but as expressive of his honour and dignity; it being proposed he should be made not in the likeness of any of the creatures already made, but as near as could be in the likeness and image of God. The Jews sometimes say, that Adam and Eve were created in the likeness of the holy blessed God. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness": to whom did he say this? "I am that I am,” (from Exodus 3:14) and he that says let us make, is Jehovah; I am the first, and I am the last, and beside me there is no God.”
In Genesis 2, there are more things God declares to be good. The gold in the land was good in verse 12. God planted a garden, and made trees to grow that were good for food. Then, for the first time, God identifies something that is not good. He declares in verse 18, “It is not good that the man be alone...” Adam is put into a deep sleep, and from his rib, God forms Eve, and brings her to him. They are living together in peace, in a beautiful setting, in harmony with each other and in fellowship with their Creator. I would imagine that, even though they are not recorded, the conversations between Adam and Eve must have been filled with questions. When God was with them, I am sure that questions abounded to a greater degree. Questions of confusion and curiosity, wonder and delight.
Moses' account of Creation in Genesis leaves me, personally, somewhat empty. There is so much more I would have liked to have been able to read: Some of those questions that I just referred to, but also, I wonder how old Adam and Eve were when they were created. Were they 10? teenagers? Young adults? I am going to guess that they were not older than that... but Moses is silent on that subject. I also wonder how much time went by before we come to the first recorded question in Scripture. I wonder if this were the first time the serpent approached them and started a conversation. In their recorded conversation in Genesis 3, there certainly is no hint that Eve is surprised at being spoken to by one of the animals in the Garden of Eden. Is that because they had spoken to the serpent previously? Or, shall I let my imagination really run away with me and speculate that before the Fall, animals could speak, and that was why she was not surprised. I don't really think they did, but we do have, quite a while later in Numbers 22, the case of Balaam's donkey speaking to him in verse 28.
But let's focus in on the subject of this Series: “Questions and Answers.” The serpent, described as being “more subtil than any beast of the field,” asks the first recorded question; it is found in Genesis 3. This is so insidious, and there is so much here. I complained about Moses' lack of detail on non-essential matters, but he gives us so much in what he did provide. I really want to dissect what we find in Genesis 3, to give us as much as we can possibly get out of it. Originally, when I was thinking about the questions I would include in the Series, I wanted to start out with God asking “Where are you?” But it was pointed out to me last week that a previous question appears in Scripture, asked by Satan in the guise of a serpent. I have used the serpent's question, and fleshed it out into four separate, well-received Bible Studies that I have conducted since last Wednesday. We read the serpent's question in Genesis 3:1: “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?”
The Preacher's Homiletical writes of this question, “THE FIRST GREAT TEMPTATION – It is well for the military general to study the plan and the history of great battles that have been fought in the past, in order that he may learn how best to order and arrange his troops in the event of war. So human life is a great moral campaign. The battle-field is the soul of man. The conflicting powers are Satan and humanity, good and evil. In the history of the first great temptation of our first parents we have a typical battle, in which we see the methods of satanic approach to the soul, and which it will be well for us to contemplate. It is well to learn how to engage in the moral conflicts of life, before we are actually called into them. Every day should find us better warriors in the service of right.
I. That the human soul is frequently tempted by a dire foe of unusual subtlety. “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field.” 1. The tempter of human souls is subtile. He presents himself to the soul of man in the most insidious forms, in the most fascinating ways, and with the most alluring promises. He endeavours to make men think when in the service of God, that they are ignorant of the grand mysteries of the universe, that the tree of knowledge, of which they dare not eat, contains the secret of their lives, and that if they will, contrary to the Divine command, partake of it, they will step into the Supreme temple of wisdom. Hence the curiosity of man is awakened. A strange fascination takes possession of his spirit. He is led to violate the Divine behest.
Or, the devil will tell men that in the service of God, they are deprived of liberty; and for the freedom of goodness he offers them the wild license of sin, and lured by this hope he gets them to eat forbidden fruit. Satan has many schemes by which to lead men contrary to the will of God, and in opposition to their own moral welfare. He can adapt himself to any circumstance. He can make use of any agency. He often comes to us when we are lonely. He has access to our most beautiful Edens. 2. The tempter of human souls is malignant. God had just placed Adam and Eve in the lovely garden of Eden. These two progenitors of the race were made in His image, were prepared for healthful toil, and for all innocent pleasure. They were happy in each other. They were supremely happy in their God. The new creation was their heritage. How malignant the person who can seek artfully to dim a picture so lovely, or destroy a happiness so pure. Only a fallen angel could have conceived the thought. Only a devil could have wrought it into action. He is unmoved by pity. His mission is the interruption of human enjoyment.
And we see him fulfilling it on every page of human life and history. 3. The tempter of human souls is courageous. We almost wonder that Satan dared to venture into the new and lovely paradise which God had made for our first parents. Would not God expel him at once? Would not Eve instinctively recognize him notwithstanding his disguised appearance, and his bland approach to her. Might not such thoughts as these pass within his mind. If they did he would not long yield to them. Satan is bold and adventuresome. He will approach the first parents of the race, to seek their ruin, even though heaven may be their helper. He will tempt the Lord of the universe with the kingdoms of this world. He knows no tremor. He is best met by humility.”
Let's look at the serpent's question, again, but this time from a slightly different perspective: “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” I want to look at Eve's response in order to better explain what I see being asked. “And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die” Genesis 3:2-3). This is a fascinating response; it illuminates what may be lurking behind this question. Eve says that she and Adam could not eat of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and they could not touch it! I find this fascinating!
Here we have an entire planet populated by only two people. And, there was also only one Commandment in force on the entire planet: “Do not eat of the fruit of this one tree.” But Eve added that they were also forbidden to touch the fruit. God did not include that prohibition when He spoke it to Adam.
God told Adam in Genesis 2:17, “... of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” In the next verse, God states that it is not good for the man to be alone, showing us that Eve was not there to hear that Command being given. If God told her the Command after she appeared, He would have repeated it exactly as He originally stated it to Adam. The fact that it was embellished leads me to believe that God allowed Adam to tell Eve what God had commanded, in the same way Jesus commissioned His Church go into all the world, “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 18:20). And I also believe that Adam added the “do not touch” clause to the Commandment because he may have noticed Eve looking at the forbidden fruit of that tree a little too often, and/or with a little too much interest. Here, with only one Commandment to transmit to a follower, Adam becomes the first person to alter and add to God's Word, based on what he thought was right.
Actually, they both could have touched that fruit all they wanted to. They could have had a catch with the fruit, played tennis or baseball with the fruit, built a pool table and played pool with the fruit, they could have touched it all they wanted, and not sinned. The Commandment only stated that they could not eat it, lest they die. So, if I am correct, and Adam is the one who conveyed the Commandment to Eve, let's go back and re-read the serpent's question from that perspective. He asks Eve in the English Standard Version, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” The serpent was killing two birds with one stone: If Adam had quoted God, the serpent was undermining Adam's authority to convey such a Commandment. And if it were God who said it, then God is holding out on you. He is keeping you from something good.
The serpent here is undermining both Adam and God with this very deviously-crafted and scurrilous question. But as soon as Eve adds what would happen if they did eat of the fruit of that one tree, the serpent pulls out all the stops. Now instead of either implying that Adam not God said it, or that God said it to keep something good from you, he directly contradicts God with the words, “Ye shall not surely die.”
Alexander MacClaren writes of this: “How sin came in: It is no part of my purpose to enter on the critical questions connected with the story of ‘the fall.’ Whether it is a legend, purified and elevated, or not, is of less consequence than what is its moral and religious significance, and that significance is unaffected by the answer to the former question. The story presupposes that primitive man was in a state of ignorant innocence, not of intellectual or moral perfection, and it tells how that ignorant innocence came to pass into conscious sin. What are the stages of the transition?
1. There is the presentation of inducement to evil. The law to which Adam is to be obedient is in the simplest form. There is restriction. ‘Thou shalt not’ is the first form of law, and it is a form congruous with the undeveloped, though as yet innocent, nature ascribed to him. The conception of duty is present, though in a very rudimentary shape. An innocent being may be aware of limitations, though as yet not ‘knowing good and evil.’ With deep truth the story represents the first suggestion of disobedience as presented from without. No doubt, it might have by degrees arisen from within, but the thought that it was imported from another sphere of being suggests that it is alien to true manhood, and that, if brought in from without, it may be cast out again. And the temptation had a personal source.
There are beings who desire to draw men away from God. The serpent, by its poison and its loathly form, is the natural symbol of such an enemy of man.
The insinuating slyness of the suggestions of evil is like the sinuous gliding of the snake, and truly represents the process by which temptation found its way into the hearts of the first pair, and of all their descendants. For it begins with casting a doubt on the reality of the prohibition. ‘Hath God said?’ is the first parallel opened by the besieger. The fascinations of the forbidden fruit are not dangled at first before Eve, but an apparently innocent doubt is filtered into her ear. And is not that the way in which we are still snared? The reality of moral distinctions, the essential wrongness of the sin, is obscured by a mist of sophistication. ‘There is no harm in it’ steals into some young man’s or woman’s mind about things that were forbidden at home, and they are half conquered before they know that they have been attacked.
Then comes the next besieger’s trench, much nearer the wall-namely, denial of the fatal consequences of the sin: ‘Ye shall not surely die,’ and a base hint that the prohibition was meant, not as a parapet to keep from falling headlong into the abyss, but as a barrier to keep from rising to a great good; ‘for God doth know, that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods.’ These are still the two lies which wile us to sin: ‘It will do you no harm,’ and ‘You are cheating yourselves out of good by not doing it.’
Matthew Henry adds, “It is certain it was the devil that beguiled Eve. The devil and Satan is the old serpent (Rev_12:9), a malignant spirit, by creation an angel of light and an immediate attendant upon God's throne, but by sin become an apostate from his first state and a rebel against God's crown and dignity. Multitudes of the angels fell; but this that attacked our first parents was surely the prince of the devils, the ring-leader in the rebellion: no sooner was he a sinner than he was a Satan, no sooner a traitor than a tempter, as one enraged against God and his glory and envious of man and his happiness. He knew he could not destroy man but by debauching him. Balaam could not curse Israel, but he could tempt Israel. The game therefore which Satan had to play was to draw our first parents to sin, and so to separate between them and their God. Thus the devil was, from the beginning, a murderer, and the great mischief-maker. The whole race of mankind had here, as it were, but one neck, and at that Satan struck. The adversary and enemy is that wicked one.
2. It was the devil in the likeness of a serpent. Whether it was only the visible shape and appearance of a serpent (as some think those were of which we read, or whether it was a real living serpent, actuated and possessed by the devil, is not certain: by God's permission it might be either. The devil chose to act his part in a serpent, (1.) Because it is a specious creature, has a spotted dappled skin, and then went erect. Perhaps it was a flying serpent, which seemed to come from on high as a messenger from the upper world, one of the seraphim; for the fiery serpents were flying. Many a dangerous temptation comes to us in gay fine colours that are but skin-deep, and seems to come from above; for Satan can seem an angel of light (see 2 Corinthians 11:14-15).
And, (2.) Because it is a subtle creature; this is here taken notice of. Many instances are given of the subtlety of the serpent, both to do mischief and to secure himself in it when it is done. We are directed to be wise as serpents. But this serpent, as actuated by the devil, was no doubt more subtle than any other; for the devil, though he has lost the sanctity, retains the sagacity of an angel, and is wise to do evil. He knew of more advantage by making use of the serpent than we are aware of. Observe, There is not any thing by which the devil serves himself and his own interest more than by unsanctified subtlety. What Eve thought of this serpent speaking to her we are not likely to tell, when I believe she herself did not know what to think of it. At first, perhaps, she supposed it might be a good angel, and yet, afterwards, she might suspect something amiss. It is remarkable that the Gentile idolaters did many of them worship the devil in the shape and form of a serpent, thereby avowing their adherence to that apostate spirit, and wearing his colours.”
Let's notice something else in the serpent's question. He does not name or identify The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He let's Eve do it, and then as if it were her idea all along, in the very next verse where are they? They are right under the tree which was in the midst of the Garden. Did you notice that? God planted that forbidden tree in the midst, or center of the Garden. No matter where they went from one side of the Garden to the other, they had to pass that tree! And it was in that passing that I said earlier that Adam may have noticed Eve's walk slowing down as they walked under its shade. And then the next time it was even slower, at which point he added that they were not even allowed to touch the fruit.
There is another thing I find very interesting and, at the same time, very frustrating in this Account of the Fall. The serpent directs 100% of his attention to Eve. I have read some commentaries that make a claim I disagree with. Matthew Henry for example states, “The person tempted was the woman, now alone, and at a distance from her husband, but near the forbidden tree. It was the devil's subtlety, To assault the weaker vessel with his temptations.”
I don't think this is correct. When Eve finally sunk her teeth into the forbidden fruit, Moses wrote that she “gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat” (Genesis 3:6). She didn't have to go find Adam who was off somewhere. I believe he was there, right there the whole time. And he never said a mumbling word! When Eve picked that first fruit, why didn't he step forward, take the fruit from her hand and throw it as far as he could across the Garden, then take her by the arm and escort her away from both the tree and the serpent?
Better yet... why didn't he take the fruit from her hand and ram it down the serpent's throat? He would have been within his rights to exhibit righteous indignation in response to the lies and undermining God and His Word and His motives! But, as I said earlier, the serpent didn't even include Adam in the conversation! I think the serpent just sat back trying to assess the situation, and form a battle plan. He was determined to get to Adam, but how? I think the “how” of tempting Adam, and bringing – what the serpent hoped would be – ruination to mankind was solved when the serpent saw Adam's reaction when God first brought Eve to him.
In the verses immediately previous to his being out to sleep, Adam had just finished naming all the animals. One after another, all these furry or slimy or four-footed beasts and creeping things crossed his path. And Adam responded with, “Gazelle, antelope, hippopotamus, armadillo...” Moses writes of Adam's experience in Genesis 2:20: “And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.” Those are the exact words that were used to describe what Eve was: “an help meet for him”! And when he saw her, the serpent knew how to get to him. Yes, I know... the Bible doesn't say that that was what the serpent knew... but the Bible does say that that was what the serpent did!
The Preacher's Homiletical writes of the serpent's tactics: “The Tempter seeks to engage the human soul in conversation and controversy.—“And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden.” Life is a beautiful garden in which man must find work, and in which he may find pleasure. But there are trees in it which are environed by Divine and requisite restrictions. The forbidden plants are known to man. They are revealed to him by the Word of God, and by his own conscience. Hence there can be no mistake. Man need not be taken unawares. But in reference to certain phases of human life Satan seeks to hold controversy with the human soul.
1. He seeks to hold controversy with human souls that he may render them impatient of the moral restrictions of life. He does not seek to talk to Eve about the tillage of the garden, or about the many trees of which she was at liberty to eat, but only about this one tree of which she and her husband were forbidden to partake. In this we see the devil’s knowledge of human nature, and also the cunning of his fallen intellect. Men are far more impatient of their restrictions than they are mindful of their liberty, and hence are sensitive to any reference made thereto. Hence the great effort of Satan is to lead men astray not chiefly by questioning the theology of the Bible, but by directing their attention to the limits that it places upon their conduct. When you begin to question the right or wrong of any action, that is the first indication that Satan is seeking to hold a controversy with your soul, as you need never have a doubt as to whether you should eat the fruit of the forbidden tree. Never let the devil make you impatient of the laws of moral rectitude. When he reminds you of the one tree of which you may not eat, then show him all the other trees in the garden which are at your entire disposal. The restrictions of life are few, but they are real and far reaching. They relate to the destiny of the soul.
2. He seeks to hold controversy with human souls that he may insidiously awaken within them thoughts derogatory to the character of God. The woman in response to the serpent said that God had forbidden them to eat of the tree. Satan continues the argument from the same point. He states that God had told her a lie! Sin always commences here. The moment a soul holds controversy about the moral character of God, is the moment of its fall.
The man who believes God to be untruthful, must and will be untruthful himself. We are good and safe in proportion as we reverence and love the character of God. Satan intimates to Eve that he knows as much about the tree as God did, and that she was justified in crediting his statement as much as the Divine. This is the one effort of the devil, to substitute himself to the human soul, in the place of God. He still seeks to make men worship him.
3. He seeks to hold controversy with human souls that he may lead them to yield to the lust of the eye. “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes,” &c. This is the artifice of Satan, to get men to remove from the true basis of moral life. The true basis of moral conduct is, as Eve had just intimated, the Word of God. But now she is making desire the basis of her conduct. In the processes of temptation there are not merely the solicitations of the devil to lead the soul away from right, but there are also the brilliant appearances of the things we see. The tree is often pleasant to the eyes. Temptation always furnishes its dupe with an excuse. Eve saw that the tree was good for food. There is a gradual progress to sin. First you talk with the devil. Then you believe the devil. Then you obey the devil. Then you are conquered by the devil. Never make lust the basis of life. If you do you will fall irretrievably.
III. The Tempter seeks to make one soul his ally in the seduction of another. “She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” Eve little thought at the commencement of her interview with the serpent, what would be its end. One conversation with the devil may eternally ruin a soul. He is a pleasing conversationalist. But he is false. We observe that he tempted Eve first. He probably thought that he would the more readily win the weak one to his design. And when the devil lures a man’s wife to evil, it is a bad omen for her husband. She will probably become his tempter. Domestic relationships of life are fraught with the most awful possibilities of good or evil to human souls. A wicked wife may be the moral ruin of a family. See the crafty policy of hell. Never join yourself in league with Satan to tempt another soul to evil. Satan is after all sadly effective in his work.”
Another aspect of that forbidden tree occurred to me as I was preparing those other Bible studies since last Wednesday. This actually came as something of a surprise to me because the Account of the Fall is such a familiar one, and I thought I understood it pretty well. But God opened my eyes to something new. Notice how Eve processed the serpent's temptation. After telling her she and Adam would not surely die, and the going on to say in verse 5: “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Verse 6 describes her response: “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes...” Let's stop right there! “The tree was good for food, and was pleasant to the eyes.”
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was not some hideous monstrosity of a tree with razor-sharp barbs and spears for branches, and rotten moldy fruit hanging from them. No! Eve saw that the tree was good for food, and was pleasant to the eyes. But let's go back to the previous chapter when God created the trees: We read in Genesis 2:9: “And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food.” The forbidden Tree looked like all the other trees that were pleasant to the eyes and good for food. It was, symbolically, the very picture of sin itself in that, we need God's Word to distinguish for us what looks good or feels good or tastes good, but is not for us because it is not good. We read in Proverbs 14:12: “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
Sin is appealing. It is alluring. It is pleasant to the eyes. Provides all kinds of promises of benefits and advantages and shortcuts to get to those things we want without having to work or sacrifice for them. Those shortcuts bring money faster and easier and more of it. If we didn't know better, we would think it sin were just as good as obedience. Too often, even knowing better, we still choose sin over obedience. That forbidden tree was the very embodiment of Adam and Eve's downfall, and a symbolic forecast of the potential for all of our own individual downfalls. We have, each of us, before our conversion, chosen things that looked good, that looked like the right thing to do, the right habits and preferences that satisfied the most. But when we were introduced to God's Word, we realized they were sin, and would result in our deaths as we read in Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death.”
The Apostle Paul talks about this in Romans 7:7: “I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.”
Matthew Henry writes, “God, the great lawgiver, is holy, just, and good, therefore his law must needs be so. The matter of it is holy: it commands holiness, encourages holiness; it is holy, for it is agreeable to the holy will of God, the original of holiness. It is just, for it is consonant to the rules of equity and right reason: the ways of the Lord are right. It is good in the design of it; it was given for the good of mankind, for the conservation of peace and order in the world. It makes the observers of it good; the intention of it was to better and reform mankind. Wherever there is true grace there is an assent to this - that the law is holy, just, and good.”
It is God Who, through His Commandments in particular, and through His Word in general, identifies for us those things that we need to know and practice. He tells us, for our good, our eternal good, what things we are doing that we need to stop doing, and what things we are not doing that we need to start doing. We could never, without His Word, come to this knowledge on our own. We need both God and His Word to come to this knowledge. But we also need both God and His Spirit dwelling in us for the next step. As James wrote, “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). The Holy Spirit indwelling us makes both the hearing – or, the comprehension – and the doing possible! We cannot live as Christians on our own power. That is simply not possible.
John Gill writes, “But be ye doers of the word,.... And they are such, who spiritually understand it; gladly receive it; and from the heart obey it, and make a sincere and ingenuous profession of it; and who submit to the ordinances it directs to, and keep them as they have been delivered; and live, and walk, becoming their profession of it.
and not hearers only; though the word should be heard swiftly and readily, and received with meekness; yet it should not be barely heard, and assented to; but what is heard should be put in practice; and especially men should not depend upon their hearing, as if that would save them; this is deceiving your own selves; such as rest upon the outward hearing of the word will be sadly deceived, and will find themselves miserably mistaken.”
The Preacher's Homiletical adds, “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves.” There is a hearing only, which leads to nothing. The seed of truth lies as on a hard field-path, exposed to the birds. There is a talking only about what is heard, which is more than useless, which is mischievous, because self-satisfying. There is a doing of what we hear which is in every way valuable, for it implies thought, care, anxiety, right sense of responsibility and duty. Doing prefers silence.
I. Religious knowledge is not the final result of religious instruction.—It is a proper result, one to be distinctly aimed at. But it may be made a final result by the teacher who has the special gift of teaching; and by the hearer who is mentally strong, naturally critical, or unduly interested in doctrine. It needs to be strongly urged on public attention in these days, that religious knowledge is no more than a stage on the way to the final result aimed at by the public presentation of religious truth. F. W. Robertson says, “I can conceive of no dying hour more awful than that of the man who has striven to know rather than to love, and finds himself at last in a world of barren theories, loving none and adoring nothing.”
II. Religious feeling is not the final result of religious instruction.—This truth appeals to quite a different class of hearers—to the emotional class. There are very many persons who think they can never get a blessing from public services unless their feelings are moved. And the claim of these really good, but somewhat weak-charactered, people mischievously influences our public preachers, who allow themselves to cultivate the merely rhetorical and pathetic, and to imagine that they have gained splendid triumphs when they have subdued congregations to tears. It is well therefore to set forth the surface and temporary character of religious emotions, and the temptation to satisfy ourselves with them, and even flatter ourselves in our goodness as indicated by them. Many a Christian’s life, if read searchingly, will be found very full of high, forced, fictitious emotions and feelings, but very weak in masteries of evil, power of principles, self-sacrifices, holy charities, and good works. People seem to prefer that which cultivates the sentimental.
III. Religious talk is not the final result of religious instruction.—Some hearers simply reproduce what they hear, with variations, and imagine they have reached the true result when they have given everybody whom they can influence their idea of the sermon. And their talk is of no value to themselves, or to any one who listens to them. In every sphere of life it is found that the talkers are the helpless people, if they are not the mischievous people. While they stop and talk, the real work of life waits undone. True preaching tends to stop talk, by compelling people to think, and to inquire what they can do.
IV. Religious doing is the final result of religious instruction.—Our Lord, as the great Teacher, constantly enforced this truth by direct word, e.g. “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them”: by pictures, “as of the good tree that brings forth good fruit”; and by parable on parable, such as that of the “talents.” The apostle constantly urges the same thing. St. James has it for the one thing that he variously illustrates and impresses. The true hearer is “the doer that worketh”; and the true preacher or teacher is he who can inspire men unto doing, lead into the life of service.”
This concludes this Evening's Discussion, “Questions and Answers, Part 2.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on September 12th, 2018.