THE FLOOD OF EVIL
From Beacons of the Bible
by Henry Law, 1869
When the Father of lights gives saving grace, then instantly the foulness of the inner man is seen! Then the illumined conscience testifies, "Behold, I am vile." When the revealing Spirit uplifts the heaven-lit torch, then new-born vision discerns the sin-sick ruin. You cannot see - no, you deny - the rule of sin within you. But may not the plague - although unfelt - exist? Night hides, but cannot nullify, the landscape. Lack of perception destroys not surrounding realities. Appeal to a regenerate man. The response most readily asserts, that no description can exaggerate the flood of evil, which once deluged his heart. Charge him as shaped in iniquity, he meekly sighs–"Alas! how true! But, blessed be God! through grace, I am a new man now." But your experience is unconscious of a change. Therefore you are unchanged. And if you are unchanged, you flounder yet in evil's flood. May then the Lord of life give light - give sight - to see your own ailment in the mirror of these words! "Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually."
But you reject this sentence as depicting yourself. You half hope that it belongs to some bygone days. You confine it to some long-past period of especial evil. You abjure its general features. You question its application to man's whole family, in every age.
But say, is it not a life-likeness of our first parents, from the moment of their fall? Behold them sinless. God was their hearts' delight. Behold them guilty. What is their conduct? Shame overwhelms them. Therefore evil has torn off innocence. Trembling occupies their hearts. "They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day." Genesis 3:8. They spring not joyous to the loved communion. They flee. They seek some covert. They shrink into concealment. Is it not evil to shun God? This is their desire. Thus the imagination of the thoughts of their hearts prove wickedness - great wickedness. They dream, that trees can hide them, from the all-probing eye. This folly is most evil! Evidence is clear, that evil now is the parent of their imaginations.
Adam, when called, speaks in reply. What are his words? Alas! we see no penitence - no humility - no cry for pardon. He avows his fear. Thus he betrays evil; for he allows that punishment is due. Adam's lips unwittingly attest that the imagination of his thoughts is now a flood of evil.
When God probes deeper, deeper evil rises to the surface. The blame is cast on others, no, on God Himself. "The woman, whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree." While Eve is charged as bringing the temptation to his hand, God is implicated, as bringing a tempting partner to his side. Can evil exceed this?
Eve, also, is now a flood of evil. She screens herself behind the serpent's craft. "The serpent beguiled me, and I ate." The main sin is another's. I only yielded to seducing guile. Here then the broad fact stares us broadly in the face. Every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart, from the first day of sin, was only evil. Each word - each act - the produce of each thought - was evil - only evil.
It is clear then, that evil gained universal sway in Adam's heart. Thus it poisoned the spring of future streams. It utterly corrupted the soil of human thought. Now the source being unclean, cleanness cannot issue from it. It follows, then, that man in every age must enter life with a heart evil - only evil continually. "As face answers to face in water, so answers the heart of man to man."
Think then no more, that this portrait delineated peculiar vileness. Such was the first sinner soiled by sin. Such are all born in sin's family.
Reader! it is then your very state, as a corrupt branch of a corrupted tree. It is your pollution, as descending from this tainted fount. Until grace works its wondrous change, wickedness - great wickedness - prevails. "Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually." Evil is the common flood.
But out of these materials God peoples heaven with a redeemed multitude, pure and glorious as Himself. Yes, through grace, there is relief large as the need. There is a remedy, mighty to heal the deepest depths of the disease. The sinner is not forever buried in hopeless guilt. God, from all eternity foreseeing the fall and its tremendous woe, devised a reparation wide as the breach. This gracious work is entrusted to his beloved Son. Jesus consents to take the guilty place. He opens on the cross the fountain of all-cleansing blood. The flowing stream is efficacious to wash away all sin. Its virtue obliterates all stain of evil. Thus, though iniquities are more than all wide ocean's sands, and each of deepest dye, the atoning death can make them whiter than the purest snow. The blood of Jesus touches them, and they forever vanish. They recede far as the east is from the west. They sink from discovery, deep as the sea's unfathomable depths. The believer's wickedness doubtless has been very great. The imaginations of the thoughts of his natural heart have long been only evil. But not one speck of all this vileness can be found. The glorious merits of the dying Jesus have expiated all. Sin has done its worst to ruin; Jesus has done far more to save.
But Jesus meets the children of His love with more than cleansing blood. He clothes them also with His robe of righteousness. He, in their nature and their stead, obeyed to the utmost all the holy will of our most holy God. He places this obedience to their account, as if it were the garment wrought by our own hands. In this they stand at heaven's portals, and the gates fly open. Their plea avails. They are counted befitting inhabitants for the palace of the King of kings - fit partners for His very throne. Sin destroyed creature-righteousness. Jesus brings in a divine righteousness.
But the Gospel-mercy is richer yet. Nature's heart, is, as has been shown, a quarry of vile materials. It cannot be mended. These stones can frame no holy fabric. But grace works wonders. The Holy Spirit comes, and a new creation springs to life. He takes away the stony heart. He creates it gloriously clean. Thus old things pass away. Thus all things become new. The moral desert smiles fruitful and fragrant as Eden's garden. It rejoices and blossoms as the rose - Isa. 35:1. Instead of the thorn comes up the fir-tree - instead of the brier comes up the myrtle-tree - and it is to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off - Isa. 55:13.
The love of God is implanted. Delight in evil is rooted up. Conformity to the image of Jesus is inwrought. Holy communion and holy ways are now the sweet delight. Heaven is longed for, as the realm of perfect purity. The call to cross death's Jordan is welcomed, that sin may be forever left behind, and sinful sounds no longer vex, and sinful sights no longer pain, and sinful temptations no longer trouble. The soul longs for scenes, and company, and atmosphere, where all is love. The believer's wickedness has doubtless been very great - the imaginations of the thoughts of his natural heart have been very evil; but he is born again. Sin made man very vile. The Spirit enters, and a new fabric rises. Blessed be God for His sovereign work of grace! Blessed be God for Jesus and the Spirit!
Reader! this Beacon tells you what man is by nature - what you were by birth. Say, what is your present state?
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(My Note: If someone asks me what I'm reading right now, this is it. Henry Law is one of my favorite authors, and it doesn't matter at all that he wrote in the 1800s. Henry Law loved GOD, GOD'S WORD, and the people he tried to minister to. I really enjoy his bold but caring writing style. I hope and pray that you also enjoy it and follow along in GOD'S WORD.
To be continued.....
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