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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 60. The Hebrew Nation,—The First Messenger-Body, and to Be the Last
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The Hebrew Nation,—The First Messenger-Body, and to Be the Last
Eden is God's picture of His plan for man. He gave Himself that the man might be in His image, of the same spirit; so they had sweet fellowship. They walked and worked and lived together, before the sad break came. The record of the next two thousand years is packed into four or five leaves of the Bible. It is a wondrous story of the patient, infinitely patient, working of God to preserve the race. Left to itself sin would have quickly burned the life of the race quite out. The problem was to fight sin, and yet preserve man and his freedom of action.
Five steps toward the solution of that problem are noted. There is a restraint put upon the man, first. He is turned out of the Eden life. That which is his is kept from him. It must not be tainted by the sin he has allowed into his life. It will be kept for his enjoyment in a future day. Then when the first man born gave vent to his passion of sin he is removed from the others. It was a bit of moral quarantine against contagion. But personal attractiveness blurred moral distinctions, the quarantine was disregarded, and again sin was rampant. [Note: Gen_6:1-5.]
Then the Flood came. It was a measure of preservation. By removing all, except a seed of good, the race might still be preserved in spite of its sinfulness. Being left alone would mean self-destruction in time. So sin always works. When again sin was heading up, in a great God-ignoring, self-magnifying effort, again a restraint was placed upon man's ability to combine, and he was scattered. [Note: Gen_11:1-9.]
About two hundred years later an additional step was taken by God. Little by little, but very surely, the light of God, that lighteth every man, was being obscured. Man was shutting his eyes. His hold on light was loosing more and more. The next step was a wondrous one in its wisdom and patience. Special provision was made for keeping the light in its purity and fulness among men. A man is led away from his kinsfolk to a life of utter isolation, living among people but utterly separate from them. This man is wooed away and encouraged by great promises. His seed is builded into a nation.
The rest of the Old Testament is occupied with the story of this national preserver and holder of the light. The Book is not concerned directly with the story of the race, but with the story of the light,—man's efforts to shut it out, God's patience and faithfulness in preserving it, and yet never interfering with man's full freedom of action. The action of the Book from the call of Abraham swings almost wholly, if not wholly, about the Hebrew nation, until its utter failure, in killing its Messiah; after that, it swings about its successor—the Church.