Jun 28 2010
INTERROGATION GENESIS 3:11
After Adam answered God in the garden of Eden, we cannot know if Adam came out of his hiding place to face the Lord, or whether he stayed where he was. Either way, he had to look on God’s face sooner or later. The human imagination cannot picture the horror of standing before an angry God. Hebrews 10:31 tells us that “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” If human imagination could visualize the face of the living God, human language still could not express it. Falling into the hands of the living God tears one loose from all his supporting thoughts and helpers. A mocker at God is at his worst when he is surrounded by mocking friends.
In the absence of the sight of God’s angry face, the mocker takes great delight in using God’s name in vain, and scoffing at all His works, and leading others in the impudence nad ruin of irreverence. There will be no friends around encouraging him when he stands in the presence of God, the righteous Judge at the Great White Throne (Revelation 22:11ff).
Adam heard the questions of the God Who had been his friend and companion, but was now his Judge. Man must flee to the Lord God when the Lord God is a friend. There is no pardon in the hand of the Judge. Pardons are not handed down from the bench. God was Prosecutor and Judge as He stood with the trembling figure of His erring creature before Him. Adam surely knew the principle laid out in Hebrews 10:30: “For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord will judge his people.” God’s judgment is always right, the criticism of heretics notwithstanding.
Notice that Adam did not object when God said, “. . .I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” God had commanded Adam, and Adam knew that God had a right to command him. Should the Creator not have the right, authority, and power to command His creature? The creature thinks more highly of himself than he ought to think. The creature has a rebellious spirit that makes it very difficult for him to obey. There can be no shame in obeying the Creator. I have never gone wrong when I obeyed the Creator. God’s command was God’s law. The ruler of the universe must have laws in force. Man with a free will must have laws to restrain the use of that free will. Man, contrary to common contemporary belief, does not have the right to do anything he pleases. No living thing on Earth has the right to do everything it pleases.
Corliss Lamont, voice of the humanist religion, wrote, “This means that all teachers and employees in school, college, or university are entitled to full liberty of expression and association.”1 Imagine what a bag of worms that opens up. But humanists are the world’s foremost hypocrites, for they do not practice that principle. I was fired by the Cherokee County School board for exercising my “. . .full liberty of expression…”. My full liberty of expression happened to include teaching my students biblical principles, and that was not approved by the humanist judge who handed down a decree that forbade Alabama school teachers from teaching the Bible in the classroom. Humanists declare that everyone should be able to do whatever he pleases, but they don’t permit it. If they were in full control of all our governmental powers, no one would go to church. Neither would anyone go to church in America if any of the religions in this country were in political control, except for the Protestants and Baptists who are presently in control, and guarantee freedom of religion.
God gave Adam one law. One simple, reasonable law. One law to delineate the position of God and the position of man. God was King and man was subject. That was not unreasonable.
I Corinthians 14:33 says, “. . .God is not the author of confusion but of peace,” and laws are for the purpose of maintaining peace. Even the matter of the universe, every atom is subject to divine law.
God’s question went directly to the heart of the matter. Adam and his precious wife must give an account for their deed. “. . .Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” “What’s the big deal about eating an apple?” the world demands. That we do not know what sort of fruit it was never seems to dawn upon a world that has little patience with the details of spiritual matters. It is this lack of caring for the details of eternal matters that is responsible for deceived souls being deceived. Who cares about the details of evolution as long as we can believe that scales turned into feathers, or the beaks of finches are different.
The big deal is that disobedience to the command of God is the capital crime of the creature with the free will. Sinners go to hell because they disobey the command of God, namely to repent. (Acts 17:30). Disobedience to man’s law may or may not be wrong, for man’s laws are not always based upon God’s laws. But every disobedience to God is wrong.
Adam’s classic answer is recorded to the shame of every man, in verse 12. “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” Beautiful Eve was not now the wife of his bosom. She was the woman that God had given him. This is Adam’s second sin. He is a sinner now, and apt to say evil things. The knowledge of evil has not made him a better man – it has only made him a man with evil propensities. “Woman” is an honorable word. A very devout professor, Miss Ruby Wagner, said in class one day that she hated the word “lady,” and wished that preachers did not feel compelled to call women “ladies.” Jesus called His mother “woman.” The word “woman” is no less honorable than the word “man.” But as Adam used the word in his answer to his Creator, it was dead wrong. When a man refers to his wife as “the old woman,” he is committing a sin against God and his wife. “The ole lady” is no better. Speaking disrespectfully about his wife, indicates that a man has little self-respect, for a man’s wife is his own body. (Ephesians 5:28,29).
Adam did not confess his sin until he had a scapegoat. He laid the fault on his “woman,” and then he confessed. Such a confession is unacceptable, as the subsequent institution of the curse reveals. Repentance is not blaming somebody or something else for our sins, and then confessing them. Repentance is assuming the burden and guilt of our sins ourselves. We must stand in the presence of the almighty Judge open and honest with Him and with ourselves. Everyone will be judged according to their deeds. Parents who neglect their children are guilty of a great crime against God and man, and they will give an account for their abuse of that child at the judgment bar of God. But that does not justify that child for a life of crime against God and man. That child, born condemned, will give an account of his deeds unto the Lord Judge, and God will sentence him on the basis of his works.
All of us, sinner and saint alike, will give an account to God. God will interrogate us. “. . the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” (Revelation 20:12).
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” ( II Corinthians 5:10).
God’s interrogation awaits all of us. I want to be prepared with a Substitute, not a sick excuse.
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1. Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1979), p. 271.