Page 39 - The Divine Unfolding of God's Plan of Redemption

that can only be answered in the negative. It is an utter impossibility for man “haply
[to] feel after Him and find Him” (Acts 17:27), unless God graciously slips His hand
into the groping hand and leads the seeker home. In the laws of mathematical

permutations and combinations there are not enough chances to admit of one
possibility of the erring human stumbling unconducted into God‟s only way of
justification.

The former regent king and queen, now the vassals of the dragon, becoming aware
of the approach of the Holy One with Whom they had previously held happy
communion, and realizing the inadequacy of their self-made garments to protect their
spiritual nakedness from the searching glance of Omniscience, betake themselves

hastily and tremblingly to the additional cover of the trees.

How strangely different everything has become! The only difference, however,
lies not on the side of the Creator. He remains the same—majestic, merciful, holy. His

mercy impels Him to seek His children. His holiness compels Him to pronounce the
judgment and curse which inevitably come as a result of sin. Happily for our first
parents this was not the final assize. The final judgment upon man never comes until
he has rejected the way of escape that God has provided.

The scene will one day be re-enacted on a vastly larger scale. Having come once
to seek and to save that which was lost, to give His life a ransom for many, He will
come in judgment on those who have insisted on clinging to their fig-leaf garments

and have spurned the robe of His preparing. Then there will be a great and
panic-stricken scurrying about and a seeking for cover in the dens and rocks of the
mountains, and a desperate entreaty to the mountains and the rocks—“Fall on us and
hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the

Lamb, for the great day of His wrath is come!”

Ah, dear friends, far better that like Moses we hide ourselves in the cleft of the
rock before a Holy God passes over. Only then can we be left unscathed. In this

connection the words of the old hymn take on new meaning:

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in THEE.

“And this rock was Christ,” once smitten for us, and from which flows the
life-giving stream of eternal life.

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