The Graciousness of God!

I have been spending some time in my study recently preparing messages for some Gospel meetings that I hope to conduct very shortly, in God's will. One of the messages that I am working on is entitled 'Where did it all go wrong?' and as the title would suggest I will be taking a look at the fall of Adam into sin.

As I have studied for this message I have, once again, been struck by the Graciousness of God. As I'm sure you well know God gave Adam only one law to obey when he placed him in the garden of Eden. 'But 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.' This was a very clear and simple command. Adam could eat apples from the apple tree, he could eat plums from the plum tree, he could the eat pears from the pear tree, but he must not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Of course, you know the story, the serpent beguiled Eve and she took the forbidden fruit and then Adam, who was not deceived like Eve, knowingly disobeyed God's one simple rule. At this point the whole human family and indeed the whole earth was plunged into sin, death and destruction.

At this point God would have been well within His rights to bring swift and terrible judgement upon Adam. Adam knew the consequences of his disobedience, DEATH. That's what God had said would be the consequence. In one sense that consequence did begin because Adams' hitherto perfect body would have begun to break down and die. But death in God's eyes is much more than mere physical death, there is a spiritual dimension, there is a broken relationship with God which ultimately means eternal separation for the sinner in the Lake of Fire, which is the second death.

This is where I was struck by the Graciousness of God. Even though God could have brought immediate sentence He didn't. He came looking for His estranged creature calling to him 'Where art thou?' God never asks a question to get information, He know everything perfectly, what He wanted was a confession, an admission of guilt.
God next asks 'Hast thou eaten of the tree?' How Gracious of God to come seeking a confession from His fallen creature.

But that's not the end of God's Gracious dealing with Adam for once He gets the confession of sin He provides a promise of a child that would one day be born to deal with the deceitful devil and make a way back to Himself for sinners. To paint a picture of what this promised child would do God killed an Innocent animal and skined it to provide a covering for Adam and Eve's nakedness. What a picture of the work of the Lord Jesus God's Son, He was Innocent and yet He died on the cross to provide a covering for our sin.

How gracious is God? How merciful is God? How longsuffering is God? He could have carried out immediate justice on Adam but he didn't, He could have carried out immediate justice on me but he didn't, He could have carried out immediate justice on you but He hasn't. What a Gracious God!

'The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,' Exodus 34 v 6