of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” He says in his heart, too, just what Solomon the wise said, when he, too, determined to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
Ay, young people, who love to see the world, and to choose for yourselves, read that Book of Ecclesiastes, the saddest book on earth, and get a golden lesson in every verse of it. See how Solomon determined to see life, from the top to the bottom of it. How he “gave his heart to know, seek, and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit,” (Eccles. i. 13).
And then, how he turned round and gave his heart to know mirth, and madness, and folly, and see whether that was good for him, and, “I said of laughter, it is mad: and of mirth, what doeth it?” (Eccles. ii. 2–26). And then he gave himself to wine and revelling, and after that to riches, and pomp, and glory, and music, and the “fine arts,” as we call them. “I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees: I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me: I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me.” And what was the end? “Then I looked on all the works that my hand had done, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.” Therefore, he says, that he hated all the labour he had taken under the sun, because he must leave it to the men who came after him, and found out at last, after years of labour and sorrow, trying to make himself happy with this and that, and finding no rest with any of them, that the conclusion of the whole matter was to “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil” (Eccles. xii. 13).
So said Solomon—and God knows, my dear friends, God knows, he said truly. Ay, and I know it to be true; and I entreat you this day, in God’s name, to hear the conclusion of the whole matter. All this you will find out by eating of the tree of knowledge, and “seeing life,” and going your own way, and falling into sin, and smarting for it, for weary years, in anxiety and perplexity, and shame, and sorrow of heart.
All that you will find out thereby—all that Solomon found out thereby—is just what you know already, and nothing more—just what you have been taught ever since you could speak. “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” Why buy your own experience dear, when you can get it gratis, for nothing already?
Yes; a simple, godly, industrious life, doing the duty which lies nearest you, avoiding sin as you would an adder, because it is sure sooner or later to sting you, if you touch it, is the straight road, and the only road, to happiness, either in this life, or in the life to come. Pleasure and amusement, drinking and jollity, will not make you happy. Money will not make you happy. Cleverness, and cunning, and knowledge of the world will not make you happy. Scholarship and learning will not. But plain, simple righteousness, simply doing right, will.
Do right then and be happy. Obey God’s commandments, and you will find that His commandments are Life, and in the pathway thereof there is no death.
Make up your minds to do right, to be right, to keep right by the help of God’s Right and Holy Spirit, in the right road. Make up your minds whether you will go through the world in God’s way, or your own way—whether you will taste what God has forbidden, and so destroy yourselves, or obey Him and live with Him in bliss. The longer you delay, the more difficult you will find it. Make up your minds now, and ask God to teach you His own heavenly wisdom which is a Tree of Life to all that lay hold on it.
V. I AM.
“I AM hath sent me into you.”—Exodus iii. 10.
Every day I find it more and more true, that the Bible is full of good news from beginning to end. The Gospel—that is good news—and the best of all good news, is to be found in every book of it; perhaps if we knew how to search the Scriptures, in every chapter and verse of it, from beginning to end. For from beginning to end, from Genesis to Malachi—from the Gospel of St. Matthew to the end of the Revelation—what our Lord said of the Bible stands true: “They (the Scriptures) are they which testify of ME” (John v. 39). The whole Bible testifies, bears witness of Him, the One Unchangeable Christ, who said to Moses, “Say unto the people, I AM hath sent me unto you.”
Now let us think a while what that text means; for it has not to do with Moses only, but with all God’s prophets, evangelists, preachers. David might have said the same to the Jews in his time, “I AM hath sent me unto you.” Elijah, Isaiah, St. Matthew, St. John, St. Paul, might have said the same. And so may God’s ministers now. And I, however sinful, or ignorant, or unfaithful to my duty I may be, have still a right to say, as I do now say solemnly and earnestly to you, “I AM hath sent me unto you” this day.
But what do I mean by that? That ought to depend on what Moses meant by it. Moses meant what God meant, and unless I mean the same thing I must mean something wrong. And this is what I think it does mean:
First. I AM—the Lord Jesus Christ told Moses that his name was I AM. Now you perhaps think that this is but a very common place name, for every one can say of himself—I am—and it may seem strange that God should have chosen for His own especial name, words which you and I might have chosen for ourselves just as well. I daresay you think that you may fairly say “you are,” and that I can say fairly that “I am.”
And yet it is not so. If I say “I am,” I say what is not true of me. I must say “I am something—I am a man, I am bad, or I am good, or I am an Englishman, I am a soldier, I am a sailor, I am a clergyman”—and then I shall say what is true of me. But God alone can say “I AM” without saying anything more.
And why? Because God alone is. Everybody and everything else in the world becomes: but God is. We are all becoming something from our birth to our death—changing continually and becoming something different from what we were a minute before; first of all we were created and made, and so became men; and since that we have been every moment changing, becoming older, becoming wiser, or alas! foolisher; becoming stronger or weaker; becoming better or worse. Even our bodies are changing and becoming different day by day.
But God never changes or becomes anything different from what He is now. What He is, that He was, and ever will be. God does not even become older. This may seem very strange, but it is true: for God made Time, God made the years; and once there were no years to count by, no years at all. Remember how long had God Himself been, before He made Time, when there was no Time to pass over? Remember always that God must have created Time. If God did not create Time, no one else did; for there is, as the Athanasian Creed says, “One uncreated and One eternal,” even God who made Time as well as all things else.
Am I puzzling you? What I want to do is to make you understand that God’s life is quite utterly different from our life, or any way of living and being which we can fancy or think of; lest you make to yourselves the likeness of anything in heaven above or of the earth beneath, and think that God is like that and so worship it, and have other gods beside the true God, and so break the first and second commandments, as thousands do who fancy themselves good
