In' a plate, on my breakfast table were a number of beautiful pears. They were truly pleasant to the sight," and, if one might have formed a judgment thereby, they would also prove "good for food." Indeed everything about them seemed to promise well.
Accordingly, I took one-the finest and the largest-and began to rob it of its skin, that thus I might enjoy the rich and luscious fruit unalloyed and untainted. No sooner, however, had I made an incision, with the keen edge of my knife, than I found that the fruit was rotten. Still, hoping that the surface only had become affected, I sought to cut off the diseased and corrupted part. Yet deep as my blade penetrated and much of the surface as it thus rolled off I had the disappointment to find that the rottenness lay deeper still. Once more the knife was thrust in only to discover the same sorrowful result. At last, hopeless of the case, I plunged it into the core. And what was the result? Rotten still-yes rotten to the very core!
Ah! Methought-that, is man over again. Man is rotten to the core. Nay, the—cure is the most rotten part! For it is "out of the heart of man that evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, and murders proceed." It is the heart that is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." It is the heart therefore that is the seat of the spiritual corruption and rottenness to which I allude, And may I say it. the more deeply the knife of the word of God is applied the more palpable does the inherent and inborn depravity of the heart appear.
How solemn is the mid) that the " carnal mind is enmity against God," and that therefore " they that are in the flesh cannot please God." The will-the heart of the unrenewed man, " is enmity against God," and "is not subject" to Him..
Hence, when we read the history of man from the fall to the cross we find this truth tearfully verified. Let us think of Cain, or of the antedeluvians and recall the plaintive lamentation of the Spirit of God as He declares that " Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually." And thereupon enters the flood, and rolls its deep, dark wave of judgment over the whole horrid scene. A righteous seed,—yet, one that sprang from the loins of fallen Adam. issues from the Ark. And what of it? Rotten still-is the only confession. Look at the pride of Babel and the token of God's displeasure in the confusion of tongues. And mark likewise the idolatrous abominations of those days. When they changed the glory of God into an image-when they worshipped and served the creature, and when they did not like to retain God in -their knowledge. Rom. 1 "And God gave them up."
But He called out one-Abram, whom He loaded with promises. Forth came Abram obedient to the call. From him sprang a nation favored as none other had been, and what of it? Rotten still. For when their Messiah appeared as the Son of Mary, and spoke of His divine origin in a way that could not be misunderstood they took Him and with wicked hands crucified and slew Him. " They killed the Prince of life." And with them were joined the Gentiles. Herod and Pontius Pilate combined in the rejection of God incarnate.
Man hated Him because in faithfulness He testified that his works were evil. And man could not bear the truth. The knife laid bare the moral pollution and disease of the heart. He was shown to be rotten at the core This is no everdrawn picture, no stretch of the imagination. It is the plain declaration of the word of God that the nature of man is " corrupt according to the deceitful lusts." It is no traduction of man's moral character-no insult-no false witness. Pride may object, hut the truth remains. Happy the man who admits it and who, by divine teaching, in company with Job, and Isaiah, and Paul, has learned to say, " I am vile," " I am undone," " I am the chief of sinners."
Happy the man, who, consciously vile, and undone; and sinful, has received that other truth, " when we were, yet without strength Christ died for the ungodly," and who has found in Him " wisdom and -righteousness and sanctification and redemption." He can then afford to be rotten at the core-to own that in himself dwelleth no good thing, for he has found in Another a completeness, 'a soundness, a moral perfection that gives him a standing before God.
Reader, is Christ your righteousness.? J. W. S.