Adam

Adjective: Perfect

It is because of Adam that we have life. God used him as our first father. Adam was made in the image of God, and with the help of his God-given helpmate, they reproduced after their own kind. But it’s also because of Adam’s disobedience that we have what the Bible calls “corruption” throughout the entire creation. Everything miserable traces itself back to Adam and his rebellion.

However, his life gives us a very important evangelistic lesson. Adam’s transgression shows us that sin is something to be looked upon with the utmost solemnity. We say that God is holy, just, and good; that’s He’s morally perfect, but somehow those words don’t carry much depth in our dull and fallen minds. But in criminal court, we can see how “good” a judge is by how seriously he deals with a devious criminal. If he gives him a very light sentence, then the judge thinks lightly of crime; but if he gives him multiple life-sentences, we can see how serious the crime is in the judge’s eyes.

So, we can get a tiny glimpse of God’s goodness and love of justice by seeing how He dealt with one transgressor of His moral Law. Adam’s one seemingly insignificant sin ushered in pain, insanity, suicide, cancer (and thousands of deadly other diseases), killer tornadoes, devastating hurricanes, massive floods, frightening tsunamis, man-eating tigers and sharks, poisonous snake and spiders, alcoholism, starvation, wife-beating, drug addiction, demonic-possession, loneliness, fear, hatred, rape, abortion, blasphemy, murder, torture, wars, theft, racial prejudice, genocide, pedophilia, aging, death, Hell and damnation in the Lake of Fire. And I have just skimmed over the tip of the top of the iceberg of human misery--all because of one man’s transgression of God’s moral demands. Such is the frightening holiness of God. No wonder Isaiah cried “Woe is me, I’m undone!” when he found himself in His presence!

Sin is so terribly serious that it calls for the lightning of His wrath, and if He wasn’t “rich in mercy” we would be instantly struck down the moment we merely entertained the thought of sin—The Psalmist said, “He shall take them away as with a whirlwind, as in His living and burning wrath” (Psalm 58:9). Every time a sinner sins, he stores up God’s wrath that will, like a bursting dam of Eternal Justice, fall upon him on the Day of Judgment.

How soberly should we then preach the message with which Almighty God has entrusted us, never diluting the hennas nature of sin or the surety of judgment. We should never be afraid of the world’s scorn. To even entertain the fear of feeble man (that the Bible refers to as a worm), is to reveal a lack of the fear of Almighty God.

“Wherefore knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Corinthians 5:11).