ADAM–WHERE ARE YOU?
“And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where are you? Genesis 3:9
Adam and Eve had sinned. They had eaten of the forbidden fruit, and the immediate result of sin was that “they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden,” Genesis 3:8.
In our human reasoning we might ask why Adam would not have gone crying throughout the garden– “Lord where are you?” Adam should have fallen before the Lord crying out, “I have sinned. Oh, Lord, forgive me; I have sinned!” Adam should have confessed God’s justice, and pleaded for mercy, but Adam fled from God.
One would have expected to hear Adam cry out like Job, “Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might even come to his seat! I would order my cause before him and fill my mouth with arguments. Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hides himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him,” Job 23:3-9.
Even though Adam fled from the Lord, the Lord called unto Adam, “Where are you?” In our fall in Adam, we would never return unto the Lord. The first cry is the voice of the Holy Spirit, through grace–“Sinner, where are you?” A lost sheep will never return to the fold unless sought out by The Great Shepherd.
We are taught this by David where he cried unto the Lord, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments,” Psalm 119:176. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way,” Isaiah 53:6. Man can commit iniquity, but it takes grace to know it is iniquity, or to feel the guilt of it.
Sin poisons the conscience putting it painlessly to sleep, as drugs do the mind. Sinners sleep painlessly into death as a man freezing to death, until God arouses the conscience saying, “Adam, where are you?” “Awake you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light” Ephesians 5:14. It is not until God calls, “Sinner, where are you,” that we feel pain from sin.
The prodigal son felt no pain from his sin until he came to himself. “And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!” Luke 15:17. As with the prodigal son, “the goodness of God leads you to repentance,” Romans 2:4. The goodness of God convinces of sin, 2 Samuel 12:7-10; 13.
The Lord is calling to you today saying, “Sinner, where are you?” I have so often spared you when you were in danger, and in sickness, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me,” Revelation 3:20.
Today, is the Lord saying to you, “Sinner, where are you?” I have given you a godly mother who cared for you and prayed for you. I gave you a God-fearing father who has so earnestly prayed for your conversion. Does not this “goodness of God” lead you to repentance, which is a change of mind? Amen.
No matter how far you feel you have drifted from God He is never more than a prayer away.
“You will seek me and find me when you search for me with your whole heart” Jeremiah 29:13.
Respectfully.
Dr Robert Bryant