Too Much Too Soon

Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, God has granted me another child in the place of Abel, since Cain killed him, Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time men began to call on the name of the LORD.

Genesis 4:25-26

These names are most suggestive: Seth means appointed. Eve said, I will call him 'Appointed' because God has appointed another son to take the place of Abel. When the man of faith is taken out of the world, God's work does not end; He raises up another. I have been very impressed by the epitaph on the tomb of John Wesley in Westminster Abbey in London. God buries His workman, but He carries on His work. And here, too, the work of God is going forward. He appoints another son.

The name of Seth's son was Enosh, which means mortal. Here is suggested the idea that in the midst of this Cainite civilization, with its proud refusal to recognize the canker eating away at the heart of humanity and its desire to achieve falsely the luxuries and comforts that God designs, there were yet those who recognized their mortality, and, thus, their dependence upon God. There were those who took God's narrow way, and, as the account goes on to say, they began to call on the name of the LORD. They recognized that God must heal our hearts before we can have all the things that our urges cry out for, that the cancer within us must be dealt with before we can begin to live.

From the start, the Scriptures take pains to point out to us that there are only two ways to live. There is the broad way, which many are taking, which looks so logical but leads to destruction; and there is the narrow way, which begins at the point where an individual stands alone before God and must make a decision, the narrow way that leads unto life, as God intended life to be lived (Matthew 7:13-14). Which way are you taking?

Young people are facing the siren call of the world, with its appeal to luxury, comfort, ease, achievement, and acquisitiveness. It is not that Christians cannot use these things. Paul tells us we are to use, but not abuse, the things of the world (see 1 Corinthians 10:23ff.). But throughout the Scriptures we are warned, Do not love the world or anything in the world (1 John 2:15). Do not make anything in the world the center around which you build your life. If this is all-important to you, you are doomed. Jesus said that if you try to save your life on these terms, you will lose it, but if you lose your life for His sake, you will save it (Matthew 16:24-25).

Let God heal the sickness of the human heart with its hunger for self-centeredness and self-exaltation through the working of the gospel, through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ; then you can begin to live. It is the way that leads to life—life as God intended it. It may be that this life will not include in it luxuries and comforts, but they are down the line somewhere. God has these in mind for all His people. All that the heart hungers after will ultimately be supplied in Jesus Christ.

Lord, I choose to take the narrow path—the one that may not be the easy way, but it is the way that leads to life.