p. 165 | Untitled article by H. F. Phelps

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 18, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 11.

GOD'S OBJECT LESSONS. NO. 1.

By H. F. Phelps

IN these days of advancement in the art of teaching, it is found useful, in order to impress a lesson upon the young mind, to give object lessons to illustrate the truth or lesson to be taught, so it will not be soon forgotten. It seems to me, as I read the Bible, that God understood the value of this object-lesson system, and uses it with telling force, in objects, symbols, and parables, and this, no doubt, because of the natural hardness of the human heart, and our danger, and perhaps desire, of forgetfulness. These lessons show us the nature and result of sin, and how our God hates sin, and cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance or approbation in any of his creatures. And also that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him.

Let us look at some of these object lessons. Our God loves the beautiful. So he made the world, and adorned it; he planted a garden, making it still more beautiful; he placed a happy pair in the garden to dress it, and to keep it. Everything to be desired was theirs. God and angels met with them, and became man's instructors. But the Creator would test their loyalty to Heaven. He laid but one restriction upon them: of one tree they must not eat. It was a small thing, but it was enough to test their love for God. God loved them. He withdrew from them no good thing. But, how sad! They sinned; they ate of the tree. Then came the first great object lesson, to show how God hates sin.

They are driven out of the garden. They can no longer walk in its shady bowers. No more can they pluck its delicious fruit. No more listen to the merry songsters of their Paradise home, as they flit from tree to tree and warble their songs of praise. The garden itself is taken away from the earth. God withdraws himself, his very presence, from them. He no longer talks with them face to face. They have sinned; his presence, his light, and his glory, is so far removed from them, and from the world, that a sense of chilliness pervades the air. Their covering of glory is gone, and they tremble with the cold. The cold grows more intense and disagreeable. The very scenes of nature feel the cold. The leaves of the trees, before evergreen, now fade and die. The frosts increase till parts of the earth are covered with a mantle of snow, and bound in chains of ice. The grass and flowers fade and die. The beasts of earth join in the wail of woe, and lie down and die. And man himself, made in the image of his Maker, dies. Storm after storm arises, dark clouds gather; we see the dread lightnings flash, and the roar of the deafening thunder. The earth itself heaves to and fro, and earthquakes rend its fair bosom. Ragged rocks and deep chasms are to be seen. And as if the very bowels of earth would come forth in the grief of nature, the angry fire, smoke, and lava of volcanoes, send destruction in their wake.

All this has been seen by man so many, many years, that we look upon it as a thing of nature itself. But it is nature out of joint because of sin. It is God's great object lesson, hung up in the very earth, sea, and air, in the groans of creation; the beasts, and birds, and man, all join in the wail of woe—all because of sin.

And our world hangs in the heavens as an object lesson for the unnumbered worlds, speaking with a voice louder than thunder tones that our God hates sin. Happy is the man that will read the lesson, take it to his heart, and live with a wise reference to the coming day. H. F. PHELPS.