Sin, and What Man Lost by It by Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 24, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 37.

Sin, and What Man Lost by It

By Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle

“NOW,” says one, “I never could see the justice in punishing Adam so severely, just for committing one little sin,—only eating an apple!”

But let us reason for a moment. If we take into consideration the vastness of the benefits bestowed upon Adam, and compare these with the trifling prohibition laid upon him, we stand amazed.

All the myriad trees of the garden freely given him, with only one reservation! What better terms could even infinite wisdom and love have made?

Suppose God had reserved all the trees in the garden, and given to Adam only one. But even then He would only have been exercising His just prerogative as Creator.

Or suppose Adam and Eve had taken the fruit to satisfy their hunger, which they had no other means of appeasing. But they were neither hungry nor thirsty nor in want. Every need had been supplied by the hand of their loving and thoughtful Creator. Every wish of their heart had been anticipated.

The means for satisfying the demands of the most fastidious appetite were scattered about them in lavish profusion.

The most perfect beauty appeared everywhere,—beauty of tint and color, of form and feature. The music of the most beautiful song-birds entranced their senses. Nor do I apprehend that their ears were strangers to the ravishing music of the angel choirs.

And in return for all this prodigality of gifts, God asked but one thing. He did not ask man to perform some great deed, or to purchase this munificent estate by hard labor. In fact, God did not ask the least service of Adam.

He simply asked him to refrain from doing just one thing, and that a thing which of itself would present the very least temptation imaginable.

Had Been Warned of Consequences

Besides, the Almighty told them plainly just what the dire consequences would be if they did not obey His word.

Suppose some great king had presented me with ten thousand dollars in gold, and should only ask that one dollar remain untouched.

What would you think of the ingratitude which would prompt me to covet and actually to appropriate even this dollar to my own use?

One would think that pure gratitude alone, even with no other reason, would have prompted the man to be obedient. God had given him everything. Satan had given him nothing. Yet man voluntarily chose to disobey God; and as if that were not enough, he went over to the arch-enemy of God and righteousness, and joined forces with His implacable foe. Man turned his back upon his best Friend.

Contradicting the Almighty

For one man to call another man a liar, is accounted one of the grossest insults that it is possible to offer him.

Let us see if a like insult was not offered to the God of heaven: God had said in reference to the Tree of Knowledge, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

But Satan insinuates his ugly presence in the form of a serpent, and at once begins, in wily, subtle speech to contradict the word of the Lord. “And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die”—a flat contradiction! And—O, the ingratitude of it!—they took the word of the arch-fiend, in preference, and directly against, the word of the Eternal—their best Friend! Think of it, all ye who, with sentimental pity, condone the monstrous sin of the man and the woman in Eden—think of it, and wonder in amazement at the long-suffering and mercy of Him whose outraged kindness would call for sterner words and severer punishment.

And even yet, as if in haste to spare them suffering, God gives them at ONCE a blessed hope in the promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent.

Satan’s Masterpiece Perpetuated

But that first lie of Satan’s in Eden, was so successful that he considers it his masterpiece, even yet. And well he may. And hence he has industriously and insidiously whispered the same lie into the willing ears of every generation of men which has peopled the earth since Adam’s time: “Thou shalt not surely die.”

How well has he succeeded? Paganism and Papacy, Mariolatry and saint-worship, Spiritualism, witchcraft, ancestor-worship, and a thousand and one offshoots of these tap-root errors,—all bear undeniable witness to his tremendous and calamitous success. And thus we find cropping out everywhere the idea that when a man dies, he is not dead!

Then what shall you and I believe? I answer, Believe the plain word of the Almighty; and when Satan suggests to us that there is some undying principle in man that is by nature immortal and that can never die, repeat to him the words of the One who created man, and who surely must know best: “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Was not this a strange thing for the Almighty to declare, if He knew there was a principle in man which could not die to all eternity?

Man was created a candidate for immortality. God had said, “Obey and live; disobey and die.” By yielding to sin, man forfeited eternal life. He lost, also, his innocence and his inheritance.

The mission of Christ was to buy all these infinite blessings back again—for us.

If we have faith in Him, we need not perish. Otherwise there is no hope for us.

“God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

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