After Eden—Thorns and Thistles
1s if ORNS also and thistles shall it bring forth.” ie This was not the penalty which might have been pronounced upon Adam. This curse does not fall directly on him; it glances obliquely, and falls upon the ground whereon he stands: “Cursed is the ground for thy sake.” /lt is not from materialism that a curse comes upon the spirit of man; bt it is from the erring spirit that the curse falls upon the material creation. Let us notice this, and learn from it the infinite mercy of God, in that, while the curse falls upon the serpent distinctly, and his head is bruised, yet upon Adam it comes obliquely. “Cursed is the ground for thy sake.” “Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” God in His justice never goes beyond justice even in pronouncing His severest sentence; but here in this life He tempers His justice with great patience and longsuffering, “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
Another thing is very noticeable, that though the ground was now to bear thorns and thistles to Adam, yet he was to be above ground, and alive to till it. Had the sentence been carried out to the full, a yawning grave would have opened at his feet, and there would have been no more of Adam; but he was permitted still to live. Now, whenever thorns and thistles spring up about your path, do not murmur. “Wherefore doth a “ving man complain?” When a felon lies in the dungeon, and the sentence of death has been passed upon him, if his life is spared, he may be quite content to live on bread and water for the rest of his days. Thank God that you are not in hell; thank God that life is still prolonged to you. You are on praying ground and pleading terms with God, even though that ground may bring forth thorns and thistles to you. “He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.” We are still spared; and though there are thorns and thistles springing up around us, yet, still, that is a light punishment compared with what we really deserve to suffer.
Notice how sweetness can be extracted from that which is sour. If the ground was to bring forth thorns and thistles to Adam, then he was still to live, Not only was he alive, but he was still to live on, for the Lord added, “And thou shalt eat the herb of the field.” Although the sentence took away from Adam the luscious fruits of Paradise, yet it secured him a livelihood. He was to live; the ground was to bring forth enough of the herb of the field for him to continue to exist. Albeit that henceforth all he ate was to be with the sweat of his face, yet still he was to have enough to eat, and he was to live on. Thorns and thistles might multiply; but there would be the herb of the field for him, and he would be spared. The promises of God are often veiled by His threatenings; and if faith can only look beneath the rough covering of the message, something cheerful and hopeful may be found within. You will have trials, thorns also and thistles shall the ground bring forth to you; but your bread shall be given you, your waters
shall be sure. You have been provided for until now, notwithstanding many straits and trials: and it shall be so to the end. The manna shall not cease till you eat the old corn of Canaan. Till you want no more, God will not cease to feed you all your life long.
I should like to say to those who have their portion in this life, that it is not much of a portion. “Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth”; and, if this is all you have, you have a very poor pittance to live
upon.
‘There is beyond the sky
A heaven of joy and love;”
but beneath the sky there is no such heaven. Even for the godly there are thorns and thistles; but for you who are not godly, thorns and thistles are all that you have. If you have no heritage on the other side of Jordan, in the Land of the hereafter, in the Dwelling-place of the blessed, it were better for you that you had never been born. Notwithstanding all the transient delights that you now possess, they will only be as the crackling of thorns under a pot, soon over, and nothing but a handful of ashes left in everlasting darkness. Oh, that you would learn from this not to set your affection upon things below, but to be looking for a better and a brighter land, where the thorn never grows, and the thistle never springs up!
Ever since that first sin of our first parents, this has been generally true of the whole human race, not only of the earth literally, but of everything else round about us, “Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.”
It is so with regard to the natural world. This world is full of beauty; it is full of light; it yields a thousand pleasures; but still it is full of terror. There is much, indeed, to distress the frail mortals who live in this world. Have you ever been to sea in a storm? Have you not felt as if Nature were at war with you then? Have you never been on the land in some tremendous thunderstorm, when the whole earth seemed to shake, and the skies were split with the fiery bolts? Ah, then you have felt that this world is not quite a paradise since man has become a sinner! The stars of heaven do not fight for him, but they sometimes fight against him. There are many things in this world, with its stern laws, that make it a place that has not all the comfort that a creature might wish. He is a sinful creature; and although he does not suffer all the discomfort that he deserves, yet this world is changed from what it was when God placed Adam in it to delight himself in Paradise.
As it is in the natural world, so it is in the soczal world. You go out into the wide world of trade and business, and I think you find that thorns also and thistles does it bring forth. You do not have a week’s dealing, a week’s work, a week’s going to and fro in this world without getting a pricking thorn here and there. / If we do not all have to complain of this experience, I think we who are Christians will all admit that the world is not congenial to a believing man or woman./ The society of the world is not helpful to a holy heart. / To have to mix in it is rather a task, for which we need much grace, as we cry, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” You can-. not have much to do with the men of the world without finding that many of them are sharper than a thorn hedge; and you cannot go to and fro in the earth without discovering that you are surrounded by those who make thorns and thistles to grow up all around you. Be not surprised when this is the case, for it is only what your Lord foretold: “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”
It is the same, also, in the religious world. We read, in the Book of Hosea, that they turned aside from God, and set up altars; and afterwards it is said, “The thorns and the thistles shall come up on their altars.” The worst thorns and thistles that ever wound my heart are those that grow in religious circles. To see God’s truth dishonoured, to have the glory of Christ’s substitution denied, to hear doctrines preached which would be novel if they were not old errors new vamped, and brought forth from the oblivion in which they deserved to rot, and to see Christian people behave themselves as some of them do, having little respect to the name of Him whom they profess to serve, and bringing discredit on the sacred cause for which they ought to be willing to die rather than to cast a slur upon it, these are thorns and thistles that pierce us to the very heart. You can neither live in the church nor live in the world without finding that this present state of life brings forth thorns and thistles to men, ay, to Christian men, too! Not only to the first Adam and to his seed, but to the second Adam and to his seed, this present state has this as one of its certain characteristics, “Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.”