Genesis 3:9

Genesis 3:9

I. Note here the anticipative sentence of the human conscience pronouncing doom on itself. The guilty rebel hides from the Divine Presence.

II. The inexorable call which brings him immediately into the Divine Presence.

III. The bringing to light of the hidden things of darkness.

The soul has many hiding-places. There are: (1) The hiding-place of self-complacent propriety; (2) the hiding-place of the reasoner; (3) the hiding-place of theological dogmas. But the true hiding-place for the soul is Jesus.

W. Hay Aitken, Mission Sermons,2nd series, p. 1.

I. The speaker is God; the person spoken to is the representative of us all.

II. The call is: (1) individual; (2) universal.

III. God calls in three ways: (1) in conscience; (2) in providence; (3) in revelation.

IV. His call is: (1) to attention; (2) to recognition of God's being; (3) to reflection on our own place and position.

V. It is a call which each must answer for himself, and which each ought to answer without delay.

C. J. Vaughan, Penny Pulpit,No. 3263.

Here God asks an important question: "Where art thou?" (1) Where are you? are you in God's family or out of it? When you are baptised, you are put into God's family upon certain conditions that you will do certain things; and it depends upon you how you live, because if you do not love God you cannot be God's child. (2) Supposing you are one of God's children, "Where art thou?" near to thy Father or far from Him? because some children are nearer to their fathers than others. Mary and Martha were sisters, and they were both Christians, but one was much nearer to Christ than the other. Mary sat at Jesus' feet, Martha was "troubled about many things." If we delight to tell Jesus everything, then we shall be near God. (3) Are you in the sunshine or the shade? If you follow Christ you will always be in the sunshine, because He is the Sun. (4) Are you in the path of duty? Are you where you ought to be? The path of duty is a narrow path, sometimes a steep path. God could say to many of us, as He said to Elijah, "What doest thou here?" thou art out of the path of duty. (5) How have you progressed? The surest way to know that we get on is to be very humble. When the wheat is ripe it hangs down; the full ears hang the lowest.

J. Vaughan, Sermons to Children,1875, p. 177.

References: Genesis 3:9. J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year,vol. iii., p. 129; J. Van Oosterzee, The Year of Salvation,vol. i., p. 5; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. vii., No. 412; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines of Sermons(1887), p. 276.