I only recently got turned on to S. Lewis Johnson. I heard that John MacArthur listens to this man's messages more than he listens to anyone else. That piqued my curiosity of course. The hullabaloo turned out to be warranted. Here is a snapshot of a message I listened to by S. Lewis Johnson over Genesis 3:8-19.
Listen to the full message HERE.
Now, you have to have a sense of humor to think of man as a civilized being today, but nevertheless there are people who think that, that is true. We might illustrate these two views by using what one theologian has called a simple little contrast of the Roman Coliseum and a modern ranch house. Ranch houses incidentally are not so popular today in Texas as they used to be perhaps, but nevertheless, we are all familiar with them. The Coliseum, many of us has seen and it is even in its ruins a spectacular, awe inspiring building, suggesting the greatness of Rome that was past, but it is a ruin. We look at it and we see the magnificence that characterize the Rome of the past, and in one sense that is a beautiful picture of man, at least from the biblical standpoint. On the other hand, there is the modern ranch house. A modern ranch house is a very attractive building, it is neat, it is comfortable, it has one advantage that a Coliseum does not have. It's beautifully adapted for expansion and consequently, additions to it may be made so that all of the fondest dreams of those that own them might be realized providing they have the funds.
In a sense, these two models are two models of men. There is the Coliseum, this tremendous awe inspiring building that suggests the greatness of the past, but now at last in ruins and the modern ranch house which grows, as families grow and becomes larger and more significant as the years go by. Shall we understand man by the model of the Coliseum or by the modern ranch house. Shall we understand it by Adam or shall we understand it by Pithecanthropus Erectus? The Scriptures of course decide for the former. That is, the Coliseum is a beautiful picture of man because man does have an awe inspiring, spectacular origin at the hands of God, a magnificent being intellectually, morally in all aspects of his being beautiful. He came from the hands of God and God himself said with reference to him that he was very good. But man is now in ruin as a result of what happened in the Garden of Eden.
Do you see the world around you Biblically as one fading in glory or do you see it blasphemously as one growing in glory as we go forward?
We are daily dulling the wonderful way in which we were designed and made.
We are not advancing the ball down the field.
We're not almost there.
We're lost and wandering further from camp.
...The impulse to hide from God is natural to human nature. If you feel it, if it is in your heart at this present time, if there is something within you that is saying, I wish I didn't have to listen to the sermon by Dr. Johnson this morning. Well it may be that it is something of that same innate, impulse of man to flee from the presence of the Lord, not that I am the Lord, but here is the word of God speaking and we want to flee from it, because our minds, our hearts, our emotions are all oppose to the word of God and the truth of God.
We still flee from the presence of God. The hiding places are more sophisticated and the coverings are more elaborate, but we still hide by nature our hearts from the holiness of God.
I love getting new dead mentors.
I'm fascinated that someone could have so much material recorded and filed away for me to mine.
How could I never have heard of him before?
Either way, I'm enjoying hearing much from him now.
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