Isa. 35:1

"The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them, And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose" Isa. 35:1

Jonathan Edwards in his great sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" asserts that the earth, animals, and plants long to kick man off the face of earth - man is that far from the
perfection that God created. It seems that I came upon a few people who did not like that idea. First, they said, the earth is not a person and thus has no emotions or thinking ability to WANT to kick man off. Second, they said, man is not that bad.

In light of today's verse, I propose that the earth DOES have emotions. Isaiah says that the wilderness and the desert will be glad - glad for what? They will be glad for the return of the
Messiah as He sets the earth aright. He continues to say that the desert or "Arabia" - the great southern desert separating Israel from Egypt - will rejoice and blossom. Sure sounds like
emotion to me; don't you agree? Isaiah continues with other personifications of the earth and its natural inhabitants and how they will be glad at the return of the Messiah's reign. Allow me to show you with another scripture: "For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now" Rom. 8:19-22

Paul tells us that the whole of creation is straining under the sins of man and is longing for the day it will be delivered from that burden. Indeed, Mr. Edwards was a powerful preacher
with a very deep insight into the ways of God.

Unfortunately, man today does not have that great insight. We, as a whole, believe that we have the ability to fix ourselves and the world. We follow the example of Benjamin Franklin who
thought he could master thirteen "virtues" and thus become nearly perfect. He failed. And even if he succeeded to become "nearly" perfect, that would not have been good enough to get him into Heaven. Only that which is absolutely perfect can stand before the unstained God of the Universe. No man is that good.

Only through the application of the cleansing blood of Jesus can we be made pure enough, whole enough, perfect enough to stand in God's presence. Fortunately, THAT perfection is attainable to those who believe and are willing to die to them selves and live for Jesus and Him alone. Only then will we find that creation is willing to support us and yield to our control. Until that day, the day we ALL are purified by Jesus' sacrifice, the earth would rather cease producing gravity and fling us out into the universe. As Edwards said, we are here only because of the grace of God, and an angry God at that. Amen.