By
A. W. Tozer
Before the Lord God made man upon the earth He first
prepared for him by creating a world of useful and pleasant things
for his sustenance and delight. In the Genesis account of the
creation these are called simply ‘things.’ They were made for man’s
uses, but they were meant always to be external to the man and
subservient to him. In the deep heart of the man was a shrine where
none but God was worthy to come. Within him was God; without, a
thousand gifts which God had showered upon him.
But sin has introduced complications and has made those very gifts
of God a potential source of ruin to the soul.
Our woes began when God was forced out of His central shrine and
‘things’ were allowed to enter. Within the human heart ‘things’ have
taken over. Men have now by nature no peace within their hearts, for
God is crowned there no longer, but there in the moral dusk stubborn
and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on
the throne.
This is not a mere metaphor, but an accurate analysis of our real
spiritual trouble. There is within the human heart a tough fibrous
root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess.
It covets ‘things’ with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns ‘my’
and ‘mine’ look innocent enough in print, but their constant and
universal use is significant. They express the real nature of the
old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do.
They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our
hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one
rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a
development never originally intended. God’s gifts now take the
place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the
monstrous substitution.
Our Lord referred to this tyranny of things when He said to His
disciples, ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and
take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life
shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall
find it.’ (Matthew 16:24-25).
