Drawing a Line in the Sand

We know what it means to “draw a line in the sand.” We have either done that ourselves or have seen it done, figuratively speaking, when we have given someone every opportunity to change course and they have not. We may not have literally stood on the sand and taken a stick and drawn a line in a the sand, but we know what it means.

If we fast-track back to the beginning of time, Adam and Eve walked in the garden in the cool of the day in perfect fellowship with God. But one day, Eve walked away from her husband long enough to be tempted and to partake of the only tree that was forbidden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and she served it up to her husband, who knowingly partook and fell with her.

It was a devastating moment for the whole world. Sin had entered and a Savior, a sacrifice for sin, was going to be needed. Three short chapters after the record of the fall, wickedness and violence had increased so much that God said His spirit would not always strive (plead) with man.

And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man,

For that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years…

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth,

And that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Genesis 6:3, 4

We have a gracious, merciful, longsuffering, loving God whose hand is outstretched still for man to repent and receive Him. But the day is coming when His spirit will no longer strive. The line in the sand will be drawn.

(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee:     behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)

2 Corinthians 6:2

God is ready to assume full responsibility

for the life wholly yielded to Him.

Andrew Murray