The Psalm of Creation: the Sixth Day - the Creation of Man
S. Conway Psalm 104:23 Man goes forth to his work and to his labor until the evening. We ask - I. WHY DID GOD CREATE MAN? Many think that life is not worth living. Existence is so much pure misfortune. The denial of the Christian faith and hopeless pessimism seem ever to go together. But a preliminary question may be asked - Why did God create anything? II. WE REPLY: 1. God is love, and one necessity of such nature is that he should find objects on which to lavish that love. It cannot remain unexercised. Creation, therefore, seemed to be a necessity of love. 2. But another need is that such love should meet with response. Love yearns for response, to be met by an answering love. But this involved the necessity of the creation of beings who should not be moved by mere instinct, but should possess mind, intelligence, and the capacity of love. Hence was requisite something more than any of the already created inhabitants of the seas, the air, or the land, could supply. A different, a higher being had to be brought into existence; man was needed, since he only could render the response the heart of the Creator desired. All other creatures could obey the laws of their being; man could love the Law giver. 3. And yet another craving of the Divine love, as of all like pure love, is for worthy response. It cannot bear that the response it yearns for should be given to inferior objects; it desires to be chosen and preferred above all these. But such worthy response of deliberate choice can only be made when counter objects of attraction are present. Therefore, that such choice may be possible for us, we are placed in a world where all around us are myriad lures and baits appealing to all sides of our nature, and many of them with mighty power. Hence is it that the love of his people is so precious in his esteem, for it means that they have turned their backs upon all these rivals of God, and have given to him the love he asks for and deserves. 4. And even this low is capable of enhancement in his esteem. It is so when, as with Job, it clings to God in spite of sorest trial and distress; when the man is in the very depths, when to all outward appearance everything is lost and thrown away by such clinging to God; when it has to hang on by naked faith, as at some time or other it has had to do in all God's saints, and with some of them, as in the martyr ages, it has had to be always so. But love like that, oh how precious is it! how grateful to the heart of God! We can understand somewhat of this when some dear child of ours, rather than grieve or disappoint us, has readily endured persecution and pain. What do we not think of that child? What proof of our love will we withhold from him? 5. But such proof of our love, or of that of God, cannot be given unless there has been the previous trial. And that is why we are placed in a world of trial, often cruel, prolonged, and severe. We are thus given the opportunity of winning the highest prizes of the kingdom of God. Hence man has to go "forth to his work, and to his labour until the evening" Life is no child's play for him, no place of mere sensuous enjoyment. If he chooses to make it so, he shuts himself out of the kingdom of God. No cross, no crown. Only so can we win back the image of God in which we were first created. This is "the prize of our high calling." - S.C. Parallel Verses KJV: Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening. WEB: Man goes forth to his work, to his labor until the evening.