God tells us in Hebrews that His Word is “living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword,” and in James, He tells us that His Word is implanted in our souls. Alive and implanted, it stays with us. It is not like a book we take off a shelf, peruse from beginning to end, and then slide right back into its designated spot, but it’s like an endless scroll, to be unrolled with patience and care by the Holy Spirit who holds it in the innermost caverns of our hearts. The psalmist writes, “The unfolding of Your Words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” (Psalm 119:130) This has been so true for me as His Word from our ladies’ Bible studies this past year on Ecclesiastes and Ephesians was still being revealed in my heart and mind even into the summer months. His Word was with me even on vacation to visit a natural wonder of this life under the sun, and under the earth.
The weather was sunny and the earth was summer green, but my destination was not above ground, but below it. As I walked a trail to one of the main entrances into the caves of Mammoth Cave National Park, the drop in temperature was evidenced by a layer of fog that hovered over the opening where the coolness of the cave escaped and was opposed by a wall of June heat. As I descended into the dimmed interior, what was the most striking feature of the cave was its size. I didn’t enter by some small winding path, but by a grand avenue that opened up into an even bigger room, a circular expanse a quarter acre wide and sixty feet high. It was vast, dry and barren, rocky, and solemn. It was an unseen world in the heart of earth, and I felt as if I were standing in a huge throne room, but with no throne. Grand and empty at the same time.
This is where God’s Word unfolded in my heart a visual testimony to the truth of His Word, in the barren and yet magnificent inner chambers of the cave. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon tells us that life under the sun, pure earthly existence, is meaningless. As the seasons of earth go on repetitively, life without God cycles from birth to death and has no power by itself to create meaning. And in Ephesians, Paul tells us that we are dead in our sin, and that it is God’s Spirit who enlightens the darkness of our hearts for us to turn to the resurrected Christ. Emptiness and darkness without meaning: both studies gave me a picture of the person who is alive bodily but spiritually dead in his sin.
What a creation God has worked in the human soul, a secret and hidden throne room that sits nestled in the life of every person. Because of sin, hard darkness rests in the confines of a season of life. The seasons pass for hundreds of years above the ground, but the cave stays stagnant with the absence of light and life. As the tour guide explained, without light and water, the cave has remained unchanged for hundreds of years. “Dead in your trespasses,” whispers Paul’s words in my mind.
So what does the flesh do with such an emptiness of the soul? As I was led through deeper passages, I began to notice piles of rocks, as tall as a person. It was obvious that these hundreds of piles that lined the sides of the passages were not naturally made, and the tour guide soon explained that the piles of rocks were built by visitors in the 19th and 20th centuries. Imagine that by the dim light of a lantern, men in wool suits and women in long, layered petticoats, would spend hours of their time in this colossal cave to build these rocks into piles as a memorial of their visit. I wondered at the purpose, the drive to leave something behind, to mark this awesome, natural phenomenon with a man-made one, to be driven to occupy the time with what the hand can reach for with a passion to fill up the empty spaces.
Solomon contemplated the same in Ecclesiastes. A man who was given wisdom by God, but instead of seeking the Lord wholeheartedly, was lured into the caves of the human heart, with its desire to build a life without God, filling the emptiness of the soul with more than the presence of God. Money, power, and influence are like these rocks I see before me, meaningless. Experiences and accumulating things: a pile of rocks. Even doing good works and seeking wisdom to lead a good life as defined by the self: all a pile of rocks. None of these things have any life in and of themselves. They may fill the emptiness, but they do not create life. There is only one who can fill the vastness of the barren soul with flourishing life, and that is not a thing but a person. The person of Jesus Christ: the creator of all life; the sustainer of all life; and life Himself.
Ironically, the tourists all those years ago were encouraged to build these memorials by their guides who were originally tasked by the cave’s owner with clearing the paths themselves for the visitors. Although it was the guides’ job to move the rocks to the sides to create a clear path for tourists, they cunningly convinced the visitors, who were so eager to leave their own mark, to unwittingly do the job of manual labor themselves. The ruler of the world does the same. When we think we are marking our own territory, we are really doing so for the ruler of this world and accomplishing his purposes. Unbeknownst to the tourists, when they thought they were serving themselves, they were really serving another master.
Oh what a reminder from his Word here in plain view to me of who I once was and who I once served. I once was dead in trespasses and sin, walked according to the course of this world, and conducted myself in the lusts of the flesh, but God!
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. (Ephesians 2:1-9)
Please join one of our many small groups this fall at Redeemer and study God’s Word with fellow believers. His Word will be a lamp to your feet and light to your path (Psalm 119:105), even into the depths of the earth.
Amy Ingram