o not realize what this free gift is. They think they must do
something to merit salvation.

The first promise given to fallen man was a promise of grace. God
never promised Adam anything when He put him in Eden. God never
entered into a covenant with him as He did with Abraham. God told
him "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not
eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die;" but when this came to pass then God came and gave him a
gracious promise. He dealt in grace with him. As he left the Garden
of Eden he could say to Eve, "Well, God does love us, though He has
driven us out." There was no sign that Adam recognized his lost
condition. As far as we know there was no cry for mercy or pardon,
no confession of sin. Yet we find that God dealt in grace with him.
God sought Adam out that he might bestow His grace upon him. He met
Adam in his lost and ruined condition, and the first thing He did
was to proclaim the promise of a coming Saviour.

For six thousand years, God has been trying to teach the world this
great and glorious truth--that He wants to deal with man in love and
in grace. It runs right through the Bible; all along you find this
stream of grace flowing. The very last promise in the closing
chapter of Revelation, like the first promise in Eden, is a promise
of grace: "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."
So the whole revelation, and the whole history of man is encircled
with grace, the free favor of God.

Some years ago when I was speaking on this subject, a friend sent me
the following: "By the grace of God I am what I am!" This is the
believer's eternal confession. Grace found him a rebel--it leaves
him a son. Grace found him wandering at the gates of hell--it leads
him through the gates of heaven. Grace devised the scheme of
Redemption: Justice never would; Reason never could. And it is grace
which carries out that scheme. No sinner would ever have sought his
God but 'by grace.' The thickets of Eden would have proved Adam's
grave, had not grace called him out. Saul would have lived and died
the haughty self-righteous persecutor had not grace laid him low.
The thief would have continued breathing out his blasphemies, had
not grace arrested his tongue and tuned it for glory.

"'Out of the knottiest timber,' says Rutherford, 'He can make
vessels of mercy for service in the high palace of glory.'"

"'I came, I saw, I conquered,' says To