What a horrible thought.  What horrible condition: Without God in the world.

A mariner without a compass, a wise man without a star,  a boat without an ocean, a court without a bar; a fireman who has no water,  a lung that has no air, a house without foundation, upper room without a stair. Somehow each would be tolerable, but to be without God in the world, no! that is a fearful thing.  Better to be a  warrior who goes to battle without a sword or shield, or to be a farmer who has no field. Imagine!  Imagine the sick without physician or a wound that never healed.  Imagine!  To be without God, is worse. 

 Yet this is what we were before, this is what we were without Christ, but we were too blind to see, too dense to know.  In Christ, God came below.  Our condition was dangerous, dreadful, and desperate, but we were oblivious to it all.  We were a hair’s breadth from hell and did not know it. 

 Imagine the tortoise without its shell, the one that he pulls himself into when he perceives  danger.  How pathetic looking would be such a naked creature.   A turtle’s shell is its glory.  Imagine an eagle without its plume.  Not only would it be unable to fly, it would be exposed to a certain doom.  Imagine a toothless tiger, how pathetic would be such a beast, but such was the case of man in the fall.  When he sinned he was ushered to the gates of Eden and expelled from the garden into the world, but because of his choice, he would be in the world without God.  When the door clanged shut, man became a fugitive and a vagabond and would have to live by his wits. Wits are not enough for a man without God. 

 He so desperately wanted to know and taste the fruit of good and evil, now he would have to find for himself what was ivy and what was poison ivy the hard way.  Now he would have to suck his bleeding finger pierced by the thorn that was hiding near the rose.  Now he would no longer have the Almighty to talk to in the cool of the day, and the chair at the head of the table in his heart would sit empty.   Who in their right mind would wish such a thing on a single soul?  Go with God.      

                                                                                             -id