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  (A LARGER CHRISTIAN LIFE) 7. GRACE ABOUNDING
  by A.B. Simpson
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"Where sin abounded grace did much more abound." Rom. v: 20. We find in
nature a beautiful approximation to the truth declared in this verse, a
sort of parable and symbol of the glory of redemption. It is this. Go
into the woods and cut a wound in the side of a living tree, and then go
back again a few years later and see how the tree has endeavored to heal
its wound and restore the breach by a very beautiful reproductive force.
The notch in the trunk is all grown up again. Not, however, with the old
fibres, but with far stronger materials; and you will find the grain of
the wood interlaced and twisted across the old fibres in a sort of
tangle, which all your efforts would frequently be found unable to
cleave asunder. In fact, the healed breach is much stronger than any
other part of the tree, and nature has not only made good the loss, but
far more abundantly brought good out of it.

So, it is said, a broken bone heals much more strongly than the natural
bone, as though nature were determined to fortify herself against a
second attack, and to turn to account, in double strength, the assault
made upon her.

Very beautifully is this illustrated in the formation of the pearl. A
little grain of sand or a piercing thorn in the sensitive side of the
pearl oyster, irritating its nerves, provokes him, not to retaliate and
thus inflict upon himself a greater wound, but to throw around the
intruding element a crystalline liquid and to bury it out of sight in a
smooth and beautiful gem; so that out of the thorn and the wound come
beauty and victory, and the value of the little mollusk is enhanced a
thousand-fold by the very incident that threatened his destruction.

This is what the apostle means in a sublimer measure when he sums up his
splendid antithesis between sin and salvation, Adam and Christ, the fall
and the redemption, with the magnificent declaration, "where sin
abounded grace did much more abound." Out of the terrible attack which
the powers of darkness hurled against the world, the wisdom and grace of
heaven have brought the victory which is to prove the triumph of the
ages. Out of the catastrophe which threatened man\

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Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/ab-simpson/a-larger-christian-life-7-grace-abounding/
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