his absolute sovereignty and holiness forever and ever and that was his reaction his response to the rebellion of the king and queen of the earth to his clear and simple guidelines for faithful living on his planet earth turn to Romans chapter eight Romans chapter eight what happened when the king of the earth participated with the leadership of his wife in open defiance of God's restrictions within the Garden of Eden. Romans chapter eight. Let's begin, please, with verse nineteen. The anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, to vanity, not of its own will. In other words, not because of some inherited defect or misguided programming or faulty design of God upon this world and this universe. But because of Him, God. who subjected it, that's the curse, because of the fall of man, in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from its slavery to corruption, its bondage to corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God. That's the millennial kingdom that's coming. For we know, says Paul, we're not guessing. There's no doubt or debate about this issue, is there, friends? that the whole creation groans and travails or suffers in pain of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves. We born again Christians, says Paul, who have the first fruits of the Spirit. Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption, that is the redemption of our body. And that will take place, of course, also, as we know, at the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, friends, we have seen last evening how God designed the world system at the very beginning. He designed it in such a way that within every one of the one and a half million kinds, of plants and animals, there was this amazing potential for variation. Different varieties of men within mankind and different varieties of gorillas within gorilla kind and varieties of dogs within dog kinds and cats within cat kind. But you see what happened at the curse of God upon the earth that made it subjected to vanity, the futility, All these beautiful trees that God created in a forest of trees of living kinds now are turned upside down. Look, they're all growing down instead of up. See, the evolutionary tree says everything's getting better and better everywhere always. God says, no, everything's getting worse and worse everywhere always. I wonder if you detect a slight difference there. Now here's what we are going to see tonight, dear friends, especially focusing on what has happened, is happening, and will happen to the human race, mankind. The tree of mankind. There must have been enormous numbers of varieties of people, different what we call racial types before the flood. We know, for example, there were giants before the flood, the Nephilim. And who knows how many others. Henry Morris, another great creation scientist, estimate there had to be more than one billion people on this planet by the time of the Genesis flood. Why? Well, because every man mentioned by name in the genealogy in Genesis five had at least five children. He says, so-and-so lived so many years and begat so-and-so, naming one son, and had sons, plural, and daughters, plural. That's at least five. And we know that they had enormous powers that have long since been lost for reproduction because Noah had three of his most famous sons after he was five hundred years old. Match that one if you can. And, of course, that puts us in the realm of infinitesimal nothings compared to the mighty people that once walked this earth. We have really come a long way, friends, downhill. That's the... That is the total message of Scripture concerning the downward trends in mankind and for that matter all the other kinds. Hundreds if not thousands of kinds of magnificent animals have perished forever through extinction as an aftermath of God's curse upon the earth in the light of Psalm one hundred and two. The heavens whacked old like a garment that's changed. And Isaiah fifty four. Look at the heavens above and look at the earth beneath and the heavens are waxing old and they are because all the comets are disintegrating and all the stars are burning out and nothing's evolving up there. Nothing's improving. And on planet earth, that same passage says that every living thing on this planet is now programmed for death and destruction. But this is so depressing, dear friends. So depressing. Those one billion plus people, whatever their racial varieties might have been, were all narrowed down to just one family in the ark, that one hundred thousand square foot bridge over which antediluvian humans passed over to the post-Diluvian world, only to be cursed again by God at Babel. and scattered again to the ends of the earth against their will because they refused God's commandment to be fruitful multiply and fill the earth in Genesis chapter nine verse one so what we have in human history is just a constant deterioration spiritually and morally and even genetically to the point where the amazing thing is that anybody is still alive at all today. And that takes some explaining, doesn't it? Now friends, let's take a closer look at what God has told us about this process of decay. This is the incredibly awful, shocking second law of thermodynamics. And you say, well, the second law of thermodynamics, what's the first law of thermodynamics? Well... scientists have discovered in the last hundred and fifty-so years that in this vast universe of ours, as far as we can see, everywhere in all the galaxies, the same processes and physical laws prevail, namely, that nothing's being added and nothing's being subtracted and nothing therefore is being created and nothing annihilated. The total amount of mass energy continues the same. But the second law shows that While the amount remains the same, the quality is everywhere disintegrating. So that every star and every planet and every comet and every plant animal and human on this planet to the passing of time, which evolutionists worship, you know, is a dynamic for improvement. As a matter of fact, results not in new information or new design or better arrangements or higher quality, but what disorder... deterioration and collapse if the particular thing is confined within a closed system. So the second law tells us that anything left totally to itself through the passing of time will disintegrate and finally collapse. There's no known exception in the universe to this awful second law of thermodynamics. Well, I certainly know that's true of my car. We paid quite a few dollars, dear friends, for a vehicle that we were dreaming would last forever in its original perfection. Dream on. Why the salesman knew immediately that as we drove the car off the lot, it would deteriorate in values like that. It's a used car. And we might determine, well, nothing is going to happen negatively to my car. I'm going to park it out front. I'm never going to touch it or use it. I'm going to keep it perfect. Well, friends, there's a very mysterious thing happening in this world system. You don't have to touch it. You don't have to do anything to it. It will collapse anyhow. And therefore, you can pour all kinds of time and energy and skill into that thing and money and to keep it tuned up and repaired and painted. But by the time you... replace everything that disintegrates you've got a new car anyhow at the end of the process so just face this folks everything including cars are disintegrating and that vehicle will end up as a candidate for the junk heap now there are in this room I can tell right now dozens of experts on how the second law of thermodynamics really works Ladies who were once busy mothers and housewives, you begin the morning determined that the house will remain spotlessly clean and totally orderly. But there are negative elements thermodynamically in the house called children. By the end of the day, you're exhausted, discouraged, defeated, and totally disillusioned. And after years of this, you decide, I can't handle this anymore. I'm going off for a two-month vacation and come back and see how my house has improved itself. Ah. Anything left to itself to the process of time will do what? Disintegrate. In fact, you keep this up and the roof caves in, everything rusts out and the whole house will collapse. You see, the Holy Land that you'll be seeing Saturday night is full of a little mound called tells. Do you know what they used to be? Villages. Where there were houses. And the houses all collapsed. And then they built other houses on top of those houses. They all collapsed. Then they put houses on those houses. And then on those. And you have hills and mountains where there were, for thousands of years, not one house that ever fell rose again. Second law of thermodynamics. Now, friends, you might say, well, I know an exception to this awful second law. And that exception, sir, is myself. Look how far I've come through time. I was once at the beginning of my life, a tiny ignorant, ugly little speck inside my mother's body, and in twenty-five years, sir, I became full-grown, handsome, beautiful, brilliant, intelligent, essential to society. Look what time did for me. False thinking. Outwardly impressive, but like all evolutionary ideas, a second look. will destroy the illusion. Thermodynamic engineers tell us, are you ready for the bad news? You and I were thermodynamically at our best, the moment of our conception. But from then on, even though we got bigger and bigger, we got more and more poisoned and polluted and damaged, exposed to cosmic radiation and other negative environments, and it weren't for the fact that God gave us a mother's body to protect us during those very, very fragile early months of life. we would have perished instantly. And hopefully when we're born, there'll be more help available to counteract the second law, namely a loving father, older brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, friends, pouring tender loving care and food and medicine and prayer and discipline and education and massive input, see. And finally, with all of that help, you grow up. Now here's the second law of thermodynamics. In order to get one human being from the moment of conception to full growth like that, the whole system has suffered a net loss from which it'll never recover. If you don't think so, ask your mother. Now friends, even then, guess what you are. A disaster ready to happen. Now friends, you might say, and I might think, not me. I'm going to go into a new health program. I'm going to go to the swimming pool every day. I'm going to start a new diet. And others are saying, I'm going to faith healers. Are you ready for the worst news? all the faith healers are dying all the health people are dying everybody's dying you say well I'll solve that I'll move to Florida oh friend God says it is appointed unto men once to die dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return guess who's in charge of the cursed of the second law of thermodynamics, it's God Himself. And there's absolutely nothing we can do, nothing we can do to cancel, to reverse the second law. Nothing. It's God's program for a cursed world. And friends, the moment that organizing principle called life is removed from that body, then the second law really goes into visible action And loved ones and friends somehow realize that, and they will put that beloved familiar body into a tomb or a coffin or into the ground, and they know that within months it will return to unrecognizable dust, and you might say, not me, give me time. No, the more time you add, the worse and worse it gets. And here's a shocking statement. Not even the providence of God will ever reverse this or get us out of the grave. Say, wait a minute. Not even the providence of God. No. Because the second law of thermodynamics and the curse of God is his providence. That's his controlling principle. It's undeniable. It's irreversible. What we desperately need, friends, and God has graciously provided for those who trust in the finished work of his beloved Son upon the cross, confirmed by his bodily resurrection from the dead. What you and I need is not time. It's a miracle. It's not providence, the natural, normal processes of this world system. It's God's supernatural intervention. And here's how that sounds. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, the sleep of death, but we'll all be changed. In a moment, the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. That's miracle. That's not providence. And how's it going to happen? Well, the dead in Christ shall rise first, and then we who are alive and remain will be caught up, raptured together in the air, in clouds, with them to meet the Lord, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. You know the infinite difference, don't you, friends, between miracle and providence. Both are God's programs. Jesus was appeared in the womb of Mary by a miracle called Virgin Conception. And the rest of us have come into the world by his providence with no miracle. And that's an infinite difference. And the liberal says, well, everything's a miracle. And they love these songs, you know, that just reduce, that just change Miracle into Providence. Like this one. These are beautiful songs, but think about what they're saying. I've seen the lily push its way up through the stubborn sod. I believe in miracles. I believe in God. Oh, I'm so sorry. What you saw was not a miracle. It was Providence. And the liberal wants to rub out miracles. And they say that we're all, you know, just miracles, which means that none of us are miracles, and there aren't any. And the Bible is destroyed in that infinite distinction God wants to make. So, friends, what happens to you and me in our little cycle of life? It's just like, you know, a little flower of the field that's here one day and gone the next as far as God's concerned. I mean, to him, a thousand years are but as a day. That's the story of the whole human race, really. Just as you and I start going downhill in quality, the moment we're conceived, until finally the reality catches up with the outward appearance and we end up in dust. So look at the history of mankind. Oh, how magnificent were the first people that walked the earth, friends. I mean, think how genetically pure Adam and Eve were. no genetic defects, no mutations at all, fresh from the hand of God, so that their children could all marry each other. People say, well, where did King get his wife? And now you would sit down and say, like Jesus did, I'm sure, would you really like to know? If I answer this question for you satisfactorily, will you then believe in the Lord Jesus as your Savior? And if he says, no, I won't, then you'd say to him, well, I won't tell you then, where King got his wife. But by the way, when you offer that, you better be sure you know where Cain got his wife. And now we've discovered in the light of the second law of thermodynamics and the gene pool of mankind and the purity of the original people, genetically, that Cain married his own. Thank you. Say, well, you can't do that. Not now. No. Because God saw what to us is invisible. He said, by the time Israel is a nation numbered in a million, See, at the Exodus, God said through Moses, no more close relatives intermarrying in Israel anymore. And he didn't say why, but now we know. Because the mutations, the distortions of that delicate, fragile DNA information code inside of the bodies of those Israelites was so significant by them, according to the second law of thermodynamics, you see, under the curse. that close relatives would match mutations and therefore double at least the number of defective babies born. And now civilized governments won't allow this, or shouldn't. We have enough defective children being born without multiplying the problem and the burden deliberately. And God somehow knew all about that, didn't he? So Cain married his own sister. You said I didn't even know he had a sister. Well, of course, Genesis five says that Adam and Eve had daughters as well as sons, and they're not named because typically in Hebrew genealogies, with rare exceptions, the mother, the wife, the daughter is not named in Genesis five and eleven and so on through the Old Testament. But you may be absolutely sure that in Genesis five when it says so and so, lived so many years and begat so and so that there was a woman there. Think about that. That solves that problem. But today, dear friends, we are the worst generation of all human history in terms of what? Genetic poisoning. Because of what? The genetic drag, the downward drag of quality in the gene pool of mankind so that of all the endangered species in the world, we are one of them, apart from the mercy of God. It's amazing we're still around. Now, think of another realm of deterioration. I know this is depressing tonight, but I have good news at the end. I think you know what it's going to be. The first people who walk the earth, dear friends, were so powerful that even after God cursed Adam and Eve, Adam lived nine hundred and thirty more years. Now how about you? How about me? I have a deep suspicion that if Adam came in this auditorium tonight and sat here and listened to this guest lecturer, he'd come up afterward and say, sir, may I estimate your age? After one hour of lecturing, you look so tired. And what is this white hair doing on here? I think you're seven hundred years old. And I would say seven hundred. I'm only in my seventies. And you know what his answer would be? Well, just look at you. How devastating. We have come, friends, a long way. I mean, can you imagine those years were real years friends back there. Some people in desperation said, well, maybe years were only as tense as long, so that he only lived ninety-three. Yes, but they were married when they were sixty-five, which would have meant they were six and a half. God must have known we would try to manipulate the numbers. And so we are confronted with this reality that the greatest people who ever lived were the first ones. They weren't stupid Flintstone comic strip characters. You don't find people like that in the comic strips inventing every cutting instrument of brass and iron. That's before the flood, Genesis four. Or building a barge with a capacity of one million four hundred thousand cubic feet. That's Noah. And that'll be our study, God willing, tomorrow night. And friends, Those were brilliant people, which leads us to this third point. I mean, those are the most brilliant people that have ever lived. And we're the most stupid ones. You see, now here's where I'm walking out, sir. We've been insulted enough tonight. No, wait a minute. Think about that carefully, please. As the centuries go by and the millennium, the quality of our mind... And our heart and our soul and our spirit, the immaterial aspect of man deteriorates. But there's a uniqueness in the mentality of mankind in infinite contrast to the animal. So that even though the quality goes down, the accumulated knowledge goes up. You say, how can we be the most stupid people have ever lived? We have put men on the moon and brought them back and we have gigantic computers and we have great airplanes and we have medical miracles going on all the time and we're the greatest. Careful about that. The very fact that you say and think we're the greatest is a biblical evidence that we're the worstest. It's like the human pyramid you've probably seen in a gymnasium. It's kind of scary. Here's a whole row of strong men and on their shoulders another row of strong men and then another row. And finally, wobbling precariously at the top of this pyramid of flesh and blood is one man. Listen to him. I'm the greatest. Oh, really? Look at him. I guarantee he must not be the biggest, strongest of all or the whole thing would collapse. But one thing he said is right. He's the greatest in accumulated height. He really can look down upon the shoulders of intrinsically stronger and greater men beneath him to the bottom. And that's where we are, folks, at the end of this millennium. We're the greatest in accumulated knowledge. Animals can't accumulate any knowledge. They can't teach the next generation, educate the next generation. They can't even train the next generation. Humans can do that to a limited extent. But you know what? That's why the animal kingdom, each generation of it, ends up exactly where the previous one did, namely zero. No history, no improvement, no learning, nothing. But human beings, think of what God has enabled us to do to stand on the shoulders of our predecessors and reach higher and higher in the realms of technology. But what the Bible calls wisdom is increasingly absent. Look at our leadership. Friends, cleverness, oh yes. But wisdom, where is it? Read Job twenty-eight. Wisdom is like a precious gem which has to be searched out in the roots of the mountains of the earth. It is precious and rare, and more rare than ever. In fact, here's what the Bible says about it. Hate even to quote this verse, because it's obviously true everywhere you look. in the last days perilous time shall come for men shall be lovers of themselves you've hit bottom and the greatest self-lover the world will ever know is called the beast and the world is just about ready for him the atmosphere is appropriate for such a monster of demonic iniquity that's right the world has never been more right more ready more appropriate than it is today for Satan's masterpiece, to strut on the stage of history and to take over the world. You see, but we're so successful, we're so prosperous. And the Lord Jesus said, a man's life does not consist in his possessions, but in his relationship to God, in spirit and in truth. Where is it in this generation? And so God says, well, would you just like to see where you came from, what you used to be like? I mean, the first man who ever walked the earth, friends, was so brilliant that he could taxonomically classify every kind of bird and mammal in the world in one day. An encyclopedic mastermind of his environment under God's direction. And that's gone forever as far as this world system is concerned. I hate to mention my alma mater, Princeton University, but I will say this, that when it started in the early seventeen hundred as the College of New Jersey, there were great revivals and students were taught to love the Lord Jesus and to master the Bible. One of its first presidents was Jonathan Edwards. Why not visit our campus today and see where God's word fits in the curriculum, in the faculty, in the administration, Things are tolerated, in fact promoted, that are an absolute biblical abomination. You just wonder, well, how farther down can the whole educational system in America think in its deliberate, open, systematic rejection of everything God ever said about everything? That was not the way the first human beings were, Adam and Eve, before the fall. You say, well, I'm so discouraged to hear all this. Well, friends, here's something else to discourage us. Don't leave yet. People have wondered, well, why is it when you go back to the dawn of civilization that scientists and engineers and leaders of nations seem to be... more brilliant than they are today in the light of their available tools and technology, like how could they have built the pyramids of Egypt? Well, National Geographic Society, which is, of course, notoriously atheistic and evolutionary, decided to spend its available millions of dollars to write an enormous book called Ancient Egypt and to find the secret of how the pyramids were designed and built. And you know what they discovered? They weren't built by some astronauts from other planets arriving on chariots of the gods. They were built by people who apparently had more intrinsic brilliance than we do. No civilization on this planet today could match what they did with their available tools and technology. Friends, this was done before the wheel was ever invented. Two thousand eight hundred years before Christ. I mean, nearly a millennium before Abraham even arrived. The pyramids were there. My privilege in nineteen fifty-two to climb to the top of the greatest pyramid of Egypt and to marvel at the magnitude of this engineering project, whereby these engineers laid out a grid thirteen acres in the desert to the west of Cairo, the Nile, and then floated gigantic blocks of stone down on rafts down the Nile and dragged them on moistened clay on sledges. Remember, no wheels had ever yet been invented. To spread them out upon this foundation that was so perfectly flat that the grid, you see, of shallow canals half filled with water to guarantee that this pyramid would never budge one inch. And in four thousand, eight hundred years, It is not moved one inch. Thirty thousand men, not just reluctant slaves, but dedicated laborers. That's what they discovered. I mean, no, these were all engineers cooperating. See, you don't have five engineers beating thirty thousand men into submission and build a pyramid. Year after year, see this ramp got higher and higher. That's why they had to put the pyramids so far from the Nile to be sure that the ramp wouldn't get so steep that they couldn't drag these sledges up that ramp. And they had to build a chamber inside the tomb for the Pharaoh so that in case he died before the pyramid was done, they would have a place to place their Pharaoh God with an opening all the way to the side of the pyramid so the the light of a certain star would fall on the face of the mummy within. And finally, dear friends, after all these years, the Great Pyramid was completed and they covered the whole surface, you see, from the top to the bottom with polished marble and took the whole ramp and dumped it back into the Nile that melted the mud and swept it to the sea. And their glistening in the Egyptian sun was the greatest achievement of mankind in engineering with what? Available tools and technology. As I stood in the pyramid and I'm told you can't do that anymore, I had to be dragged up to the top because it's kind of dangerous. I guess the Egyptian government got tired of the thud of falling bodies and said no more. But underneath my feet, dear friends, were two million five hundred thousand blocks of stone, five thousand pounds each, so perfectly fit together. To this day you can't put a knife blade between them. And we say, oh God, how marvelous were the first people you put on this planet and how degraded we have become in our arrogance and pride and self-sufficiency and self-love and therefore our... are demonic depravity. We have better ways now to destroy more people faster than any generation in history. We have had the most horrible monsters of iniquity ruling over nations that the world has ever known in this century. Just rattle off the names of these people. Hitler, Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, name them all. And friends, it's going to get worse before it gets better. Just as if Jesus, the Lord, is saying now, you do your best to rule the world, and by the time you see what a wreck you have made of my planet, you will say, blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord. You know what the good news is, don't you, friends? That any moment, by simple faith in Jesus' work on the cross and resurrection from the dead, you can be reprogrammed by the Holy Spirit with a totally new nature. and therefore you will enter into a glory greater than Adam and Eve ever had before the fall. Do you know him? Have you entered into that relationship? Has the bad news forced you and me to recognize the preciousness of the good news and to put no hope in this government, this world system, modern scientism, higher education? Friends, that will not bring in the kingdom and meet the deepest needs of people. that only Jesus, the Creator, the Savior, and the coming King of Kings will accomplish. Let's pray. Father, we know that oftentimes we need the bad news in all of its stark reality. Before we appreciate how precious the good news is, that light has come into the world. even though men love darkness and would not come to the light, lest their deeds should be reproved that light has come. And he's a person and he said, I'm the light of the world. And whoever walks and follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. And Father, even tonight perhaps will be the moment when we'll be transformed. We'll be like Jesus when we see him as he is and sin will be gone forever and corruption and decay and rebellion and blasphemy and perversion. Help us to face the realities of Holy Scripture, what that curse did to a once perfect world, and what the Son of God can and will do by His mercy and grace for those who trust Him. I pray in His great name and for His glory. Amen.