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And if you would like to do some preliminary reading for our next study on Thursday, God willing, then on that occasion we shall be dealing with the third creation story, which you may see from the chart here, begins in chapter five and verse one. Chapter five is a long list of names that you may find rather puzzling, but persevere and you will come at length to chapter six. and chapter six is an exceedingly important chapter because it paints for us the background to the flood. You have time, of course, to read the whole of the, uh, third creation story. Well, by all means, do so. The whole story is better than a part, and it won't take you so long as it would to read the Belfast Telegraph, and it's a good deal more profitable. Shall we read tonight from Genesis and chapter four? Genesis chapter four. And the man knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord. And again she bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a tiller, was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. The Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? Why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the door, and unto thee is its desire that thou shouldest rule over it. Cain told Abel his brother. And it came to pass when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not. Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. Now cursed art thou from the ground, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength. A fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be in the earth. Cain said unto the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the ground, and from thy face shall I be hid, and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth, and it shall come to pass that whosoever findeth me shall slay me. The Lord said unto him, therefore, whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. The Lord appointed a sign for Cain, lest any finding him should smite him. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of wandering on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Enoch, and he builded a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch. And unto Enoch was born Irad, and Irad begat Mehujael, and Mehujael begat Methushael, and Methushael begat Lamech. And Lamech took unto him two wives. The name of the one was Ada, and the name of the other Zillah. And Ada bare Jabal. He was the father of such as dwell in tents and have cattle. And his brother's name was Jubal. He was the father of all such as handle the harp and pipe. And Zillah, she also bare Tubul-Kain, the forger of every cutting instrument of brass and iron. And the sister of Tubul-Kain was Naamah. And Lamech said unto his wives, Ada and Zillah hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech, for I have slain a man for wounding me, and a young man for bruising me. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold. And Adam knew his wife again, and she bare a son and called his name Seth. For, said she, God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, for Cain slew him. And to Seth, to him also there was born a son, and he called his name Enosh. Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. The Lord give us good understanding and profit from the reading of his holy word. Pain, sorrow, sin, and death are, as all can see, universal phenomena. And sooner or later, every man and woman that thinks at all will turn to thinking, what is the cause, cause of the universal phenomena of sin, pain, death, and sorrow? In our last study, we were considering the biblical account of these matters. How that these things came into our world through the rebellion of man and the fall of our first parents in Eden. We were considering, in a word, the biblical doctrine of the fall, and a right dismal story it was. Yet, on the other hand, it is the only story I now know that adequately accounts for these phenomena. And it is certainly the most merciful and kindly of all the explanations. And it is the only story known to man that has in it any spark of hope for suffering humanity. I say it is the only story that adequately accounts for the fact. There is, of course, only one serious, if you can call it serious, alternative explanation. And that is that you should account for all the pain and sorrow and suffering and death in the world by supposing that this world just happened of itself without any God or creator or mind or reason or purpose, but that the whole thing is the result of colossal chance multiplied by billions of chances. And because it is a chance thing, it has gone wrong, as chances won't to do. And therefore you mustn't grumble at the pain and sorrow and the misshapen birth and the terrible scourges, because that's all you could expect from chance. But then that won't account for the facts either. Because when all is said and done, though there is a great deal of sorrow and suffering and sin and death in this world, this world remains a fantastically beautiful place. A breathtakingly marvelous place. How comes it, my good sir, if it is all the result of mindless chance, that it manages to be so fantastically beautiful and so regularly beautiful. That all the bermens that grew last year look so gorgeously pretty, are pretty every year. And somehow the great cycles are repeated regularly, producing so much wonderful beauty and glory in our world. Do you think it's an adequate explanation that that too is the result of chance? I have an atheist friend, he happens to be a biochemist, and whenever we sit down to lunch, he can't resist in pulling my leg, my Christian leg. I have one. But on his own admission, says he to me, you know, putting, he says, I don't take many arguments from things like mother love. You can, you can produce that by an injection of chemicals. The thing that moves me, he says, I must admit, is the fantastic beauty in this world, and how, if it's all by chance, it manages to recur billions of times over every year. Yes, that is a font, isn't it? How is there so much wonder and beauty if it all were by chance? It makes much more sense, even if we were arguing at that level, to understand it as a something gloriously wonderful that a creator all-wise and all-powerful made, into which someone or ones have brought sin and its consequent spoliation. And then you say, the Bible story of the fall is the only one that adequately accounts for this other set of facts. That every single person born in this wide, wide world, without exception, sins. Save him whose birth was altogether exceptional, Jesus Christ our Lord. Why is it so? If it were by chance, then I could understand that some men sinned, and some women were awful. If it were by chance, I could understand that a large number of people were terrible. How comes it if it is by chance that everybody without exception is sinful? On my way to work from the house I live in, there are sundry traffic lights, and I would almost guarantee to you they're more often red than they are green, especially when I'm in a hurry. Of course, it's, uh, quite a chance affair, isn't it, whether they should be red or green when I get up to them. But though, of course, it seems to me that they are more often red than green, they're not always red. And if they were always red when I came to them, I should say, sorry, but I can't believe that's by chance. How so is it that every single man, woman, boy, and child born into this world is sinful? Why doesn't chance one of these days produce somebody sinless? No, it makes much better sense, and it's God's word anyway, that what you have is a creature that came from the hand of God, perfect, but using that gift of free will and free choice that God gave him in his love and greatness, used it to sin against God. Not only did something wrong, but in the doing of that something wrong, severed a relationship with God that was vital to his very being. So from that moment, he became something different from what he originally was. That his very constitution was changed. He became a fallen creature, and as a fallen creature produced through natural birth fallen creatures. A different kind of thing from what God originally intended. But as I say, it is not the, it's not merely the story that accounts for the facts, as none other does. Uh, the doctrine of the fall is a very kindly story, Story is is enough. it not? It tells how man was tempted and fell. And that's a very kindly admission. There are some people who no longer believe in the devil, and they pride themselves on being very humanitarian and civilized, but they're very cruel people. They want to say that all the vast agony, sadism, wickedness, cruelty, perversion that you can find in this world is all the responsibility of man single-handed. What a charge it is today against humankind. What all? The sole responsibility of men? No, sir, God is kinder than that. Yes, man has had his part in his rebellion and folly and waywardness. But the thing was sparked off by a higher intelligence than man. Man, the sorry dupe of Of sin. Satan. And then again, I want you to see how kindly the story is and how marvelously full of hope. You see, sir, if the sin and sorrow and suffering of our world are merely the result of chance, there is no hope for any improvement. You may pit your little brains to try and discover the source of this illness and to patch it up and to make this or that improvement, but if you are living in a chance universe, any day now chance will laugh in your face and ruin the lot. There is no hope. There is no hope for the world. There is no hope for you as an individual, if this is a chance universe. But this sorry story of the fall is nevertheless a story that brews over with wonderful hope for men. For it tells not merely of a creature of God who willfully disobeyed God and strove for his own independence and therefore fell, but it tells of a creator whose heart brims full with love for that very creature and is moved with compassion at the sorry state that man by his sinfulness has brought upon himself. And it tells a wonderful story that when God stood in that garden of his making and saw man, his foolish creature, who had dared to rebel against him and had brought into the world thousands of years of sin, God had mercy and compassion big enough so that almost the first word he spoke was a word of hope as to how one day the whole thing could be put right again. I am proud of this story and of the God who tells it. As he said to those couple as they stood there, shivering in their old fig leaves, tortured in their consciences, beginning to be dimly aware of the terrible thing they had done. I say what admiration we should have for the God who could say, yes, we're spoiled, that you couldn't, you couldn't trust me. But I shall go on with the adventure. What you have spoiled, I shall put right. Wonderful story. But mark how even more wonderful this bit is. He did not say that you foolish creatures, you have spoiled it, and I will come and put it right. He said there will come one of the human race itself that will put it right. A man shall be born, the seed of the woman, himself human, and he shall put it right. Oh, magnificent triumph of God. Humanity is not to be deceived forever, and if a man put it wrong, a man shall put it right. Yes, wonderful man. New kind of man. Bigger and infinitely better man than Adam, even in his unfallen state, but man still. The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. God shall not have to write off humankind as an experiment that went wrong. Only her end, man shall be proved God's great and wonderful masterpiece through that second man, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Now, therefore, I recur to my point. I want to make it clear to you that not only is this story of the fall brimful of hope, because it tells that man put it wrong, that God is going to have it put right. We are not just victims of chance, but it is kind and fair and just. Listen to Holy Scripture comment upon it. As through one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall the many be made righteous. It is in a passage where God's spirit is arguing that the ways of God are fair and kind and more than fair. Some people, because, as Mr. Lennox says, they haven't read their Bibles, get wrong ideas into their heads, and they say, but it isn't fair, you know. Why should I be judged because of what Adam did? And my good friend, you'll never be judged because of what Adam did. Indeed not. It is the fact that we were born sinners, because we are born of a fallen race, and the whole race fell when Adam, its forefather, fell. It is the fact that by one man's disobedience, the many were constituted sinners. Now listen, if it is the fact that you are ruined, you were born ruined because of what someone else did, you can be saved on precisely the same terms. You can be saved through what someone else has done. We sin, as many preachers have observed. We sin because we are sinners. Just like an apple tree eventually bears apples, many or few, but eventually bears apples because it is basically an apple tree. So we sin because we are basically fallen people. And I repeat, we are born sinners because of one man's disobedience, and not because of anything we did ourselves. But come some. This is a message of great hope. Because if that's how we became sinners, not through what we did ourselves, but because of what somebody else did, so can we become saved that way. Not by what we do ourselves, but by what somebody else has done for us, even Jesus Christ. Our Lord. We shall not be judged because of what Adam did. We shall be judged. When God offers us a complete salvation free, we turn our backs on it and decline it. Let us see then, before we not move on, what were those grounds of hope that God gave to man as he met the guilty first parents in the garden? With an evil, haunted conscience that they had to ascend, they did the two things that we all of us from time to time do. First, they ran away from God, and when they couldn't run away from him anymore and had to face him, then they tried to cover up themselves and sewed fig leaves together. God removed them. God is a realist. He's not interested in makeup that conceals the true state of affairs. Bluntly, he told them of the judgments and disciplines that would consequently come because of their sin. But he announced hope. One day the savior of the world be born, seed of the wolf. And hope again. As God himself slew an innocent, sinless animal. Used that animal's skin to cover those guilty families. The first mention of the killing of an animal in Holy Scripture, done by God, pointing on, like all his successors, to the culling of that holy, holy man. All the wonder of it. How shall I put it and yet stay reverent? We humans in this universe are remarkable for this, that we are spirit and not just animal. But then we are animal and not just spirit. I didn't say we were animals, please. I said we are animal. There's a bit of our makeup, isn't there, that we share with animals. We have stomachs. We have lungs. We have gallbladders and things. And many functions we have similar to the animal, because in one sense we are animal. Yet unlike them, we have spirits capable of converse with God, who is spirit. It was a cruel thing when Satan said to Eve that if you eat of that forbidden fruit, you shall rise and you shall be in God. From the moment they disobeyed God, they fell. The great gulf came at the level of their spirits, between them and the Father of spirits. Sin had broken the concourse, and they ran to run away from God. Spiritually, man had died. And they discovered then they were animal and could no longer properly control the animal. And God's answer. Oh, wonder of it. One day, God of very God should consent to take a human body. Yes, in that proper strict sense, animal, human, with stomachs and lungs and legs. He He, for for our ask. sakes, might become the holy Lamb of God. Dying just for the unjust, a perfect man, he might offer his spotless body to God for our fallen human sin-stained body. They are granted both. There's a way back to God. As the children's little ditty puts it, it's a way back to God from the dark paths of sin. It's a door that is open, that all may go in. Calvary's cross is where you begin when you come as a sinner to Jesus. The story does not end now with God making a coat from that animal skin to clothe them with. It goes on to tell us what were the reactions in the succeeding generation to the means of salvation that God had provided. By faith, we are told, Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, and mark it, by faith, says scripture. Now we should understand that when the Bible says that so and so does something by faith, it means that that someone is doing something in response to what God has said. That is faith in the Bible. It is desperately important that we get hold of it. There are some folks that think that faith is a kind of self-confidence that they work up within themselves. And so Madame de la Mer will say, oh, I have great faith that if I try to live, leave the world a happier place than I found it, all would be well. But madam, with due respect, that isn't faith. That's imagination. Or self-confidence. That isn't faith. Faith, to be faith at all, has to be our response to God's explicit word. And if it isn't that, it is downright presumption. By faith, we are told, Abraham offered a better sacrifice than Cain. How by faith? Because God had indicated that the way back to God was to be by the offering of a sacrifice and the shedding of blood. And Abel believed God, and he came God's way. And the ultimate result of his refusing to come God's way is that he rose up and he murdered Abel. This is a hard story. It reminds us that the first murder to be committed in earth was a murder committed in the context of religion. First and the shedding of blood. Abel believed God, and he came God's way. Oh, how wonderful to see salvation already acting and so early. But it was otherwise with Cain. For Cain refused to come God's way. And the ultimate result of his refusing to come God's way is that he rose up and he murdered Abel. This is a hard story. It reminds us that the first murder to be committed in earth was a murder committed in the context of religion. First murder was not committed in the brothels of Soho, but was committed by hands that had just brought God an offering. Story will remind us of the hard fact that religion itself can often be an expression of man's enmity with God. That sounds a very curious thing, does it not? It is so. Religion itself can be an expression of my self-will, my self-determination, my independence of God. Very often, it escapes detection because it is never really pushed to the issue. This day, God Cain's sacrifice with all his religious show was brought to the issue. God faced him squarely and said, Cain, no thank you. You cannot come that way. And then was discovered what kind of religion bonds that Cain had. He defied God and murdered his brother. If we are shocked to death, then that is because we haven't taken seriously what the Bible says about the fall. We are not necessarily the nice people we think we are. How externally horrifying we look. Hear us singing our hymns? There's nothing missing scarcely but a halo. You scratch our skin. You will find what the Bible says is true. The mind of the flesh is enmity with God. It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. The fall that's set up within us a direct opposition to the law of God. And it's no good papering over the cracks. God has a way of saving us. He is only salvation for those that will turn round and face themselves. Realistically repent of what is the basic problem. How came, came Cain to that attitude? I suppose, in one sense, naturally enough. Cain, we read, was a tiller of the ground. How shouldn't he be? That was what his father Adam was. He was continuing the family business. And indeed, God had made his father to be a tiller of the ground, so what was wrong in Cain's being a tiller of the ground? Absolutely nothing. It so happened that Abel kept sheep. Easy then for Abel to bring the sacrifice that God required. But Cain, because professionally he was a tiller of the ground, he brought the fruit of the ground to God. Now does he work very well on it? Use the same cucumbers, they were semantic. The flowers and fruit have you. He meant no insult. He said to himself, you know, I'm not, I'm not like my brother, a herdsman. You know, I have to spend all my day, uh, producing fruit like this, and, uh, I, I, I trust, I just have the faith that, uh, that God will accept that my work. I do it, I do it sincerely. And what was wrong with bringing the fruit of the ground anyway? Well, in a sense, there was nothing wrong in bringing the fruit of the ground. There are many passages in the Old Testament where God's people are told to bring the fruit of the ground. Deuteronomy twenty six is one place. Provision was made for the Israelites in subsequent centuries to bring God offerings of their firstfruits, of all kinds of fruits of the earth, and God was pleased to accept them. There was nothing wrong in itself of bringing an offering of the fruits of the ground. The point of issue was, while there's nothing wrong in offering God the fruits of the ground, you can't come to God that way. You can't base your approach to a holy God on the offerings of your hand. There is no redemption, there is no forgiveness, there is no eternal life to be given in exchange for the offering of your hand. You can't come to God like that. Oh, if you have been reconciled to God through the sacrifice of Christ, then bring all you have and give it all to God, and God is pleased with it. But if you would first be reconciled and forgiven and restored, then you can't come to God through the fruits of the ground. There is no forgiveness in it. This, I'm persuaded, is where many people have misunderstood or been deceived or something. There's the busy housewife at her work. She sees after her children like a true mother. Her home is spotless. She has time to visit the neighbors and to help them and to cook them the opium pudding. And she says, you know, I've got time to read the Bible. I've got time to go to church much. But, you know, I, I, I believe that if I sincerely do my work as a mother, that a mother's work is what God has given me to do, and so long as I do a mother's work, I, I have great hopes that God will receive me in the end. Oh, mother, mother. Yes, it's wonderful, that work you are doing as a marvel. But God can't accept it as a way of approach, as a means of salvation. When Cain came to God with this offering of fruit as an approach offering to God, he was in fact ignoring the sorry fact of the fall. He was coming to God as though sin had not happened, as if there were no sin, or if sin were no longer important. Cannot be. Yes, of course, your work as a mother is wonderful, but it isn't perfect, is it? You yourself would be the first to admit it isn't perfect, and therefore, mother, marvelous as your work is, you mustn't ca- try to come to God on the basis of that work. You are fallen like the rest of us. You have sinned like the rest of us. Before you can offer your life to God, you need forgiveness. That forgiveness comes only through the sacrifice of Christ. Busy doctor. What a noble work you're doing, healing the sick. But I hear you say you've no time for religion. You feel it's good enough so long as you serve your fellow man in your, in your medicine. Oh, sir, I tremble for you. You're the best doctor you know how to be. You can't come to God as though sin didn't matter, and you have sinned like the rest of us have sinned. There is a way to God. It's not through your medicine. The way to God is through Christ and his sacrifice. To be forgiven through the merits of Christ's offer. Oh, come and be reconciled through Christ. Come and receive forgiveness. Come and be reconciled to God and instated in his family, and then you may give your medicine to God and your whole life to God, and God help you to do it. Come and use your medicine by your way to God. You feel faintly annoyed? I understand that too. Cain felt very annoyed. And as he stood there talking to God, boy, of fucking sight, all these narrow-minded evangelicals. And a very dark eye was directed to Abel. They say they're accepted with God, and I can't say I'm saved, though I do my very best. And here the jealousy began. Who does he think he is, this Abel? Parading around and telling us he's certain that God has received him. Cain still hadn't received him. That Abel could find acceptance and know himself forgiven and saved because he came up from his own merits, but on the merits of a sacrifice. Look, said God to Cain. Cain, why are you angry? If you do well, should you not be accepted? Why are you angry? Sir, does it annoy you if I stand here and say I'm saved? You say, what an ugly trick. You feel annoyed? Why do you feel angry? You came to Christ God's way. You could be sure you're saved. No need to get angry about it. And if you don't do well, let me warn you, said God, you have in you sin that is like a wild animal. It in this very moment is beginning, like an animal will do, to tense itself, ready to pounce. And you should rule it, Cain, as it will rule you. Well, Cain never really thought he was that kind of man that would murder his brother. No, because he hadn't taken the fall seriously, had he? He thought earth was simply nothing still but red roses and nice pretty innocent daffodils. And gauge what the fall had done to the human heart, to make it an unruly, ungovernable thing when it is pushed to the issue of any enemy of God, who defy God and determined to have its own way. Rule it, Satan, Cain, he said, rule it, as it will rule you and destroy you. Oh, I plead with you, sir. Would you madam, the preaching of the way of the cross makes you angry, face it. Fancy God's word making you angry. Fancy God's offer of salvation making you cringe. And show what a kind of a thing you suffer from inside. If you let it master you, it will destroy you. Or cast yourself in your misery on, on God. Cry out for God's deliverance from this evil thing called sin and self-will. It lives within your very breast. Our thoughts are not God's thoughts, and his ways are not our ways. God stands pleading with us, therefore let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thought, and let him return unto the Lord. He will have mercy upon him. Cain rose up and killed his brother. He rejected God's salvation and added insult to injury. And God did what? God punished Cain. You say, I don't like that story. I don't believe in a God who will punish anybody. You don't? Well, then you better stop just a moment and, and just see what the punishment was. God had made man to till the ground. That was what their very reason for existence was in the first place. The first man was made to till the ground, and he made a poor job of it. For into God's good garden and earth, the first gardener introduced the principle of sin and with it a multitude of thorns and thistles. See what this man does. He's following the family line. He's a gardener because that's what God set him to do. He has no other reason for existence. He didn't make himself. It was God who made him and made him to till that ground. And one day he comes with his offering and says, God, now thank you very much, Cain. No, not that today. I want this other thing today. Okay? Oh, he says, too bad, God, too bad. You won't have what I like. Well, you can go without. And in fact, if you won't have what I want, you won't have what Abel gives either. What would you do with a man like that? Suppose so you had two gardeners. I can't think you have, perhaps, in this day of inflation, but suppose you have. You have two gardeners, Joe and Bill, and you go along and you say, now, Joe and Bill, now I want you to understand this clearly. You see that greenhouse over there? Now this year, I want tomatoes, not cucumbers. Yes. People are clear. Tomatoes, not cucumbers. And in the middle of the summer, you come along to see the glass house, and it's cucumbers from one end to the other, cucumbers, and not a tomato in sight. And you call Joe, you say, hello, Joe, old boy, I thought I told you tomatoes, not cucumbers. What, no, he said. But you've got cucumbers. Well, so what? I like cucumbers. But I said tomatoes. Well, I don't care what you say. Well, where's the other chap then? Oh, he tried to grow some tomatoes, but I got rid of him. And what would you say? Say, Joe, these are your cards, my boy. Would you go? Oh, sir. I've got to say something very terrible. God made you to do his will. If you, like the rest of us, have sinned. You know you haven't any other reason for being than to fulfill God's will. You make yourself difficult. And you fail. You deserve God's judgment. And God has made a way back to him for you through Christ. And you won't have it? You defy the very God who made you? Yes, sir. I'm sorry. What do you suppose God would do for you? You have to say to your friend, here are your cards. Get Keep going. going. You say it's not very terrible, is it? So that's hell. To exist eternally without any reason for existing. Have no meaning in life because you've rejected the God that made you and rejected the redemption that would have saved you. Exist forever in a meaningless, pointless, purposeless eternity. That's how is hell. And they choose it themselves. Who choose to defy the God that made them. He said, I can't believe that picture of yours. You paint a very bad picture. I think the world is better than you, you make it out to be. There are a lot of nice people in the world, and doesn't civilization flourish? Well, of course it does. Cain went out from the presence of God. Said Cain, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Get out, says God. You might as well, because now when you till the ground, it it it won't yield us strength, so you you might as well get out, man. Get out. Said Cain, but if I get out, everybody that meets me will kill me. No, no, no, says God. You're afraid of punishment? Right, okay. I'll give you a free pass. I'll put a mark on your head so that nobody will kill you. What did that lead to? And it led to a glorious civilization. As time went on, they invented musical instruments. Thank God for them. And they made progress in agriculture, for which all are grateful. And they invented foundry work. Come ours, and now we have four cars. Cause. How grateful we are to God for his goodness. Wait a minute. This man that wouldn't have the way of sacrifice. He didn't think sin was very important. Why should he bring a sacrifice with blood? He didn't like the doctrine of sacrifice. It was cruel to think of a God that would punish with death. No, he didn't like that. All right, said God, you have it your way. I'll put a mark on you, Cain, so you won't pay. Presently, as the civilization got to be very advanced, there were a chap who started writing lyrics for the local pop song league. His name was Lamech. What the subject of his entertainment and lyrics? Violence. Cain killed a man, got away with it. I just killed a man, he just poked me in the ribs, and I smote him and s- slew him. I should get away with it too. He sat down and wrote some lyrics and plays of violence. It was a civilization that in the end went down in welter of violence. And it has uncomfortable similarities with our own civilization. They don't believe the doctrine of Christ's sacrifice now, do they? They don't like to believe in a God that punishes with death. They therefore don't like a savior who died for our. They like to think sin doesn't really matter, and you can come to God without redemption and just bring the work of your hands. And how do they end up? They end up with a civilization that glorifies violence on every screen in the country. For thought is a very brief thing, and civilization that won't have redemption will in the end destroy itself in violence. Oh God, give us wisdom to face ourselves and face realities. Do I hear you say, but then how can I be saved? I don't understand how to be saved. What will you, what would you have me do this moment to be saved? I wish I had time to explain it. But sir, if you want to be saved, madam, if you want to be saved, you'll be saved right now. You don't have to understand a lot to be saved. You need simply to know that you need to be saved and that you cannot save yourself. And Christ died for you. Do you want to be saved? Bow your head as now I bow my head, and call on the name of the Lord. When men began to see where civilization was going under the descendants of Cain, some of them took fright and began to call on the name of the Lord. Do it now. Call on. Tell him you want to be saved and you're willing to be saved, and ask him right now to save. And he's written, whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Shall we do right now? Gracious God, now as we have listened to thy word, with its powerful diagnosis of our need, so that it is impossible for any of us here now present not to know that thou dost regard us as sinners. Lord, we pray that thou wilt open our eyes and work on our hearts, that we may see equally clear that thou hast provided a way of salvation and reconciliation through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, so that we can come, our hands empty, save only that with both of them we grasp thy Son Jesus as our personal savior. O Lord, now in this moment, give ourselves a moment of quiet. We may now call on you, each from his heart. We who have long since known thee and are saved, we come simply to say, thank you, God, for thy inexpressible gift. Answer these words. Some who have never called before.