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Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of any tree of the garden? But the woman said unto the serpent, of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, and God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die, for God dost know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat. And she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. The eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden. The Lord God called unto the man, and he said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? The man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle and above every beast of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake. In toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee. And thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. The Lord God made for Adam and for his wife coats of skin and clothed them. And the Lord God said, behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubim and the flame of a sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life. The Lord himself interprets his holy word to us all. We are in process of studying the second creation story in the book of Genesis, and have now arrived at chapter three, wherein we are told of the tremendous attack that Satan made on the human race, and through that human race upon God himself. We are to read of the fall, what it was and what it implied. I would just say here that if you would have the total biblical story of the fall, then you must read not only this second creation story, you must read the third as well. Because this story will tell you of the fall and its results from certain points of view, namely the points of view that we have read of so far. But if you will have the full account, then you must go to the third creation story, which will tell you again the results of that fall from another point of view. But hitherto in our studies, we have considered man, first of all, in the first creation story of the great climax of the works of God, made to have dominion as the viceroy of God, made in God's image, to do and to be at his lowly level what God is and does at his higher level. He was made then to have dominion. And in our last study, in the opening chapter of the second creation story, we discovered two other major themes about mankind. We considered his reason for being. He was made to till the ground. And not only the ground that lay around him, but in as much as he was himself made of the ground, he was responsible to till for God that bit of the ground that walked around on two legs. And certainly we saw that the chapter two of Genesis describes for us the many different levels at which God gave to man life. Now we shall see tonight in those three particulars, Satan make his dastardly clever, devilishly clever attack upon man. To attack man at all, seeing he was God's viceroy, made in God's image, was of course to attack God himself. But to attack man in the way that Satan did attack him was to stage a very explicit rebellion against the rule of God in earth. Oh, we shall notice that the first thing Satan did was to upset God's intention, God's establishment for the government of Earth. God had put man in charge, and to man he had given a help, meat for him, made for him, to help him in this task that God had given him. And man and woman made for man, the both of them had God set over the beast of the field. Man, woman, beast, and in that order. And Satan comes along, not at first to drag man in the gutter of sin, as we would phrase it, to tempt him with loathsome vices and horrible immoralities. Satan has more serious work to do at first than to tempt man to such vicious immorality. Satan is concerned to disrupt the governing, the government of this world, and hence the government of God. And so he takes God's plan and puts it upside down, and starts with the beast and corrupts the woman, and through her causes the man to fall. I say again, a direct attack to upset God's scheme of government. And happy they who have allowed the effects of redemption to begin to undo the works of the devil. When now on earth you will see a company of Christian people gathered, there, that is if they are behaving right, you will see God, uh, beginning to put right what Satan put wrong. You watch any Christian church assembling, you will see the men and the women, say, at the Lord's Supper, when they celebrate the establishment of Christ's kingship and government on the terms of the New Covenant, you will see the men assemble with bare heads and the women assemble with their heads covered. And it isn't some curious concession to the fashions of Paris, London, or Belfast. It is a deliberate symbol to show that God is on the way of redemption, undoing Satan's chaos and restoring his government. That man with his bare head acknowledge the headship of the man, that is our Lord Jesus Christ. And the woman with her veiled head acknowledging the headship of the man. And Christ acknowledging the headship of God. But that, by the way, we shall see in this chapter not only Satan making his attack on God's arrangements for government. We shall see him attack man's life and introduce at every stage of that life its opposite death. And we shall see the sad results of that fall issuing in grievous trouble for man and woman at the level of their very reason for existence. But first of all, let us think then of Satan's tactics as he came to tempt our foreparents to their rebellion against God. And first of all, he started with a blunt question and denial of the word of God. Has God said, was his gambit. You shall not eat of any of the fruit of the trees of the garden. Thus it is, said he. Listen to me, said Satan, you shall not surely die. Bold. Downright. Denial. Of the word of God. Satan is a past master at psychology. If you want to access a doctrine, go for it. Truth and nail, right smack and inches. He denies it in total. But then mark his cleverness. In order to back home his denial of the word of God, he offers an alternative explanation that is in itself quite true. You shall not surely die, said he. That was a lie. But to impress upon her that lie as though it were truth, he added, for God doth know that in the day you eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as God, knowing good and evil. And that bit was true. As God himself subsequently remarked, now the man is become as one of us to know good and evil. I would like us, and particularly our younger friends amongst us, to observe this tactic. It is so exceedingly important. It is a tactic that Satan constantly uses, particularly with those who love to think or have to think. He will deny the truth of God's word outright, and then he'll give his alternative explanation. And generally speaking, the alternative explanation is true. And because it's true, people fall to the trap of thinking, well, because the alternative explanation is true, then the denial must be true. But of course it doesn't follow logically. And there is its trap. Will you notice then, that as his prime method in the fall of man, Satan denies God's holy word. Therefore, to know this is to be forearmed. For the way to overcome Satan is to know and believe and use God's God's word. word. In this, our Lord is our supreme example. When he was tested, not now in a lovely garden surrounded by many fruits, but forty days and hungered in a wilderness. He replied to every temptation from the tempter by the phrase, it Is is written. written. The elderly Apostle John, writing to his Christian brethren and sisters, remarks this of the young men. The young men that have grown beyond spiritual babyhood to be vigorous young men for God, says he, this is your. I write unto you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one. And I would like to impress it upon my younger brethren and sisters, that if they would become vigorous for God in their day and generation, they should attempt, by God's grace, to store their minds and hearts with God's word. It may be that you expect, as young folks, that Satan's attacks will come at you, at the level of your conduct, of your moral behavior. And yes, you must expect them there too. But Satan is far more interested still, as always he was more interested. He is far more interested in smashing your faith in God and his word than he is of making a moral wreck on you. Alas for the multitudes of decent people who no longer believe God's holy word. It is at the level of your intellect, at the level of your thought, at the level of your belief in God and his word that Satan is out to break you. For if that goes, everything goes. That is why Saint Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, the second letter, spends quite a deal of his time talking about Satan's attack on our thought life. When we are unconverted, he blinds the thoughts of them that believe not, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of God should shine into them. And then when we are saved, again, it is our thought life he goes for. I have espoused you, says Saint Paul to the Corinthians, I have espoused you as a chaste virgin to Christ, but I have fear lest that old serpent, in that same cunning way as he deceived Eve, should corrupt your thoughts from the simplicity that is towards Christ. It is oftentimes, with young folks particularly, a strain to know how they shall balance their Christian faith with the sundry scientific and philosophical information that they pick up in the course of the road of their education. They want to be loyal to their faith and to the Lord Jesus, and yet on the other sides they sense that to be good scientists or good artsmen, you must be honest with the evidence. Sometimes at last, this leads to a dichotomy, a division in their thinking. As one young lad put it, to my knowledge, just recently, no, he never got any problems, he said, about the faith, because when he was in church, then he he shut his science out of his mind. And then when he went to his science lab, he shut the scriptures out of his mind. Oh. Fatal dichotomy there. And last, how many folks have the notion that Christian things are what you do in Sunday school, but the real world is what you do in the science lab or in the marketplace. It cannot be. That in itself is a wedge that Satan tries to drive between us and God, trying to get us in a position where our faith is nothing more than a psychological dose of comfort, a fantasy that we indulge in of a Sunday morning when we're safely away from the world, but that has no real contact with this real world. He will try to instill the notion in you that, of course, in the real world, if you would face the truth, you must accept the atheistically based physical theories. And that is a lie to start with. We'll say, but how can I, as a scientist, as a physicist, as a mathematician, as a geologist, as an arts man, how can I shut my eyes to the scientific evidence? Nobody's asking you to shut your eyes to any evidence. What the issue at stake is, is this. Who, who made the world? And where is truth? The truth of the atom lies with the God who made the atom. Truth of the molecule lies with the God who created it. And that God is to be trusted. The only true scientific attitude is to proceed in our investigations in utter trust of the God who created the evidence, who created the world. And to start from a position of non-faith is a fallacy, right at the, at the ground floor. It's not scientific. Let me repeat that. To start from the scientific presupposition that there is no God is to start with a scientific basic fallacy. And true scientific method must be to start basically in utter trust of the God who made the world that you're trying to study. And in the last analysis, as in the first, to trust him. Faith is not a something that I indulge in at the Lord's Supper or preaching the gospel, but have to discard when I come to my scientific investigations of the universe. Faith is a something that must underlie our whole level of life at every level, at every dimension. Because this universe is a personal universe, and the truth about everything, in the last analysis, is God who made it. Well, I plead with you not to allow Satan to get in at the ground floor by undermining your faith at the level of your scientific studies. We'll make a bad scientist of you if you do that, and we'll make an atheist of you as well. How then does he do it? Listen to Saint Paul. He says, I have espoused you as a virgin to Christ. Anybody's knowledge that before a girl gives her word, and particularly in the ancient Eastern world, before a girl, girl gave her word of betrothal to a man, well, she was free, of course, wasn't she, to entertain any likely possibility. This man here, that one, perhaps, yes, or the other one, yes, pros and cons on each side, yes. Hmm, well, let's leave it a while and, and wait and see. Ah, but once that girl gave her word of betrothal, then it was no longer a moral thing for the girl to have an open mind. And to consider other possibilities. And that is how it is between us and our creator. There is a certain basic morality in our thought life. If I have believed Jesus Christ as God's son, then it is an immoral thing for me to question his word and faithfulness and honor. And that is precisely what Satan will always try to do, to break my loyal faith in Christ. And the sad thing is, he will use truth to do it. Didn't he hear? Go on, he said. Take it. For God knows that in the day you eat thereof, you shall be a God, knowing good and evil. It was perfectly true. But he used the truth to argue a lie. Oh, how many folks have been caught by it. A very common example of the method nowadays is to take a young man or woman into the lab, or preferably to the TV screen where the science isn't quite so exact, and point out that now, of course, we understand how the atom ticks. Nowadays, we understand what makes lightning and thunder. Nowadays, we understand what causes earthquakes. That's only true. And the explanations, generally speaking, are perfectly true. So what? So the runs the suggested conclusion, you can't believe in God anymore. So Satan uses what is true, true explanation of how the thing works, in order to try and buttress a lie. Therefore, because we understand how it works, we don't need to believe in God anymore. Therefore, in all this thing, we do well to remember that our sheet anchor is unswerving faith in a person, that person who made the world that we are proposing to study. Notice next, that implied in what Satan said to Eve were two other things. Others of us may recognize this part of his tactics more than that I have just mentioned. Is it true, he said to Eve? I gather you mustn't eat of any of these trees in the garden. Oh, no, no, no, you've got that wrong, said Eve. No, no. Yes, deliberate exaggeration. Always a good bargaining point, isn't it? To make more effective when she had to admit, no, no, oh, you're wrong there. Um, there's all the trees we may eat, but one we mustn't eat. Yes, I thought so, said Satan. Yes, I thought so. Typically God, you know, typically God, he, he could have done better, couldn't he? You'd have given me that tree as well, I mean. But then you see, that's like God. Could do better for you than he's doing. I don't know. How many believers have heard that whispered in their ear? In times of pain, in times of perplexity, in times of bereavement, the old whisper is to be heard, yeah, yeah. You know God could do better for you than this, couldn't he? Thirdly, implied in his temptation, the idea that faith in God was a degrading thing. Strike a blow for freedom, Eve, he said. Believe in all this nonsense like you do, this Victorian pitiful. You mustn't touch it. God jolly well knows that in the day you eat thereof you shall be as God. You'll rise in the universe, you'll no longer be kept down by these religious inhibitions. You shall be as God. Well, what a thousand mouths he has today to spread the message, doesn't he? That faith in God is an antiquated, degrading thing, and if we will be free intellectually, we must cast off these old ideas of a God out there and rise to be gods ourselves. We want to notice it, for Satan hasn't finished yet with his tricks. The New Testament declares that this age shall end in the greatest apostasy that our world has ever seen. It shall take this form. There shall come one after the workings of Satan. He shall exalt himself above all that is called God or is worshipped. He shall sit himself in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Satan's final goal, to get it into man's head that he's as good as God. And around us, there is a vast tide of propaganda, subtly getting it into people's heads that God out there is dead, that the word of God is a past number, that true faith in Christ is unscientific and degrading, in order presently that it shall lead to Satan's great masterpiece of man throwing out the idea of God and trying to be God himself. But look now, if you would, at Eve's mistake. And in this we come to what we were considering on the last occasion. What is life? We found life was a multi-dimensional thing, as described to us in chapter two. Man was made of the dust of the ground. He was so much stuff. Then God breathed into his nostrils, and man became animate stuff, able to reproduce, alive in the physical sense, to which God added life at the aesthetic level, giving him trees good to look at. And then God added life at the level of interest and employment, with a garden to keep and rivers going out of it and metals to mine and the earth to be subdued, life engaging all his gifts and talents and developing his personality. We saw how God gave man life at the level of love and marriage, and also with that tremendous gift, the gift of language and communication and creative arts. So that among man's most noble living and his most noble production is his literature, his creation in words. But supremely, God gave man life at the moral and spiritual level. When he laid down the prohibition and said, of every tree you may eat, but not of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Thus linking man to himself in a moral relationship in which man was free, in which man was commanded not to eat of this tree, but was actually free, that in the sense that he had the ability either to obey God or the ability to disobey him. I watch Satan in his arguments with this woman. Oh, with desperate cleverness and in the right order. He has inserted doubts in her mind intellectually as to the word of God. Presented her with another alternative explanation that is true in itself, and therefore very convincing, and therefore seems to support the first lie. And with her faith in God's word shaken, now he directs her attention to life and to this tree. She hadn't looked at it quite like this before. She was looking at life for the first time without faith in God. What did it look like? Oh, beautiful. She saw that the tree was good for food. It would satisfy her physical cravings. She saw that the tree was delightful to look at. It would satisfy her aesthetically. And she saw that the tree was desired to make one wise. It would satisfy her intellectually, and she stood there aghast. Well, she said, what else do I want? Physical satisfaction. Aesthetic satisfaction. Intellectual satisfaction. Why, she said, evil girl, that is life. And in one sense it was true. It was life at a certain level, but in the absolute sense it was a terrible lie, for it missed the great ingredient of life, for it missed the great ingredient of life. It missed God's word, fellowship with God through his word. What a solemn thing this is. Our Lord had to face it, didn't he? Ere he could win back our lost dominion. He was hungered in a wilderness, and Satan said, uh, make these stones bread. What's wrong with satisfying yourself physically? Nothing wrong so in itself. But the idea that you can have even physical life and final full satisfaction physically without God and his word is a lie. Christ replied, man shall not live by bread alone. Man shall not live by art and aesthetics alone. And you students, man shall not live by intellect alone. Intellect without God is in the end a, a death. And art and literature without God are in the end corrupting and death. And the most wholesome food without God in the end will lead but to death. Notice now, will you, the reaction? How soon the disillusionment followed upon the yielding to the temptation. Said the serpent to the woman, you know, if you were to eat of that tree, you would be as God, knowing good and evil. You would rise, my dear woman. You would evolve one step in the universe and be as God. And the woman took it and gave to her husband, and they realized they were naked. You say, they were naked before. Yes, that's how God made them. You say there's nothing wrong then in being that way. If God made them that way, there was nothing wrong in being that way. Of course there wasn't. Why then were they ashamed all of a sudden? All because you see. Man started out, what a wonderful creature he was, part spirit, part animal. So long as he remained at the spiritual level in touch with God, the Father of spirits. So long was he a king in his castle. So long did his spirit reign, unquestioned and perfectly control the animal part of him. So that then he felt it no shame to be an animal, because the animal in him did not rule him, but he had perfect control of the animal part of his being. But the moment he left off faith in God and grasped that independence of God, then instead of rising a degree in the universe, he fell by, and found he was animal, that he could no longer perfectly control. A prisoner now in his own castle, and ashamed of it. Now to be driven by urges, to be pushed by instincts. Now forever to have the animal within him do all the suggesting, and he finding it very difficult to keep hold of the reins and control it, in order to remain decent. You see? The first result of man's rebellion against God and grasping at independence was to lose his own dominion. Have we not known it and felt it? Till we have wearily said, with the apostle Paul, oh wretched man that I am, the good that I would do, I don't do, and the evil I wouldn't do, that I do. I delight with my mind in the law of God, but I see another principle working in my members, bringing me into captivity to the law of sin and death. Strike a blow for freedom by getting rid of the idea of God? Oh, my dear friend, the only way we shall ever be free is by returning in genuine repentance, willingly to submit to God as Lord in Jesus Christ our Savior. Therefore, man ran off. Finding himself fallen, an animal that he could no longer control, not even himself, he tried to run from God. God was now an unpleasant thought. Like a little toddler, you know, before mum went out to the shops, he thought mum was the loveliest person in all the world. She got ice cream for tea. She told him not to touch his ice cream, not just yet. And when she's gone, he thought he'd like to see this ice cream at least. There would be no harm in looking at it, would there? So he went to the fridge and opened the door, and there was the ice cream, lovely staff ice cream. I wonder if it was as cold as it looked. There wouldn't be any harm in just tasting a little, would there? Five minutes later, the whole bar had gone. And then? Mother had become the most undesirable person in the whole house, and the sound of her foots coming up, feet coming up the drive made him want to run away. Man and woman go running to hide themselves in the trees of the garden. Pathetic, isn't it? As though those lovely trees that God had made could somehow become a hiding place from God. There are many folks doing it still. We all do it naturally, don't we? We don't all run away from God and hide ourselves in the brothels of Soho. Many a very respectable woman hiding in the lovely flowers of her garden and the lovely furniture of her home and her Bollywood children. And she says, you know, well, I've no time for religion, you see, because I'm so busy and I believe it's right as a mother that I should look after my children and see after my husband, you see, and I have to keep the garden, but what would the neighbors say if I let the dandelions grow? And I am so busy in these things, and... Yes. If you haven't time for God, hiding in the lovely things of the world, away from their fear. And there's many a man hiding behind the trees of the garden, away from the garden's God. Well, how many of us? We've got intellectual problems, we say, and God knows there are genuine intellectual problems enough. However, some of the intellectual problems we have are mighty convenient problems, particularly if the message of God's call to repentance and faith gets too near the bone. Ah, now we've got a problem. You'll be surprised how many folks are interested in the heathen. Not to get them converted. No. Not to spread the gospel among them. No. Not every day of the week, no. But when they are being pressed by some evangelist or other to yield their, their loyalty and trust to Christ and believe him and receive him as savior, and the thing is getting very close, then suddenly they develop a tremendous interest in the heathen. What about the heathen, they say? Oh, what about them? Well, if they're, you know, if they've never heard, are you going to say they're lost? Well, they said, uh, are you really interested in it? Because, uh, you know, the Bible does talk a lot about it. Have you read the passages where the Bible speaks of it? Well, no, I haven't done that. Oh. There's not a real problem, else they would have tried to find the answer. It's one of these hiding places behind which men get. And they try to cover up. And now nothing will do, they must come and meet God. What a tragedy this. Because they had sinned, then they got the idea in their heads that God must be against them. It's endemic in the human race. From the pagan, with his horrible, hideous sacrifices, the most refined gentle woman you ever met, under pressure, men fall to thinking that God is against them. And all the tragedy, this chapter of Genesis makes it abundantly clear, that though man sinned, God was still for him. As they came wretchedly before God, sensing their nakedness. One of the first things God did was to offer a kill, a sacrifice, and take its skin and clothe that they might be at rest and unembarrassed in his presence. Oh, if we learn nothing other tonight, this would be well worth learning and learning again. God is for you, my man. God is for you, my woman. In spite of all your sins, God is for you. And the marvel of this chapter is that when Satan had done his worst and come near to wrecking the human race, God comes down and announces that he is going on with the human race. Oh, how easily, to our way of thinking, it could have read that when man rebelled and sinned, God decided to have finished with the whole phenomenon of humanity. Squash it out and start again with something different. But the glorious message, the glorious message is that when man sinned, God came down to announce that he was going to carry on with the great adventure of the human race. But they would now have to be disciplined. So let us think of them as we close. God is to go on with the human race, and of the seed of the woman shall come humanity's deliverer. God's great tactical answer to the onslaught of the devil. A rather wonderful thing is man. Man-made, part spirit, part animal, and therefore able to reproduce, and therefore a way that God had of getting inside his own creation. Angels, we are told, at least in their unfallen state, do not marry, nor are given in marriage. There would seem to be no possibility that God should ever become an angel. But man was so made that God one day could get inside manhood and himself in human form meet man's Man's enemy. enemy. Until that day come, there would have to be disciplines. Disciplines at all levels. At the level of man's life. For now he had not only lost his dominion externally, but his dominion in himself, and now see it as it affects the great centers of his life. First, God takes the woman and childbearing. What could have been nothing but delight comes under God's discipline, a toil, and a sorrow. Your desire shall be towards your husband, and he shall rule over you. Sad words. In chapter four, they are used of the attitude of the animal to man. And at the center of humanity's life now, instead of being freedom, complete human freedom, there are great driving animal urges. And the man, what pertained to his life was to till the ground. Instead of now it's being a gentleman's occupation, it is reduced to a slavery. Thorns also and thistles it shall bring forth to thee. And man to survive, fitfully to survive, must toil with backbreaking labor and sweat of the brow. So isn't God being very unkind? No, sir. The man has now proved that left to himself he cannot, he cannot govern himself. Now, if man were left as he is fallen, with the animal in him predominant, man would have destroyed himself, and God must bring in a labor and shall keep man's Man's animal animal down. dying. And begin to teach man that he is indeed a fallen creature and in need of a coming redeemer. And finally, lest he put forth his hand now and constantly take of that tree of life and eat it, therefore the Lord God put him out of the garden. Until he returned to the dust, for dust he is. To dust shall he return. Scientists are still uncertain as to what causes aging. Ten years ago, they had some wonderful bright ideas that seemed to promise many explanations of the mysterious business of aging. But the latest reports are that they have, uh, not come up as they thought they would with the answers, and the matter of aging is as mysterious as ever. Why do men begin to age? Because, says Genesis, man has been cut off from a certain food. And man has not, uh, physical immortality in himself. To be physically immortal, man needed supply of food that was in that tree, and that tree being cut off, man losing his trace elements or whatever it is, he ages. He goes back to dust. What shall we say to him? Well, it is open to us to do two things. It is open to us to accept these disciplines and the discipline of death itself. To admit our sin and the sin of our race. And humbly to seek the redemption that God has provided through sacrifice, through Christ. All faced with this, we can grow more rebellious still and try to defy God. These two possible attitudes are very ancient, for in the very next generation from Adam and Eve, says Holy Scripture, you will find those two reactions predominant. There wasn't Abel, there was a Cain. Cain had the wisdom to confess the fall and to seek humbly the redemption that God provided. But Cain grew defiant, strove to build himself a civilization regardless of the fall. Our modern civilization sits there, doesn't it? What are we going to do faced with these, this, this diagnosis, this story? What do we do? We die, don't we? Childbirth is labor and sorrow. Our daily work full of difficulties. And at the end, death. What do you make of it, sir? Do you any hope for man? You say, yes, we'll, we'll get rid of religion. Our scientific genetics, by our biochemical engineering, we will do away with illness, we will do away with disease, we will do away with death. By our chemical technology, we will do away with pests. We will do away with thorns and thistles and weeds. By our technology, we will get bumper harvest. By our technology, we will control the weather. We will make ourselves lords again. By our unaided effort. We will build a paradise. When, sir? When? Who say, well, not yet, but we'll do it. They say, sir, a man has been trying a long time, he's not yet done it. Oh, but you say you must have faith. Oh, I see. Oh, how curious. I didn't know you believed in faith. Faith in whom? Is all your great godless program dependent, after all, on faith? You say, but faith in the future, what does that mean? You mean faith in future men? So you are faith, simply by faith in man. Also, the evidence is against you. Come, tomorrow, God willing, we shall see the other alternative for the future, bright and blessed indeed. God's determination that his experiment-