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Let us begin our studies by reading some verses from Genesis chapter one and then Genesis chapter two, to which we may add one reading from the New Testament. The book of Genesis chapter one and verse one. In In the the begi- beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. The earth was waste and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light. And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called light. And there was evening, and there was morning, one day. Verse twenty six: And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed. To you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat. And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. Chapter two, please, in verse 18. The Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make it help meat for him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto the man to see what he would call them. Whatsoever the man called every living creature, that was the name thereof. The man gave names to all cattle and to the fowl of the air and to every beast of the field, but for man there was not found in help meat for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof, and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man, made he a woman and brought her unto the man. And the man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. One passage from the New Testament found in the Gospel by Matthew and chapter nineteen. Gospel by Matthew, chapter nineteen and verse three. mhm And there came unto him Pharisees tempting him and saying, is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? He answered and said, have you not read that he which made them from the beginning made them male and female and said, for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the twain shall become one flesh, so that they are no more twain but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. God bless our reading, and with it our study tonight and in the nights to come, as he shall permit us. Tonight we embark on a very long study, eighteen studies in all, if the Lord had not come before, of the book of Genesis. Let me therefore remind you, though I am persuaded you know it well, let me remind you of the importance of this first and very large book of Holy Scripture. Its importance is seen, first of all, in this, that our Lord Jesus Christ himself quoted from this book and quoted it as the word of God. For that reason, we have taken time to read a passage from the New Testament that he quotes from the Old. Being asked on an occasion what his views about divorce were. Our Lord Jesus did not reply by quoting his own authority, though he might well have done so, being God's son incarnate. But he chose to reply by quoting to his questioners the book of Genesis, and asking with some surprise, had they never read Genesis? My views on divorce? My good sir, says he, have you never read the book of Genesis? I trust, did he put that question to us, we should be able to reply, yes, Lord, many times and many times over. Have you not read, says he, with an explicit reference to the written text of the book of Genesis? And then notice what next he says, have you not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female and said. In other words, our Lord is now making two observations. First of all, that just as Genesis tells us, so is the fact that man and woman were made by Almighty God. They were made male and female. Then our Lord adds that he which made them, that is the Creator himself, said, and now he quotes words from Genesis chapter two. and thus puts over them the authority of none less than the Creator himself. Genesis two says Christ, is the authoritative statement of God, and so authoritative that what it says and what it implies is binding on our lives right down to this very present day. On those at least who profess Jesus Christ as Lord. Genesis, therefore, is not some antiquated book, some dusty, musty piece of museum antiquity. Genesis is a book whose living authority derives from the Creator and is binding upon us in the practical behavior of life. There is no matter more fundamental to society than the matter of marriage and divorce. Among you, says Christ, it is to be governed by the inspired word of God found in the book of Genesis chapter two. But not only is the book of Genesis important because our Lord quoted it and quoted it as the word of God? But it is important, likewise, because his holy apostles quote it, and they too quote it as the word of God, and quote it as God's word over things that are utterly fundamental, both to our ordinary life and to God's work of salvation. Romans chapter five, Paul the Apostle sets about telling us how it is that every single person born into this world is born a sinner. He offers to us a diagnosis of that spiritual trouble that affects us. And obviously, if what the apostle has to say about salvation is going to be realistic and practical, then it has to stem from a realistic assessment of what the need is. How shall anyone put us right if he has no notion as to what made us go wrong. Romans chapter five, the Apostle Paul tells us, sin entered into our world through one man's disobedience. And through that disobedience and sin came death. He is referring clearly to the story of Genesis chapter three, Not as myths, not as parables, but as historic explanation. The sad state that we see in the human race to this present. The human race is without exception sinful. Sin. Similarly, when the Apostle Paul comes to tell us, each one, how we may be reconciled to God, how we may be put right with him, how we may be justified. Then, as well as explaining it to us in words of theological theory, he holds up to us an actual case, a historical case of a man who was justified with God, and quotes for us, as we well know, the case of Abraham, our forefather. But I remind you that when he quotes Abraham, he is not quoting a parable. He is not making up an artificial illustration or analogy. He quotes Abraham as an actual case of a literal historical man who was actually justified with God. Holds him up as the lawyers might well do, quoting him as case law, as precedent. For if Abraham was, uh, uh, justified before God this way, it creates a precedent for all time as to how everyone is to be justified, if he is to be justified at all. Therefore, when Paul asks the question, how then was Abraham justified? And answers it in the words of Genesis fifteen, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Paul is expecting you to accept that statement of Genesis fifteen as the authoritative, unchallengeable word of God. Come to even more delightful things. Saint Paul is at pains in another one of his letters, called the letter to the Galatians, chapter three, to prove to believers, though sometimes they show themselves rather unwilling to have it proved to them, that there is an enormous inheritance. Nothing short of world inheritance. What a wonder it is for us who would have been content with forgiveness of our sins. For us who would have been content with some low sleep, as the hum- seat, as the humble hymn puts it, within the door of heaven. To be told that we are not only forgiven and reconciled and at peace with God and justified by faith, but we are in Christ heirs of a worldwide dominion. If you ask how Paul will prove that to you, and how he can possibly, uh, assure you that world inheritance is guaranteed to every believer. Paul will try, will reply, it's a very simple matter. For way back in the early days of the race, God made a legal covenant with Abraham. That legal covenant, once made, stands. Unalterable, irrevocable, valid to all the seed, to whom that covenant promised eternal inheritance. I ask you to notice again that Paul, in quoting Genesis then, for this reason, is quoting Genesis to you as literal, accurate history, not merely as an illustration or as a type or as a parable, as literal a covenant, as the will by which your grandmother left you her chefoneer and sideboard, and your Uncle George, you hope, will leave you his American fortune. As literal as a will is that, and a covenant. Covenant recorded in Genesis fifteen to Abraham and his seed. Worldwide dominion. But then, as we read our Genesis, we shall find that while it is history, to be taken literally as history, a history from which we shall learn many a practical lesson. As well as being history, it is very frequently prophecy. And it is prophecy, not merely because here and there within Genesis are explicit prophetic statements, but also because many of its events and institutions were designed to be prototypes of bigger things to come. There are, I say, some literal prophecies. To Eve in the garden, so recently fallen and miserable in her sin, God prophesied the very essence of the gospel, as he said, the seed of the woman should bruise one day the serpent's head. It is literal explicit prophecy when Jacob, about to die, gathered himself together on his bed and said, Scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come. There is explicit prophecy in Genesis. But then the New Testament points out to us that there is more than just explicit prophecy. Many of its events and institutions, as I say, were designed as prototypes of bigger things. Let us recur to the matter we have already mentioned, the making of woman for man, recorded in Genesis chapter two. This said Adam as he looked upon Eve, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. And we have already seen how Christ takes that statement from Adam as the authoritative word of God, and applies it at the practical level as to how marriage should be ordered among Christian folks. When we come to the Apostle Paul's writing to the Ephesians in chapter five thereof, we find Paul pointing out that that, uh, statement in Genesis two has also a higher dimension. Yes, of course, it is practical guidance and authoritative commandment at the level of the matter of Christian marriage. But then also it is a great mystery, says Paul. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, a bride made as a help, meat for the man whom God had placed in dominion over his creation. Ha, the mystery is great, says Paul. I speak now concerning Christ and the church. And I want you to notice that this fact that Genesis becomes prophetic because it is a prototype of bigger things is not arrived at by some process of mumbo jumbo. Well, some folks have imagined that typology is a kind of arbitrary mumbo jumbo, and it is a way of making scripture mean anything that you like to make it mean. They have grown discouraged with typology, and some of them would banish it altogether, but not so fast. There's no magic in it, and certainly no mumbo jumbo. The events and institutions of Genesis become, many of them, prophecies of coming things, because the God who started this world going and guided its early development, designed its events and institutions, designed them so that they should be both valid in themselves and at the same time prototypes and preparations for the coming bigger thing. Do you find it a thing to be wondered at, as arbitrary as any blue moon? How it is that the child's toy shop, with its paper money and cardboard coins, a limitation cash till, I say, do you find it somehow incredible to admit that, that between that child's toy shop and the big Marks and Spencer downtown, there is a kind of a likeness? Do you count it fantastic? Of course not. You know how the likeness comes to be, but wise parents who are likewise businessmen and know the value of a half a crown, or used to, and still it took to increasing itself every day or lessening itself, or whatever on earth it's doing. Said, hey, Christo, my children one day will grow up and they'll need to go to Marks and Spencer's and need how to pay, uh, ten shillings for a shoelace and get a penny bag change. So I better prepare them for that. So wise father designs on a much lowlier scale a toy Marks and Spencers. To the child at the time, why, it's, it's the sum total of experience. As it crouches in front of the fire on a cold Wednesday afternoon, being a child has no bigger horizon than the game of a toy shop and scarce can think ahead to tea time. That's the great thing, and so it is. And very valid lessons are being learned. One times one is one, and one times two is two. Valid lessons that will be valid all through life. Then, as well as being valid for its own time with the child, thing was designed as a prototype of bigger things to come. Must not therefore be surprised when you come to the Epistle to the Galatians written by the Apostle Paul, to find him quoting you the story of Abraham, Ishmael, and Hagar, and asking you to see that story as a prototype of something far bigger. He observes that when Ishmael was born of the slave girl Hagar, Hagar tried to run away, but the angel of the Lord sent her back, and she had to live in Abraham's house for some many years, until, in fact, the promised seed, Isaac, was born. The very moment the promised seed, Isaac, is born, and his birth recorded in Genesis chapter twenty one, that very moment, Ishmael and Hagar are cast out. Serve it, says Paul, as an early prototype of a much bigger thing. That the nation that descended from Abraham originally was without the law. But there came a point in their lives when God put the law in that nation. Was in many respects a law that brought about slavery. But in God's good provid- providence, that law was put in that nation until the promised seed should come, Jesus Christ our Lord. When he was born and died a sacrifice for sin and rose again, something new was done. Cast out that bondwoman and her son, says Paul. You are no longer under law, but under grace. But And who who will will need to be told that our Lord's present priesthood is the full glowing reality? It is fashioned after a prototype invented in the days of the book of Genesis. Our Lord is declared to be a priest after the order of, according to the prototype of, after the order of Melchizedek. You shall find then in our studies of Genesis that we shall be taking it from time to time at these two levels. As actual history, bringing us many practical lessons, valid directly. Lessons that have been valid ever since they were given, and have not changed to this present time. Then we shall be taking it, showing us prototypes of larger things, great chapters in world history, as prophecies of the consummation of world redemption. Now, Genesis is a very large book. It has fifty chapters. The very number of them sometimes is forbidding. Let us therefore help ourselves and encourage ourselves to confront this very large study by first of all taking a bird's eye view of the contents of the book. We should be able to convince ourselves, perhaps, that though it has fifty large chapters, yet its broad subject matter can be very easily comprehended. Book of Genesis falls into two parts, and by the kindness of our good family collection, we have some very clearly written charts of the contents of the book of Genesis. Gloriously written, do I think. Can't read the tiny print from where you are, either get larger glasses or sit nearer the front next time. The first part is concerned to give us three stories of creation. Let me once point out to you that those stories do not contradict each other. They give us rather the story of creation from three different points of view. We shall perhaps be all of us aware that in our New Testaments, we have not one story of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, our Lord. We have four stories of the life and ministry of Christ, four gospels. Neither they contradict themselves, but we have four, because it has been God's good pleasure to show us the life of Christ from four slightly different points of view. Thus he has done with the story of creation. Bidding us think of creation from three distinct points of view. They tell us, each one of them as its chief topic. Not about suns and stars and moons and vaporous gases out in empty space, though they do mention such things. They are concerned to tell us particularly about man, chief of the ways of God in this world, made to be God's viceroy and representative. They tell us about man in his relation to God's great creation. What man was meant to be, what the purpose of having a world was. That is an important thing to know, isn't it? You clean your carrots, grow your wheat, make your clothes, to live, I suppose. Because you need a living. God makes carrots. Not because he has to earn a living. He does it simply for the glorious fun of doing it, for the sheer joy of making things, for the thrill of inventing ideas and getting them to work. Say it with utmost reverence, but there isn't a lazy streak anywhere to be found in God Almighty. He loves to do things. And he tells us about his creation and why he made it and how, and what he intended it to be for, so that we might know our place therein and cooperate with God in it. Know some of the fun of sharing in God's ideas and activity. These three creation stories tell us also between them, of what went wrong with man. The first story leaves everything perfect. Second story starts to tell us sad event of the fall and what it meant and what effect it had. And similarly, the third story takes up that same idea. Tells us that though God made man perfect in his image, the effect of man's sin was to ruin man constitutionally. God tells us that, not to mock us with visions that of things that could have been, but now are impossible. He tells us immediately upon telling us about fall, tells us the beginning of his process for salvation and redemption. So that in the second creation story, we pick up the road of redemption, which we shall follow throughout all the subsequent histories of the book of Genesis. We shall refine, we shall find a recurring pattern as we read. There is a little phrase, these are the generations of. Sometimes it will occur frequently within a few chapters. Then you will grow, go for numbers of chapters and not meet it, but then it will turn up again. These are the generations of. If you take them and put them down on a bit of paper, you will find that they follow a certain pattern. They are the landmarks of the road down which the path of redemption is followed. And the road, uh, has this feature. It's like a main road that goes on its way towards its goal, but every now and again you come to a fork in the road. And the fork goes off in this way, and if you were to follow that fork, very soon you would come to a dead end. So you find that that isn't the way of the message of the book of Genesis, and you have to retrace your steps a bit, and you come back to the fork, and you go down the other side. Ah yes, you find this is in fact the main road, and here we go, now we're on our way again. But presently, another fork in the road. Then you try the one that stands first, and you go a little way, once more a dead end. Genesis won't pursue it any further. So back you come to the fork down the other side, and yes, this is the main road, and here we go for many more chapters again. You will find the pattern repeat itself. For what it is marking out is the road down which God has designed salvation to travel, both for individuals and eventually for the redemption of the whole world. Therefore, Genesis is not interested in a lot of things that men normally would be interested in. Vast empires arose and departed in the days that are covered by the history of Genesis, and very little is said about them. Not because they weren't important in themselves, but simply because they weren't the main road that God was moving through history, on which salvation was come. But look at this road a moment. Here's the first one. In the second creation story, it begins thus: These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven. It promises then to tell us about two things, the generations of the heavens and the generations of the earth. After that mention of the heavens, we'll find no more mentions of the heavens in that particular creation story. Yes, it tells us God made the heavens. Marvelous. What he's going to do with them, I just don't know. I wonder what God is doing with all that gas up in Andromeda at the moment. What do you think he's going to do with it later on? Pour it down the drain? Or is he going to do something with it? When we've grown up spiritually. Wonder. Seems to have got a lot of stuff up, uh, to spare up a lot, doesn't he? What? Millions of suns and planets and goodness knows what. What he's going to do with it all? Genesis doesn't tell us here. That's not the road down which salvation shall come. Or us at least. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, but then the heavens get left on the dead end fork. And we come back to the generations of the earth. Man was made out of earth. Exciting things began to happen until Satan ruined it. And entering the garden sowed the poison of his unbelief and hate towards God. And man was ruined. Now let me tell you a wonderful story, that when Satan ruined man and man's earth, God did not give up the external. What a wonder it is. Oh, had I been God, should I not have been tempted? Having made such a marvelous creature and blessed him with indescribable blessing. And he proved traitor and believed Satan's lie and just shreds him out of hand. I should have said, you little miserable fly. You insignificant little bit of dust. What do I need you for? Millions of other worlds have got your one out. From the Andromeda cluster or Centaurus or Betelgeuse, you'll scarce notice that Earth is God. Ah, but God is not a man. He should lie, or the Son of Man that he should repent. Has he said it? Then he'll do it. Did he devise an earth and say that man should have dominion over it? Well, God will not give up the experiment, not for anybody, man or devil combined. God went on with the great adventure and goes on with it still. An earth with a man on it. Hebrews chapter two tells us that the great adventure that God there began, God will continue until he brings it to its final, glorious, complete, and utterly victorious solution. Look at the third creation story. Here's the phrase again, these are the generations of. Here is a creation story that now puts man in the context of his constitution. More of that on another occasion. But the first man, Adam, was a failure, and he died. And all his successors died. Last man in Adam became so hopelessly corrupt that God brought in a flood and destroyed the whole phenomenon called man. Except... I thought the road had come to an end, didn't it? No, no, no, no. One line came to an end, the first man. How did there was a second? Genesis takes up the main road story with the second man, Noah, who went through the judgment like everybody else, but marvelous to relate, came out the other side into a new and a cleansed world to make a new beginning for the human race. First man, first beginning of the race. First man went wrong. The race plotted out. Genesis takes up the main road story. There's another man with a new beginning. A race that will never be plotted out. Three stories of creation, two of them telling us of man's fall and the beginnings of the plan of God's redemption. But after the flood, the second half of Genesis takes up the story. You'll recognize the road going on once you look at it. These are the generations of, these are the generations of, these are the generations of... great probe that's fast becoming a a dual carriage motorway. God develops his great historical plan for the redemption of mankind. So it tells us these are the generations of the sons of Noah, and these are the generations of Shem. But then the book of Genesis comes to its dead end. Important that those nations were, and interesting as their history is, Genesis does not follow it, for not that way was the great highway of redemption for mankind. But see God do a new thing. And out of the Gentile nations of the branch of Shem, way out, in fact, from the idolatrous pagans of Mesopotamia, God took a man, a Gentile he was, and called that man out of the Gentiles and transformed him into a Hebrew. To begin a story, a thrilling story, and a unique story that holds still, most weeks of the year, front page news in all the newspapers of the world. Story of that unique nation of the Hebrews. Nation chosen to carry the trail of God's developing plan of redemption. First great part of the story is the call of Abraham the Gentile out from the Gentiles, making him a Hebrew and building from him a specialized nation, the Hebrews. Abraham and his seed. Yet in the very moment that God was drawing him out of the Gentiles to make him a separate nation, God was saying, Abraham, but in thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. This was no exclusive tea party. God's design of calling Abram out and making him walk a s- path of separation and pilgrimage was not to bring him at last to some conservative, exclusive heaven. So eventually he and his seed should be the vehicle of a worldwide salvation for mankind. Indeed, in thy seed shall all the nations of the world be blessed. So in that part, part four of Genesis, Abraham, father of the Hebrew nation, is learning lessons about what is the fundamental condition for true human existence. Abraham justified by faith. Abraham justified by works. Abraham, father of the nation through whom one day the promised seed, Messiah himself, should come. But when we have read that bit of the history, and read it as history, and read it also as was prophecy. promising. Genesis will ask us, look again at the road, at the place where the road forks. From Abraham there came two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. And the history of Genesis goes a little way down that fork that is Ishmael. I will come to dead end very quickly. Not through Ishmael were the promises given or fulfilled. But in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And so we come back on the main road to see the developing plan of God's salvation. Not now, of course, how a man is justified by faith or justified by works. Not to repeat the lesson of Abram the Gentile being called out from the Gentiles to form a special nation, the Hebrews, but a further stage in God's developing of that Hebrew nation. Namely, in turning Hebrews into Israelites. That was an intricate, exceedingly a- absorbing process. It involved the children of Abraham maintaining their vision of the purpose of God in the selection of the Hebrew, and maintaining it now among nations that became increasingly hostile to the idea of the very existence of a Hebrew nation. This part of the road, we shall find how the Philistines tried to make life impossible for Isaac. Ah, this part of the road, we shall see how that the Hebrews themselves, Jacob no less, was taken out of the promised land to spend year upon year upon year among the Gentiles, toiling, making his fortune, and then losing it. Long, long period of twenty one years out of the Promised Land. Though he, the promisee, See. Scattered scattered. among the nations. And finding life increasingly tougher, though there were periods of romance, if you please, and, uh, uh, business success. But in the end, finding life impossible among the Gentiles and being chased out and running for his life to get back to the promised land. Land. Get wrong ideas, real, it's history I'm talking about. Just at this point. And back in the Promised Land, going in fear of his life, of the Canaanite nations that were around him in that Promised Land. Finding the distress of those long, long years. The discipline in God's hand of turning unregenerate Hebrews into princes with God, into Israelites, should be able, when the time came, to take over the government and administration of the Gentile world. What happened in history, for what I've been telling you is history, I assure you. What happened in history? He would be very dull, wouldn't he, if he couldn't see that it's happened again on a bigger scale. Genesis here as elsewhere has proved a prototype of bigger things, holding its profe- prophetic message of promise and fulfillment for the day even beyond our own. But how at last is that nation to be brought to the end that God designed for it, and how shall the road of salvation reach its glorious goal? Man being taken out of the, uh, Gentiles, says, uh, section four, and being turned into a Hebrew and a special nation. Through that nation, carrying the promise, being forced to leave the promised land and spending a long time among the Gentiles, and at last being forced back into the Promised Land under natural friction. But eventually, see another part of the story. How that nation literally became a blessing, as God prophesied it would. In thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the world be blessed. There came a famine, not only upon Egypt, but upon all the nations around it who were dependent on Egypt, for Egypt was their granary. Yetaz, being in utter bewilderment and distress, and not knowing what to do nor having any foresight to do it with, found in a Hebrew turned Israelite, Joseph, the veritable savior of the world's economics. What a lovely story it is of ancient history, and at the same time of prophecy. We who live with our diminishing pound and our diminishing oil and all our inflationary troubles and the violence that they yet promise us. As under the judgments of God, the Western world gets worse and worse and worse into impossible economic problems. Oh, what a joy it is to read this ancient history. God has prepared beforehand a savior of the world, an answer to its economic problems, a man who should be able to take over earth and make it work as God intended the world should work, and make something awfully glorious and good. That man comes on the line of the special nation, the Hebrew, an Israelite, the promised seed. Just as in the history, Joseph was rejected of his brethren and sold to the Gentiles, put down a pit and then down a dungeon, but at last brought up to a place of power, when then his brethren were reconciled to him. He the head of the whole world. So shall it be. Road of redemption reaches its final goal. Blessed Jude, Hebrew, Israelite, the promised seed, Jesus Christ our Lord, rejected of his earthly people, believed on among the Gentiles, received up into glory, shall come again. Savor of the world, they shall own him. They shall sing then, worthy art thou to receive the financial resources, the riches. Worthy art thou to receive the raw material, as well as the glory and the honor. Then to sing as he takes over and makes something of earth as a man, as God originally intended man should do. And then, at least as I conceive it, is the story of the great book of Genesis. God helps in our study, I haven't given individual topics, because I want to leave myself room for maneuver. What nights I see you frowning more than usual, and asking questions thereafter that suggest that I haven't made things clear as I ought to have made them. Well, then I shall leave room for maneuver the next night to see, to try and make it a little bit clearer anyway. But we shall, of course, be following the natural order. So next time, God willing, the first creation story, then on to the second and the third. God, uh, encourages to work hard at his word. Be hard work. Wouldn't like me to entertain you with fairy stories, would you? How does it come that when you're a business, you can toil with the problems of the dollar and the inflating pound, but when you come to God's things, you want it simple. Should be talking of a real God, a God who made the world and its gold and its silver and its resources. A God who was big enough, not simply to save my little soul and give me some wonderful feelings in my bedroom, though he does that on occasions, but big enough to save a world and bring it to the glory that originally he intended it to have. Only something that's big enough for Christ would be any good anyway. We are the companions of Christ, to be prepared to work hard and have our minds stretched to share with Christ the glorious inheritance God has designed. Father, we thank thee for thy word, for the sheer brilliance of its construction, for the fascination of its reading, the wonder of the plot of salvation. And Lord, we thank thee not only for thy word, but for the fact that all thy word is true. These are indeed the true sayings of God. We praise thee for the hope with which they fill our hearts in amidst the gloom of our present modern world. Pray, Lord, that thou will give us energy and zeal to study it. The illumination of thy Holy Spirit to understand it. Grant, Lord, as we read this together in these coming weeks, if the Lord shall not come, that our minds may be stored with the rich information of thy purpose. And through it, our hearts be enamored and ensued by the glory and wonder of Jesus Christ, thy son. And our own hearts being made to overflow with joy and hope.