In this sermon, the speaker reflects on a conversation with a university student who questioned why God created mankind if they are capable of such evil. This question prompted the speaker to delve into the nature of God and the purpose of humanity. The speaker suggests that God did not create humans to be controlled like puppets, but rather to have a genuine relationship with Him. The sermon also touches on the role of Satan in tempting Eve and the consequences of sin.

I was afraid he was going to forget my name. Wouldn't be unusual. I'm the fellow who says I want you to meet my wife. What's her name? She doesn't think that's particularly nice. Names do cause a problem. I was in a Bible conference up in Muskoka Lakes in Canada some years ago, and one of the brethren asked for the privilege of introducing me, and he went at great lengths. And finally, when he finished with his long list of things, he said, I now want to present my brother Paris Green. And I don't think anybody knew the difference. Let's bow in prayer. Father, we thank and praise Thee for what we've heard tonight, for the truth that centers our minds and our hearts, and what we've seen and felt. We would ask Thee that this may be nourished by us, and that what thou we experience in these next minutes together are going to tie into and be and build upon that which we've seen. We do rejoice that Thou art here, that Thou art the Teacher, that the very Holy Spirit that inspired the Word is here with us and in us to illumine our minds and hearts, and to enable us to appropriate that Word. So bless each of us according to our needs. No two of us are in the same place in our relationship with Thee. No two of us have quite the same needs. Many years ago, during the time when the Second World War was raging in Europe and our nation was so involved in it, I was talking to a university student, and he raised this question, you know, we had the bombing of Pearl Harbor, we discovered about the killing of the Jews by Hitler and his people, and the whole scene was one of grave sadness and sickness and heartache. The world was on fire. And this young university student said, why did God ever make man in the first place, if he had any idea that man could be capable of doing what we see him doing now? Well, we talked about it, I gave him the best answer I was able to give that he was prepared to receive, and yet it was one that stayed with me, and it forced me to do a lot of thinking, a lot of study, a lot of praying, waiting on the Lord. Why did God make man? What's the purpose that he has in this being we call man? Why are we here? Well, we have to find out something about the nature of God to answer the question. We have some statements that are made about God, and we put them in order, not in terms of where they occur in the Scripture, but just so that we can see them in perspective. First, the Bible tells us that God is love. Now, we know a little bit about love, don't we? We know that love is incomplete without an object. God has always been love. There never was a time when he began to be love. It's the essence of his being. It's as eternal as he is. God is love. This means that God the Father is love, and God the Son is love, and so is God the Holy Spirit. And that tells us something about God, tells us something about the Trinity. None of us really understand the Trinity, but it helps a bit at this point to know, bring into focus some of the things we do know. For instance, we know that the Father is God. But God is not God only as Father. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the Son is God. But God is not God only as Son. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is God. But God is not God only as Holy Spirit. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, wherever the Father is revealed, there the Son and the Spirit are. And wherever God is revealed as Son, there the Father and the Spirit are. And wherever God is revealed as Holy Spirit, there the Son and the Father are. Now, try unity. God as Father from eternity past has yearned and longed for children. Children, some of us ourselves, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, nature of our nature. And always in the part of the Father, there's the hope and the yearning and the aspiration that something that the Father has become or acquired or done will be respected and appreciated and enjoyed by the children. God as Son yearned from eternity past for brethren, elder brother, longing for brethren. And He also is called the Bridegroom. And you know that the Bridegroom is incomplete without the Bride. Love, therefore, demands an object. Oh, we know the Father loved the Son and the Spirit. But we're talking now about a love from the triune God for someone outside of himself. For God being Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is no less one God than three Gods. And so, God whose love in the fullness of time purposed to bring to himself and for himself a being made in his image and made in his likeness for the express purpose of being the object of God's love. God as Father wanted children. God as Son wanted brethren. God is eternal Bridegroom. He yearned for a Bride. Why? That the Father could reveal to the children all the Father is and the elder brother could reveal to the brethren all the elder brother is. And the Bridegroom could reveal to the Bride all of his plans and purposes and intentions that they might be enjoyed and appreciated and understood by the Bride. And so, in the fullness of time, God began this process of preparing a place for his beloved. In the beginning we are told God created the heaven and the earth. We're not quite sure when, but we do know that it is in connection with this love story. And then in verse 2 we are told that the earth became without form and void. That's not the way it was created. My personal metaphysics, with which you needn't agree as any test of fellowship, I won't hold you to it. My own personal metaphysics tells me that there could be a vast time span between Genesis 1-1 and Genesis 1-2. It could be long enough for all the eons of time that the archaeologists have found and the paleontologists have asked for. I don't know. The only thing I know is that something happened and so that the earth, which was created by God, made out of nothing, became without form and void. Now, I got a little bit of metaphysics I'll put into this. When did it become? When did it become? In Isaiah we are told by the prophet, speaking by inspiration, that Lord Jesus could say, for it was of him the prophet spoke, I saw Lucifer, Satan, fall as lightning from heaven. Where do you think he fell to? Well, he was put on an island in space, like Devil's Island was a penitentiary prison for the French government. There was a little speck of matter in space and God apparently decided that he would turn that speck of island, that speck in space, into a penitentiary. Apparently, Lucifer and those who rebelled with him were cast out of heaven and sent to this little island we call earth. That's what could have happened in Genesis 1-2 when the earth became without form and void. Why? Well, let's go back to what caused the problem. Remember? Here's an intelligent being that's been created apparently because God in his wisdom and in his love anticipated that this beloved was going to need some help. And so he created some messengers. We call them angels, seraphim, cherubim, whatever. He created them to be servants. And in one of these he invested more of intelligence and beauty and power because there was an administrative task to be performed. And so he gave to this one son of the morning he was called the superior endowment so that he could serve as a prime minister over the angels, over these beings. And we find that he had certain powers given to him and he used those powers. He thought, imagined, and he obviously felt. He had emotion and desire and he had choice. He began by ruminating, saying, if I were God, I'd do so and so. And that quickly moved into the next step. I will set my throne above the throne of the most high. Now, as an intelligent being, he had to have weapons and tools, armaments. If he was to succeed in this, don't you think, he knew that God is love. How's he going to get God on the throne? Is he going to out-love God? No. You see, as an intelligent being, Lucifer understood that every thesis has its antithesis. Or, if you will, every positive has its negative. Or still again, every front has its back. If you see what looks like the front of the hand and you quickly run around behind it and go back, you didn't see a hand. Because if there's a front, there has to be a back. And if there's a positive, the negative could be somewhere. And if there's a thesis, the antithesis exists or could exist. Now, we've already seen one of the attributes of God, God's love. But the Lord Jesus said, I am the way, and then he said, I am the truth. I am the truth. This is an attribute. God is truth. And then he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. God is life. And so, the enemy, who's now decided to put his throne above the throne of the Most High, has decided that the only way he can do that is to take the antithesis, the negative, the back. And so, this one who is life and truth and love, and then he said, I am the light of the world. So, we'll take those four, light and life and truth and love. These are attributes of God. Now, look what is happening. The enemy is saying, against light, I will take the antithesis, darkness. And against truth, I'll take the negative, the lie. And against love, I'll take the very opposite, hate. And against life, I'll take the more powerful thing, death. So, now here's one who's going to set his throne above the throne of the Most High, armed with powerful weapons, darkness, the lie, hate, and death. Now, notice the problem. God, who is love and light and life and truth, cannot say, I hate this rebel, and take hate to overcome hate. For if he did, he's destroyed himself. So, there had to be a battle in which love and light and life and truth met in conflict, and Christ said, I saw Satan fall as lightning from heaven, and I sink to earth, and earth became without form and void. And darkness covered the face of the deep. Death and darkness, every living thing died. Now, when the time comes when God is going to make this beloved, he has a whole universe from which he can pick the seed. He's created it all. He could have gone anywhere. Where did he choose to come? Well, he picked out that little grain of sand in the great universe called earth, and he came here, to this penitentiary, this penal colony. And he started to work on it. And six days he labored. First, he brooded over it the way God the Holy Ghost broods over sinner souls, and the first thing that happened is God said, let me. And likewise, just as God first awakened sinners from their sleep of death, and then God recreated and prepared. And when it was fit and ready and everything was there, he formed man from the dust of the ground, and he breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And he looked at the being that he had created. In his image, in his likeness. I do not know where and how cherubim and seraphim differ from the image and likeness of God. Only thing I know is the only being described as made in his image and likeness is man. He doesn't say it about the cherubim. I don't know where the difference is. He didn't tell us. Anything I do from that would be just speculation. And I don't know why it is that he loved man, but the only being that God ever made that he said was in his image and likeness is the one that he said that he loved with an everlasting love. I don't know how he feels about cherubim or seraphim. Doesn't tell us, but it tells us he loved man. And so, what we have then is a being made in the image and likeness of God in this recreated environment. And what does he have as he stands there before God? What are the attributes he has? What are the characteristics of man? First, he has certain appetites, or urges, or drives, or propensities. Follow what you will. Desires. Let's look at them. Number one, he has an appetite for food because man is to be nourished by the frequent intake of food. Some of us apparently got carried away a little bit. But when I see the way that some people are who don't seem to have a problem, I clinker up just looking through a magazine. Some people can clear off the buffet table twice, three times a day and never gain an ounce. I weigh three ounces more when I put good housekeeping down. I have been. Anyway, he made man so the man has to have frequent intake of food. He gave him what some may call an appetite, call it hunger. And then we learn in sequence. And so he gave us a thirst for knowledge, an appetite to learn. And then he gave us an appetite for status because he was going to have man rule over everything he created. So he had to put something into man to stand erect and to exercise authority. And then he put into man an appetite for sex because he had created one and then the wife. And from that pair would come this whole family of his children. And so he put in an appetite, a drive, a propensity, an urge for sex. And then he put into man an appetite for pleasure because he'd done such a marvelous job in recreating this world. He took the whole spectrum of colors to paint the sky at night and in the morning. So that man could enjoy it. And he put blue sky in the day and green flowers and watermelon. Have you ever thought about it? Watermelon. Why? You don't paint it. It's not considered the greatest source of vitamins in the world. You get more vitamins eating parsley than you do watermelon. But I never seen anybody sit down to a plate of parsley and chuck it away. So we have a little watermelon. It's pretty to look at. It's fragrant. It tastes good. Why? Just a little extra thing God threw in so he'd enjoy it. He gave us an appetite for pleasure. And what did he say when he looked at this being that stood there with this drive or urge or appetite for food and for knowledge and for status, for security, for sex and for pleasure? What did he say? It's bad. He said it is good. He looked at all that he had made and he said it is good. Now what happens? In about 48 hours from this time, God is going to have one of the angels of heaven come down and guard the entrance into the garden. Now why didn't he send that angel there 48 hours earlier to keep Lucifer out of it? Well why didn't he pick another spot somewhere where he couldn't go? He was in penitentiary. He wasn't free to roam the universe. Why did God stand by and let this ancient foe come in to the garden and get to this beloved one? Well you see God had put Adam under moral government. He said everything I've made is yours. But this one thing, if you eat of it, you'll surely die. God placed law, responsibility and obligation upon man and he permitted his ancient foe to come. Now you see God might have put his man somewhere else or he might have kept him out. But what would he have done? He just postponed the day of encounter? What would happen? What would happen to you parents if the only way you could make sure that your children were going to continue to love you was that you built about a 50 foot high wall around your yard and cut the television wire so they could not see anybody or hear anybody? No one could get in and no one could get out. And you were there because you wanted their love so badly that you wouldn't let any attempting influence touch them. What would their love mean to you if you'd gone to those lengths to preserve anything less? Well what if parent father who works in the factory all day comes home at night and has to set his little 4, 5, 6 year old child on a chair and take out his pocket watch and get it going and hypnotize his child? So that when his will controls the will of the child he can say to the little one, get down from your chair and walk across to me. Crawl up on my lap. Put your arms around my neck. Put your lips on my cheek and say, I love you father. Do you think that would give any gratification to a father's heart? No. So he permitted his ancient foe to come with lies because that's his nature. He's a father of lies. He's a liar. That's his weapon. To come with darkness, that's his weapon. To come with hatred, that's his weapon. To come with death, that's his weapon. That's his tool. And so he comes with all that he is to Mother Eve and he lies to her. Did God say you will not die? That's a lie. She wasn't going to fall over stiff, instantaneous poison as though she were bitten by a cobra. She died as a result of it. He lied to her. He brought darkness to her. He claimed to bring enlightenment but he brought her into bondage, brought her into death, brought her into hatred. And then she left and went to her husband and said, now you've got a choice to make, old friend. God comes every afternoon at 5 o'clock and I'm with you 24 hours a day. Who's it going to be? You going to go with him for a few minutes in the afternoon or with me? All 24 hours. And he'd gotten addicted to her in a couple of days and so he said, well, I guess I'll hang around with you. And so he deliberately, deliberately, she might have been deceived but he made a sovereign choice, as she had, no excuse for her. Made a choice. Isn't it interesting? He cringes, hides in the bushes. Adam, where art thou? And finally Adam is drawn out and he hears the first words from Adam's lips was, I was afraid for I was naked. I was afraid. Now I want to ask you, why did Mother Eve sin? What did she have that made her? Anything in her nature that made her sin? Anything that she had. Well, let's go back, what did she have? She had an appetite for food, a presence to look at, and for knowledge, make you wise. And for faith, and for status, you shall be as God. She had appetites and urges. Now what did Lucifer do? What did the enemy do? What he did was to appeal to her appetites and to stimulate her imagination. All she had was appetites and urges and imagination. And she was tempted. Now let me give you a definition of temptation. Temptation is a proposition presented to the intellect to satisfy a good appetite in a bad way. I'll repeat that. Temptation is a proposition presented to the intellect to satisfy a good appetite in a bad way. Now let me give you a definition of sin. Sin is the decision of the will to satisfy a good appetite in a bad way, a forbidden way. There's no guilt in temptation. Our Lord Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. There is no guilt associated with temptation. Guilt is from the decision, not the execution, the decision of the will to gratify a good appetite in a bad way, a forbidden way. Now, all that Mother Eve had was appetites with intelligence. Right? Any teachers here in the front row? Who's a teacher? Who can write in the blackboard? All of us. You just talked yourself into it. Would you come and draw a triangle there for us? About 18 inches on each side. Equilateral triangle. There you go. Not quite equilateral, but we'll accept it. Now, on the left-hand side, going up, put mental. Big enough to be seen by Connie Baxter on the table. Down the right-hand side, put emotional. And across the bottom, put volitional. Now, I have a privilege most of you don't have. There's a pitcher of water there. Oh, I got a beautiful pitcher of water right here. Look at it. Now, you can see that. And you may be thirsty as all get up, but you don't have a glass of water. Now, you know how to pour it into a glass. And you know how to lift the glass to your lips. And you know how to swallow it. And you know how good it feels and how nice it is to have a glass of water. But because you know all about it doesn't mean you've had a glass of water. Doesn't mean it. The mental aspect does not give you a completed act. Now, you may want a glass of water. You may be ever so thirsty for it. Your tongue may be feeling like cotton in your mouth. But because you're sitting there in your place, you're not going to get up and take these out of my hand. Your emotions are not overcoming your volition. Now, when you get to the point that you've got to have a glass of water, you've made up your mind, if you won't give me the one in your hand, I'm going out and get one from the pump. Now, that's the decision of the will. You can't have a drink of water without having the mental, emotional, and the volitional aspects. You can't get married or go to work. You can't do anything in life and have a totality experience unless all three elements are involved. I talked myself into it. Years ago, I was the first church I ever passed. We had the Armstrong Air Conditioner. You know what that is. They're the fans from the local mortuary. They put them in the church pew. It was a July day, very warm, flowers outside, smell a little after, you know, the breeze is carrying the odor. And me would buzz in and buzz out and fly out of this little country church up to the head of Lake Osakis. You could see Lake Osakis and Little Osakis through the windows and the people never looked at me. And, well, the Armstrong Air Conditioners were just a pshh, pshh, pshh, pshh, pshh, pshh, pshh, pshh, pshh, pshh, pshh, pshh, pshh. Back and forth with these fans. Well, I said, how much of this is just social conformity and how much is need for air? So I had an illustration that I hadn't used but I could make it seem as though it were appropriate. And I told them about this boy that had been skating on the river and the wolves came to chase him out of the forest and he would skate and get around them and he went a little too far and an ice flow broke off and he was in the running river. And it was falls and it was cold and the snow was blowing and the colder the boy got, the slower the pain was. And just before the boy froze stiff, there wasn't a fan moving. They were all right with me. You see, what I'd done, I didn't say, stop fanning, what good would that have done? I said, you're not really hot. I didn't do that. I just worked on their mind. I worked on their mind and I got through that, I got the other. Now, that what happened to Mother Eve, presented to the Italy and she thought about it and she felt that she made a choice. She thought and she felt and she made a choice. What did he do? He thought about it and he felt something and he made a choice. What did you do? What did you do? What did I do? We all did the same thing. We chose to satisfy good appetites in a bad way. Scripture said, all have sinned. One hundred percent of all the people alive in the whole world sin without having a fallen sinful nature. Now, the fact that we're only two doesn't change anything. No, it's still a hundred percent. But it proves conclusively to me that the issue is one of choice, not of compulsion. God dealt with man as a morally responsible being who recognized the intrinsic rightness of the law that God imposed. The foundation of moral government is in the nature of God and in the nature of man and God is as he is because he must be. It isn't right because God said it. God said it because it is right. Man has an instinctive illumination within himself that enables him to test the rightness of the law. I went into a tribe of people in the Sudan years ago. The year would have been 1946. They had never seen a missionary, nor heard the name of Jesus, nor had seen an idol, but I was told by them. But I learned that they knew the name for God. And they knew that God had made the world. And they knew that God was holy. And they knew that God's enemy, for whom they had a name as distinctive as they had for God, was evil. And they knew that this evil person whose name they gave had not made the world, but that he was in charge of certain parts of it. He was in charge of how many of your goats stayed alive and how much grain you got from the seed you planted. And he demanded chickens and he demanded goats to be brought to the witch doctor and sacrificed to keep the spirits that controlled the goats and the chickens satisfied. They knew that certain things were wrong. And I said, what's wrong? And without my coaching them, they said, it is wrong to lie. It is wrong to steal. It is wrong to commit murder. It is wrong not to care for your ancient parents. It is wrong. And they went right through the list. Who taught them? I said, who taught you? They said, what do you mean, taught us? Our stomachs taught us. We know it in here. Has anybody talked to your ears about these things? They said, why should they talk through our ears when our stomachs yell at us? Because they had the seat of personality, not in the heart, but in the stomach. We had one tribe when we did the translation, be not afraid of desire. The only way we could put it in the parlance they'd understand was, don't get a shiver in your liver, it's only me. Who was going to punish them when they died? Horse! So I invited them into the prayer room, which was over under the next tree. And they came over and sat down there. And I taught them a nice little prayer. And they prayed it after me. And I went right back to my tent and wrote a letter to send home as soon as I got there, because I wanted the church at home to know what a great missionary they had. I didn't know why these fellas took so long. I made one visit, and I had seven converts. It was a lucky thing I did. If I had to do it while they were out, it would have never been. At any rate, I got my letter off and got all the publicity value from the decisions, but three and a half months later, I was back there. And I asked where the Jesus boys were, because that's what they decided they called themselves, and they came to see me. They were still going to the Tina dance. They were still sacrificing to the evil spirits. They were still going to all the evil beer feasts. But you see, I fixed them up with a neat, clever, tricky little health insurance policy so they could have more risk of having food. And all of a sudden, I decided that I didn't know anything in this world, even though I'd been a pastor at home and had graduated from Bible school. I didn't know anything in this world about getting people prepared for grace. But God, in His sovereignty, that afternoon there in the garden, brought Adam and he brought Eve out, and they stood before Him. And the first blood that was shed on the recreated earth came from the hand of God, because it says that the Lord God made coats of skin. Now, friend, you can make coats of wool and not hurt the goat or the sheep, but when you make a coat of skin, somebody dies. And He slew the lamb and took the skin and made aprons for them, and by it He pointed a finger down across the century when someone would say of Him, The Lord God in the garden that day is the one of whom John will one day say, You are the Lamb of God, that made the way for the sin of the world. So the whole thing begins right there with who God is, and the kind of a being He is, and the kind of responsibility He expects, and the kind of justice that He requires, and the vindication of His holiness, and the upholding of His law, the whole thing in microcosm is right there before us. And it moves us to understand the kind of beings we are, the kind of being God is, what God expects and what God requires. No, I've never gone back. Oh, how I'd like to go back, and if any of those men that were there that listened to my childish, puerile, incomplete, inadequate misrepresentation of God's grace were still around me, how I'd like to remind them to flee from the rapture call, and call upon Him whom to know as life eternal. Shall we bow in prayer? Father, we lift our hearts to Thee tonight, thanking Thee with all of our great wisdom and love, paying for the good of the entire universe, throughout eternity. Thou wouldst have a people who would praise Thee, glorify Thee, and honor Thee. As Father, Thou wouldst have children. As eternal pride grew, Thou wouldst have a bride. And so Thou wouldst hazard all that the world has seen, that this good might come into the universe, and that Thou wouldst fulfill all that Thou art as the God with love and light and life and truth. And tonight our hearts go out to Thee for some who, perhaps like these whom I so immaturely and presumptuously misrepresented the gospel to. Maybe there are some even here who've had others just as genuine and sincere as I was, and just as mistaken, who've led them to make a presumption without ever knowing Him or to know His life eternal. And so, if that be the case, Father, we're now leaving Thy presence when we leave each other, and we'll be alone with Thee throughout the night hours, and speak to our hearts concerning our needs. And bring us back on Memorial, Father, prepared to think further and go on with Thee in our understanding of who Thou art and what Thou dost ask of us, and Thy plan and purpose for us. We ask with thanksgiving in Jesus' name. Amen.