In this sermon, the speaker reflects on the importance of attending church and the significance of the creation story. He shares a personal experience of feeling reluctant to go to church but realizing its value. The speaker then discusses the question of evolution and creation, using the analogy of the alphabet series to explain the concept. He emphasizes that only humans have a moral consciousness and a sense of right and wrong, while animals do not. The sermon also touches on the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, highlighting the commandment given to them and the need for redemption through the blood of Jesus.

There is eternal praise and worship offered to thee, continually saying, holy, holy, holy. O God, we thank thee that it's in our hearts to unite our little part of it, so simple, so fragile, so frail, that O God, we pray that it may be from our hearts that what we have to offer in the way of worship may be all that we have, the whole self-giving, the whole surrender, the whole lifting up of all that we have, bringing it back again to thee, that thou mayest have the glory of thy creation. Thy heart satisfy the pleasure which you had in mind in creation, that you may find at least a little of it in our hearts and in our lives. There shall be a continual thanksgiving unto God. A means of giving thy heart pleasure, reflecting again thy glory. So we praise thee this morning that thou art being worshipped and adored this morning, eternally before the throne. And yet thou art mindful of us in our little travelings, coming and going, occupied with so many fleeting things, which in time will perish, vanish, and even never come to our remembrance. The former things shall not come to our remembrance. And yet we are occupied with them as though they were the greatest things in the world. Today we pray thee that thou would again speak to us in the message or any way that you find good, breaking upon our inner hearts and lives, and minister to our spirit. We thank thee for these times of quietness before thee and looking into the word. We'll have all the other days when we leave here for the activity of church and service and singing and clapping and preaching and testifying. We can have that later. But we are always grateful for just even a few hours that we can get away. As it was with thee, your heart longed for it and even said to the disciples, let us go away into a desert place and be alone, be quiet. And you continually showed that to us, Lord. How necessary it was to to detach and get back again into the presence of God and life and light and communion. Then move out in the energy and in the strength of it to live. So with us. Bless those who are on their way just now, moving through the rain and the roads are not very safe. We pray, Lord, you'll give them journey and blessing. Let thy good hand be upon them. Let there be protection and safekeeping. Remember those who may be coming. Make it convenient that they shall come. Blessing all of our activities, our coming and going, reading, studying, writing, doing the housework, whatever occupies us. Lord, teach us how to keep it a consecrated matter before thee. And you can enter into our hearts and lives through these ordinary, plain, humdrum everyday means. You can come to us through them and we can offer it all back again to thee, sanctified by thy spirit and by thy blessing. Be with us as we have our little study again this week. This morning. Maybe we'll find something fresh and new that may be helpful to us. For Jesus' sake. Amen. While I was sitting here, we were thinking about worshiping. I'm always encouraged in my heart for two activities in the heavens. Eternally moving. Two activities. We're occupied with so many things here. And we're so dissipated. I mean, they're confused. God is not condemning us for it because that's a part of the setup that we're in. He doesn't expect us to sit over here and be like that all day long. God has good common sense. He doesn't expect that at all. So while we're very busy with things, I'm always glad that there are certain activities that are continually moving. Now in the heavens, toward God, toward the eternal, toward God, there's a continual activity of worship that's going all the time, moving, a vibration of life and night. The angels, the cherubim, the seraphim, the whole heavenly host, all the angelic, they're occupied with this moving before God in worship. Well, then Christ has his eternal attitude both to God and toward us. Whoever liveth to make intercession for us this morning before we were up, the Lord was praying for us. Before we were up, before we were conscious enough to make our little prayers and our little supplications and our little requests to the Lord and oh Lord help and oh Lord, oh Lord. Long before that, before we came back into our conscious state, Jesus Christ as my high priest eternally before the throne of God offering to him the blood, the sacrifice, the redemptive scheme, all of that which has made it possible, he's offering that back again to God. Accepted in the Beloved. We are only accepted through that offering which he has made. Therefore the blood is so precious. He's taken it through the heavens because it says the heavens in his sight were unclean. Everything needed, the touch of redemption, not my little heart, that was needful, but all the whole universe needed the redemption that fell in the blood of Christ, that blood of Jesus. We've spoken of it before. The curse is upon the earth. God never cursed man. He never cursed man. He said curse would be the earth for thy sake. Curse would be the earth for thy sake. Therefore the old earth which was his creation, wasn't man's. Man had nothing to do with it. It was God's thought. It was God's world. It was God's earth. It was God's plan. All of this was God. And yet he says I'll put the judgment on that for your sake. And I will make a means of getting you back again. And so he has subjected all creation, Paul says in Romans, all creation is subjected to it. It's put under its power. Not that it willfully chose to be. But God said in his economy he did it. Well, the first thing that felt the judgment of God was the earth because that's where he placed the curse, the judgment. And when Jesus dies to bring us back again to redemption, through redemption, to restore and recast it and bring us back into him, the blood of Jesus Christ in redemption was the earth for it trickled down out of his hands and feet, went down on the earth long before it ever touched me. Long before the blood ever touched you for redemption. It touched the first thing which was under the judgment. Cursed be the earth. And that old curse has been there until the first blood of Jesus that trickled down in his obedience, the first recipient of the blood, was the earth. Then after it, he takes it to the heavenlies and all that, but it was according to exactly what he said. Cursed be the earth, redeemed shall be the earth. Of course, the earth didn't instantly respond to it so that we see it all restored, but it was the token of its redemption. We see not all things in subjection to man, I was reading that somewhere this morning, my Bible, I was having a little reading and I saw it afresh. All things were made foreign by him and are to be subjected to him, but it says we see not yet all things in subjection to him, meaning mankind, but, alternative, but we do see Jesus Christ and when we see him we see the answer and the fulfillment is in him. Those are what we call Judicial statements, they are not objective yet, they are judicial, judicial, and so there is a bit for our encouragement. Now let me help you with a word, that makes us hopeful, we live in hope, but you see our English words change so, our English words change, and a word which meant one thing when this Bible was translated into English, the word that they used meant a certain thing, but in all these hundreds of years the word has changed its meaning. Now for instance the word hope, today when we use the word hope it carries with it an uncertainty and therefore we say, I hope it will be, I hope it may be, I hope so, but what do you mean, the thing is uncertain, but my desire, my wish is that it may be. I hope, I hope, well that's never the use of the word in the Bible, the New Testament doesn't use that word in that sense at all, not at all, that's the degeneration of a word and our use of it, blurring the truth that's in there. Now in the New Testament, wherever you see that word hope used by Jesus or by Paul or by any of the writers, wherever you see that word hope, it doesn't mean an uncertainty that they hope something might come, it is a truth, as true as our salvation, it is already a subtle fact, already a subtle fact, just as sure, just as sure as any of the truths which we have, but it has not come into its realization, and that's why it is called a hope, it is a truth yet to be realized, it is a fact, a truth yet to be realized, but the fact, the thought that we say it's hope doesn't mean it's uncertain and we don't know if it will come to pass, it is a hope that we know will be manifest. Now the second coming is called what? The blessed hope, isn't it, but why? Because we don't know that we think it would be wonderful if he would come back, no, he is coming back, it is the hope which we entertain, but it is unrealized, it has not come into its fruition, it has not come to pass, we are saved by hope, well does that mean I don't know if I'm saved? No, the hope is the security, we are saved by his salvation, we are saved by his salvation, we are saved by that glorious hope, but the fullness of the salvation has not yet come into its realization, so always remember in the New Testament, when you use the word hope, it's not used with a sense of uncertainty as we use it, we say I hope, oh I hope it doesn't rain, I hope to do, I hope, not in the Testament, all the way through the Testament the word hope there is not an uncertainty, it is a fact, a truth, eternally settled but not realized, that's why we use the word hope because it is a truth not realized, a lot of other truths we perfectly are conscious of, we have the fulfillment of them, so remember that because sometimes people say well the Bible says I'm saved by hope, you remember people always crawling out under that, you say are you a Christian and you are saved? I don't know, I hope so, oh you mustn't hope, well the Bible says we are saved by hope, I hope so, see how they crawl out under that, that isn't the thing at all, not at all, we are saved by hope, but it's well, a hope which is already finished in the redemptive verse of Christ, but it hasn't come into all its fruition. I want to talk a little while this morning about this creation business, if you want to use your Bibles you might want to take notes on some of the verses or look at them and I'll help you with the verses as we come to them. We were dealing with creation and we got partway through, and I want to move along a little bit further with this, we'll get into the actual acts of creation, where did we leave off? Well I won't take this up because it's a little complicated, but it's very interesting, people have found the remains of these early creations, you remember the fossils and all this formation of the animal moving from one period of its development into another, and they like to make a premise and feel that that should give them a guarantee to think man must have come the same fashion, but we said the other day the reason why we can't accept it as Christians who have faith in the thought that God has brought us forth and the creation was from him and not an evolutionary process, we said that it was due to the fact that their data, that is the material that they use, is not complete, they're only every little while finding some fresh material to add to it. Their data is not complete and it is only a tentative system that they're working on, and we can't make a premise that is sound and good when anything has that character to it, we can't, and so we don't accept those theories of evolution that they have because their data is not complete and it is only tentative, it's changed every little while, but what we have in the word is already a settled statement, now it's for us to trust God to give us any life that we need to have, which is necessary for us, on the basis of what he has given, we said the other day that the questions that we have concerning our creation and all this business, it's not a question of life and death, it's really something that would be interesting to know, God will never judge us on the basis, did I know about all the intricate parts of the creation and all this, he won't, because he has purposely put it in a remote, distant past, we only know parts of it which are for our good, well then personally, I'm not disturbed about it, I don't get too enthusiastic nor am I unduly disturbed, I just know that's a veiled thing, if God had wanted me to know for my welfare, it was good for us to know, he could have revealed it, but if he hasn't revealed it, I'm not to be judged for that fact, I will only be judged upon the light which I do have, that's always thought to come, I am judged according to the light or the little revelation I do have, he can't judge me over conditions that I have no knowledge, he's a very fair God, he has to judge us, and Paul says so too, about the heathens, he says they are judged according to the light which they have, God can't come down and say to some creature that lived thousands of years ago before there was any revelation of anything, did you believe in Jesus, well the poor spirit has never heard nothing, go to hell, you see it's so ridiculous, that's ridiculous, Paul says so, he says every spirit shall be judged according to the light which it has, and here with the question of the theories which are propounded, we don't know, we just say this is the way it looks, this is the way it appears in the record, and I'll take it from that, but it isn't for especially that I got more into God about it, there's plenty of people who know an awful lot of theory in doctrine, he has so much doctrine, but you can have all that doctrine and not know God, you can have all that and not know God at all, look at the theologians today, writers and propounders, they give great commentary built on it, and yet if you should face them as far as a real special, specific relation to God, they are ignorant, now I put those two little reasons down why I can't accept it, the way that our old teacher Dr. Olin Curtis, he was my professor in theology and doctrine in the seminary, and he was a very wonderful genius, but in spite of it he was a lovely Christian, he was the sweetest old Christian, he was an old man, I think our classes were the last classes that we were ever privileged to have him to lecture and teach, he was a writer in office, and that is that he knew God, he had such a devotion to the Lord, and such a desire that we should see Jesus Christ from the human aspect as well as the divine aspect, and that's one thing that helped me, started me off years ago on a deeper appreciation of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is continually presented from that one side, he is the divine revelation, the divine son of God, which he is, and people all the time forget that he had a human side, they forget that, now the reason is they are so determined to keep the divine and the deity side, that they just emphasize that and the other side doesn't get it, it's to be counterbalanced, he is Jesus Christ, why do you say Jesus Christ? Because Jesus is the divine side, meaning Messiah or anointed one, Christ is, and Jesus is the human side, he is the God man, not God and man, he is the God man, he is the God man, one thing in our Methodist church that I didn't like, well he's gone now as a pastor, that's why I go to this other church, I go to the Episcopal church or the other church, because they are still orthodox, but here was my lovely old Methodist church that I was well brought up in, and then they had this communist in there preaching, he was the pastor of the church, and higher critics, had no place for the supernatural or anything like that, and one Sunday he got preaching and he said, now when we talk about Jesus Christ, get all those ideas about deity and divinity out of your mind, just like that, right from the pulpit, why he said Jesus Christ is of ancestors, we are, but you see, he began to attain unto a higher life, and he attained unto a better level, and attained unto an understanding of the things of God, and God blessed him with his inflow, and we can have the same. Oh, crazy you know, just spoiled the whole thing. Had any idea that Jesus Christ had this miraculous birth, he was a man, then he came into, well I went to as many Sundays as I could, and it all disturbed my spirit, I don't like to sit in a meeting in a church, and have somebody parading that, and I felt bad about it, and I said to the Lord, oh, where can I go to church for some fellowship, and he said you don't need to go there anymore, to be insulted, he said you don't need to go there to be insulted, and another Sunday he got up and he said you will find quite a pink streak in my teaching, pink streak, what do you mean pink streak, he said it right from the pulpit, like one sermon, the last sermon I ever heard him preach was just before Christmas, and I thought I must go, you know, because the Nativity season was on, and oh, I felt just like I wanted to be all washed off when I got home, I had heard all this trash, and I wanted to say oh Lord, wash me quick, clean me all off of this stuff that's got on me, isn't that a miserable thing to think of, go to church and have to come home and be washed, but I mean it is, so after that, here he was, a brilliant man, well my old professor in the seminary, he did have, and this question of evolution, of course naturally came up, and the question of creation, now this is the way he explained it to us, I don't know if I can make it clear to you or not, but maybe I can, he used as an illustration our ABC, A, B, C, D, so on, a series, how many of you have a series right away, it isn't just A, but you have A, B, C, D, a series in the development of my alphabet for my use, well now this was the question, did A in the beginning, in the arrangement of ABC, did A have something dynamic in it, that A in a process produced B, then B had in its own possibility some potential power that it produced C, and finally got A, B, C, D through that, or was there another method, he called the method, now there is one method, here is another method, the alphabet ABC is necessary, but it is not complete with A, but we must have distinctly something in B to finish the thought of A, do you get me, A will not be complete without the B, but the A does not of itself in its dynamic power produce it, but it is added to to complete the arrangement, then C has to of necessity be produced to complete the A, how many get me, well now in your first arrangement you have the seed thought of an evolution, didn't you see it, the seed thought, well now you are in metaphysics, that's metaphysics, that is causation, A caused B, do you get me, A caused B, A had it within its power to produce the B, and B has it within its power, well now that's causation, how did these things, what was the cause of it, well now when you start in causation you are in metaphysics, you have to face it, now go back again to ABCD, the alphabet if we take it from the second way it's purely a natural arrangement, just a natural arrangement, to complete the thing you had to have it because of the nature of the alphabet, you had to have the B to complete the meaning of A and you had a C to complete the meaning of B having come from A, all right, to go along, now you are merely on a natural basis, it's not metaphysical at all, we are not talking about causation, we are talking about the relationship one to another for what it sells, for what it brings, the causation isn't there, now in nature when you find these remnants and you find these fossils and you find these strange evidences in archaeology of a race or of mankind having lived thousands and thousands of years ago when you find these, I can accept them and you can as well, a necessary following in the producing of some form of creation that God wanted such as the butterfly for instance, it was God's original plan that this butterfly should come from the arrangements which he had made, which was the worm, then it is necessary that it should take another form because it has to become yet a butterfly and must go through these stages and so in creation everything had to become not animated things but inanimated, for instance the shaking up of the earth, there had to be a convulsion, a disturbance, a manifestation of power to even produce the layers and the strata in your creation, well it is only a series of things which we discover to show that God in his desire to bring it forth chose that pattern to produce it, but he didn't give it as the causation for the creation but it's a pattern which he uses, and they are never complete, they are never complete you see, we don't know how far back they go, they are never complete, they are pieces, so to pick up a partial, a partial, the data that isn't complete, a partial, all I can say well that's a part of something that God had in his creation, it went in a series, now it stopped, I don't know where it brings out again, it may bring out here, I can't use that and say this caused the other, no one is necessary for the other, it's necessary to have these, necessary to have these, but one didn't make the other, they are only added to, in the building of this chalet that we are in, when you laid the foundation for this, did you have all this other structure hidden away in that foundation and finally it developed this? No it didn't, it did not, how did we have it? We had to have a series, a foundation, then the superstructure, then all the interior, what is it? It's an addition of one portion to another to complete the whole, the chalet isn't complete with a foundation, it's not complete with even the superstructure, it has to be made complete by the addition, addition to what they have, not one evolving out of the other, the foundation never evolved the post that came up, then by and by the post evolved the rafters, then by and by the rafters evolved the roof, well that's ridiculous, that's like creation, it's not brought through that, but it's brought by God adding, creation moves in all sorts of fashions, so sometimes a little simple illustration like that will help anyone, this building didn't evolve because the basis of it had dynamic power to produce some posts, then by and by the posts produced something else, no, no, no, they were all added to and yet it was the design of the architect to make it that way, that's the way the architect wanted it to come together, it was his plan to build it that way, that was his passion, and so were the things in creation, we won't go on with that too far but that should help you a little bit, keep your provinces right, one is a natural province of the method of creation, the other is metaphysical and we can't get into that field at all, that isn't for us, he'll tell us about those things later, now let's look at this creation, especially about man because we come from the human side of it, it says here in the beginning God created Adam, created man, and here's something too that might interest us, you see so many times you'll find Adam called Adam, spelled with a capital A, the chapter is called the man and the man did this or the man, the man, well now the reason for that is God hadn't named him with a capital letter A, he was called Adam because Adam meant the human, not a proper name at all, and the word man in there is Ish, that means man over against animal, he was a creation but he was the Adam creation, the Ish, over against a cow or an elephant, no capital letter to it, he was merely the animal creation that we call man, well in here you'll find every little while he said the man, then he'll say Adam, and finally, he doesn't use the word only by the feminine, he'll say Ish and Isha, we'll get into that in a minute, so don't be disturbed over it because sometimes he will use one, sometimes the other, you see in the beginning they are one, of course you know that theory, don't you, man was created male and female in the beginning, it says that, and created them, male and female, as man, and that was spoken of as Adam before Eve was ever taken out of his side, you see Eve is a separate creation, he created Adam, this Ish, or the Adam spell with a small letter, this strange creature, but as he created it, it was male and female, it was the possibilities of man and woman were in that thing he called Adam, and he has a lot to talk about with Adam, did you ever notice, you may not have stopped to notice it, but in the garden where the Lord puts up what we call the probationary law of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and prohibits them, did he take Adam and Eve by the tree and say, now listen, don't partake of this fruit, you look in the Bible, Eve hadn't been made yet, it was Adam, and he placed him in the garden, not them, him, you see, they come forth, she comes forth after all of that, it was Adam to whom he spoke concerning the tree. Do you want to look at it just for a minute? Just look at it for a minute. And the Lord took the man, this is in Genesis 2, round about 15th verse, and the Lord took the man, the Adam, the Ish, he took this strange creature, this Ish, this Adam, who has a human nature now, made in the image and likeness of God, and he put him in the garden, not them, he put him in the garden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord commanded the man, he's talking to this Ish, this man, this strange creature, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat thereof, for in thee thou shalt surely die. And the Lord said, it is not good that man should be alone, I will make him and help me. See, it follows the garden episode and command. How do you get that? Well, how does Eve know? Eve has to take the command of the forbidden. She has to take it secondhand from Adam. God never said it to her. We don't think of those things. We get these Sunday school pictures in our mind of a man and woman standing naked under a tree, and a snake wound up on another one, and the Lord saying, do not eat the apple. Well, it's all about as upsetting as anything you can think of, because none of it was like that. It wasn't like that at all. Now, this creation of this Eve takes place afterwards because God says, now, he noticed that it wasn't good, and many people said, why? Was it an afterthought in the mind of God? Well, now, there's just speculation. If God knew in the beginning it wasn't going to be good, why didn't he at the same time take some of the dust and make a woman, too? It doesn't say, and he took dust and made them, made him. Made him, because the her, the female, is to come out of that. He didn't make Adam and Eve, both out of dust, and look at them both. He made this thing called Adam, which has the woman in him yet to be brought out in the story of the rib partaking, taking out, closing up. Now, he says, I'll make you the help me. Do you know what help me is in there in your Hebrew? To me, I thought it was really good. It corresponds to the thought of the answer. It means the answer, and I will make out of the rib the answer to the man. Isn't that nice? That's what it really means in Hebrew. I will make out of this rib the answer for the man, because the man is the question. There he says, what is all about? What's the sequel to this? What is it? And so he says, I will make the answer, the help me, I will make the answer out of the man. And he causes a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he takes this rib, and now he creates the woman. And of course, then they go on in their garden life until they get into all this trouble. But you see, if you read it the way it reads, now we'll come. And out of the ground the Lord formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, to the fowl of the air, to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found any help me. He goes and calls all these other things, but it says for him there was no one that goes with him. Here they are. But there is no double for him, not good. And the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept, and he took out one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead of, and the rib which the Lord had taken from the man made he a woman. He didn't make them both of dust, no, no, no, no, no, no. And brought her unto the man, and Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman, isha. Why? Because man is ish. Man is ish. And the woman is the manness of, of the man. Isha means the manness of the man. Ish, isha. She shall be called Isha. Now, how many of you get to, do you see why when Israel backslides and all that, God calls Israel Isha and all that? Don't you remember how that goes? No longer shall she merely be called Isha, she shall be called so and so. Well, that goes back to this. Because Isha, Isha is the manness of Ish, and man is Ish. He calls her that, because that's the origin. That's the origin. Now later when she's called Eve, what's that? That's her destiny, because Eve means the mother of all living. And Eve means the bringer forth, the fruit bearer. She shall be called Eve, because Eve means the mother of all. That is, oh, Hava, Ava, Ava. Sometimes it's spelt with an H, Ava or Hava. It is Eve, meaning her destiny. She is to become the mother of all. But her first name will be Ish, because that's her origin. She comes from man. Ish, Isha, Hava, Eve. Now you'll commence to get names. Well now, names in the scripture are always symbolic of the character. Anything that is named is named because the name carries its character with it. And so she is called Ish, because in character she is origin from Ish, Isha. Now she's called Eve. Why? Because the name Eve means mother of all living things. And she is the one who produces. She is the Eve. She is the Eve, the fruit bearer, the Eve. Well now when he names these animals, let's get this clear. People think of course that all the animals came parading before him. He sat out there one day and a rabbit went by and he said rabbit. And then a fox went by and he named that a fox. And then a bear came lumbering along and he says bear. No, it doesn't mean that. This is an illustration of the high mental intelligence gifts that were in this original name. And so as a demonstration to show what a highly gifted and intelligent man this Ish was, this Adam, God says to him, here are these animals. What does he do? He has a gift of penetration, an intuition, an insight, a discernment that when he looks at nature, in his creation God had made him superior to all creation, to all, all. And here is one manifestation of his highly intellectual gifts and powers. What was it? That he could look at all creation and name it because he knew it. He names the animals because the name which he applied spelled it Carrick. We don't do that. We call anything anything, Tom, Dick and Harry, but not with, not with God, not with that early creation. He says he named them. That is, he was able to discern the character which they spelled and he went by it. That's why in the Old Testament names that were given to children were always given because they foretold the character which they bore. Why did Jacob have to be called Jacob? Why didn't she say, oh, he's a beautiful little baby. Let's call him James. No, you can't do that because James won't be the character that this child, you must give him the name which spells his character. Why call him Jacob? Because Jacob means the planter, crooked one, deceiver. And that's what Jacob in the natural was, wasn't it? Absolutely. And so the names were given because they speak what they are in their nature. We don't do it now because, well, we don't have time for anything like that. People name them after the grandfather so that he'll be remembered and he will. We'll name the baby after Uncle George because he has a lot of money and maybe he'll remember, well, a thousand million miles from here. But the names spelled the thing. Once in a while, you know, it comes, I suppose, purely by accent because it's not thought. Have you ever noticed some people represent their names? They certainly do. They certainly do. I'll tell you a little something very personal. You don't have to blab it out and tell anybody. But my name wasn't originally John at all. They changed my name. When I was born, I was called Levi. Well, what does that mean? Join to the Lord. Join to. Levi, join to. And that was my family name, grandfather. It's an old family name. And the name Levi, because mother thought that she wanted it Levi. And Levi means join. Well, my life has really been joined. It was like a little prophecy. Well, the grandfather heard of it and he wouldn't have it. He said, I've suffered all my life under that name, Levi. He said, this is horrible. I wouldn't name anything Levi. I've had to go through life with that. And you needn't saddle that name on that little baby either. I don't want that saddled on the baby. Well, she says, we've named it. Well, he says, we'll have to change that. And so his mother says, well, father, what would you call that little baby? Oh, he says, call him John. Well, that was all right. So I've been John ever since. For which, in many ways, I'm very grateful. I got enough to bear up beside a name on top of this thing. Then have a name, Levi my M. That was dreadful. So I got the name. How do you see what I'm getting at? Sometimes they really do tell. I've seen people whose real life and character seems exactly what the name is befitting. But they didn't know enough in the scripture to do that. That was just a little coincidence that happened. You don't have to tell people about it. We've had a lot of fun over at home. No names depict the character, the inner life. And when he named these animals, it was a proof or an evidence of the high mental state in which Adam was created. Now, let's go back just a little bit about this creation. It says here in the scripture that when he took the dust of the earth to make him, to create him, it's good that he took something tangible and from the earth because man is involved in the whole earth system. He didn't say, now let us make man in our own image and likeness. And he reached up into the heaven and got something from the heavenly order. No, that all has to come later through Jesus Christ and the new man and the new order. That's coming later centuries and centuries and centuries down. But when he makes the creation and he takes the dust of the earth and he makes this man of the dust, it was to let us know that after all, that's all we are. After all, that's all we are. If it were not for the breath that has been breathed into us and how many see the breath is from God, the dust couldn't do anything. He made it. There was the bodily shape, the creature, but it wasn't alive. There was no response. So he makes from the dust of the earth, the creature, the Adam, I think, but there's no response. There's no response. Well, why? Because that is the earth part and the earth part, the natural, the man nature, human, the natural, the thing, has no power. We are all dependent. Man was never made independent. He was made dependent. So he breathed into his nostrils. I've given you this before. The breath of lives, it's plural. It is not singular. It doesn't say he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living soul. No. He breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives and he became a living soul and that life moved in two directions. Life which actuated the physical body and that is a natural life for the exercise of the human and life which moved toward God in spirit. He was a partaker of life in two directions. God breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives and when that was breathed in he became a what? Living. He lived. Alright. He's living how? He's living in two directions. He lives Godward and he lives manward. How? Because this spirit of life which God breathes into him is plural and it has a manifestation earthward and it has a manifestation heavenward. So man becomes the partaker of lives. That's the spirit of God which will move in these two fields. Now when he creates him it says he created him in the image and the likeness of God. Well if you're not careful you become a literalist right away and you say if we are created in the image and likeness of God, God must have a head and feet and body and legs and arms and God must be just like this because it says image and likeness. Well now wait. God is spirit. So that ends that. God isn't some kind of a great big overgrown man sitting up in heaven on a cloud and he has hands and feet and all. Little children I suppose sometimes get that thing and start to imagine. I used to think that he used to see everything. I remember that because we had a little Sunday school ticket and it had a picture of a great big eye on that little ticket and under it says thou God seest me. Well that scared the wits out of me. So I thought God was a great big something that saw everything I ever thought or did or oh well through a motive of fear it kept me out of a lot of devil tricks. It sure did. That little ticket kept me out because there was oh God now he sees me. But you know how many of you notice that by and by you're glad that he is like that. I got finally through the spell from the motive of fear thou God fears me. Don't you dare to do that. Don't you dare to do that. That's fear motivation. Well you get out of that. Then you get into the love motivation and you say oh God I'm so glad you do know. Now I don't have to tell you everything. You just know everything far more than I ever could think. Now you see now. Now I love you and I want you to help me. Not because I'm scared of you but because if you don't I don't know where I'll be. I just love you. The love of God. So when he creates him in his image it's not a corporeal body. That wasn't it. We were created in the image and likeness of God from two angles. We were created in the image of likeness of God spiritually and morally. Spiritually and morally. And also in the sense that we bear personality stamps. That's what we have in the likeness of God is the fact that I have mind and thought and feeling and will and an understanding of God because I am made in his image in that way. Cows and dogs don't have that. No cow, dog, no creature. I don't care how noble and beautiful. No cow creature, any kind of a creature less than man has that. Only man has it. Well that was incorporated in the fact that he was made in the image and likeness of God because he has a likeness of God which can correspond and know God. And so he breathes into him the spirit and the spirit is the thing with which we discern God and the things of God. So if you want to make a little note of that you could say this image I would say first it's natural likeness. It's natural likeness is the fact that we have something yet bearing that image. That's the personality stamp. Natural likeness is the personality stamp because God is in all that we speak of God he is what we find in miniature in us. I have knowledge and intellect. I have that but it's so miniature. It is so limited. But it's of the same essence as that of God only his is infinite. So we say he is omniscient. He is all know. I am only limited know. Just a shadow, just a reflection. But I am a partaker in my personality set up. This is the natural likeness of the very same things that he has. Only mine are all limited. Yours are all limited. But we bear that image and that likeness from that stamp. Now the other second way in which we are made into his image is what we would call here the moral likeness. What? Well man was made without sin. Man was made holy, clear, clean, without pain, without fault, without flaw, without all of that. Because when God spoke the benediction and approval he said it is good. He was acceptable. Everything was right and good. He was a partaker of that same life and holiness that is in God. Now that we call the moral likeness. One is a natural likeness which covers the personality set up. The other is a moral likeness which gives us thought and the fact that we are moral creatures. All lower creation is amoral. You have moral, immoral, amoral. Three words. Moral. Immoral is the losing of it. Less than moral. Immoral. Then you have amoral which means has no moral consciousness at all. A cow, a dog, an animal is amoral. That is they have no moral standard. They have no moral standard. Animals don't live under a standard of right and wrong. Creation doesn't move that way. Only man. The fact that we have a moral consciousness. The fact that I have a conscience. The fact that I am self conscious. Not body conscious but self conscious. All those things belong in that realm. We are born with a moral sense of right and wrong. All of them. The heathen. Everybody has it. There is no heathen without it. Missionaries go to the most primitive people. They always have some scale of what is right and wrong. They all do. They all have a religious urge and they all have a manifestation of that religious urge. Every one of them. Because it is innate that we were made. So when you speak of the moral likeness. I mean the made in the image and the likeness. Always remember they are spiritual and moral likenesses. Now I'll give you some scripture verses for that. That you can look up and you'll see exactly what we mean. Because they give it exactly. It says and restore to the image of God in holiness. Restore to the likeness of God righteousness. How many get it? Right away it says what that likeness and image is. It says right in the verse. Moral. It will say holiness. If you want those scripture verses. I think I have them here. These refer to his intellectual and moral likeness. Ephesians 4. 23 to 24. Colossians 3. 10. The fact that he was a dependent creature upon God. And the fact that he is limited to move in the realm of what the human spells. Those are not results of our sin. They are actually the things that spell our humanity. Then sin comes later. So don't let that get people confused. They get confused along that line. Have we anything now in class. Just stop for a minute. Have you anything that you can think of in the word that shows even from the very beginning that God wanted Adam to know that he was dependent upon God. Well you are getting near to it. This is high spy now. You are getting near to it. The food is the key word in there. Now come out. Open it up a little. What did God place in the garden? What was it called? The tree of life. Oh good. Well why did he put a tree of life there and say you have to eat of this. As a signal that in him there was no sustenance. No life. No power. Aside from that. Partake of this tree of life and live. Partake of this tree of life and live. It was there to keep ever before the mind of humanity of man that in him dwelleth no good thing. Paul tells it again. I can of myself do nothing. It's all told again in the new testament. But the principle is there. The absolute dependence of man. Man was made a dependent creature. Purposely. God wanted me that way. His dependence wasn't a result because he sinned. He was never made that way before. He was made this way before. It wasn't a consequence of evil. It was the thought of God. I will make you a dependent creature. I'm the author. You are the creation of my own thought. And it's my life that's breathed into your nostrils. I'm the author. And without me. Without life. You can't live. And to prove it. I'll give you this tree. Now can you see how Jesus taught I've come to give you life? Now can you see that I'm the vine and ye are the branches? How do you get it? As the branch cannot of itself bear fruit except it abides. So what? You must abide in the eternal life. In the Christ. See the same teaching? It's the same teaching over and over and over. There's always been a tree. The tree of life in that garden. The symbol of the necessity of an abiding in God and sustenance in life from a spiritual order, a spiritual realm. Follow that tree all the way through. What symbol or token did the Lord choose as the scene for the working out of redemption? He chose the symbol of the tree. Do you get it? What is eternally to be so? In the revelation, in the new order, how many of you know that we partake of a tree again? That tree is always, it always is a predominant thing, but it is a symbolic, suggestive thing. It's full of life and hope.