Amen, thank you for that, Brother Jamie, as you led us in that Isaac Watts hymn, Jesus shall reign where the sun, her successive journeys run. Same man that wrote joy to the world, same kind of theme there as this blessing, the blessing shall be known as far as the curse is found. I wish that, Baptists, our Baptist forefathers had never departed from such an optimistic eschatological view to go to a pessimism that has basically, from about half of the 20th century up until now, the pessimism that has gotten into the church and caused us to be downcast and depressed. I was writing to our friend Sadaq, and he was talking about how Islam was moving in Europe and in England. And of course, we have a Muslim that was sworn as president, I'm sorry, mayor of New York City. And he was just downcast. I mean, if anybody knows the wickedness of Islam, It is surely this man who has been persecuted even unto death. And in fact, if his family could get a hold of him, they would kill him. He understands. He told me that he memorized the Quran when he was 13. Obviously, this man just has a photographic memory. He said he can read something twice. And the way he said it, I can read it twice and I never forget it. He also applied that memory to the Bible. He has memorized both Old and New Testament. And someone said, even all the names? Well, I don't know if he, you know, if he can come up with all the names. Those names might not be as strange to him as they are to us. He is, and I would assume, substantively memorized. I don't know if he memorized it word perfect, but he has substantively memorized these things. So he's unique. He is a very unique man, uniquely qualified to be a missionary to Islam. Well, he was saying to me how he was downcast about that in 2050 that Europe might be completely Muslim. And I said, don't worry, brother, that cannot happen. The promise is to us that this gospel will cover the earth as the waters do the sea. Jesus is not going to fail. He's not going to fail in history. Now, I know it looks like a very tough time for us, but we should not view all of history at any particular point of history. In fact, I heard a sermon the other day by a man named Scott Brown. And he says, let me ask you, is the United States of America better today than 250 years ago? Because you know, the United States of America is going to be 250 years old. Paula and I got married when it was 200 years old. So here we go. And obviously, a great example of perseverance that Paula could persevere for 50 years with me. And so, but 250 years. Is this country better? Well, sure, it's better. This country was filled with those natives that were pagan, that were basically worshiping false gods, if not demons. and the Lord purposed the United States to be here. I know quite a hoopla, you know, colonialism and all of that, but I thank God for colonialism. And I think many of the Africans thank God for colonialism. Because where would they be if England had not come, if God had not used what he did in England to help them or us? And so it's a, Yeah, in 250 years we've improved. Now I know in probably the last 100 years there have been some issues. That's all of our lifetime. Sometimes you have a tendency to view all of history by your time in history. This is our time. God has put us here for one purpose, and that is to honor and glorify him. The chief end of man is to glorify God and or to love God and to glorify him forever. And so we are to bring glory to God and to love God. That's our purpose. And he will not fail. And I think we need to understand that. We need to preach that. We need to go back to an optimistic message. We're on the winning side. Now, I know that there are people that say, well, yeah, I know. But when he comes back, you know, well, I don't believe in black helicopter theology. I mean, we're not on the top of the embassy in Saigon waiting for black helicopters to get us out of here so the world can go its way. Now, did Christ claim the world? Does Romans 8 say that all the world yearns within itself waiting for the revelation of the sons of God? Let us be optimistic. And if we're optimistic, then we will have a future-oriented life. I remember as a young man, people in the church are saying, oh, I don't really know if I want to have children because, you know, because this is a terrible world to bring children in. Well, it is a terrible world. It's a fallen world. But what is the Christian response to a fallen world? Well, I can tell you this, the Christian response to the fallen world is to have your children and to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. What is the solution? What is the solution for where we're in? For this situation? What is the solution to it? It's faith and faithfulness. And so, That's what we preach. That's what we've always preached. Some people don't like to hear it. I think some people are just really happy that it's going to be bad and be judged. No, we should be seeking the honor of God, that we are to give glory to God and to enjoy Him or to love Him forever. That's what we're about, and that's what we should be And nothing can rob us of that. Nothing can rob us of what Christ has done. No devil, no demon can come in here and rob us of these things. In fact, they are ours by the promise of God. And all things are working together here. Now, I don't know why God put me in this time, but I don't need to take the time he's given to me longing for a better time. There were better times than we're in, but we are preaching about the future. There will be better times coming. I don't know what the Lord is doing in all of this. I know he's doing what's right, and I know that he will accomplish his purposes, and I know he'll do that through you. Not through the infidels, and not through the hypocrites, and not through the ones who faint, Be not weary in well-doing, for if you faint not, you will see the increase in the right time and due time, and so this is it. And I know when things crowd in on you, it's easy to get depressed. Look, it's much easier to be negative than positive, no question. It's much easier to say no than yes. There's no planning for no. There's no planning for I won't. You just sit in your own morass. Just sit there in your own condition. Don't have to worry about it. Don't have to pray about it. Don't have to give any attention to it. Yes is the harder word because yes calls you to faithfulness. And listen, don't expect anybody else to do what you're unwilling to do. We should be willing. We were bought with a price. What's the worst thing that they could do to us? Well, the worst thing they could do to us is kill us. But where would that send us? Why do these Somali Christians believe in Christ? even while they're being brought to the point of their execution, because they truly know, through faith, that their next site, after they see these wicked, sinful Muslims swinging a machete, their next site will be the Lord Jesus Christ. who will avenge their blood. So I said to our dear friends that I believe. Press forward. Now, you know, it's easy for me to say I'm over here in relative safety. The next corner he turns could be his end. But the Lord has brought people, miraculously brought people to help him and to help us help him. I'm talking about, I could tell you things that would curl your hair. Things that God has done. And we're just able to watch it. We, will and are winning. Be faithful. Don't give up. For Jesus shall reign where the sun, her successive journeys run. He shall reign from shore to shore till moons shall wax and wane no more. Infant voices There's something wonderful, something sweet about hearing the infant voice when they begin to talk to praise the Lord. I have grandchildren and they don't know all the words, but they sing and they make up their own words. But how sweet a thing is that? How pure a thing is that? infant voices singing, speaking concerning the things of Christ. And they're pure. I said in the Sunday School class, they think these things that are pure, they've not been tainted yet. They've not become cynical yet. But they really believe in a purity. Now I realize that it'll be tested. When I was a child, I spake as a child. I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. Yeah, yeah, their faith will be tested. And it will be tested to determine real faith or false faith. But at this moment, just like the children that have been in the church that gave witness and testimony, it's real. They weren't fake. They weren't hypocritical. But when they grew up, it wasn't the faith that could hold them. But it was as true a faith as anyone could have had until we're given that faith that will not wane. That faith given to us by God. That's what we pray for. We surely lead our children to Christ by our action. We pray with them even before they're believers. That is even before they're believers in the full sense of that word. I think they're believers. I think they believe as much as they can believe. But then one day that belief becomes real by the work of the Spirit in their hearts. And so we, have a great God and a great gospel, and it doesn't matter how it looks at the moment here or in your life, better days are coming. I can assure you of that, not because I'm clairvoyant or a prophet, but because the word of God states it. Well, we've been talking about creation. If God's going to have an elect, he needs to have a place for the elect to dwell. That's what this universe is about. And he made all of these things, and he pronounced them good. It would be good now if I could just read all of these verses, but I don't have time, but I would have you to read these verses this afternoon or as you have your Bible study. But Genesis 124 says, and God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, which is basically the Hebrew word for reptiles, and beast of the earth, this is the mammals. So again, domesticated cattle, those that are not domesticated, wild animals out in the woods or the forest and beast of the earth after his kind, and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and God saw that it was good, tov. Actually, the word good comes from the word God in English. I mean, you can see that clearly. Tov, it was good. It was that which was holy and righteous, This is not men saying it's good. This is God saying it's good. So it's the absolute good. It's the highest of good, verse 26. And God said, let us make man. Well, that's interesting. Let us make man. Immediately, you see that word and you are probably somewhat gripped by that. Now, we've read it so many times that probably the, You know, the astonishment of it has kind of worn off. But let us make man. Well, who's the us? Well, there are those that say, well, this was a plural of majesty. God is so majestic that he can only be expressed as plural. Well, I know Elohim is a plural. That is the word translated in the Hebrew as God. Elohim is plural. but not translated gods, but translated God. And so, I mean, grammatically, to be grammatically correct, Elohim would have to have a pronoun of us, plural, see. But that does not, I think, really exhaust what is being said here. Let us make man in our image after our likeness Surely, as Kyle and Dalish, the most prestigious older commentary on the Old Testament, these two Germans said, it is the Trinity. It is the Trinity. In fact, when God made everything he made, it was the us that was making this, the Father, the Word, the Son, and the Spirit. Let us make man in our image. Again, these two things here in this first phrase could exhaust us immediately in our understanding of theology. What is this image of God? No other creature has this. Only man. man and Adam is the name of the first man because man is the word in Hebrew adam. Now there's also another word for man ish but here let us make adam from the adamah, adamah is dust. Let us and and so basically uh adam means one made of dirt or of dust. Let us make man in our image after our likeness. Now this is not physical because God does not have a body like men. This is not physical. Though the Bible, God himself talks about himself with language that seems to say that he does have parts and passions, but that's a condescension to us. And indeed, the theological understanding of this is anthro, coming from anthropos, the Greek word for man. Morphisms, coming from morphe, which means body. Anthropomorphisms, meaning that God, when he revealed himself to us, revealed himself to us in anthropomorphic language when he speaks of himself with body parts. or with body passions. It comes from anthropos, which is the Greek word for man, and pathos, which means emotion or passions. So anthropopathic language, anthropopathisms. So it can't be bodily form. In fact, bodily form, we look more like chimpanzees then we would look like divine beings. So let us make man, and that's why Darwin, these guys got tripped up. These are faith things. These are not things that you can go to with empirical science and figure them out. These are things that we accept by faith. Now, we surely can look and see that we are different than all the other creatures, all the other animals for sure. You know, they talked about how intelligent dolphins are, that the dolphins can actually speak to each other in these squeaks and high, you know, sonic noises. But when has a dolphin ever built a building or created a car? See? We're different. But you see, those that don't like God, those that don't want to bow to God, those that don't want to believe in Christ, those that do not want to believe that they are themselves, that they are themselves fallen in a fallen world, that they owe, that they are creatures and they owe honor to their creator. They don't want to believe that, so they make up fairy tales. The fairy tale, it's a fairy tale of evolution. And we know that because each time they move further and further from the Bible, their fairy tales become more and more absurd. So Ben Shapiro, no Christian, he's a Jew. I don't think he likes Christianity. I don't think he's for Christianity. I do remember John MacArthur witnessing to him, which is, if you can find that clip on YouTube, that would be interesting for you to watch, John MacArthur talking to Ben Shapiro. But Ben Shapiro is sitting with the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, and And he simply destroyed his argument by asking one question. Can a boy become a girl? And the governor went, well, by the grace of God, Now, he wasn't saying he could become by the grace of God. He went back, he defaulted to a statement, but by the grace of God, there go I. Where does that statement come from? Well, I'll tell you where that statement comes from. That statement comes from some Christian when he saw a man that didn't believe or a man and bad, in a bad situation, or a man who is totally sinful, we don't brag and say, well, I'm better than that guy, right? We don't say that. No, whatever that guy's doing, we're capable of doing. The same depravity in him is the same depravity in us. I remember someone was telling me about David Miller preaching on the doctrine of total depravity. And Miller said, it is a leveling doctrine. It levels us all to the same level. We're exactly the same. Find the worst person in this world and the worst things that this person has ever done, that's what you're capable of doing. The same stuff is in you. And so the Christian response is what? But by the grace of God, if it had not been for the grace of God, there go I. That's what he was, he's conflicted because the fairy tale is more and more absurd. Come on, what idiocy is this? And we have a woman On the Supreme, a woman, I guess she's a woman, she don't even know what a woman is. But thank God we do. And here's a woman on the Supreme Court because she is a woman who can't define what a woman is. That's a lie. She knows what a woman is. She knows what she is. She just will not admit the truth of it because she lives in fantasy and fairy tale thinking. Here's what I've told my children all their lives. I said, let me tell you this. Stupid people think everybody else is stupid. When they come up with these stupid comments, and yes, they're stupid, they're not ignorant, they're stupid. They're in a stupor. Sin has put them in a stupor. The world, the flesh, and the devil has put them in a stupor. This, my friend, is not just wrong, it's demonic. When you start abusing your bodies, when you start cutting yourself, that's demonic. Go back to the demons, legion. What did he do? He threw himself in the fire. Now what, I think it might be a human reaction, I don't know this, but it might be a human reaction, trying to get this thing out of you, you see. So you throw yourself in fire, maybe it'll be destroyed, or you cut yourself, maybe you can cut it out. But this demonic oppression leads you to self-destructive behavior, that's why Much of this drug abuse is demonic. Suicides, demonic. Do away with yourself. Bunyan speaks of this in this wonderful book called Pilgrim's Progress, when they're in the castle of despair, you know, or they're in doubting castle by the giant, run by the giant of despair. and his wife, diffidence, and his wife says, go down there and tell them to do away with themselves. See, Bunyan is saying that's what the demonic impression is, do away with yourself, destroy yourself. Would you ever believe we would be in a place where we can't, where people in society, in high places, will say they don't know the difference between a man and a woman. It's fantasy. And now, you think it'll stop there? The next thing is not transgenders, transsexual. The next thing that's on the horizon is these transhuman One day there will be, if this thing doesn't change, I pray we wake up and just call it idiocy for what it is. This is a fairy tale. And if you believe in fairy tales, something's wrong with you psychologically. But one day there'll be someone sitting there and says, can you tell me the difference between a human being and a dog? And you know what they'll say? Well, I'm not a veterinarian. I'm not sure I could tell you that. But it'll stop. I pray that the idiocy is about over. I pray it is. But what's this all about? Denying this image the Latin, Dei Imagio, the image of God. Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. It starts with evolution. It runs through feminism. See, when we start saying that women can be in the same places as men, That's where all this started. I mean, the next logical step is transgender. There is no difference, you see. Or you can be this or that. And today, on Tuesday, you can be a woman. And on Wednesday, you can be a man. Homosexuality, lesbianism, that woman that was killed in Minnesota, she's messed up. She was messed up. They're trying to say she's a victim. Well, maybe in some sense, she is a victim. But she chose to do what she's doing. and there with her lesbian wife? Come on. Why have we not called all this out? Because there's a limit to where they will even go. Let me tell you this, conservatism is not Christianity. Christians are conservatives, but conservatives are not necessarily Christian. There are homosexual conservatives out there. They're messed up. They are denying the image of God. After our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, Peter says we don't have dominion over them. Peter says that no, they're equal to us, that we have no right to kill an animal and take their fur to cover us from the winter weather They denied the dominion mandate given fish of the sea, fowl of the air, over cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. God has given us that, this dominion mandate. The church has even forgotten that. But here it is. So God, created man in his image, in the image of God, lest you miss this, in the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them. Now this is looking forward to the next chapter, It won't stop with just a him. It will also include a her. And he made him with such a genetic code that from him could come her. And God blessed them and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply. plenish 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. And God said, behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed. So literally, I have given you every seeding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth and every tree yielding seed. To you it shall be for meat, that is for food. We were created originally to eat plants. It's called meat here, means food. You need to look up a 1611 dictionary. It doesn't mean meat in the sense of, you know, what animals produce, but it means food. 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 me, not only for us, but for these animals. And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made. And behold, it was very good, not just good, very good. And the evening and the morning, was the sixth day. Our forefathers write this in the second paragraph of chapter four, the creation. After God had made all other creatures, he created man, male and female. with reasonable and immortal souls, reasonable not meaning that well, you know, that these guys can get along, but no reasonable meaning that they can reason. So now we're beginning to see a little bit about this image of God as our forefathers explained it. So the image of God has something to do with reason. It also has something to do with immortality. Mortal means subject to death. Immortal means you're not subject to death. You will never, Adam was not, nor will any of us ever be uncreated. Once created, we have a soul that is whatever we are. I thought at Stephen, at Stephen Campbell's funeral, one person said, which I thought was just very wonderful way to express it, said, he's not here. This was just the tent he lived in. Just the tabernacle. But whoever he is, that's a soul, that's a spirit. It's created, that's what That's what the evolutionists and the humanists want to deny. They want to deny that there's nothing beyond this. Now, you may have heard of the cartoon strip that was in the newspapers for many, many years, written and drawn by a man named Scott Adams. Dilbert, I think's the name of this. You might have seen that. This man never, he was basically an atheist, agnostic at least, and never really had anything to say about God, never was very religious at all, but he came to a point of death and God, by his grace, allowed him to see his end. Often God snatches people out of here without that benefit, but he allowed this man, by his grace, to see his end. you're going to die. And he wrote to his friends and said, I will not live past January. In fact, the day he died, he told someone, today I will die. Well, some weeks earlier, Scott Adams began to consider the claims of Christ. and said, I am going to, I'm thinking about becoming a Christian, receiving Christ. And he based it upon this wager. the wager of a man who was an existentialist and for some reason is the way the man's name is passing my mind, but it is this wager where the man said, listen, if I accept Christ and I die and there is no Christ, what have I lost? But if I don't accept Christ and I die and there is a Christ, I've lost everything. So the wager, it's hand down. What are you losing in this wager? Well, you and I would say, But that's not real biblical Christianity. That's not coming to Christ. I mean, in some kind of tentative way, some kind of testing way. No, no. You throw yourself upon Christ because he is your only hope and you've come to the end of yourself. Well, that was his public demeanor. I pray his private demeanor was better. But when faced with death, believing because of the witness that was in his heart that he's now not suppressing, he thought of Christ. There have been many people that I questioned their Christianity in my life. They were in my life. I questioned their Christianity, though some of them said they were Christian. They didn't live like Christians. They didn't attend church. They didn't worship God. They didn't tithe to the Lord. Their language was still rough and vulgar. Even some of them living in adultery claimed to be Christian. Some of them never claimed to be Christian at all. But toward the end of their life, these people that never claimed to be Christian at all began to have thoughts of God. And I've always taken that as an encouraging sign. At least they're not cursing Him. They're confessing Him. because they've come to the conclusion that their soul is not going to die. So he made them reasonable and mortal souls, rendering them fit unto the life to God for which they were created. Being made after the image of God in knowledge righteousness, and true holiness. Now, what we're seeing here, our forefathers, what they're doing, that they're making some reference to the communicable attributes of God, meaning those attributes of God that he will share. Now, obviously, we're not God, so they are shared, not perfectly, but they are shared substantively with men. Now, there are incommunicable attributes of God, which are only belong to God, like aseity, that is, God is of himself, we are not of ourselves. Eternity, I mean, in the sense of his being, never beginning, never ending. But here we see these communicable attributes, we can know knowledge. And not only can we know, retain knowledge, we can act upon knowledge, which is called wisdom. We can act upon knowledge, which, and we have the ability to build things, to make things. Some people don't want to use the word create with human beings, but you know, if I said that we've created something, for example, a sermon or a song, We've created that. In some sense, it is a creation. It's not simply just being made of other substances, though I guess the other substances you could make an argument of tune and of rhythm and of lyric. But this knowledge and righteousness, that is, we have a conscience. Some of our consciences have been seared with hot irons. But men have a consciousness. They have an oughtness, a rightness, and a wrongness, you see. To think and to consider if something is right, if something is wrong, that's the image of God, you see. To obey God, to love God, to keep his commandments, righteous and true. Now it's interesting that they used an adjective here, true holiness. Being pure and different. Having the law of God, so this is not, it doesn't come from them in the sense of pure, a pureness of nature, but it comes to them by the hand of God, having the law of God written in their hearts and power to fulfill it. That law still written in our hearts yet. We don't have the power to fulfill it. That's why we must run to Christ. And yet, under a possibility, so Adam and Eve were made under the possibility of transgression, transgressing, going outside the law, sinning, being left to the liberty of their own will so they're not robots, automatons. They have a will and there's a freeness of will and their innocency. We've lost that freeness of will because our will now are bound by sin, natural. The natural man cannot receive the things of God. Fallen man cannot We don't have a Liberty of will, our will is bound in sin. Something has to happen to us, but he was created being left to the Liberty, this male and female, this Adam and Eve left to the Liberty of their own will, which was mutable, subject to change. Here we see we were created, we were created male and female. We were created with the ability to reason and we were created with a soul that is whatever we are at our base that will never die. We were created being fit to live this life, this life to give God glory and enjoy him forever. Created after the image of God and knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. We were created with the law of God written in our hearts. Adam and Eve were created with the power to fulfill it. But yet they could sin against it. Because they were left to their own liberty. Liberty of their own will. Unchangeable. Well, they messed us up. They failed. Adam failed. And much of that's been damaged. So we need Christ. Your soul is going back to Him. To the One that created it. That's a fact. And in that day when He sees you, what is He going to see? A natural fallen man trying to win favor with Him. in their own righteousness? Or will He see Christ as a Christian who is your head? And will He see His righteousness as a Christian? You shall stand before Him dressed in fine white linen, which is the righteousness of the saints. imputed to them by God, the imputed righteousness of Christ. Let's pray.