Genesis chapter 1 verse 20 through Genesis chapter 2 verse 7. Let us now hear the inerrant and infallible word of the living God. Then God said, let the waters abound with abundance of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens. So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves with which the waters abounded according to their kind and every winged bird according to its kind and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them saying, be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let birds multiply on the earth. So the evening and the morning were the fifth day. Then God said, Let the earth bring forth a living creature according to its kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth, each according to its kind. And it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Then God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, see, I have given you every herb that yields seed, which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed to you, it shall be for food. Also to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food. And it was so. Then God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus, the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished. And on the seventh day, God ended his work, which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work, which he had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his work, which God had created and made. This is the history of the heavens and the earth, when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, before any plant of the field was in the earth, and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground. But a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life and man became a living being. Let's pray. Heavenly father, your hands have made and fashioned us. You are the one who created us and gave us life. And so we come before you as creatures come before their creator tonight. And we ask father that You would help us to humbly bow before you and your revelation. Help us not to chase the theories of men, but help us to seek after you. Help us not to listen to the idle fancies of unbelieving men, but help us to listen to your word. We ask that you would bless this study. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. But if, and oh, what a big if, We could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, et cetera, present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes. Those are the words of Charles Darwin. in a letter that he wrote to a gentleman named Joseph Hooker in 1871. Now, Darwin didn't have much to say and really did not try to delve into the origin of life itself, but there's a snippet here in this letter of his speculation concerning how and where life on earth originated. What are we supposed to think about these things? Where did life come from? How did it begin? And who was the author of it? That is the question that we take up tonight in the second part of our study now, as we seek to find an answer to the question of the origin of life itself. We are studying creation versus evolution. We're comparing the two, and we're thinking about what the Bible has to say on these various things that evolutionary theory puts forward these theories, these hypotheses about certain things. We started by introducing the topic and some of the terminology relative to it. And then last week we looked at the origin of the universe. Where did the universe come from? How do we account for the beginning of the universe, the planets, the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, all these sorts of things? Now scientifically minded, supposedly scientifically minded people, Many of them subscribe to what is known as Big Bang Theory. In the beginning, there was an explosion. And we read that last week from a particular author. Our answer to the question is very simple, is it not? And it is the opening statement of the Bible. In the beginning, God Created the heavens and the earth. Where did the universe come from? It came from God. He made it. He spoke it into existence. Well, tonight we want to look at the second question here, the second area that relates to origins, and that is the origin of life itself. Where did life come from? How did the first living thing come into existence? And what was it? Those are the questions we're going to seek to answer this evening. Now, as we have been so far, we're gonna begin with the evolutionary answer to those questions. And so please bear with me. This will take a little bit of time as we walk through some of these things, and then we will turn our attention back to Genesis chapter one and chapter two. But first we need to think about what the world has to say and what the scientifically minded modern person has to say about the origin of life. First of all, as we noted with our consideration of the origin of the universe, so it is with the origin of life when it comes to evolutionary theory. There is no one scientific theory that definitively explains the origin of life on earth or anywhere else for that matter. We will consider some of the popular ones, some of those that have been put forward, But it's important to recognize right off the bat that if you go to science, to have science tell you how life began, there is no one answer to the question. There are multiple theories about it. And even the theories they do propose are proposed tentatively. So if you listen to something or read something on the internet, watch for the language that is used. I watched something the other day about supposedly where life came from, and I noted a particular word in how this gentleman described things. It's a very simple English word, and it was the word could. It could have been this way. Now they'll frequently jump from could have been to this is science. And this is how it works. And you shouldn't believe the Bible or be superstitious or anything like that. Watch the language. When scientists are at their most honest, they admit that these things are speculation at best. So let's again recognize the choice here. There's a stark choice that must be made. And people need to understand what they're choosing if they reject divine revelation. They are not in rejecting divine revelation, particularly Genesis 1 and 2 as we focused on it. They are not turning to an objective body of solid facts. That's how it's often presented. You want the facts, you wanna get something really objective, rock solid, hard evidence, you turn to science for that. Well, come to find out that's not true at all. What you're getting when you turn to science, supposedly, are theories, opinions, speculations, and guesswork. If you reject the Bible, you put yourself into the hands of the scientists, you will not obtain any certainty. They have many theories and opinions, but no definitive answers. In other words, they don't know. They speculate. Oh, it sounds good. They'll talk about chemicals and elements and how they react to one another and how this works and that works. And it can all be very mystifying. But at the end of the day, these are guesses. They may be educated guesses, but they are guesses nonetheless. So which would we rather have? Would you rather have revelation or speculation? Which one of those two should we pick? You know the answer, I'm sure. We choose revelation by the grace of God. All right, now let's deal with what is probably the most popular and common explanation outside of scripture for the origin of human life or the origin of life. I shouldn't say human life, I'm getting ahead of myself. The origin of life. And it is abiogenesis. Now, abiogenesis is a fancy word. Perhaps, you know, spontaneous generation. What is that? That's the idea that life emerged from matter. That you got, in the beginning, there was a kind of living thing, very simple living thing that emerged from non-living matter. animate life from that which is inanimate. How so? How does that work? Well, the idea is there in the beginning there was this kind of primordial soup. this mixture of chemicals, and out of those chemicals being brought together, reacting to one another, they produce this simple living organism from which all other things sprang. This simple organism, it developed over millions and billions of years into other living things. So that's the basic idea. What shall we say to that? Well, where did this come from? Where does this idea come from and what is its scientific basis? Well, part of it goes back to an experiment that was done in 1952. In 1952, two gentlemen named Harold Urey and Stanley Miller performed an experiment in which they mixed methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water. and they applied an electric charge to this mixture of chemical elements, and it resulted in the production of amino acids. And this was supposed to be evidence for spontaneous generation, for abiogenesis, that you can get something living out of something non-living. You can get something animate out of that which is inanimate. Now, many people accept that. Many people find that plausible. This is one of the things that we want to think about. Why do so many people in the world just say, just kind of nod their heads when they hear about things like that and say, OK, well, that makes sense. I think I can go along with that. I think I can accept that. Well, perhaps part of it is many of us, we were in the eighth grade at one time, believe it or not. and we did a scientific experiment of some kind, and we probably, in a laboratory, hopefully in a controlled environment with supervision, you took some chemicals and you put them into a test tube or a beaker or what have you, and they reacted to one another. And so your teacher told you, well, you mix this chemical and that chemical, and you get this reaction, and it produces this effect. And so some people have that in their minds, and they think, hey, well, that's plausible, that we could have these chemicals reacting to one another and producing a living thing. But what we have to do when we hear things that come from the scientific world We have to critically examine them. You have to really put your thinking cap on and be ready to ask the tough, hard questions that uncover the assumptions and the beliefs that are behind such theories. Okay, so let's try to do that. Let's critically examine this abiogenesis, that life came from non-life. that the living creature in the very beginning came from matter, dead matter. When we do this, when we examine this theory, one of the things that we can immediately recognize is the presence of naturalism. Remember this concept from our study in scripture and science. Let me remind you, naturalism is the idea that, quote, everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted." End quote. If you want to answer the question, where did life come from? What is the origin of life? The first thing you have to do is close your Bible. The first thing you have to do is put God out of your mind and do not bring him into the picture at all. And you've got to find a natural explanation as to how this could have come about. you must pursue a strictly naturalistic explanation. What should we do with that? We should reject that. We should reject that demand that we stick to quote unquote nature to try and explain the origin of life. Now we can agree that it is valid to study natural processes and consider how they relate to revelation, but to exclude divine revelation, To keep God out of the picture is wrong and rebellious. It is a living illustration of what Paul said in Romans 1. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. It's Romans chapter 1 and verse 18. What's going on when the scientist says, we can't discuss God, we can't bring Him into this picture at all, that's wrong to do. He's suppressing the truth of the Creator. Now let me give you a quote from an American biologist and geneticist who was a teacher at Harvard University for a long time. His name is Richard Lewontin. He died in 2021. And here, Mr. Lewontin is being very honest. Don't you like it when you get the truth from somebody? Sometimes you're like, tell me what you really think. Okay, good. Listen to what he says here. Quote, we take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs. Hmm. in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories. Because we have a prior commitment. Ah, now we're getting somewhere. A commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. There's a lot of language and a lot of big words to say, we are utterly committed to matter, to material things, to naturalism. Nothing else can be admitted. He continues or he concludes, moreover, that materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door, end quote. Well, so much for objectivity, so much for unbiased hard facts. No, that particular scientist just admitted to you, no, we have commitments and our commitment is to so-called naturalistic things. It's a commitment to materialism and we do not allow any other explanations. And that's why we do what we do. So, as we challenge this idea that life spontaneously generated, from non-life, we ought to recognize, first of all, that there are assumptions that are being made. First of all, how does anyone know the chemical makeup of the so-called primordial soup? Where'd you get that information? How do you know that methane was part of it? How do you know that it was this group of chemicals mixed together? There is no place where these things are observed naturally occurring anywhere. How do you know that? That is done on the basis of assumption. Assumption and belief. It's coming from the head of the scientist. The scientist thinks it's reasonable. Hey, it was probably like this or it could have been like this. Therefore, let's put these chemicals together. But they don't know. They're guessing. They may sound smart, but they're still guessing. So there are assumptions being made and there are beliefs that are held that are driving the experiment as well as the results and the conclusions that are drawn from it. It is often Christians, usually Christians, who are accused of making assumptions and having our faith guide us. Well, it does. We do make assumptions. We assume the Bible is true. We assume God is real and we ought to follow his word. And we believe it. And that is guiding us. Yes, that's true. The scientist has told us for a long time, we don't do that. We don't make assumptions. We don't have beliefs that are guiding us. Baloney. They sure do. Number two. In this experiment that these two scientists did, they put together these chemicals and they ran the electrical charge, or caused the chemicals to pass through and hit the electrical charge, however they did it, and it produced this reaction. Well, here's a question for them. Where did these chemicals and elements come from? What accounts for their existence? Moreover, how is it that these elements or these chemicals react to one another? What caused or what accounts for hydrogen and methane doing what they do and then doing what they do when they come in contact with one another? Where did that come from? I submit to you, they have no answer to that. They don't have an answer to where these things came from because they're just dealing with the things themselves and how they function and how they work. But we want to ask the question, how does this occur and why does this occur? They don't have an explanation. We do. Where did methane and ammonia and hydrogen and carbon, where did all that stuff come from? God. God made it. and the fact that they react in a certain way to one another, does that not indicate design? Does that not indicate that they were created and they were created to function in a particular way when they came in contact with one another? Let's illustrate in a different way, okay? How would you explain the origin of a book? Where did this book come from? Now, if someone said, well, I've got a PhD from Duke University, and he started talking about the properties of ink, and where ink, how ink functions when it's applied to paper. And then he started talking about the chemical makeup of paper and how these things work. Now you might be impressed because he sounds smart and he is smart in certain ways. If he knows about what ink is composed of and what paper's made of and that sort of thing. But that still doesn't answer the question, does it? The properties of ink and the properties of paper do not tell us about the origin of the book. What does tell us about the origin of the book is the author of the book, the person who wrote the book, the person who put it together and published it. And so we're saying that God is the author of life. He's the originator of life. And that's the greatest and truest explanation there is. That's the only explanation. Moreover, number three, thinking back to this experiment that took place that they did. What is required for an origin of life experiment? Let's think about this for a minute. Think about some of the materials you need. First of all, you need some scientists. to do it. Then you need a laboratory, you need some equipment, and you need what? You need intelligence to be applied to this thing. So the fact that chemicals are composed of certain things and react to one another is actually evidence for the divine designer. Think about it. When Uri and Miller did their experiment, what was required to make it work? Them. Without them, there is no experiment. Without Uri and Miller intelligently doing what they did, mixing these chemicals, causing the electric charge to be introduced, all of that sort of thing, it doesn't happen. It doesn't occur. So even the experiment that they did to try and say, see, spontaneous generation is true. There's evidence for it. It didn't prove it at all. All it proved was you need intelligence to be applied to these chemicals and things to cause them to do a certain thing. It was actually evidence for design. Finally, yet another reason to reject theories like this is due to the great complexity in living things. We'll talk more about this as we go through our study. But just to touch on it now, in the popular mind, you have this kind of primordial goo. You got the goo at the very beginning, right? Which over millions of years develops into intelligent and complex human beings. But an erroneous assumption that's at the base of that that this initial living thing this goo or this thing that emerged from the group the goo is exceedingly simple so so so simple and that's just plain wrong when you get down to the molecular level of life it is abundantly complex it is so vastly complex and intricate that And so the assumption that is made that life, this initial life form or living thing was so simple is wrong. For example, consider the cell. Is the cell this simplistic thing that develops into something more complex? No, the cell is itself highly complex and intricate. All right, so there's one popular theory. I'm sure you've heard that before. Where did life come from? It came from this primordial soup, these chemicals and elements reacting to one another and producing the first living organism. But that's not the only answer to the question of the origin of life that is given. Another answer to the question, is extraterrestrial? And yes, you heard me say that rightly, extraterrestrial, literally meaning from outside the earth. Now this can take the form of big meteorite slams into earth and kind of injects the earth with certain elements and chemicals that cause a reaction or This can come in the form of some kind of advanced civilization that implants life here on Earth. What do you call that? You call that aliens. Now, of course, this kind of solution only raises further questions, right? Where'd the meteor come from? Where did the microbe on the meteor come from? How did that arise? So you're just pushing the question back further. Or if you're talking about aliens, where'd they come from? What is their origin? So it doesn't really answer the question, it just pushes it back further somewhere else, and they don't deal with that. So to give you a couple of examples of this, you remember Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA. Well, Mr. Crick's theory, along with someone else, was directed panspermia. And that's just a fancy way of saying aliens came here and injected life into the earth. And that's what it developed from. You say, that sounds crazy, Pastor Nick. Yeah, it is. But that was one of his theories. Or Carl Sagan, remember we talked about Carl Sagan, popular scientist, cosmologist, the 20th century. I watched a video the other day of Carl Sagan talking about extraterrestrials. You know, I don't have to have fun. I don't have to go out into the world to have fun. All you have to do is listen to some people talk, and it's exceedingly humorous. Carl Sagan, at the beginning of this video, says, and I quote, So if we receive a message, it can't be from anybody less capable than we, because anybody less capable can't communicate at all. So it has to be somebody much in advance of us, maybe as much in advance of us as we are in advance, say, of the ants or the worms. So you put those together, lots of places, lots of organic matter, lots of time, and it seems very hard to believe that our paltry little planet is the only one that is inhabited. What did he just say, Pastor Nick? He just said the evidence points in the direction of aliens, that aliens are out there. And a couple of breaths later says, quote, so a literal reading of the Bible simply is mistaken. I mean, it is just wrong. It is just wrong. End quote. Wait a second. Let me get this straight. You're telling me that to read the Bible, literally to accept it, to believe it is just plain wrong. And your substitution for that is aliens. That's what you're giving me in place of the word of God. Yeah, that's what he did. Here we can see the foolishness of men. They reject the idea of God as creator. They reject the Bible as divine revelation. What do they turn to instead? Theories about aliens. This is a perfect illustration of Romans 1.22, professing to be wise, they became fools. Do you see what ridiculous conclusions people will come to running from the truth, suppressing the truth of the creator? It is often presented to us as scientifically minded people are the smart people. They're the educated people. And if you believe in the Bible and you accept that it's all true, particularly the first couple of chapters of the Bible, well, that probably indicates that you don't have a high level of education or your IQ is exceedingly low. Oh, I think not. Here we've got some really smart people being really stupid. You can be smart and stupid all at the same time. You can be real smart and know certain things about how stuff works, but be stupid when it comes to the truth. Why? Because you're a sinner in full-on revolt against God. And when you do that, that's plain dumb. All right. Now, we've talked about where life comes from, but what is this initial living thing, supposedly, according to evolutionary theory? Regardless of the specific theory adopted, most unbelieving scientists today grant that the original living creature was a very simple, single-celled organism, something very rudimentary, but had the capacity of evolving into something greater than itself. Well, I read Stephen C. Meyer's book, Darwin's Doubt, and in this book, Meyer mentions what someone called this initial living organism the ancestor of The metazoans and he called it the shmoo Where where did all the metazoans come from? They came from the shmoo now you can google that if you like You can google the shmoo and you'll get a picture and there's a cartoon and everything kind of looks like a bowling ball With a face and that sort of thing So that's what you're giving me You want me to give up on the Bible and tell me that I came from the shmoo, or all these living creatures with all their complexity and all their glory came from the shmoo? I think not. All right, enough of that. Let's turn to the Word of God. What does Scripture say about where life came from? Well, first of all, we have a very simple solution to the quote-unquote problem of the origin of life, and we can even say it in one word, God. That's where life came from in the beginning. God created it. The Bible teaches us that God is the author and the source of life. First of all, this is because God has life in and of himself. You remember the words of Jesus, John 5, 26, for as the father has life in himself, so he has granted the son to have life in himself. or the great statement that the Lord makes to Moses at the burning bush. What did he call himself? I am that I am. Tell them the I am sent you. Now, part of what that means, or the basic meaning of that, is that God is self-existent. He is not dependent upon anyone or anything else for His life. He is life. He's the source of life. And so, brother Josh read for us in the Scripture reading, from Acts 17, where in verse 25, Paul says, Where did life come from? It came from God, because He is the author and the source of it. When did He give life to things, to creatures? Genesis 1, verse 1, in the beginning. That's when He did it. There was a particular point in time in which God created the universe, and as we'll see here in a second, he created animal life, and then he created human life. So in the beginning, it was not the primordial soup. It was not chemicals and reactions. It was God. God is the author and source of all life. You know, one of the issues with supposedly scientific studies surrounding the origin of life on earth is that it robs God of his glory. and tries to transfer that glory to creation. Tries to transfer that glory to chemicals and elements and reactions and processes and all that sort of thing. But we must believe the Bible and give glory to God as the creator and the originator of life. As God says of himself in Isaiah 42, thus says God the Lord who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk on it. Who does that? God does that. I am the Lord, that is my name and my glory. I will not give to another. And I add, not to any scientific theory that seeks to rob God of his glory. He should be glorified for being the author of life. Now here in Genesis chapter one, let's look here at the origin of the first living creatures. This is why we read at the outset of verses 20 down through the end of chapter one. And I want you to notice something here. On day number five, beginning in verse 20 there, it says, let the waters abound with an abundance of what? Of living creatures. This is the first instance in Genesis one of this language. In Hebrew, it's nefesh hayah. And this phrase gets repeated in a number of different places here in the opening portion of the Bible. Drop down now to verse 24. Oh, well, before we go to verse 24, what was being talked about there in verse 20 were the creatures that were going to swim in the waters. And God creates the great sea creatures there on day five, verse 24. Now, then God said, let the earth bring forth a living creature. There it is again, Nefesh, Chaya, according to its kind, cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind. And then finally, verse 30, also to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth in which there is life, life, I have given every green herb for food. So here we have God creating the first living creatures, the birds, the birds, fish and the land animals. Where did they come from? God made them and he imbued them with this life. Now it's true that plants have a certain kind of life, but this language of life of living creatures is first introduced here in Genesis in relation to the animals that inhabit the three realms, the sky, the waters, and the dry land. God created them. So it wasn't a shmoo that God made in the beginning. It wasn't a little single-celled, simple organism. No, God created fully formed, mature, glorious birds, fish, whales, land animals, and all of these things. There is no hint whatsoever that in the beginning God made this exceedingly simple organism Then over millions or billions of years it developed into all these other things know what do we have? We have God saying let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth Across the face of the firmament of the heavens. How will the waters abound? unless these creatures are fully formed and and what they're supposed to be, and the same thing with the birds flying through the heavens. So here, Genesis tells us that the theories of modern science are wrong. Next, Genesis teaches us that the origin of human life is also God, and it's special, it's unique. Now, chapter 2, verse 7. Chapter 2, verse 7 says, And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being. So you see that same language there of life that is spoken of in reference to Adam. What did God do? He formed Adam from the dust and he breathed into him life. Man is the only creature that God makes in his image. The only one that he shapes personally from the dust and imbues with this special life. So Adam is special. Why? Because he's made in the image of God. Nothing else in creation is said to be made in the image of God. Not the birds, not the fish, not the land animals, only Adam and Eve. And that makes mankind distinct and special. And that's important. That is oh so important for us to understand. Evolutionary theory tries to collapse all of this and get man in a muddle with the rest of creation. But Genesis teaches us that man is distinct and special. He's separate. He was created separately. There are certain similarities, yes. We'll talk about those in future studies. but man was created in a special manner. So evolutionary theory in trying to answer the question of the origin of life contradicts the Bible and is flat wrong. Humans did not evolve from some kind of shmoo, nor did animals. They were made, human beings were made separate and special, and God was the author of human life. In conclusion, we believe that God created life. We believe the answer to the origin of life on earth is found in him and his word. We reject any and all supposedly scientific theories that war against these basic truths. Science that denies the simple truths of scripture is rebellious. It is not smart, but foolish. It's not wise, but ignorant. So what do we want to do? We want to give praise to our creator, right? We want to give praise to our creator who is the author and the originator of life. He is the awesome living God who spoke things into existence in the very beginning, who stooped down, so to speak, and shaped a man out of the dust of the earth and made him a living being that is great and awesome and glorious. And we're meant to believe these things and be brought to our creator to worship him, to honor Him and to give Him the glory for being the author of life. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we recognize that many men pretend to be very wise, but Your Word exposes them as foolish. We pray that we may not be among them, We ask that you would help us, Father, to be humble, to humble ourselves before you, our creator, and before your word. We've seen that science, modern science, often presents itself as the smart way to go, but it so often exposes itself as so much foolishness. How simple, but how glorious is your revelation? And so we thank you, Lord, for how you created things, for how you created these amazing living creatures in the very beginning, the birds that we see around us every day and the fish that swim in the waters and the animals that we see on the dry land. You made all these things and we give you glory for it. We see that in the very beginning, you made Adam and Eve, you made them in your image, you gave them life. And here we are, their children, the descendants of Adam and Eve. You've given us life. And we know that we are meant to honor you, to look to you and give you glory for who you are, the author and source of life. Without you, we're dead. Without you, we have nothing. We don't exist without you. You give us life and breath and all things. In you, we live and move and have our being. Help us to remember that. Help us, Father, as we've prayed many times, not to be intimidated by the world and its wisdom, but to cling to divine revelation, to believe it and live in light of it. We thank you for this time. We ask that you make these things fruitful in our hearts, Lord, and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. As you leave tonight, may grace be with you. Amen.