All right, Genesis chapter 1, beginning in verse 26 this evening. Brethren, let's hear God's precious and holy word. And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let him and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, over the cattle over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Amen. May the Lord bless the reading of his word to our souls this evening. Well, we've begun a new series and our Wednesday evening studies really are more that. They're kind of loose studies as opposed to being strict strict expositions, but we generally try to take up topics that have an important bearing upon us day by day, both in our lives outside of the four walls of the church and within. We've entitled this particular series, The Godly Man. The Godly Man. In our last study, we considered the lament of King David as he bemoaned the lack of godly men. Help, Lord! Help, Lord! For the godly man ceases. Now clearly, man in his natural state is anything but godly. But why is this so? Why are men so wicked? Why are men liars? Why are they faithless? Why are they undependable? Why are they immoral? Why are they violent? Why are they ungodly? And why is it they don't have to take a class in it? They don't have to learn to be ungodly. Why would we even need a series, The Godly Man? And it is because, quite obviously, by nature, we are ungodly. Something has happened to man, and we need to understand it. How do we explain the tragic condition of man? And how is it possible for him to ever become godly? If he's ungodly by nature, How can we ever see sinful and wicked man as godly? How can he become so? Now we can neither answer this question nor truly understand man's sorry and guilty condition without a clear understanding of his origins. And so we want to take a few minutes to consider that this evening. The name of our study tonight is In the Image of God. in the image of God. It's taken from verse 27. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, created he him. We want to consider this under three heads this evening. First of all, we want to consider God's image in man created. Then God's image in man marred. And finally, God's image in man restored. So, let's consider, with God's help, God's image in man created. Certain passages in scripture, at least for me, always seem to be a never-ending well of thought, refreshment and provoking me to deeper and more serious consideration of the Word of God and certainly this passage is one of those in that category for me. Every time I go back to it, I find myself reading it almost as for the first time. I don't know why that is with some passages as opposed to others, Certainly, I find that to be the case. First, we want to think about God's purpose for man under this heading. God's purpose for man, and that's revealed to us in a most remarkable way. The chapter one begins with those famous words, at least for those who are believers of scripture, In the beginning, God. In the beginning, God. This is not a book about man to begin with. This is a book about God. It begins and it continues and it ends being a message about God. It's the revelation of the Most High God. Certainly it tells us about man, about his creation, about his fall and about his redemption. But all of that takes place because of God. In the beginning, not man, But in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth and unfolds then before us all of these remarkable verses about God's extraordinary and miraculous act of creation. God by such immense power, such as we cannot even fathom, simply conceived and spoke all this into existence. What great and awesome power! And we see the days of creation unfold before us in this chapter. And then we hit verse 26. And God said... Now, and God said has been in numerous verses here before. It's not the and God said that's so remarkable, but it's what follows it. It says, and God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. Now, as we read through the Holy Spirit's account of the glorious days of creation, we must take note of the striking way in which man's creation is introduced. We find nothing about the eternal counsels of God regarding the rest of creation, or what we might call lower creation, if I can say it that way. I don't mean to denigrate the rest of creation, but nothing else is given the splendid, the majestic description as being created in the image of God, other than man. The rest of it is creation, and God said, and He called the light day and the night darkness, And we go through all of these things regarding the various days, but then when it comes to man, the entire feel of the chapter changes because of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit writing through the pen of Moses. Let us make man in our image after our likeness. In verse 26, the Holy Spirit, as it were, draws back the curtain and ushers us into the throne room of God. Prior to this verse, we hear of God's action. But here, it is as if the Holy Spirit beckons us into this extraordinary moment and lets us gaze at something set apart from everything else in creation. Come and look, he says. Come into this extraordinary meeting, if I can put it that way. The Godhead. There is a glorious communion and union within the members of the Godhead. Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. We are granted an audience in the holy councils of God's eternal purpose. Now, brother, we need to think long and hard on that. Why is that interjected here? Well, there are probably more reasons that I will ever know in this lifetime. But at least it has to do with the fact that the creation of man is utterly distinct. from all other creation. And it is because man alone is created in the image of God. This cannot be said of any other of God's creatures. This is the special glory of man alone. And that's why the condition of man today is so unspeakably tragic. If in fact, the godless evolutionists were right, and all there was was primordial soup going way back there, billions and billions of years ago, and somehow when the lightning either struck the soup or whatever chemical reaction, whatever what caused all these actions to begin, and life started out of something where there was no life prior, and man just evolved from a one-celled creature up into the extraordinary being that he is today. Well, we might say all of this carnage and all of this horror and all of this filth through man's history might simply be attributed to the stumblings of man trying to grow into his maturity. And of course, that's exactly the way some people view it. But the Word of God gives us no such picture. Man was created in the image of Almighty God. Nothing else in creation is. Now, having been given this blessed ushering in to God's counsels and being granted the unexpected revelation of God's planning to make man in his own image, for what purpose did he create him? Of course, our catechism says that man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever and of course this is true but there are specific things that the Word of God sets before us in God's purpose for man we may see them in their origins here let us make man in our own image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. It is amazing in our fallen state, and of course because of so much man-centered theology out there today, we say things like, Well, you know, we need to let God save us. I need to let God handle this problem. I need to let God this and that. Scriptures don't talk like that. But it tells us that God lets us. God, in His sovereign rule, lets us. Because man is created in the image of God, He lets, He permits us. Let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion. This is extraordinary. God is saying, let's permit, let's ordain, let's bring to pass in our wise and eternal counsels the rule of earth by this creature made in our image. The lions, the tigers, the bears are not the ones to rule and reign. The great sea creatures, Leviathan, none were to reign but man. Man is to have dominion and God gives it to him. The picture in scripture is not a small, tiny, insignificant man that somehow hoists himself up the evolutionary chain into this thing that he is today and is still striving to get higher and greater and ultimately may even bring in a glorious socialistic realm where we make a quantum leap into the future and mankind becomes perfected. Which is the teaching, by the way, of socialism. No. What we have in scripture is a creature made in the image of the holy, righteous, sovereign God and given rule over the things that God has made and then a tragic story of man falling from that exalted position. God had a plan for man whom we consider the issue of man and authority, we must begin with God. God is the seat of all authority, and man in the image of God is able, therefore, to understand authority and to exercise authority. It's very important, and that's going to be a theme that we'll see all through our study of manhood. God is the ultimate authority, because he's the sovereign ruler, the sovereign creator of all things. But man, made in his image, can therefore understand authority, and he can exercise a delegated authority. Secondly, Then that brings us to consider man and God's rule. Because man is the image of God and possesses the ability to understand and exercise authority, man is able to rule on behalf of God. That is God's purpose. That's God's purpose. Hear the word of God again, and let them have dominion. let them have dominion, let them have the rule over what? Everything on the earth. Fish of the sea, fowl of the air, cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. We can say, this may be an unusual word to some of you, But we can say that man is God's viceroy. Some of you may only relate that to a cigarette. But it was a word that at one time actually had a meaning other than commercialized cancer. A viceroy is a governor ruling as a representative of a sovereign. He's a representative governor. And that's exactly what man was made to be. God's viceroy. Now brethren, when we take the eyes that we presently possess, and what understanding we have, and look around this world, it doesn't seem like that's the case, does it? But that in fact is what man was created to be, God's viceroy. God's representative governor over all things. So this is God's purpose for man. The eternal counsels of God open up to reveal to us that God, the holy and sovereign creator, the authority of all things, has made man for union, for communion, and to rule as his representative on the earth. Well, then let's consider God's creation of man. Creation, of course, is a miracle of God. That's not my place, or it isn't the place in a study like this to launch into a defense of creationism. That's an obvious presupposition for a study like this to me. Perhaps someday we will do some studies in that. But simply taking the scriptures as they plainly speak, God created all things, and he created them in six days. I believe that is the biblical position, and it is the one we hold here. There are wonderful books and much material written on that over the last few years, and I encourage you to read and study that subject. Nevertheless, for our purposes, what we want to realize is, as we read in the psalm this evening, and as we opened our worship this evening, we read that God commanded, and it stood fast, that we ought to stand in awe of God. Why? Because He spoke and everything came into existence. That's why. How many of you discovered today that you could not make the world run the way you wanted it to? Anybody this week? Have schedules splattered all over your calendar? That's become my hobby. Just bowing to the Lord saying, thank you. I won't check that off and I won't check that one off. I'll just write a new list if you'd rather have me do these things. Brethren, we not only can't control things, we certainly can't speak anything into existence. Couldn't be a jail if that were the case. Is that right? We'd have some fellas just speaking themselves right into freedom tonight, liberty. I mean, go home tonight and do your best to speak a single-celled creature into existence. Go try it with all of your heart. Grab three or four friends, all of you hold hands, and with all your might, wish and hope, and try to bring a single cell into existence. It just doesn't happen. We like to think we're God-like, and the reason that we do is actually a right one. We're created in the image of God. There is something like God about us. It's the fact, though, that we are ungodly that mars all of this. God, in His extraordinary power, created man in His image. I don't know how to explain that. And we'll talk about man in the image of God in just a few minutes, briefly. But in God's eternal power, which is governed by His infinite wisdom, mercy, love and holiness, God not only spoke all things into existence, He spoke man. into existence in His image. Now, there's been a great deal of discussion of this image of God in man and what it actually means. Well, certainly it includes the fact of personality, personhood. God is manifested in Scripture as three eternal persons. He's not a force. He's not like a radar beam, as some people teach. He is a person. There is personality, and all that that means, God is. And man being created in God's image sets us apart. from every other creature. We may pick up a beautiful little baby and say, oh, my little man. And that's good. But we shouldn't pick up a puppy. We shouldn't pick up a kitten. We shouldn't hold our goldfish and say, oh, you're such a wonderful little person. Because they're not little persons. They're creatures. They gloriously reflect the great creative power of God, but they're not in the image of God. That is reserved for God alone, for man alone. Now the reason I'm driving that home is that this is clearly part of the image of God in man. God and the members of the Godhead commune together. They have union and they commune. And this is something that being created in the image of God, we share with Him. We'll talk about just a few things regarding this matter of our image, God's image in us. Colossians chapter 3 verse 10 says this, and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. Renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. Knowledge is yet another way in which the image of God is reflected in man. Because we are persons, God and the members of the Godhead are persons that have a glorious intercommunion and union, we being created in the image of God may have union and communion with the Almighty. And part of that then requires that we have the capacity for knowledge. We know things. Those of you that are parents, Those of you that have brothers or sisters or family members that have had children, and you see the glory of those precious little infants, and you watch them grow, and you see them learn. How is it that you can say words to them over and over, and after a while, they can say them back? The amazing thing is, you can say them to a parakeet, and they can say some of them back, but they can't put them into clear and logical thought. And while it appears that some of us are not gifted at putting words in clear and logical thought, we are able to do that in a way that the creatures cannot. They do think, I will not say that animals don't think, certainly it's been proven that they have some form of thinking, it's clear. But not like men. We have a knowledge and an ability of knowledge that sets us apart from everything else. And brethren, this isn't a rabbit trail. Because as we're going to see as we unfold this series, all of these things have been marred and lost because of sin. And that's why we're lousy husbands and lousy fathers and lousy sons and lousy workers. Wicked, evil, selfish, self-centered. And we use these gifts in wicked ways. Even when we see men in their wickedness, sometimes we see a brilliance in their wickedness that we have to stand back and be amazed at. What are we seeing? The image of God! Perverted, yes. Stained. Wretched in what it's producing. Nonetheless, brilliant. Because there's the capability of thought, scheming, plotting, planning. The scriptures reprove the wicked man for lying on his bed and dreaming up evil. Why? It's not just because of the evil's sake, or for the evil's sake. It's because that man was created in the image of God to use that capacity to glorify his maker and to do what is right. And he uses it rather for his own selfish and wicked purposes. Man can reason. I will never forget during my nearly ten years of jail ministry some of the extraordinary things I would see prisoners do. Some of the things that they made, some of the things that they created. In one of the jails that I preached in, they complained because very often by the time they could get their coffee, it was cold. Or later as they were sitting in their cells, they wanted it heated up and there was no way to heat it up. They would take their time and they'd fish out pieces of paper. out of the trash cans as they go by from time to time. Stick them in the bands of their pants and take them back to their cell. They'd collect the paper or they'd take rolls of toilet tissue and tighten them up and then they'd put them in tin cans. You were never supposed to throw a Coke can or anything like that down in the waste paper baskets because they'd get retrieved and used for something, generally wickedness. But what they would often do then is they'd take these bits of paper and they had metal tables in their cells, and they'd put their coffee cup on a spot of the metal table, they'd take the can with the rolled up and the tightly wound up pieces of paper in there, they'd find ways to steal matches, start a little fire, and they'd heat their coffee under those metal tables. If man wants it, he'll find a way to do it with the throwaway stuff. They had hot coffee. Man can reason. He's made in the image of God. Oh, what's happened to him? I would often think when I would see these prisoners, if they would take that ability to think and use it for something good, instead of for something that would get them back in the pen for more years, which is inevitably the case, They take that ability to think sharp as a fox and do something vile with it. What we see in Scripture very plainly, that man is capable of conceiving thought. He was created this way in Genesis chapter 2 verse 19. It says, Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. Now don't miss that. God delighted in making Adam and then bringing the animals to him and said, Adam, have at it. Name them. And God got glory in that. Why? Because Adam, created in the image of God, looked at those beasts and named them. He could conceive thought. And in conceiving thought and doing good with it, he glorified his Maker. Even after he's fallen into sin, God can say, come now, let us reason together. This is not simply nice poetic language. God saying, you're in my image. I have created you with the ability to think, to be able to process information. Now I want you to come to me and I want us to put our minds together. I want you to think after me. Come now, let us reason together. Though your sins be a scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. And he reasons with man. Turn from your sin. Return to me. Repent and believe me. Be faithful to the covenant. He's addressing persons with minds created in his image who are able to use them. Something else about the image of man in the image of God is righteousness and holiness. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 24. Paul writes and that you put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Now both the passage in Colossians and Ephesians here are actually speaking to men after they have been redeemed. However, and I'll mention a little bit more about this before we close tonight, but the thing to lay out is even though this is the recreation of man in regeneration, it still gives us the pattern of God and man. Man Adam was righteous and holy because God is righteous and holy. Righteous, meaning that he's in accord, he's in harmony with the character of God. Holiness, meaning that he's set apart from all that is wicked and set apart unto all that is good. This is the way we were. Ecclesiastes chapter 7 verse 29 tells us the same thing. It says, Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions. Now the inventions there, unfortunately, does not mean inventions in the way we use it today. It means they have invented in their minds many wicked things to do. The word upright probably means here in the Hebrew, the ability to recognize divine law. God created man upright. In other words, he didn't create man with this completely clear, unwritten upon slate of a brain, and that impression just began to fall in on him, and he started to kind of think them through. No, he was created in the image of God, reflecting the glories of God. and able to recognize the glory, the rightness, the goodness of God. He could perceive that which was God-like. He was created with an insight into what was right, and he could clearly perceive God's will. He didn't have to guess at it. We can't imagine that, can we? I mean, even we as God's redeemed very often are on our faces going, Lord, what do you want me to do? It's because of sin. Adam was upright. There was no obstacle. There was nothing that blocked his understanding of what God required. Brethren, we can't imagine what Adam was like. It isn't in us because Every one of our thoughts has to be filtered through our wickedness, our guilt. It has to be filtered through our shame and our fallenness, our little thinking, our wicked thinking. It wasn't so with Adam before the fall. God created him upright. He had the natural and the continual ability both to understand and to govern his faculties according to the will and character of God. Can you imagine that? He understood what God wanted and he could do it. What we're saying, he was upright. The word originally meant straight. It means he's in harmony with God and had the ability to perceive that. Matthew Henry makes a wonderful comment here. I wanted to share it with you. He says, speaking of man, quote, His understanding saw divine things clearly and truly and there were no errors nor mistakes in his knowledge. His will complied readily and universally with the will of God without reluctancy or resistance. His affections were all regular and he had no inordinate appetites or passions. His thoughts were easily brought and fixed to the best subjects. I love that's great. His thoughts were easily brought and fixed to the best subjects, and there was no vanity nor ungovernable mess in them, meaning in his thoughts. All the inferior powers were subject to the dictates and directions of the superior without any mutiny or rebellion. Does that sound foreign to you? It certainly ought to, and not a one of us in here able to be this perfectly. This is how Adam was upright. Well, let's consider then what we've looked over for just a few minutes. In summary, man is therefore in the image of God in at least these areas. He has knowledge and reason. He's in the image of God as far as righteousness and holiness. He's in the image of God as far as uprightness. And because he is in the image of God, he understands and has the ability to exercise rule. God rules over all the universe and he made man to be his viceroy. So, these are very important things for us to remember and I hope you will as in the weeks to come we unfold what a godly man should be. Adam was godly because he reflected without sin before the fall, his maker." And finally in verse 28 there of Genesis 1, we then have God blessing them, Adam and Eve and man, kind, and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Therefore, man, along with woman, is, much to the dismay of the feminists and those who have been influenced by them, man and woman together are mankind. See, we want that all replaced today with the word humankind. But it says, God created man in his own image, male and female created he them. Man is incomplete without female. Ladies all say, Amen. Nevertheless, man was created to have dominion, and in order for him to do what God had given him to do, he made female. to complete Him. And then God blessed the union of male and female. He made two separate genders and He blessed them so that they would be fruitful and that they would multiply. So in all of this we see the origins then of being sons and being husbands and being fathers. All of this flows forth from this. And there are things about being created in the image of God that we should be manifesting as sons and husbands and fathers. Why aren't we doing it? Or if we are, why is it so hard? Why do we have so much trouble doing it? Even when our hearts burn within us and we desire, I want to get up and I want to speak rightly to my wife today. I want to encourage my children and not beat them down. I want to work with my co-workers and be happy. And we come home defeated. Or come home and defeat ourselves, even if we've had a good day. Why does that happen? If we were created in the image of God, what happened? We were even blessed of God to be sexual beings and to procreate the earth and to have dominion over it. God blessed that. Have children. Lots of them. Multiply. Rule. Problem is we became ungodly. And we will go over these last few points quickly this evening. This brings us to the issue of God's image in man marred. Here is God's image that we've been looking at. We see the things about man. And then we find in Genesis chapter 2, verse 15, God commanded, or excuse me, man commanded by God. It says, And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it. Don't miss this, and we'll develop this more later. God created man to work. Work is part of reflecting the image of God. Therefore, when men do not work, they are not honoring the Most High. God made them to work. Work was not a part of the curse. That's what some of us think. Especially when we're children. What we want to do is play, and Dad's saying, Now, maybe if you have time later, but you're going with me right now, and we're going to build this fence, or we're going to paint the house, or we're going to... Oh no! And something in us goes, no, I'd rather play. That's the fall. That's ungodly. He made us to work, because He made us to reflect Him as His viceroy. He made us to rule and to have dominion, and work is part of that. A godly man, as we're going to see, works. And the Lord God commanded the man, the man, saying of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. And the reason this is important is because this is before he created Eve. He commanded the man before he took Eve out of Adam's side. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." He gave him a command. God, the Creator, the sovereign Creator, commanded man. But then man fell. Man was given responsibility. He was given the work to do. And while he did that, he was glorifying his God. But Genesis 3, tells us, now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And said unto the woman, yea, hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees and of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said ye shall not eat of it, Neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her He was there, brethren. He saw her rebellion and he did not stop it. That was one of the great issues and one of the biggest questions in all of theology. How did good Adam become sinful Adam? We understand how you and I sin. We understand because being Adam's children We come with a sinful nature. Adam didn't start with a sinful nature. And as many good books as I've read on it, I still left with a big question mark in my heart. It's all part of God's wise and eternal purpose. But good Adam became sinful Adam. He did not obey the word of his God. And we want to draw these points from it. Turning from God's Word, he bowed to the doctrine of the devil. God said, don't eat of it. And what did he do? Through his wife, he listened to the doctrine of devils. His wife saw the fruit. She was deceived, as Paul tells us later in Timothy. and is plainly set before us here and instead of bowing to the word of God he bowed to the word of devils of the devil through his wife in other words brethren he followed his wife instead of following his God and unfortunately when you see a home out of order you will often see that very pattern. Men following their wives rather than the Word of God. Why is that so prevalent? Because it began right here in our first father. And that has come down through every generation. And this is why we so easily today cast off what God's Word says for what some other vessel of dust says. And that other vessel of dust is usually marketing doctrines of devils. You weren't created. You pulled yourself up out of the slime pool zillions of years ago. Oh, thank you. And now here's your degree. Turning from God's Word is unmanly. We lost this in the fall. Manhood is found in walking in God's Word. This, of course, has led to men following women very often instead of following the Word of God. We also have here clearly disobedience. When he turned his hearing from the word of God and disobeyed, Adam became the greatest mass murderer in all of history. Every death, every act of sin, every vile act that men think, speak, or do comes from this act right here. Here was the unmanning of man, as the Puritans would say. This is where we lost manhood. Well, there are other things to say about this. There are a number of them that I would really like to focus in on. So rather than running roughshod over them, I will save them and develop them for one of our next studies. Let's finally go to our last head and just look at this briefly. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 gives us the reason that we may speak of God's image in man restored. God's image in man restored. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 21 says, For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. We lost our manhood. in the first Adam. We regain our manhood in the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. We lost union and communion with God in the first Adam. But we are restored to union and communion in the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. We became disobedient in the first Adam. But we become obedient servants of God in the second Adam, the Lord, the resurrected Lord of glory, Jesus Christ. We lost our knowledge of God and became fools in the first Adam. But we regain our knowledge We are given to know the Most High God in the regenerating power given to us by the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we lost all of our righteousness and holiness in the first Adam. But in the life, the death, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, We are clothed in the perfect righteousness of our Redeemer. We are made holy. We are declared righteous. We are made alive and brought back into union with God and in the new birth as Colossians and Ephesians show. We are recreated in the image of the God who loved us and gave himself for us. We were unmanned in the first Adam, and we are remanned in the second. The Lord Jesus Christ. How can the ungodly man ever be a godly man? He needs to see himself a sinner. He needs to repent of his ungodliness. and believe on the resurrected Lord of Glory, Jesus Christ. Brethren, that's the beginning, the new beginning of manhood. So much talk about being husbands and fathers and sons and all of this today. It's vital, it's important, but the minute it's separated from the new birth and from salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, it's all vain. All of these things must flow from the recreated manhood in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So God willing, in the weeks ahead, we will see how this works out. And I say God willing, and is applied in our lives. May the Lord have mercy on us to become godly men in the image of God. Let's pray. Oh, Lord Jesus, what we've lost, what we've lost, but what you've given us in your life, your death, and your resurrection. Oh, how we bless thee. Oh, how we praise thee. I pray for every man in this building, in this assembly, and for even those who hear this message. But Father, may we not just hear another message and go on. Transform us! Father, help us to know, help us to understand, and by our union with Thee, make us men. That we might bring Thee glory, which we lost in our sin, but which we regain through our beloved Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. SWRB makes thousands of classic Reformation resources available, free and for sale, in audio, video, and printed formats. Our many free resources, as well as our complete mail-order catalog, containing thousands of classic and contemporary Puritan and Reform books, tapes, and videos at great discounts, is on the web. at www.swrb.com. We can also be reached by email by phone at 780-450-3730 by fax at 780-468-1096 or by mail at 4710-37A Edmonton, that's E-D-M-O-N-T-O-N Alberta, abbreviated capital A, capital B, Canada, T6L3T5. You may also request a free printed catalog. And remember that John Kelvin, in defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship, or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship, commenting on the words of God, which I commanded them not, neither came into my heart. From his commentary on Jeremiah 731, writes, God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, since He condemns by this one phrase, I have not commanded them, whatever the Jews devised. There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions than that they are not commanded by God. For when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to His commands, they pervert true religion. And if this principle was adopted by the Papists, all those fictitious modes of worship in which they absurdly exercise themselves would fall to the ground. It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly appears. Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying his word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error. The Prophet's words, then, are very important, when he says that God had commanded no such thing, and that it never came to his mind, as though he had said that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what he never required, nay, what he never knew.