In the creator to stir your interest in understanding his marvelous creation. Also, to take a firm theological stand as a church. For the literal nature of God's word and his words specifically in Genesis chapter one, God Bob just read that to you. And in the reading of that, we find what is, in our minds, a historic narrative of God's creative wonder. Let's go to him in prayer this morning. Father, we ask that you would open our eyes to the truth of your word, that you would open our hearts to your Holy Spirit as you speak through your word and bring Lord truth to bear upon our hearts and minds. That we would know the truth and that that truth would bring freedom. Thank you, Father, for your grace, your mercy, your kindness towards us. Thank you, Lord, for giving us a place where we can come and open up your word and divide it rightly so that we might have understanding of who you are. That's our heart's desire that we might open this word and see Jesus in every page. We bless you and give you thanks in his holy name. Amen. Friends, without doubt, the Bible is the most important book that was ever written, and Genesis is the foundational book of the Bible. And what does that make, then, Genesis 1.1, except for the foundational verse of the foundational book of the best book that has ever been written and most frequently sold on the face of the earth. So we begin this trek in Genesis 1.1, which says, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now, Henry Morris, in his commentary on Genesis, says this. It says Genesis 1.1 is the foundation of all foundations and is thus the most important verse in the Bible. It undoubtedly contains the first words ever written. And since it is the opening statement of the world's most often printed book, These are surely the most widely read words that were ever written. The word Genesis itself, as we dig into this book, the word Genesis means origin. Origin is a fitting title, since the book provides the vital information concerning the origin and meaning of all things. As we walk through the book of Genesis, we'll find that it provides the origin of the universe. The origin of the universe, which was created by God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That Hebrew word that is used there is bara. Bara. The word is used depicting an initiation, a creation, a commencement. It depicts God forming something out of nothing. In the Latin, this phrase is ex nihilo, which basically means that God created all of what we see as matter and life out of absolutely nothing. If you were an evolutionist or a Big Bang theory folk, The Big Bang teaches that all of the matter of all of the universe at one point was smaller than a period on a page. All of the matter was compressed so tightly that it was a period on the page. Now, I don't believe anybody was there to witness that at that point, and they said that there was this big bang and all of the matter of the universe was scattered across the universe. But initially it was just as small as a pinpoint. The origin of the atmosphere and hydrosphere are spoken of here in Genesis as well. Bob read of the waters above and the waters below the skies and the atmosphere that contain water and the waters that were on the face of the earth. God separated them in the beginning. The origin of biological life. The third day, God created vegetation and trees. The fifth day, the waters swarmed with livestock and sea creatures. The skies were filled with birds that flew across the skies. And on the sixth day, the land animals appeared on the earth. then there is that unique creation. The origin of man is found then again on the sixth day where God uniquely created man in the image of God. He created them male and female. And they were created to have communion with God, to walk with God as we see Adam walking in the cool of the day. We also see the origin of marriage and family. Established by and arranged by the creator God himself. Marriage is a vital union between one man and one woman from the very beginning of created history. In Genesis, we also see the origin of evil. The entrance of sin into the world through the lie of a serpent. and the decree of God's righteous judgment which followed man's fall into sin. We see the origin of human government in the book of Genesis. Significantly, it is the leadership provided by a plurality of elders. And throughout the Bible, in the very beginning of the book of Genesis, we see a plurality of elders as a governing authority in the book of Revelation. What do we see around the throne of God? But for elders again. So in the very beginning and the very end, that government is a government of plurality, a plurality of elders. In the book of Genesis, we see the origin of culture, the origin of culture, It is urbanization is their metallurgy is brought out in the book of Genesis, music, our agriculture, animal husbandry, all of them find their beginning there in Genesis. We find the origin. of the revelation of God's sovereignty as well, securing and preserving a people of His own choosing through whom the Messiah, the Christ, would come. We see that early on in Genesis. We also see the first communication of God's plan of salvation, the removal of the wrath of God through the death of a substitutionary atonement. All of these things foundationally are formed there in the first book of the Bible in Genesis. No other book of the Bible is quoted more frequently throughout the Bible than the book of Genesis. In the New Testament, there are more than 165 passages that are directly quoted or strongly referred to from the book of Genesis. 100 of those quotes actually come from the foundation of Genesis, which is the first 11 chapters of the book. And did you know that every one of the New Testament authors refers to Genesis chapters one through eleven at some place in his writing? As a matter of fact, Jesus himself confirms the historicity and the literal nature of the writing of the book of Genesis when he refers to it in his own public ministry. In our day. The time in which we live. When the overwhelming majority of the population has been indoctrinated with evolutionary dogma in the public schools or in universities, the biblical account of creation has been relegated to the realm of mythology. Go out and speak to someone of the literal of the literal creation of God, and you'll find that that is placed in the same realm as other mythological figures or mythological stories. And in an effort. In an effort to align biblical Christianity with evolutionary theory, there have been there has been a rise of what has become known as theistic evolution. Theistic evolution, something that our generation has devised, it adds the evolutionary process into the first six days of creation. And the motivation behind this strange union of biblical truth and evolutionary theory can be seen in this quote that I'll bring from Timothy Keller. Timothy Keller said this, he said believers in Western culture see the medical and technological advances achieved through science and are grateful for them. They have a very positive view of science and I think he rightly depicts our generation. I'm very thankful for the medical industry and all of the advances that have come. He says this. He says, how then can they reconcile what science seems to tell them about evolution with their traditional theological beliefs? The only thing I differ with there with Tim is the fact that I don't think most people have traditional theological beliefs anymore. He says this, he says, seekers and inquirers about Christianity can be even more perplexed. They may be drawn to many things about the Christian faith, but they say, I don't see how I can believe that the by the Bible, if that means that I have to reject science. So there's a thought there that if I embrace science. then I have to reject the Bible or if I receive or embrace the Bible, then I must reject science because the two are completely different. So theistic evolution tries to place the evolutionary process within the first six days of creation. In my opinion, it's not a question of science, it's a question of faith. The quality of scientific research that supports a divine creator Everything that I've read is actually stronger than the research that supports the theory of evolution. And when it comes down to it, the theory of evolution, I believe, requires as much faith as the biblical account of creation. So I've got a little bit of an excerpt of a video for you to watch in the next six minutes. So go ahead, Amy, bring it up for us. That doesn't really happen. Now, science in a dictionary is defined as knowledge that is gained through observation or study. Things that we can know because we can see it, we can test it, and we can demonstrate it. Well, then I've got a question. Is evolution actually part of science? Let's dig in and find out. Definition number one of evolution. Oh, I forgot to tell you, there are actually six different kinds of evolution. Yeah. Evolution isn't just one big happy little thing. It's divided up into six different sections. Check it out. First of all, we've got cosmic evolution. That would be the origin of time, space, and matter, referring to the Big Bang. Well, if science is things that we can see, test, and demonstrate, Let's find out. Can we see, test, or demonstrate the Big Bang? No, we can't, can we? Now, you're welcome to believe in the Big Bang, but you've got to understand that is not part of science, because you can't see, test, or demonstrate it. How about this one? Chemical evolution. According to chemical evolution, all the elements that we have today evolve from just hydrogen and helium. You guys remember the periodic table of elements, right? How many of you in school had to memorize the periodic table of elements? Had to do that? How many of you forgot it five minutes after you took the quiz? Yep, just like me. Okay, me too, okay. But you got this periodic table of elements. They say all those elements evolve from hydrogen and helium. Well, you're welcome to believe that that took place, but you can't know that. You can't see, test, or demonstrate that. So really, chemical evolution is not part of science. You're welcome to believe in it, but don't call it science. How about stellar and planetary evolution? How all the stars and the planets formed? Let me ask you something. Do we ever see stars forming? No, we don't. Some people say, yeah, we saw star formation taking place. Well, really what they see sometimes is areas of the sky get brighter, and they think, ah, that must mean a star formed there. No, no, no, no, no, no. We've actually never seen a star form, never witnessed that happen. What we do see is lots and lots of stars blowing up. Those are called novas or supernovas, and that happens about one every 30 years. Interestingly enough, We only see about 300 supernovas. Wow. Well, that wouldn't account for billions of years of stellar and planetary activity, would it? You know, there's a lot of stars out there, a whole lot. Scientists estimate there are enough stars out in space so that every single person on planet Earth could own 11 trillion of them. You can have 11 trillion of your own stars. Go name them. Have fun. Enjoy. And by the way, those are only the ones that we know about. We don't know about the ones that we don't know about. That's a lot of stars out there. Now, you're welcome to believe that star formation is taking place, but you can't know that. It's a belief. It's not part of science. It doesn't fit over there with science, okay? And do you realize this? With all the stars that we have in the universe today, scientists say the estimated number right now is 70 sextillion. That's the number 70 followed by 21 zeros. Whoa is right. That is a lot of stars. And they say all those stars formed in 20 billion years. Wait a minute. Do the math on that with me. If 76 trillion stars formed in just 20 billion years, that would be the same as three and a half trillion stars forming every single year or 6.5 million stars forming every single minute. Do we see 6.5 million stars forming every single minute? No. That would have to happen for 20 billion years to get the number of stars that we have in our universe today. How about this one? Organic evolution. The origin of life from non-life. Do we ever see that happen? Have we ever seen something that is not alive actually come alive? You're like, yeah, in my refrigerator. No, no, no. That doesn't count, okay? I'm talking really a rock evolving into life. No, we've never seen that. Actually, we've tried to test it. We've tried to demonstrate it, but science has come up with nothing. That does not belong on the science table. That is not part of science. The idea of life coming from non-life is a religious worldview. It is not at all a scientific worldview. They really don't know how life originally evolved, how it came about, the abiogenesis. When did that actually take place or how did it take place? They really don't have a clue. Then we've got one called macroevolution. Macroevolution would be changing from one kind of animal into another kind of animal. We've all seen this little diagram. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, humans evolved from The monkeys! Actually, now they don't say monkeys. They're very technical on this. They say primates. Monkeys evolve from primates, and we evolve from primates. But we split back at the primate phase. What's a primate? Whatever. It doesn't matter. That's just when it happened. That way you can't say, well, how come monkeys are still living? So we evolve from primates. Get it straight, OK? But we see these kind of things. Do we ever see macroevolution actually taking place? No! Now, there's a variety of dogs in the world today. That's all they are is varieties of dogs. The Chihuahua and the Great Dane are both very different, but they're both still, if you consider the Chihuahua a dog. Personally, I don't. But it's possible that the dog, the wolf, the coyote had a common ancestor. But I guarantee you, it wasn't a banana, okay? We don't see macroevolution taking place. We don't ever see that happening. Let's take a little quiz here. Hey, I got on the screen here a dog, a wolf, a coyote. Let's get an understanding of what macroevolution is. Macroevolution is the changing of one kind into another kind. It's the changing of what he would say a banana into a dog. Can a banana ever become a dog? No, a dog can eat a banana, but it still never becomes a banana. A dog is not a banana. There has been no, no scientific research that ever showed the change of one kind into another. If you realize that in the book of Genesis, God made various kinds of animals, various kinds of flying animals, kinds of Now, there is an adaptation wherein some animals, you know, when it comes to dogs, there are all different kinds of dogs, but they are all still canines. They're dogs and they stay within that a dog cannot become a cat and a cat cannot come into my house. I mean, that's basically just the way it works. Now, theistic evolution. trying to bring evolution into the book of Genesis. Theistic evolutionists are attempting to reconcile evolutionary theory with biblical Christianity, and they do that by reinterpreting the book of Genesis or Genesis chapter one more specifically in a non literal way. Here's another quote from Timothy Keller. Timothy says this, he says, in my estimation, what current science tells us about evolution presents four main difficulties for Orthodox Protestants. Is there an Orthodox Protestant in the room today? Yeah, come on, I know you are. The first is in the area of biblical authority. To account for evolution, we must see at least Genesis 1 as non-literal. The questions come along these lines. What does it mean? Reinterpreting Genesis one for the idea that the Bible has final authority. If we refuse to take one part of the Bible literally, why take any part of the Bible literally? Aren't we really really allowing science to sit in judgment on our understanding of the Bible or rather vice versa? Now, what is he trying to say? He's trying to say that in order to bring evolution into creation, you need to take a look at the book of Genesis, specifically the first chapter of Genesis, which Bob read for us. You need to take a look at that and say, you know what? That isn't really literally that's not written in literal language. What the theistic evolutionist will tell you is that this is poetry. It's written in poetic form because there is a repetition of morning and evening, morning and evening. And some of that repetition, they would say, is Hebrew poetry. But in reality, Hebrew poetry is more the comparison or contrast of thoughts and not repetition of, not necessarily repetition of words. So Keller rightly admits that to account for evolution, we must see Genesis 1 as non-literal. They say we have to interpret that as poetry. So, what do we do? Well, let's take a look at biblical poetry. Let's go to the book of Exodus, chapter 15. There's a song that is sung there after the children of Israel cross through the Red Sea. Miriam stands up. She's singing a song. This song is, in fact, Hebrew poetry. It says, Exodus, chapter 1, 15, verse 1 says, Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider are thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song. He has become my salvation. This is my God and I will praise him. My father's God and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host. He cast into the sea and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea. Now, theistic evolutionists say that Genesis 1 is a song, the song of creation, that it's not literally to be taken. But even if it were a poem, when Miriam is singing this, is Miriam singing about a historic event that took place? Absolutely she was. Pharaoh and his army did get swallowed up in the sea, the Red Sea. So it is really speaking of a historical event, even though it is in written Hebrew poetry. So that really doesn't fly. The text of Genesis, which absolutely is not Hebrew poetry, is clearly written as an historic account of divine activity that takes place over a period of six days. Now, they would ask, well, how do we know that the six days of creation were a normal 24 hour day and not six extended periods of time? Because after all, the word that is used there in the Hebrew is the word yom, yom, yom. What does that mean? Well, in the Bible, the word yom is used over 2300 times. And according to the context, the word yom can mean an extended period of time or it can mean a literal 24 hour day. And how do we know the difference between the two? Well, biblically, whenever the word yom is used to designate a 24 hour period, it's always accompanied by a number or it's accompanied by the words morning and evening. Oh, so here in Genesis, we have it accompanied by both a number and morning and evening. So every place in which that is written, all Hebrew scholars would say, well, that means a 24 hour period. Unless, of course, you're trying to squeeze. Well, you know, a thousand a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years as a day in the Lord. All right, so let's take that as six thousand years, but not billions and billions and billions of years. Historically, the word Yom always in all Hebrew writing means a 24 hour day when it is accompanied by a number or the words morning and evening. Therefore, we can say with Hebrew authority, God is really speaking of a 24 hour day here. Let's look at this. Here's a quiz. In my father's day, it would take eight days to drive across the country, driving only in the day. The word day is used there in three different ways, three different ways. In my father's day, back in my father's era, it would take us eight days, eight 24 hour periods to drive across the country, but driving only in the day, that is the daylight. So you see how the context tells us what exactly he's talking about as we read through the context. Now, in the in Genesis one, the word Yom is always accompanied with a number and always spoken of as evening and morning. Twenty three, two thousand three hundred and one times Yom is used in the Bible. And get this, there are no controversies in any other place where it is used except here in Genesis chapter 1. It's the only place in the Bible where anyone has raised a question about it. When Moses was writing about the construction of the tabernacle, Moses talked about the first day. This is what took place to build the tabernacle. The second day, this is what took place to build the tabernacle. The third day, morning and evening, this is what took place to build the tabernacle. 12 days it took to build the tabernacle. Was that 12,000 year periods or did it take 12? No, it took 12 days, literal days. And nobody ever argues about the construction of the tabernacle. Now. Just thinking about the time periods, where did our seven day work week, where did our seven day week come from? We understand that a 24-hour day is based upon the time that it takes for the Earth to make one complete rotation. Till Boyertown goes around and comes back to Boyertown, around the globe, that's 24 hours is what it takes. How about a year? Where do we get 365 and a quarter days in a year? Well, we get that from the number of days that it takes for the earth to orbit the sun, go completely around the sun. Three hundred and sixty five and a quarter days. That's what it takes. So we see that there is a literal a literal way of measuring time. Where does the seven day we come from? Comes from Genesis. Comes from Genesis. from the fact that God created in six days and on the seventh day he rested our seven day week is affirmed by the Word of God again in Exodus chapter 20 verse 11 it says for in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy So, the days of creation are the foundation for our seven-day week. A clear and literal understanding of the book of Genesis affects how we view ourselves and how we view our fellow man. Now, consider how evolutionary thinking has diminished the biblical dignity of man. Evolutionists would have us believe that man came into being through a long series of incremental changes and variations of species evolving from a lower form of creature to a higher form of creature over a period of billions of years. In this way, man shares an intimate connection with the animal kingdom. Now, holding this viewpoint, it shouldn't surprise me when man chooses to live in a bestial lifestyle driven by his animalistic instincts. After all, he is risen from the animals, correct? That shouldn't surprise us. In reality, the Bible tells us that we were not created in the image of an animal or a primate or an ape. that we were created uniquely in the image of God Himself. Genesis 126 portrays man not in the likeness of a lower form of animal, But again, divinely created in the image of God, Genesis 126, then God said, let us make man in our image and after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, over the heavens and over all the livestock and over all of 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. Does repetition mean anything here? To know for certainty that God created man in the image of himself, of God. And God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the heavens, birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Then in Genesis 2, 7, it says, Then the Lord God formed the man of the dust of the ground and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living creature. Now, you'll note here in Genesis 2, 7, that God formed man. He formed man. A different Hebrew word called Yastar. And it means this. It means to form as a potter forms clay. God took His own hands and took part of the elements of the earth and out of the elements He formed by His own hands a man. This is very different than the formation of the animal kingdom. God did not form with His own hands the animal kingdom, but because He intended to have a relationship with man, a face-to-face, hands-on relationship with man. So the creation of man tells the way that God has created Him to bear His likeness, to live in a relationship of communion with God for all of eternity. God created Him uniquely different from all of the creatures on the face of the earth. Psalm 8, beginning at verse 3, says this, it says, When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man? What is man that you're mindful of him, the son of man, that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You've given him dominion over the works of your hands. You've put all things under his feet. The very creation of man sets him apart. His unique position sets him apart, and the psalmist points man in an upward position, not a downward position. He is connected, as the psalmist says, a little lower than the angels. and gave Him authority over all of the created beings. But God has created us just a little lower than the angels. Since man was created in the image of God, even after the fall of man into sin, man still possesses a remnant of dignity that is to be honored. It is to be honored. Throughout the Bible, we find that God gives man the right to then go and to kill animals for food, to eat their flesh for food. But he never allows man to kill another man. That is always against the law of God. So in that we see a separation from man and the animals and that God would not allow man to destroy another man who was created in the image of God. James tells us we're not even to speak. We're not even to speak detrimentally against another man who was created in the image of God. And when you believe that man has ascended from the lower animals, and like them is involved in the survival of the fittest, it doesn't take long Before the different races of man are actually competing against one another. And some evolutionists actually believe that the different races of men come from different evolutionary strands. Some are higher form than others. Friends, this is where Hitler. This is where Hitler gets his idea. You see, Hitler used the theory of evolution to promote his ungodly agenda. I'm quoting here from Credo Magazine. Where the idea is racial inequality. And Credo Magazine says, Hitler believed that different races had formed through evolutionary processes which were at different evolutionary levels. He thought the Aryan or Nordic race, those terms were used synonymously by Nazis, were the most advanced. These views were not idiosyncratic or unique, but were common among German evolutionary biologists during the early 20th century. The second point that Crudo magazine brings out is history as a racial struggle for existence. He states again that Hitler thought that races were locked in an inescapable racial struggle. He promoted policies that favored the Aryans and disadvantaged other allegedly inferior races, especially the Jews, in order to help the Aryans win the struggle for existence. Of course, those losing the struggle would eventually be eliminated one way or another as the Aryans took over the globe. So you see that behind this horror. Underlying this is a thought of evolutionary processes which separates man from man. When a literal reading. A literal reading. of the book of Genesis tells us that we are all members of one race. It is the human race. We're all members of the same family coming from a common set of parents, having a unique mother and father whom God uniquely created in His own image and in His likeness to rule over all of the things of the earth that God had created. God gave dominion to man. The question then comes, and we must wrestle with this question. And you might wonder, does it really matter? Does it really matter whether God created everything in six literal days or whether He created them in six billion years? Does it really matter? Friends, if we choose to explain away Genesis 1 by bringing evolutionary thought into the Bible, if we choose to explain it away as non-literal, well, it doesn't really mean what it says. It's not literal. It's poem. It's flowery speech. It's just poem. And it's open for many, many different interpretations. If we choose to explain away the literal nature of Genesis to appease the evolutionists, then we have to ask, when then does the Bible become literal? And who is it that makes that decision? Because you see, in biblical hermeneutics, which is the interpretation, the science of interpreting the Bible, In biblical hermeneutics, we understand that when God wants to bring a simile, a metaphor, he makes it very clear, like or as When God is expressed as one who says to Israel, oh, how many times, oh, Israel, what I have drawn you under my feathers as a as a mother hen draws her chicks underneath of her wings. Does that mean literally then that God has wings? Does it literally mean that God is a chicken, that he has feathers? No, that's not what he's saying. He's obviously using a metaphor because he uses the word like or as. It's simple to interpret this easy to understand. Next week, we'll get into a discussion as to. Was Adam a literal man? Was he a literal man? Did he literally exist? Did God really take the dust of the earth and form it into a man? Was Adam a literal man? How about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, for that matter? Was the fall of man a historic event Or is the fall of man, Adam and Eve falling into sin, is that just a moralistic story? A fable, if you will, that helps us to understand that we should make good choices. If Adam was not a literal human being and his fall into sin was simply a moral story about making choices, Can we then gain God's approval and can we gain eternal life simply by making right choices? You see how we interpret Genesis significantly affects our eternal destiny. If we decide that this is poetry and open for many different interpretations. Then what happens to our salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone. Is open to many other options. Because if these are moralistic stories that push us to make right choices. Bible doctrine tells us that man is depraved and can't even possibly make right choices. that the fall of Adam into sin cast the whole of the human race apart from God and brought the wrath of God on all humanity. And required then that God would bring forth a substitutionary sacrifice because the wages of sin is death and that death was put upon man in the Garden of Eden and that all men are born dead, separated from God, and in need of a Savior, then we must literally interpret the creation of God and the fall of man in order to truly understand our need for a Savior and this wonderful salvation that Christ has died to provide for us. Does it matter? I'm going to tell you over the next couple of weeks, I believe it matters greatly. And as we go into our small groups and begin to discover over a 12 week period, we're going to look at the foundations, the foundations of the creation of man, the foundations of our faith and the foundations of our society. And we're going to compare the foundation of our society to the foundation of the word of God. The time has come because, friends, the whole of the body of Christ is at this point in our day and age being assaulted with false doctrine. And that doctrine is the fact that while Genesis wasn't really literal, Adam wasn't a real man. They're moralistic stories. There are two or three books that are coming out just this month. by liberal Christians who are remaking the book of Genesis. They're coming into Christian bookstores near you this coming month. We as Harvest Fellowship are going to take a stand. We're going to do it in small groups. At the Wilmans house, at the Hiriak house and at the Schaefer house, we're going to do this, we're going to study it together. Even more than that. We're going to share our lives together as brothers and sisters in Christ. We're going to come to know the truth corporately, and we're going to come to know that truth corporately, and we're going to live it out together in community so that the world can know that Jesus Christ truly is Lord. Friends, whether it's family first, whether it is this is the first time as a church that we are stepping out and churchwide doing a teaching a training because we think that this is so vitally important to every one of us. that we're going to do it from the smallest of children all the way through the oldest member of our of our body. And we're going to learn together. We're going to grow together, not so that we can have a greater intellect, not so that we can just go out and argue with people. It's so that we can hold forth the grace of God with true understanding of who God is and what is man's need for that grace in a community that desperately needs to know That's our heart, that's our desire, and I would encourage you to participate. In these groups, there's a sign-up sheet out in the narthex on the table underneath of Ken Ham's picture that's hanging on the window. You can sign up. And on that sign-up sheet, it says Boyertown, Pottstown, Exeter. You can sign up for where you'd like to attend. And also, there's a spot for child care. If you're in need of child care, put a check in that box so that we can make those arrangements for child care. OK. Next week, we're going to dig into Adam. Was he really a man? And if he was. What did he do and if he wasn't, what are the effects of that if it's just a moralistic story? So that's for next week. OK. Thanks, Father, we thank you for the time that we have to share together this morning. We thank you, Father, that we could through worship. come together as a body. We thank you for the body and the blood of Christ and the sharing of these elements of communion, reminding us that our eternal life is based upon the foundation of Christ and him crucified. We thank you, Father, for the grace of God. That continually renews our mind by the word of God each and every day. I ask Lord Jesus that you would use these times together in small groups to knit our hearts together and to grow us in understanding and compassion for one another. We bless you and give you thanks in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Well, God bless you. Thank you for meeting with us. If you know where you'd like to go to a small group, sign up today. If not, give it some thought. We have two weeks before they begin. OK, God bless you. Thanks for coming out this morning.