God Created Us

The 'Woods' of Life's Basic Questions

0:01 Then what shall we consider? This was my concern, and as I prayed and thought about this matter, I felt perhaps it would be to the profit of all of us to consider a theme upon which I have preached much in the past year in other places, but which I have not preached upon here in our own assembly. The theme is one that is basic to the whole Christian message, one that I trust will be helpful, first of all, to show some of you the way out of the woods. Some of you are in the woods, and you don't know the way out.

0:35 And I hope that this study in the scriptures will be God's directive to get you out of the woods. I'll explain later what I mean by the woods. Some of us are out of the woods, but we never really appreciate how much God did when he got us out of the woods. He got us out of the woods until we see some of the truths that we're going to touch upon today, and then I hope that our study today will help us who are out of the woods to be better able to show other people how to get out of the woods.

1:05 And so those are my three purposes in dealing with this subject today, that under God, some of you may come out of the woods, others of us who are out of the woods may look back with greater appreciation for that deliverance, and then with greater clarity be able to point the way. And so I hope that this study in the scriptures will be God's directive to get you out of the woods, first of all, to show some of you the way out of the woods, others of us who are out of the woods, others of us who are out of the woods may look back with greater appreciation for that deliverance, and then with greater clarity be able to point the way to other people, that they may be brought out of the woods, of the hopeless confusion in which so many are found in our own day. Now, what is the woods, or what are the woods? Well, I'm using that analogy for the involvement of men and women and fellows and girls who find themselves in the midst of life unable to answer the most basic questions about life. What is the woods? Well, you know, it's a word for a person, and a word for so many as, well, all of you who could write, maybe not cursive, but at least print.

1:59 I've been reminded that when you write in script, it's cursive. My son keeps making the distinction between he's got to do his homework in cursive or in printing. Now, you might not even be able to write in cursive, maybe just be able to print. And if I asked you, what are the most basic questions that any human being can ever grapple with, what would you put on your list?

2:20 What are the most profound questions that a teenager may ask? Well, you know, getting out of bed with a blank face, with a blank face, is a choice. The question is, ask a question. Do you know a question?

2:23 Do you know a question? can ask. An eight-year-old, a ten-year-old, a ninety-year-old man or woman, what would you put on your list? Well, I would like to think that there'd be something other than what color hat shall I wear for next Sunday's services. I would like to think that you would put on your list such questions as these. What am I? Oh, yes, I know I'm a human being, and I've got two hands and two feet and two eyes and two ears and a tongue, but really what am I? A question such as this. How do I fit into the great scheme of the universe in all of its complexity? I hope you'd ask a question like this. What forms the basis of my conduct, knowing what is right, what is wrong? I hope you would ask a question that would deal with this matter. How can I know what happens to me when my funeral

3:22 service is announced from some pulpit? Can I know where I'll be? What lies beyond the grave? What lies beyond the grave? What lies beyond the grave? What lies beyond the grave? And questions of this nature. Who am I? What am I here for? What is the basis of my conduct? What can guide me as to the knowledge of right and wrong? What happens beyond the grave? Those questions form what I'm calling the woods. Life's most basic questions. And do you know that this country of ours and the world at this very moment is literally bursting at the seams with people who don't know what is right and what is wrong? You don't have an inkling as to how you begin to answer those questions. Now some of you, by God's grace, have begun to answer them, but you've never really seen the basis upon which you've made your answers. And you ought to appreciate that basis. Others of

Two Sources for Answers: Within or Without

4:15 you may be answering them from an entirely wrong perspective. And then, as we seek to witness to people, we ought to be able to help them out of the woods of those questions into the clear light of some biblical truth. Now the theme of our studies both this morning and this evening — a theme which has grown upon my own soul in the past year — is what we might call life's most basic questions and how to answer them. Now, as we consider these questions and how to answer them, there are really only two sources from which we can get our answers. Either the answers must come from within us — our own observations and our own conclusions — or they must come from outside of us? Only one of two possibilities. Let's consider them very briefly before we move into the answers themselves. These answers can either come from within or from without. I may

5:16 stand here in the midst of this universe, vast as it is, complex as it is. I may look within myself and I'm a complex universe within myself. I've got emotions and I've got feelings and I've got intellect and I find myself at times, as it were, torn apart with desires and appetites and standards and all of the rest. Now, how am I going to get an answer to the most simple question like this? Who am I? What in the world am I? What am I? Well, you can sit and do like the philosopher and observe and after you make observations, then you begin to put things together and make some conclusions and then you can sit and do like the philosopher and observe and after you make some conclusions and then you begin to put things together and make some conclusions and then you can declare, this is what man is. This is what man's purpose in life ought to be. This is what man's goals ought to be. And so you have philosophers, you have so-called theologians, you have scientists, you have all kinds of people saying that the way to answer these questions, who am I? What am I

6:20 here for? What's my goal in life? They say that the way you answer them is by looking within, looking without, observing all of these things and then making conclusions. In fact, you see, what's behind the whole so-called hippie movement is that people have been frustrated by this approach. And as they've tried to make sense out of the world by using their minds and using their physical senses, all they come up with is nonsense. So they feel that maybe by going on pot and by taking LSD trips and by going deeper into the subconscious, maybe here they'll begin to discover the meaning of life. And in a real sense, the driving thrust behind the whole hippie movement, behind much of it, some of it's just an excuse to be a bum, but some of it, there are thinking young men and women who for all their lives have been sold this bill of goods that the way you understand life is by getting your answers on your own and they've come up with a blank to every basic question of life

7:27 and they say, since I can't get any answers by normal processes, maybe. When I'm off on a trip on LSD, I'll get an insight that will break open to me the meaning of life.

The Insufficiency of Human Observation

7:41 Now, you see, the problem with this approach that looks within is that it assumes too much. Before I can ever answer this question, what am I, what am I here for? I've got to know everything about me, everything about the world about me, both now in the past and in the future. I've got to be omniscient.

8:03 And I have to beехry about it or the no one will ever know everything about me and about my world before I can ever make any valid conclusions about it.

8:10 And that's the problem, you see, when the philosopher looks at man, considers him considers his world and says this is what he is hears for, this is the meaning of the world, he's assuming something he's got no right to assume. Let me illustrate, suppose we took the fella out of the bush, down there perhaps some tribal group in South America. All he has ever seen in the way of any kind of of a mechanical means of conveyance is a little cart that maybe is pulled by a little donkey. And all of a sudden, we transport him by jet airplane.

8:46 We take a little MAF, Missionary Aviation Fellowship plane, from his little tribal community to some large center, and we fly him by jet to New York. And then we put him down in the midst of the metropolitan complex, and for the first time, he sees a diesel locomotive tearing down the tracks in the direction of people and houses and all the rest, and he immediately makes a conclusion. He says that's some terrible kind of devouring monster that, just like he's seen a wild boar run through a village to destroy things and people in its path, he concludes that that thing is a terrible animal of some kind that has great power and is going to go crashing through. These homes and these people, and he draws an entirely erroneous conclusion. Why? Because he doesn't have all the facts. As he observes that, he can only relate it to his own little circle of understanding and background.

9:44 And so he goes away greatly fearing this great big hard monster that we know is an instrument of blessing to carry people from one place to another, but he looks upon it with great fear and with great dread. Now that's the problem. When Portland...

10:01 When a little man stands in his world and tries to make sense of his world, so there's only one other possibility as to how he can get his answers. If he can't get them from within, he must get them from without. And really, when you think of it, that's the only sensible way to get your answers. Who's the only one equipped to tell me what I'm here for?

The Necessity of Divine Revelation

10:23 The God who put me here. Who's the only one prepared to tell me what is the meaning of this world and my relationship to it? Well, it's obvious. The God who made that world and put me in it.

10:34 So that these questions, Who am I? What am I here for? can only be answered as the answers come from without us. They must come to us not by way of observation and conclusion, but by way of revelation.

10:49 God speaking to us and telling us the answers. And this is precisely what God has done in Holy Scripture, where the psalmist said, Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. The entrance of thy word giveth light. It giveth understanding to the simple.

11:10 I acknowledge, Lord, I'm simple. I cannot understand what I'm here for. The world about me. And the psalmist declares, That's the purpose of the word of God.

11:19 The entrance of the word of God gives light. And you'll remember that when our Lord Jesus Christ stood here on earth, he adopted this position, that the answers to the most basic, basic questions in life were to be found outside of us, in terms of the revelation that God has given to us. One specimen passage is Matthew chapter 22, where some people had some questions about the world to come. And they were talking about death and the resurrection, and they were all mixed up.

11:52 They thought they had a pretty airtight case. And so they came to the Lord with their case, and they said, Now, Lord, here it is. Or, Master, here's the problem. And they laid out the problem, and they really thought they had the Lord hung up.

12:08 And notice how the Lord answered them. Here was a basic question regarding death, resurrection, the world to come. And Christ answered them by saying in Matthew 22, and verse 29, Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err. You're still in the earth.

12:30 Why?

12:32 Because, he says, you do not know the scriptures, nor the power of God. He said, If only you consider the answer of scripture, you'll get out of the woods. You're hung up in the woods.

12:46 You're going around circles in the woods. And you think you've got a problem that can't be solved. He said, Your problem is your ignorance of scripture. God has answered.

12:56 And if you knew the answer, then you'd be out of the woods. So much, then, by way of introduction, as to what we're going to consider, what will be the basis of our answer to these questions, namely, the holy scripture. Now, how do we answer these questions? If I were to ask you this morning, what are you here for?

The Biblical Framework: A Three-Fold Triangle

13:19 What would your answer be?

13:22 Well, once you put your answer down, I'd want to ask you another question. On what basis do you answer that?

13:30 What am I here for? What's my purpose in life? What determines what's right, what's wrong? Well, we must answer those questions.

13:36 And we must either answer, rather than by looking within or looking without. And looking without to that objective standard of holy scripture, what answers do we get? May I suggest that the Bible provides a beautiful framework, a three-fold framework, a triangular framework, within which these most basic questions can be answered. And if you see this biblical framework, try to picture a great triangle here this morning, the point up here, another angle here, the baseline, another angle here.

14:08 If we get the principles that are at the point of each area of that triangle, at each angle of the triangle, then we have this framework within which those basic questions in life can be answered. Now, I'm giving you this, again, remember, to help some of you out of the woods, by God's grace to help others of us appreciate how God got us out of the woods, and then to be able to help others out of the woods. For you're living with people that are in the woods. You're rubbing shoulders with people.

14:37 They're in the woods all the time. And I hope even this little triangular framework will be helpful as a tool of witness. What is that framework? Well, the framework is comprised, first of all, of this principle.

Principle 1: God Created Man in His Image

14:50 And right at the top, if I had my blackboard this morning, this is what we would have. God created man in his image. Do you know that you'll never understand the question, who am I? What am I here for?

15:03 What's the goal of life? You don't understand a simple question like this. Here you are in love. You're 20 years old.

15:10 You think you're in love anyway. Maybe. Maybe not. And you want to get married.

15:15 And you say, well, what's the purpose of marriage? Well, you can't understand that until you, first of all, understand that first principle in the triangle, God created man in his image. A recognition of the biblical doctrine of the creation of man in the image of God is the basis of all religion and all morality. That's where God starts in Holy Scripture and I want us to consider this this morning.

15:41 I doubt we'll get any further than that first principle, God created man in his image. Genesis chapter 1. We have the summary statement in verse 1. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

16:00 Anything that follows is the result of the creating work of God. Then you know the account of the six days of creation, culminating in the creation of man as recorded in chapter 1 of Genesis, verses 26 and 27. And God said, Let us make man in our 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, so God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them. Here we have a statement, the implications of which we may not fully understand, but the fact of which is clear. Man was made in the image of God.

17:04 Something is said about the creation of man that is not said of anything else that God created. Many things are said about the other things that God created, but only of man is it said in our image and in our likeness. Man is a qualitatively different creature from anything else that God made. Now until I get hold of that, and that grips me, I have no basis for religion, for morality, no basis for anything in life.

17:39 That's why our generation is in the woods, because it doesn't know this most simple fact. Man is qualitatively different from all the other creatures. Now what I mean by qualitatively different, he's something of a completely different order. When you buy dog food, you may have some dog food that's 50% horse meat and 30% beef scraps and 10% something else, and there's something else that may have the percentage a little bit rearranged, but qualitatively it's dog food.

18:10 It's basically the same thing. But if you go to the Friar Tuck and have filet mignon, you're having something that's qualitatively different. It's not horse meat, good beef, see. It's something of a wholly different kind, a wholly different order.

18:25 And so God is distinctly saying, here in His Word, that man is something completely different from the animals. It is not said of any beast, of any animal, that it was made in the image of God. Well, why is Scripture so clear at this point? Well, because man in the image of God is what makes man absolutely different, as we mentioned, in these respects.

Implication 1: Made to Know God

18:51 Number one, man, unlike the animals, was made with a capacity to know God. Man was made to know God. That is, to exist in a relationship of conscious, intelligent communication with God. I overheard Heidi talking at the table last night saying something to her mummy about horses and the rest, and about the fact that they can't come to know God.

19:22 This is one of those things they pray all the time, that God would work in their hearts, they would come to know Him. And, you see, for the first time it was dawning on her that one of the things that's different between her and the animals is she can't pray for a lady that she'll come to know and love God. Ladies are a dog, for those of you who don't know. She's made to know God.

19:45 That which makes us, as human beings, entirely different, creatures in the image of God, is this capacity to know the living God. That is, to intelligently and consciously have communion and communication with God. And that's the beautiful picture, of course, of man as made in the image of God, that is expanded in the second chapter of the account of creation, where you find this flow of communion between God and the creature that He made. Notice verse 8, and the Lord God, Genesis 2, 8, planted a garden eastward, and there He put the man whom He formed, and then He caused the different life to come, the vegetable life.

20:30 And then we read down in verse 15, and the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And then the picture in Genesis 3, when it speaks of the Lord God, verse 8, and they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Apparently, this was something that God had begun to establish as a pattern when He would come in a visible manifestation and take a walk with Adam and Eve.

21:11 What is a more touching picture of intimate friendship, of heart-to-heart communion, than exists between a couple of people who take a walk together? This is what lovers do. They like to walk together. They may not say a thing, but they're sharing as they walk.

21:27 This is what friends like to do. You never heard of enemies taking a walk together? Nor do you hear of strangers walking together? The very concept of walking speaks of intimacy of communion.

21:38 That's why it's said of Enoch that he walked with God. Now that's the picture of man, not said of any animals, because man alone had this capacity to know God, to communicate with God. This is why the Lord Jesus said the very essence of eternal life is man being restored to this knowledge of God. John 17, 3, This is life eternal, that they may what?

22:04 That they may know thee, the only true and living God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Was your stomach made to digest diamonds? I don't know anybody wealthy enough to put this experiment. No, you see, diamonds were made to be appreciated by what?

22:27 By the eye, right? The beauty of a diamond held against a dark backdrop and turned so that the light comes and is refracted in different directions and you see the deep beauty of a pure diamond. Now the diamond was not made for the stomach. It was made for the beauty to behold, to be appreciated by the eye.

22:47 Now you see, what the appetite is for food, diamonds can't satisfy physical appetite. What the appetite is for food, that's what the soul is with reference to God. Man was made to know God. And you can know sooner, you can know more quickly, satisfy man without the deep, intimate knowledge of God than you can satisfy the stomach with diamonds.

23:22 Now that's why our generation is in the woods. Because it utterly rules out this fact that man is not a true man till he knows his God. And so we tried to find our true humanity in saying, well, we're going to liberate ourselves from all rules and regulations and the new morality. That's supposed to liberate man.

23:46 We're going to liberate ourselves from medieval concepts about a personal devil and those dark, dark concepts of those old Puritans that man is basically sinful. We're going to liberate ourselves by high views of man. And so all the answers have proved utterly frustrating because man has not recognized this most simple principle. I've been made in the image of God.

Implication 2: Made to Be Ruled by God

24:10 I've been made to know God. Secondly, because I'm made in the image of God, I've been made to be ruled by God. The first words, recorded in scripture anyway, that God spoke to man came couched in the form of a command. Notice in chapter 1 of Genesis, after God made man, it is said in verse 28, and God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply.

24:47 He said to them, and then he came in the form of a command, be fruitful and multiply, replenish the earth, subdue it, have dominion. Turning to chapter 2, notice verse 8, and the Lord God planted a garden and he put the man, there he put the man whom he had formed. Verses 15 and 16, the Lord God took the man, put him into the garden, verse 16, and the Lord God commanded the man. He took him, he put him, he commanded him.

25:25 I don't read anything about Adam going to the polls to take a vote. I don't read anything about God giving a blank ballot so Adam could sign a referendum, that he would like things to be so ordered. The whole drift of scripture, and I trust you catch the sense and the mood of this, is that the whole relationship that existed between God and the creature was a relationship in which the creature was created not to run the show on his own, but he was made to be subject to his God, long before sin entered. This has nothing to do with sin.

26:04 This has something to do with the very purpose for which God made him. Man was no more made to rule himself than an airplane is made to fly itself. And if that airliner on which I get tomorrow to go to Canada for a couple of days of ministry decided between here and Toronto that it was tired of having a pilot sit in the seat and pull the stick back and forward and turn the wheel, that it got tired of electronic signals coming in and guiding it in its proper path, that it was cramping its style, and all its power in its engines, and all its movement in its controls, and it was just about sick and tired of being run by others. It was going to take things into its own hands. It could lead to nothing but destruction and chaos. Destruction of my life and the lives of all those in it.

26:58 And this is what has happened on several occasions. Some of you remember back about six or seven years ago that terrible airline crash when the airliner went down into the marshes there off Kennedy Airport. The problem was, and they became aware of this after much investigation, that there was a little short in the electrical circuit, and the circuit that sent the impulse to one of the hydraulic pumps that operates the wing surfaces. The surfaces are so big that they can't operate them manually.

27:31 When the pilot pulls back on the stick, it sends an electrical impulse to these little motors that work the flaps. There was a short, so that the controls were fixed in a position. The plane came off and then started to bank, and it couldn't come out of the bank. The impulse of the motor was such that it kept it, and it just went right over and crashed down.

27:52 What happened, you see, is that that plane ceased to be under the control of that intelligent creature sitting in the pilot seat. And when it did, it led to nothing but destruction. Now this is precisely what's happened with man. You and I were not meant to be little autopilots.

28:14 We weren't made to be un-autopilot. We weren't made to run ourselves. You and I were made to be governed by the living God. Because God alone knows what is best for us.

28:29 God in his wisdom so made us that we would only be true men and women as we're in the place of submission to him. Now, do you see how this helps to answer these questions? What am I here for? What's my purpose in life?

28:44 Well, if you don't approach those answers from this perspective, I was never made to go out on my own. I was not made to live without intimate knowledge of God, nor was I made to operate without a knowledge of the will of God and submitting to the will of God. Now you begin to see there's some basis for morality. In the beginning, he made them male and female.

29:12 Well, it just might be that the God who made them male and female has some idea of how they should conduct themselves as male and female. And he's told us, a man shall leave his father and mother, cleave to his wife, they too shall be one flesh. God ordained that within the security and love and respect of the marriage union in that confines alone, was there to be the full expression of marital affection. And when you wrench it outside of marriage, what you're doing is upsetting the whole order of creation.

29:47 And when you do that, what do you bring? Chaos. The same way when that plane is wrenched out of the control of the pilot, and that's what happened when they found his body, they found his hands clenched to the wheel and his knees at the stick, doing everything in his power to try to redirect the plane. But when the plane got out of his direction, it meant chaos and destruction.

30:08 And what do we see in our day? Moral chaos and destruction in our own nation. Why? Because man is wrenched out of the hands of God.

30:18 That which God alone has a right to direct. Just that simple. Just that profound. Man is a creature made in the image of God.

Implication 3: Made Accountable to God

30:30 Made to know God. Made to be ruled by God. And in the third place, this flows out of this matter of being in the image of God. He was made accountable to God.

30:42 Notice what God said in Genesis 2, verses 16 and 17. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. See what God is saying? He's saying, Adam, not only have I made you in my image to know me, to be ruled by me, but I've made you a creature directly accountable to me.

31:19 If you choose any other course than that of obedience, and I will leave a test, that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam, remember, you do so as a creature accountable to me, and in the day that you eat you'll die. The wages of your sin will be death. You are a creature accountable to me for your action. If some cow happened to run into the wrong pasture in the Garden of Eden, God didn't say, in the day that it does so, it will surely die.

31:55 If some horse got a little selfish and ate too many oats and left not quite enough for his brother, there's no account that God was going to hold the cows or the horses accountable for their activity. But there is this question, but there is this clear account in Scripture that Adam and Eve will be held accountable to their God for their action. That's what conscience is. You know what conscience is?

32:22 It's the remain of that work of God in establishing man as a creature accountable to himself. We read in Romans chapter 1 that even the heathen who've never heard the gospel, never heard the law of God, it says when they do those things that are evil, they know the judgment of God. Romans chapter 1, let me give you the exact reference because it's so pivotal at this point. Romans 1 in verse 32, who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

33:02 They know that they are creatures accountable to God. Now, how do they know this? Chapter 2, verses 14 and 15. For when the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law, these not having the law are a law to themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or excusing one another.

33:36 When that man sins, there is the smiting of conscience, the reminder that my actions are known to God and I am answerable to God for my actions. Now, I may try to fear my conscience. I may try to hold down the light and witness of conscience and convince myself there is no God, there is no judgment. Nonetheless, there is that stubborn work of conscience reminding me that I am a creature who is accountable to the living God.

The Meaning and Morality Derived from Creation

34:09 Who am I? What am I here for? Is there any basis of right and wrong? I can't answer those questions until I get that first angle in the triangle.

34:21 God created me in His image. I have been made with a capacity to know God. I am not a true man, a true woman, a true fellow, a true girl, until I know God personally, intimately, as real as I know any other being, any other creature. I have been made to be ruled by God.

34:42 I have never found the meaning of life until I have come under the gracious rule of God in Jesus Christ. I have never known what life is until I have ordered life by the precepts of God. I will never know the answer to those questions until I face them with this sense of awesome responsibility. I am accountable to God.

35:04 Everything in life is heading up to that day when I shall stand in His presence as my judge. Now do you see the implication of this principle? Do you see how it forms the basis of beginning to answer these basic questions of life? Who am I?

35:22 Has life got me meaning? Here I am, one little speck. They tell me there are what, over three billion people in the world today? I'm just one little fellow girl amongst three billion?

35:37 And they tell us that our earth is just one little speck in one galaxy? And that there may be thousands and millions of galaxies? What significance can I have? What meaning can there be to my little insignificant life?

35:57 One little speck on one little globe that's one little part of one little galaxy that's part of many, and who knows where the thing ends? For space isn't infinite, only God is infinite. Pretty meaningless existence, isn't it? What meaning to all of it?

36:20 Well, you see, if it's true that I've simply been produced by chance, processes that happen just willy-nilly, and the whole evolutionary hypothesis, if it's true, number one, people are blowing their brains out with LSD. No wonder the average Mr. and Mrs. Suburbia is running around in circles of materialistic pursuit trying to find some meaning to life.

36:50 If I can't stand this one little speck on this one little part of this galaxy and city, my life has run. I was made in the image of God. I've got no basis to live. I might as well shoot my brains out.

37:10 But if I am made in the image of God, if I'm made with a capacity to know God, if the meaning of life is found in being governed by God, and if all in life is heading up to that day when I stand in the presence of God, why, you see how life begins to have meaning? You see, young people, how you begin to get a basis of morality? How are you going to determine what your morals will be? You've got a lot of voices screaming at you, saying there is no such thing as morality.

37:44 You can't have any absolute standards. That's antiquated, out of date. Well, what are you going to say to them? You look out at your professing Christian friends, they don't have many standards.

37:55 They say, well, everybody's doing this. How are you going to have any basis of morality? I ask you kids this. How are you going to know what's right, what's wrong?

38:02 What's going to guide your life? What's going to do it? Well, if this truth grips you, I'm made in the image of God, made to be ruled by God. Therefore, certainly God must have told me something about what he would have me do and not have me do.

38:19 This forms the whole basis of morality. What about you husbands and wives? Living in a day when family life is absolutely disintegrating on every hand. Husbands don't know what there should be as husbands.

38:33 Wives don't know what there should be as wives. What a mess we're in. Why? Because we've forgotten that we're creatures made in the image of God.

38:45 And he created us, male and female. He instituted this male-female relationship and the home and the family. It was God who said, be fruitful and multiply. Well, when this truth grips me, I'm made in the image of God.

Creation as the Basis for Practical Life

38:57 Made to know him, to be ruled by him, accountable to him. Now I've got a basis for understanding the family, understanding my role as a husband, as a father, as a mother, as a wife. Notice when Paul is trying to help the church at Corinth on this very problem of women finding their place and men finding their place, he argues from the doctrine of creation. Now that's interesting.

39:23 Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. I want you to see that this is not just some kick that I'm on, but that the doctrine of creation is basic to a most practical thing as who should be what in the home. What place should women have in the church? What place should men have?

39:41 Notice how Paul argues. He says in verse 7, for a man indeed, 1 Corinthians 11, 7, for a man indeed ought not to cover his head for as much as he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.

40:15 For this cause, because of how God did it at creation, ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman, but all things of God. Now without getting into his argument here and what he means by the covering and because of the angels, that's not our purpose this morning, but what I want you to see is this.

40:50 As Paul is dealing with the practical problem there at Corinth of women who weren't taking their rightful place and men who weren't taking their rightful place, where does he draw his arguments to help give them light from the doctrine of creation? And he says, look, you've got things backwards. Back in creation, God made the man and then he took one of his ribs and made the woman. The woman was made distinctly for the man.

41:20 Therefore, he's saying the woman has not found her true place according to creation. Unless it's that place in subjection to the man, not under his foot, as Matthew Henry so beautifully said. God didn't take the woman from man's foot to be trampled on. He didn't take the woman from man's head to rule him, but he took the woman from under his heart, from his rib, to be held close in love, to be held in subjection under his head.

41:52 Well, you see how he argues. From creation, to the very practical problem of who's to do what in the marriage relationship and in the family. Now I submit on that basis, and there are other portions of scripture, our Lord does this in answering the problem of divorce. Now that's a pretty contemporary problem, isn't it?

42:12 What should the attitude of a Christian be to divorce? When the Lord faces that problem in Matthew 19, you know where he argues from? Right back from creation. Here they had some questions about divorce and the Lord said, wait a minute.

42:27 In the beginning, it was not so. He made them male and female and said, for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, cleave to his wife, the two shall be one flesh. Therefore, what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Who comes to grips with the thorny contemporary problem of divorce by going back to the doctrine of creation?

42:47 Now I submit to you, dear people, that we must be dead clear and dead sure of our convictions, our convictions here, that man is this creature made in the image of God, therefore made with the capacity to know him, to be ruled by him and accountable to him, or we will have no basis to answer these vital questions. Or we may answer them in a vacuum and say, look, you parents may tell your children, look, this is what you ought to do and ought not to do in your relationship to those of the opposite sex, but if you don't undergird it with the biblical truth, with the biblical doctrine of creation, sooner or later they're going to say, who in the world are you to tell me what to do? That's your standard. When you can show them, look, God made you this way and this is what God said as to how you're to conduct yourself, that's your responsibility as a parent. When it comes to the whole matter of the attitude to work, what's one of the big problems in our day? Everybody wants more money for less work, right? That's one of the burning problems.

43:52 The man who really sweats and works to earn his dollar is looked upon, is looked upon as some kind of a fool. I mean, a guy who really works hard to earn his dollars in our day is looked upon as someone who isn't quite up with it. Now, where did that attitude ever come from? Well, you see, if we understood the doctrine of creation, when God made the man, it says he put him in the garden to dress it and to keep it.

44:17 Understanding the doctrine of creation, man was made to be a working creature before sin entered. Why then, my whole attitude to work changes. Everybody around me just grumbling and griping that they gotta put in their time and do as little as possible and get as much for it. Think of how the Christian stands as a tremendous witness when he comes to his work, doing it not as unto men but unto the Lord, knowing that God made me to be a working creature.

44:47 So take the drudgery out of it. The doctrine of creation, that's nothing profound. Yet we err at point after point because that tremendous pivotal truth has not really gripped us. Well, our time is just about gone this morning.

The Full Framework and Call to Know God

45:02 I'll tell you what the other two angles are gonna be, and I hope that'll give you some more incentive to come tonight. We can't understand how to get out of the woods and help other people out of the woods unless we see along with this doctrine that God created us in his image. The second triangle or angle, sin has perverted us. We're in an abnormal state.

45:27 And then the third angle of the triangle, grace can restore us. And within that framework, God made us. Sin perverted us. Grace can restore us.

45:37 We've got a framework within which these basic questions of life can be faced and by the grace of God can be answered. And then, I trust, by the grace of God can be shared with others. All beloved people are in the woods all around us. And I'm convinced you don't start with the third part of the triangle and start telling them directly about Christ and redemption.

46:00 I find as I go to these secular campuses, these kids have never heard the doctrine of creation. And they stand amazed. Intelligent young men and women. I see them sit there with their mouths open when they begin to see why maybe life's got some moves.

46:18 Oh, may God help us to help people out there to help people out of the woods as we declare these glorious truths of Holy Scripture. Are you out of the woods? Have you really found what you're here for? Or are you just existing?

46:36 You see, that's all a cow does. It exists. Make a little milk, have a few calves and die. Or become somebody's steak and hamburger.

46:49 It exists! But it doesn't live. What is life? This is life eternal.

46:54 To know Thee. Do you know God? If you haven't come to that intimate personal acquaintance with God through Jesus Christ, where He's a living personal reality, you're not living, you're existing. You're less than a true human being.

47:09 You're less than a true man, a true woman, a true fellow, a true girl. Can you say, I delight to do Thy will, O my God? If you can't, you're not living. You were made to find delight in doing the will of God.

47:27 And the thought that you're accountable to God, barring the fact of the failures that will meet with shame, is a delightful thought that God knows me. My life is naked and open before Him and I wouldn't want it any other way. May God grant that the simple truth of the creation of God, of each one of us, will grip us and help us to get out of the woods, appreciate what God did to get us out where we are at, and enable us to lead others to the Savior and to the answers of Scripture to these most basic questions. Let us pray.